Pawns in the Game

Swopa at Needlenose links to this Knight-Ritter story showing exactly how the US War Department bureaucracy thanks those who help us--by proffering a giant middle finger:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Alyaa said she was the first woman in her neighborhood to sign up to work with the U.S. government after Saddam Hussein fell.

She used to stand shoulder to shoulder with an American soldier in front of the U.S. military's Camp Scania in the Rashid section of Baghdad. As a translator, Alyaa, 24, talked to Iraqis who lined up at the entrance seeking compensation for dead relatives and destroyed homes.

Now, because of that work, her life is in danger and in limbo.

Alyaa, who asked that her last name be withheld out of fear for her safety, fled to Jordan with her cousin Shaimaa after insurgents killed an uncle and kidnapped Shaimaa and another cousin. Alyaa hoped to find a haven in the United States but discovered the State Department isn't resettling refugees from Iraq. She's lost her faith in the country she once loved.

"We gave them our friendship," Alyaa said during a recent interview at an Amman restaurant, wearing jeans and smoking cigarettes. "We gave them our hard work. And they don't even help us to have a new life." Is it so hard, she asked, "for America to give a visa to Iraqis to have a new life that they took from them?"

Refugee aid workers and U.S. and U.N. officials said the United States had turned away Iraqi refugees because it was trying instead to create a democratic society from which no one had to flee, and was sacrificing plenty of American lives in the process. To succeed, it needs the talents of the very people who want to leave.

"The whole purpose of being here is to create an environment of stability and security so that's not an issue," said Joanne Cummings, refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Cummings said the embassy valued people who'd put themselves at risk and it kept a close watch on them.

More than 700,000 Iraqi refugees live in Jordan and Syria; 15,000 of them arrived in Amman after the American invasion two years ago, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They include religious minorities, doctors and other professionals who fear being kidnapped for ransom, and a growing number of Iraqis who were threatened because of their work with the U.S. government and its contractors.

Now, a couple of things are striking--first, note the 15,000 refugees resulting from the invasion. No, it's not as high as the overall number, who presumably fled during Saddam's reign. But, is that the best we can say? Fewer refugees than under Saddam? Also, the number is significant in the sense that for the most part the media has either been silent about refugees or has pretty much ignored them. Finally, the idea that the American presence can somehow make things better is absurd. It's been two years since Baghdad was taken--and, today, the only "safe" area, using a very generous definition of the term "safe," is the Green Zone--home of the occupation, surrounded by blast walls.

For Iraqis who haven't worked for the Americans, life is no picnic either:

Little Zeinab Yasseen was still asleep as the third Ramadan of her young life dawned. Like every night, she had drifted off listening to the chatter of the 26 relatives who also shared the house in Baghdad's poor Al Shaab neighborhood.
She awoke to her home collapsing on her. A car bomb exploded in front of the police station down the street, but it brought the roof down on Yasseen and her family. Somehow, everyone survived.

But 17 months later, Zeinab still can't move her legs. And the family is still recovering - emotionally, financially, and physically - from that instant of devastation.

Each explosion of this kind deepens Iraqis' doubts about the US and Iraqi government's ability to bring order. But whatever each attack costs the this government in credibility, it is ordinary Iraqis who pay the highest price.

Thursday's bombings in Baghdad brought more of the same.

After a steady decline in attacks during the last three months, insurgents launched a string of assaults this week, including coordinated car bombings, a reminder they continue to have the resources and expertise to strike apparently at will. Two car bombs went off a minute and a few hundred yards apart Thursday around 10 a.m. in the Baghdad neighborhood of Jadriyah.

US soldiers at the scene said 14 Iraqis were killed and 38 were wounded. Among the dead were a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, brothers who were working painting the street curb. The series of attacks may signal a return to the levels of attacks seen before the Jan. 30 elections, a pattern predicted by many US military analysts who say history shows that the average insurgency takes about 10 years to put down.

Over the last couple of days I've been a little slow in noting Iraqi news--not the least reason being that the SNAFU element of the sorry affair hasn't changed a bit. Every day--for those who WANT to know--the news is of death, destruction, and chaos. The wingnut crowd is either in denial--"look at the good things we're doing..."(hmmm...like in Fallujah?) or "look at the new government..." (which apparently can't even dream about curbing the insurgency)--or they're downright hostile (case in point is Wimpline's John "I-no-longer-call-myself-Hindrocket--but- I'm-still-an-asshole" Hindraker getting all snippy about US troops, more or less saying at least one was killed becasue he was simply lazy (Unfuckingbelievable). And, the "coalition of the willing"--a threadbare, pathetic attempt to cover the naked aggression of US foreign policy with the tiniest of figleafs--is shriveling--just as one would expect. The White House no longer even bothers to list individual countries, although Albania is sending an extra 50 soldiers...while Poland is scheduled to withdraw by the end of the year...

The good news there is, I guess, that Bush can now note that "we've forgotten Albania."

We've also forgotten the millions of Iraqis--they're more than just numbers.