Eye witness: Inside America's Baghdad comfort Zone

[UpInArms]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=470802

As the sun sets over Baghdad, the call to prayer uncoils from the city's minarets. A young American soldier is manning a checkpoint. He puts a megaphone to his lips and imitates the sound.

This soldier does not appear to mean harm. His performance is intended to amuse. He clearly has no idea of how offensive his actions are to the millions of Muslims who live on the other side of the razor wire and concrete blocks and sand bags that separate him from them. Another soldier, evidently more senior, tells him to "knock it off" - not for the first time, says the cheerful joker with the bullhorn.

<snip>

This is hardly surprising, given the extraordinary treatment that correspondents receive as they enter the Zone's Convention Centre, home of the Coalition Press Information Centre (CPIC), and the forum for many of the US military's press conferences. Journalists attending a recent appearance by the US top commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, were body-searched four times, and bawled at by soldiers. Good manners are not a strong point in the Zone, let alone winning hearts and minds.

<snip>

As in their military bases elsewhere in Iraq, the Americans have re-created the world from which they came. Their cafeterias serve burgers with barbecue sauce, peanut butter and jelly, even lobster - all imported, not least as a precaution against poisoning. As for the banks of TV sets, if they are not tuned to American football then they will be showing the neo-conservative, war-mad Fox News. This is channel of choice for the entire US military, as it is for the CPA's Republican-appointed civilian press officers - who, say sources, consider the BBC to be anti-American and often refuse to talk to its staff.

...more...

[54anickel]

1. Good grief, our troops are getting the news from FOX?!!!

That seems to explain a lot for me on some of the few reports by soldiers that do make it out. Means they'll also tend to think anyone against the war is unpatriotic and against them individually, farthest thing from the truth.
This is so sad.

[TrueAmerican]

2. I just got back from Baghdad

They took off the streaming CNN and put up streaming Fox News. I can't really comment too much, because I don't want to get in trouble (I am military). But I guess you all can figure out why.

[UpInArms]

3. thanks for the post

TrueAmerican

I am so glad that you are back - welcome home!

[Robin Hood]

9. Welcome home soldier.

I'm glad that you are on our side. The side that doesn't want you to fight profit wars. The side that cares about your butt.

[JoFerret]

6. Just wait

...until the cognitive dissonance bewteen the Fox version and their own reality sets in. It may take a while to gather to the tipping point, but it will.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. Dupe:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=256426

[JoFerret]

5. Here is Lucien Truscott1V

...from today's NYTimes on the distance between the front line and the fortressed comfort zone:
A Million Miles From the Green Zone to the Front Lines
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

MOSUL, Iraq

...The entire division staff is billeted in two bedrooms upstairs and in a cavernous marble basement that appears to have been a sort of spa/bunker.
<snip>

An colonel in Baghdad (who will go nameless here for obvious reasons) told me just after I arrived that senior Army officers feel every order they receive is delivered with next November's election in mind, so there is little doubt at and near the top about who is really being used for what over here. The resentment in the ranks toward the civilian leadership in Baghdad and back in Washington is palpable. Another officer described the two camps, military and civilian, inhabiting the heavily fortified, gold-leafed presidential palace inside the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad, as "a divorced couple who won't leave the house."
<snip>
Meanwhile in Mosul, the troops of Bravo Company bunker down amid smells of diesel fuel and burning trash and rotting vegetables and dishwater and human waste from open sewers running though the maze of stone and mud alleyways in the Old City across the street.
<snip>
But the guys in the Green Zone seem to have plenty of time on their hands. The place is something to behold....
<snip>
In all, hundreds of uniformed soldiers and heavily armed civilian security guards stand watch all day, every day over a display of grim garishness that would have given Liberace nightmares. If you're curious about how your tax dollars are being spent in Baghdad, you should get one of the many colonels strolling about the Green Zone to take you on a tour of the rebuilt duck pond across the road from the marble and gold-leafed palace serving as headquarters of an Army brigade. As I went to sleep one night a couple of weeks ago in the Green Zone, listening to the gurgle of the duck pond fountain and the comforting roar of Black Hawk helicopters patrolling overhead, it occurred to me that it was the safest night I've spent in about 25 years.

Which was a blessing for me, but a curse on the war effort. The super-defended Green Zone is the biggest, most secure American base camp in Iraq, but there is little connection between the troops in the field and the bottomless pit of planners and deciders who live inside the palace. Soldiers from the 101st tell me that they waited months for the Bechtel Corporation to unleash its corporate might in northern Iraq. "Then one of the Bechtel truck convoys got ambushed on the way up here three weeks ago, and one of the security guys got wounded," an infantryman told me. "They abandoned their trucks on the spot and pulled out, and we haven't seen them since."

<snip>
The troops in Bravo Company don't pay much attention to the rear-guard political wars being waged back in Washington, but they loved President Bush's quick visit to Baghdad on Thanksgiving.
<snip>
Meanwhile, two soldiers armed with M-4 carbines and fearsome M-249 Saws machine guns stand guard inside concrete and sandbag bunkers atop the Bravo Company camp's roof, while squads of soldiers patrol alleys with no names in Mosul's Old City, and everyone prays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/opinion/07TRUS.html

[SquireJons]

7. Brainwashing the Troops

It's no surprise to me that the US military is using the propaganda network to try to influence our troops in Iraq. Bush 41 did it in a less obvious manner during the 91 Gulf War with CNN. Rest assured, Fox is much more compliant - and that's being too generous.

The real question is will American soldiers believe lies they are told on TV rather than their own eyes and ears? I doubt it. They know the real deal in Iraq. If the troops were happy, the administration wouldn't have resorted to writing fake letters home supporting the war. No, troops there are most likely very unhappy, and no amount of propaganda is going to convince the majority of them that they should stay in Iraq indefinitely. These people have homes and families. I think the Fox propaganda machine is far more effective on the domestic market. Lincoln had it wrong. You don't need to fool all of the people all of the time. You only need to fool the 15% of people who are undecided on a regular basis - a much easier task.

Look for significant 'voter disenfranchisement' within the military this next election (which will be easy to pull off since military personnel have no rights anyways). I don't think the military and their dependents will be nearly as supportive of Bush in 2004. Particularly if Clark wins the nomination.

[Cappurr]

8. You are right Squire

And welcome to DU.

I spent a year in Vietnam (civilian) but I worked closely with the military. They knew what was going on. They got their news from radio and the Stars and Stripes. (No instant Satellite TV in those days). The Stars and Stripes is surprisingly independent, imho.

Besides, they can stream in all the Fox propaganda they want and that won't change what these guys see with their own eyes. It also won't change what their families see and hear at home. Additionally, many have access to the internet at least occassionally. Our military isn't stupid, particularly these guys who are reserves. They never signed up for this and they are going to begin to resent the hell out of it. As for regular army....well in my experience they did seem to be reactionary, cared nothing at all for the culture of the country they invaded and showed it. But that is exactly what we want in a military....people who will obey orders without question and kill other human beings in a heartbeat. Sad thing is these boys don't realize that no matter how macho they are, the killing gets to them when they get home. None are the same after they have participated in a war.

[newyawker99]

10. HI SquireJons!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DemExpat]

11. Dupe, locking.

See discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=256426

DU Moderator