>>Learning Lessons of War on the Streets of Baghdad
By DAVID ENDERS
Baghdad, Iraq
Most of the exchanges I used to have at U.S. checkpoints went something like this:
"You're a journalist?"
"Yes."
A soldier would take a skeptical look at my press pass, then scoff, "What's the Baghdad Bulletin? I've never heard of that magazine."
"We started it here recently."
What's so hard to believe about that? It's simple. I was part of a group of half a dozen ex-pats, all under the age of 25, who came to Iraq to start a newsmagazine. But it never seemed to register with anyone, especially the troops, who assumed I was on some sort of study-abroad program.
"Well, your college would be really mad if they knew you were here, spending their money, and you were caught out after curfew. You know we can arrest you. What do you think your college would say?"
What kind of university would send students to a war zone?
My journey to Iraq in fact followed my college graduation. After beginning my studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1999, then taking courses at the American University of Beirut, I moved to Iraq in May 2003 to co-found and edit an English-language newsmagazine. It ran out of money this past September, but I've stuck around as a freelance journalist.
I've now spent a year here, since the anniversary of President Bush's landing on that aircraft carrier off California, watching the situation change. These days, there aren't as many encounters with American soldiers as when I first arrived here. There's no curfew now, and the military is making a concerted effort to seem less of a presence in the city, and to turn the security situation over to the Iraqi police and military. And while I don't look much older than when I arrived, I certainly feel older.
Yes, at 23, I'll admit I don't make the most convincing foreign correspondent. But though people still chide me for looking so young, it's their follow-up question that bears more discussion: What preparations did I make, what experience did I have, for living and working in a battlefield? The answer is, almost none.
I suppose it would be unfair to say that college didn't prepare me a little bit. Though I majored in English and minored in political science, I did, for example, take a semester of Arabic freshman year. Unfortunately, I stopped going because, of the 60 students in the class, only five of us didn't have Arabic-speaking parents. Everyone else in the class was just taking it for easy credit, and so the class, with our professor often cooing about how amazingly everyone was progressing, moved too rapidly for me to get down much more than the alphabet.
I also took a class that dealt heavily with events in contemporary international politics, as opposed to just its theory. And the most important thing about contemporary international politics, according to our professor, Raymond Tanter (who helped coin the term "rogue state" and was replaced by Oliver North on Reagan's National Security Council), is: Always talk in sound bites when debating on a cable-television news program.
"You'll never get on Fox with an answer that long. You need to use catchphrases," he once admonished a classmate, cutting him off midsentence.
As cynically as I viewed his preoccupation with being on TV, I found that my professor's advice came in handy when I started doing spots on CNN, the BBC, and various radio programs as the Bulletin's popularity peaked.
But I took no classes that dealt even tangentially with:
How to clean and fire an assault rifle. My co-workers and I had one in the house for "protection," though I'm not particularly sure what I would have done had we been in trouble. I've been encouraged, by Iraqis and foreigners, to carry a pistol as well, but can't bring myself to do it. I was robbed by the police (three of them, one of me); the neighbors killed a pair of looters on our front lawn; looters threatened to kidnap me. That, and the fact that unknown assailants are shooting at reporters, all drive home the futility of owning an assault rifle and having no intention of using it.
Proper etiquette at checkpoints, American or otherwise. Even though I speak American English, I often thought the soldier was waving me through a checkpoint, when what he really meant was, "Stop or I'll put lots of holes in you and your car, [expletive expletive]!"
We were nearly killed by American troops at such checkpoints on more than one occasion -- the most harrowing last June. There are few working streetlights in Baghdad, and we were driving fast to avoid being carjacked. U.S. troops had set up a checkpoint on foot instead of with Humvees or a personnel carrier, and by the time our driver saw them and hit the brakes, we were all almost on top of them. We skidded to a hard stop, the troops' assault rifles aimed at our driver, safeties off.
Troops are supposed to fire warning shots over the car first, but that does not always happen. Other journalists I know were shot at. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Iraqis have been killed under questionable circumstances, many apparently the tragic result of simple misunderstandings.
What to do when you're at a news conference and Donald Rumsfeld won't call on anyone but the pool reporters. It's frustrating, being the youngest person at a news conference. Rumsfeld seems to call only on the faces he recognizes, and I wasn't one of them. I considered throwing my shoe or trying my professor's tactic of simply interrupting, but I figured all the Special Forces guys in attendance would arrest me. So I never had the chance to ask the question I've been dying to know the answer to: "How can you say things are going well when people are shooting rockets at the airport before your plane lands ... sir?"
How to recognize and identify various unexploded bombs and munitions. For a short time, a land mine sat on the sidewalk outside our office, and we often saw other types of explosives lying about. And let's not forget the ones people keep planting in the roads and in front of buildings. Rocket-propelled grenade rounds and shells burst into pieces, and cluster bombs shoot ball bearings everywhere. (As for the mine in front of our office, one morning it was simply gone.)
Making other people comfortable with my activities. "No, it's OK, Mom. That explosion wasn't anywhere near our house. No, everyone's fine. What am I eating? I'm eating Iraqi food, Mom. It's good. Lots of oil."
Determining who wants to kill me and who doesn't. "Where am I from? France. Good to meet you, too."
I suspect it will be a while before (American) universities offer courses that deal with any of those subjects, so until then, most of us will just have to wing it.
Of course, the United States isn't the only place where students are similarly unprepared. I gave a lecture to a graduate-level English class at the University of Baghdad, and as I made a ham-handed attempt to explain modern literature, it occurred to me that my lecture about the death of the romantic ideal might not come in very handy if the students tried to communicate at a checkpoint with U.S. troops, many of whom are fresh out of high school:
IRAQI STUDENT: "The fact that you're searching all these cars when all anyone with weapons has to do is turn around and take a different route as soon as they see the checkpoint is rather Kafkaesque, don't you think?"
U.S. SOLDIER: "Sarge! We've got a terrorist!"
Now, I'm not suggesting that it's useless to learn about modern literature. War itself teaches enough practicality for a lifetime, and quickly. The speed with which Iraqi universities were up and running following the invasion is a testament to the desire people here have to distance themselves from war. Maybe soon, Americans and Iraqis will be communicating less often with guns between them and more often in a classroom.
As for me, I wrote my final poli-sci term papers while in Baghdad, and sent them back to Beirut. My work was all firsthand material about occupation politics, policies, and economics. In the end, I learned what I needed to graduate in the real world -- not the other way around.
David Enders is a graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a freelance journalist.<<
chronicle.com |
