baghdad Blog and Journals

You know, my initial intentions for this blog were to report about the terrifying and heart-breaking blasts in Baghdad. I thought it was a great story to impart on you, oh Buzznet reader, because I feel that it's important to keep ourselves informed about the conditions in Iraq.

I use Flock to hold all my RSS feeds and really, it's a fantastic browser for my blogging. Since I prefer to write about topical events and my own political ramblings, I scour the internet for what I find interesting. Flock helps me organize that.

So, this morning, I opened my Yahoo news feed. I saw this:



I knew I wanted to write about it. So I copied the URL to save for later.

Fast forward about an hour, after I've finished browsing my feeds. I click on the URL that I saved. Instead of that headline, I see this:



Wait a second. Why is this headline different? And why is it only about the American deaths in Iraq, especially when 109 people have died from attacks near a predominately Shiite part of the city? (A university, a marketplace, and a drive-by shooting combined to make the 109-person death toll.)

I know that Yahoo is going to report news based on it's central location, which is the United States. But why deceive me? Why make the focus of this story on a small roadside bomb that only killed four people when a university was attacked and 69 people lost their lives?

Maybe I'm an asshole and maybe this tiny little difference doesn't mean anything. But it's fucking annoying to see our media fixate on what only affects us. The priority of a journalist is to report the news based on it's importance. I fail to see how the deaths of our soldiers is so much more important than a massive terrorist attack in Baghdad, so much so that the Baghdad bombings don't even get their own headline.

Ugh.

All too often, liberal thinkers tend to use slippery slope arguments to assert the danger of our current administration. Don't get me wrong, though; things are certainly escalating in the wrong direction and have been for quite some time. But I'd like to think that we, as a nation, aren't dumb enough to allow our government to just randomly arrest and detain who they please. (US citizens, I mean. They're already doing it to foreigners.)

I missed this story yesterday and reading it today caused goosebumps to rise on my arms and a shudder to run down my spine. If the government can make such a glaring oversight, especially one that so greatly affects a loyal and patriotic citizen, are all those slippery slope arguments actually reasonable?

Back in 2004, Donald Vance secured a position at a Baghdad-based securities firm and soon began to observe very odd interactions between the company and local militia. Even further, he soon realized that American weapons were falling into enemy hands, sometimes directly from Americans themselves.

That's when, in 2005, Vance contacted the FBI and began to have regular correspondence with his contact there about the actions at the security firm in Baghdad. By the time April of 2006 rolled around, Vance felt so completely uncomfortable and unsafe at his job that he resigned and let the US Embassy know about where the weapons caches were located.

April 15th, 2006. Vance and his fellow employee spent the night at the US Embassy. They were awakened in the middle of the night, handcuffed with zip ties and forced to wear goggles with duct tape over the lenses. (Presumably to obscure vision.)

I'll let the NY Times article explain the rest in full detail:

They were driven through dangerous Baghdad roads and eventually to Camp Cropper. They were placed in cells at Compound 5, the high-security unit where Saddam Hussein has been held.

Only days later did they receive an explanation: They had become suspects for having associated with the people Mr. Vance tried to expose.

“You have been detained for the following reasons: You work for a business entity that possessed one or more large weapons caches on its premises and may be involved in the possible distribution of these weapons to insurgent/terrorist groups,” Mr. Ertel’s detention notice said.

Mr. Vance said he began seeking help even before his cell door closed for the first time. “They took off my blindfold and earmuffs and told me to stand in a corner, where they cut off the zip ties, and told me to continue looking straight forward and as I’m doing this, I’m asking for an attorney,” he said. “ ‘I want an attorney now,’ I said, and they said, ‘Someone will be here to see you.’ ”

Instead, they were given six-digit ID numbers. The guards shortened Mr. Vance’s into something of a nickname: “343.” And the routine began.

Bread and powdered drink for breakfast and sometimes a piece of fruit. Rice and chicken for lunch and dinner. Their cells had no sinks. The showers were irregular. They got 60 minutes in the recreation yard at night, without other detainees.

Five times in the first week, guards shackled the prisoners’ hands and feet, covered their eyes, placed towels over their heads and put them in wheelchairs to be pushed to a room with a carpeted ceiling and walls. There they were questioned by an array of officials who, they said they were told, represented the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“It’s like boom, boom, boom,” Mr. Ertel said. “They are drilling you. ‘We know you did this, you are part of this gun smuggling thing.’ And I’m saying you have it absolutely way off.”

The two men slept in their 9-by-9-foot cells on concrete slabs, with worn three-inch foam mats. With the fluorescent lights on and the temperature in the 50s, Mr. Vance said, “I paced myself to sleep, walking until I couldn’t anymore. I broke the straps on two pair of flip-flops.”

Asked about the lights, the detainee operations spokeswoman said that the camp’s policy was to turn off cell lights at night “to allow detainees to sleep.”

This is how Vance was treated. For telling the truth. For trying to protect his country. This is how he was rewarded for his loyalty to the United States.

Motivated by the camp psychologist, Vance began to take notes he hid inside a Bible provided to him by the guards:



It was 3 months before Vance was released. He was denied an attorney. He was only given one chance to defend himself. He was locked in that 9" by 9" cell everyday for nearly 100 days.

“It’s really hard,” [Vance] says. “I don’t really talk about this stuff with my family. I feel ashamed, depressed, still have nightmares, and I’d even say I suffer from some paranoia.”

I hope that Vance wins his civil suit against Rumsfeld. It's a total longshot, but this man should have never experienced this. (And how many more are still suffering in America's secret prisons around the globe?)

Terrifying.

Death Speaks:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market to buy some supplies. In a little while the servant came back shaken and pale. "Oh, master," he said, "While I was at the market I was pushed and shoved by a woman there in the crowd. When I turned to look I saw it was Death who pushed me. She made a threatening gesture and I was afraid so I ran away. Please lend me your jeep and I will ride away from Baghdad as fast as I can to avoid my fate. I will drive down to Samarra and Death will not find me there."

The merchant lent his servant his Jeep and the servant jumped into the vehicle and swiftly drove away as fast as he could to Samarra. Then the merchant went to the market place in Baghdad and saw me standing there in the crowd. He approached me and said, "Why did you threaten my servant this morning?" "I didn't threaten your servant," I said, "I was just surprised to see him there, that's all. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra...."