Anticipation

Well, if everything goes smoothly, I'll be leaving Iraq before the weekend. I'm getting pretty excited to get back to my comfortable life back home, the better for having been here (provided I don't get blown up between now and then!)

Better for having made a decent chunk of cash, but also for having had the experience. There's no doubt in my mind that it has been an informative adventure. There are some things I might have wanted otherwise about this job and experience, but overall, even the discomforts and inconveniences were good for me- it reminds me of how fragile our American lifestyle could be. It reminds me (though I never entirely forgot) that life can be dangerous and fraught with pettiness and that bad people exist out there who will hurt you for not much reason at all, by American standards. It reminds me that what we consider to be common-sense standards of decency and integrity don't hold much value to people in some places.

Iraqis are not poor. Oh, by any relative measurement of our wealth compared to theirs, they're dirt poor.

But this is not a part of the world where the majority of the people are hungry, if not outright starving. This is not a place where mustering the energy to work for enough food to replace the calories is a gamble.

Iraqis have cell phones, and clothes, and cars when they want or need them, and homes to live in. They have plenty to eat, if the quality wouldn't appeal to you or I, we would quickly become accustomed to it were we to live this our whole lives.

The reasons for Iraqis to be relatively poor are complicated. They're not as simple as the American Left would have you believe. They're not simply poor because their country was economically interdicted and then bombed. It's not even because of the British and other 'Great Powers' (Which did NOT include the United States)dividing their countries along imaginary lines. They're poor because of traditions and attitudes that go back far beyond outside interdiction. The decline of the Arab and Ottoman Empires began centuries ago, and as long as they look backward to some golden age that barely existed, they will not beat this poverty of the pocketbook or of the spirit.

There are bright sparks of difference in some of the individuals I have met. Individuals do make a difference, even if they are hobbled by a society which stifles individualism. The progress in such a society is undoubtedly slower. But individuals still shine. I hope I can keep in touch with some of these few individuals, but it will be difficult because of the general conditions here. One can't be too overt about it, because it's dangerous for them, above and beyond the difficulty in simply communicating in a place where telephone service is spotty and the Internet has barely penetrated (and is a sign of conspicuous consumption).

There's no reason for such shitty communications service in this country. Telephones, satellite dishes, and personal computers were not interdicted during the Oil-for-food scam. They were forbidden by the regime because information is the enemy of the National Socialist state.

Anyway, the closer I get to leaving, the more excited I am to be going home. I hope that I can explain things well enough when I get home to bring some of my insights to people who labour under some severe misapprehensions. For the rest, I can only hope that they don’t do too much damage with their misconceptions.