Open Your Eyes

Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed in the morning here. I have friends in the States who tell me they don't read the news.

"It just makes me so depressed," they say. It is a luxury of sorts to ignore Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sudan.

To skip over the news channels and discontinue the papers and flip through a couple hundred cable shows, watch the latest on Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and laugh at their antics; it's a luxury of sorts.

A luxury I don't have and I know I don't want. But sometimes near the end of my rotations in Iraq, typically six weeks of early mornings of reporting and late nights of writing (this time I stay 12 weeks before my break) I dread opening my eyes. I am lucky enough to get quick breaks. Most Iraqis can't get tired and just take a quick break from the war for a massage, an evening out and a late night stroll. Luxuries replaced by curfews and fear.

But I have to wake up and I can't turn off the television, ignore the papers, stop reporting or stop writing. The bad news is at the doorstep: gunfire I told myself was construction last week, a bleeding man on the stairs, a dead colleague, another who can never leave the hotel, another who went to a wedding that looked more like a funeral, another afraid she will end up like her dead colleague, men getting death threats and every day the list of those killed on the violence report.

Some days, when the beeping of the alarm wakes me up, some days like today I just want to keep my eyes closed.

Of course I force my eyes open and the day is not so bad. No spectacular car bomb, thank God, and a surprise visit from President George Bush. My Iraqi colleagues and I watch him talk to the Marines in Anbar from Baghdad.

"If we let our enemies back us out of Iraq, we will more likely face them in America. If we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here," he told cheering young Marines on this Labor Day.

In the pit of my stomach I feel nauseous. Many will hear that to mean that life is cheap in Iraq, by some estimates hundreds of thousands have died here in this fight but "if we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here."

Four times he referred to keeping the "terrorists" and the "enemies" that plague Iraq here and not bringing them home. Al Qaida became an element to be reckoned with in Iraq after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. It is a symbolic fight for many extremists against the American troops now. Many Iraqis believe that the U.S. created an atmosphere to bring their enemies here and fight them on Iraqi soil. They say it to me every day.

"Why do you assume that America wants to make it better here," a friend once asked me in frustration.

I grew embarrassed looking at the wonderful people I work with. I thought about the hundreds of Iraqis that were killed in one attack in two impoverished Yazidi villages, a minority religious community in the north. The families torn a part and the piece of a woman, they pulled from the rubble. She was probably a mother, she was someone's daughter, cousin and sister.

My American life is not worth more than an Iraqi life. An Iraqi life is not worth more than mine. Life is never cheap. 

Some days you dread opening your eyes. But closing your eyes doesn't make it stop. 

Comments

[Laura]

Thank you Leila for this post, for inviting us to open our eyes. You and the Baghdad Bureau hold open a window for us, and we in the U.S.--for the love of all that is holy and just --must look through it.

How can Iraqis not imagine that we are monsters, that we have no respect for humanity, for lives other than those in our own little spheres, if we do not look, do not reach out in concern, do not protest the wrongs that are happening? How can the world, indeed, not imagine monstrous things of us?

And, if we do not look, if our hearts are not moved, then we become monsters. Whether monsters in actual deed, or monsters of indifference scarcely matters. Both act and apathy are forms of hate.

Please, let us choose a path different than hate, regardless if it is hate by action, or hate by inaction. And let's stop tolerating a leader who justifies harming other nations as a way of protecting our own (which is--after all--nothing but a lie).

[ernesto]

Leila,

The work you do day after day in Baghdad is insightful, meaningful and valuable.

Keep your chin up and keep telling us your stories.

Ernesto

[Mike V.]

Thank you Leila, you nourish the thread upon which sanity hangs. America will need many more like you to become the America I once had pride in.

[An American]

I concur completely with Leila's post, and of course many Americans care very deeply about the fate of the Iraqi people. However I'm continually amazed at how often President Bush seems to parrot Israeli right-wing propaganda, which of course leaves an extremely bad international impression of average Americans as war-mongering aggressors. We are not and many, if not most of us, would like to cut off all aid to Israel.

[Robert Stift]

Congratulations on a great story line. All life that animates human bodies is equally valuable except when one of those bodies acts with criminal intent. Criminal intent is and must be the watch word. Americans have lost respect in the world as well as in the Middle East because we apparently think that Americans who act with criminal intent should not die for their crimes. Think of how much American credibilty would be advanced if at least some Americans had been hanged in the Baghdad socer stadium for their crimes in Iraq?

[billjpa]

here is a question that I hope that you can answer.
Is Fallujah trying to function under a vehicle ban and if so, - how long has the ban been in effect?
Thankyou, stay well and stay safe!

[Laura]

Billjpa: Have you seen this site before? Here is today's post about Fallujah:
http://gorillasguides.com/2007/09/05/iraq-with-donkeys-for-transport-all-is-well/

Peace.

[billjpa]

Ms L-I have just completed reading the link your response led me to for the fifth time and I am still having a hard time accepting what it said regarding Fallujah. Pleas don't misunderstand what I am trying to say. First- Thankyou for responding to my request. I luv this internet thing!(ha!)
Second- the description of a city that has been methodically and CONSCIOUSLY been returned to a pre historically ancient time is so barbaric that I just keep reading it over and over!
Again-thankyou- I will follow all of your reporting with eager anticipation- just be careful and stay well!
billjpa

[JD21]

Check out the latest blatant distortions from our number one supporter of our Chearleader In Chief and his "Crusade" in Iraq. That these people at Fox call themselves a news organization is truly ridiculous. The whole "Fair and Balanced" propaganda posing as news media thing is such a tired lie.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709060009?f=h_top

Rah rah rah, sis boom bah. Gooooooooooo trooops. Wheeeeeeeee!

[billjpa]

hey JD21-ya see, its like this.With all this talk about "dratic" improvement in areas of Iraq I came across some rather disturbing info re Fallujah and thats what got me to dig a little deeper. Now you guide me to little katie and I read Medias coverage and the anger boils up a little deeper.
Why? I ask myself would she attempt to present this picture of success using the backdrop of a newly formed "PREHISTORIC" city?
Is the petraeus ego so distorted that he considers it impossible that the truth will never get out?
Or, is little katie telling the truth?
Now, given the fact that the city is being limitted to no more tha 200 vehicules entering per day and there is so little if any electricity
and food is in very limited supply- I ask myself-WHO THE HELL IS TELLING THE TRUTH? and given the Mcklatchy teams stellar record of coverage- I know where Im placing my bets.
BUT- I want more evidence (not bull but eveidence!)
Thanks for your help and if you know of more sources-Please send them my way.
billjpa@aol.com