I have ‘acquired’ a British army ‘source’ currently stationed in Basra. I decided to share some of the information on the blog as it comes from a rather different perspective than media reporting. It may not be as topical or ‘political’ as the headline news but I hope you will find it interesting:
This is my first letter from lovely Basra, city of a thousand exotic smells. I’m actually really enjoying myself so far. This country is seriously bizarre. Take the kids. Up to the age of five they are so cute it’s unreal. Every one of them could star in an Oxfam advert. They all look pretty, they all have huge grins, and they all seem really pleased to see us. “Hey meester! Hello meester!” And yet they are living, literally, in shit. In the poor areas the streets run with sewage. Saddam never bothered to put in a sewage system for these areas – or rather he didn’t maintain the one the British put in. I have never been so grateful for a poor sense of smell.
Most of the people are really friendly. True, in the poor areas the kids throw bricks at us when we are in vehicles, but that’s just their idea of fun(!) It’s really fun driving around the city at night or in the evening, standing up in the back of a Landrover with the hot air blowing past as you cruise around. Mind you, you have to be careful because the Iraqis drive like madmen. I think maybe the Americans in Baghdad have confused normal Iraqi driving with suicide bombing tactics. They just cut up everyone, driving is based on aggression, and they drive both ways on either side of the road. They just take the shortest route between two points regardless of what is in the way, so it’s not surprising that virutally every vehicle has a broken windscreen and looks like a junkyard refugee.
The only exception to the bad driving is when our armoured vehicles are on the road. Those they treat with respect. But Landrovers they now cut up like anything else. We are trying to get the traffic cops back to work, but they’re frightened to come back, and they aren’t generally much use when they do.
But patrolling around the streets is fascinating. It’s just really interesting to see a completely different culture, a totally different way of life. And it’s far more interesting than Northern Ireland, because here we can really do stuff. If we think a house had weapons in it, we can just go in and search. The other day, on a tip off, we collected an RPG launcher. The follow on search found a load of mortar bombs. And that’s just routine here.
Otherwise I have been in my office stuffing my head full of information on SADR, SCIRI, INC, INA, Imams, tribes, crime gangs, politicians and every other madman around here. They all seemed to be called some combination of Ahmed Mohammed Al Unpronouncable. Arabic names will be the death of me, not least because they have about nine different spellings. But I’m getting there – I know far more about the politics of Basra than any sane man would ever want to. In another letter, I’ll tell you about WMD sites and arresting looters.
No comments?
Very nice reading first thing in the morning.
I look forward to more from this source.
Fascinating post. Puts a completely different perspective on things compared to the “impartial” reporting from the BBC.
Yes indeed, I too am very keen on reading more reports from Basra!!!
This is an excellent idea. In NZ we are about to have troops deploy to Iraq, Afganistan and the Solomon Islands. Now is the time to track a few down and get them to post for us.
Way to go Mr Syme, made my whole day, we need lots more of this!
“And it’s far more interesting than Northern Ireland, because here we can really do stuff. If we think a house had weapons in it, we can just go in and search. The other day, on a tip off, we collected an RPG launcher. The follow on search found a load of mortar bombs. And that’s just routine here.”
Is it legitimate for the British Army to take away an Iraqi’s weapons? Don’t Iraqis have the right to arm themselves for self-defence?
And what restraints are there on arbitrarily entering and searching someone’s property? I’m sure it’s nice for a soldier to not have to ask for a warrant to break into someone’s house and then confiscate their means of self-defence (and give no compensation), but what about the person on the receiving end?
Personally I would say that the way our armed forces can “just do stuff” is cause for concern. What about the rights of the Iraqis, now that they are free people? What conduct by occupying powers is legitimate in these circumstances?
Cobden: the problem here is one of the most lethal aspects of libertarian thought and why it is sooooo unsuccessful in breaking into the mainstream… it is in fact the flip side of what makes socialism so monstrous… the complete inability to see the difference between normal civil society and society in an emergency situation.
For the socialists, they see how collective action in war works (in effect tribalising society) and try to apply the same logic to peacetime… a Labour Party slogan in post-war 1945 was “If we can achieve so much together in war, think what we can do in peacetime!”: which of course presumes there is no qualitative and material difference between war and peace. For them, all economic decisions are subordinated to the collective, which makes some sense if you have to produce more aircraft than Nazi Germany but none whatsoever if you just want more people to have more and better washing machines. Alas so many libertarians make the same error in reverse. They cannot see the difference between when the network of social interactions we call markets and private free associations that characterise normal civil society are functioning… and situations in which large collections of people are trying to kill other groups of people that characterize wars and major civil disorder. Sorry guys, but at times like those, normal rules of civil interaction to not apply.
For a more ‘local’ example… if a house is burning down and the only way for some fire-fighters to put it out is to run their hoses across the lawns of someone who does not wish them to do so, the propertarian strand of libertarian thought would argue that as the lawn is private property, tough luck on the guy whose house is burning down. Well that is lunacy (and always why I call myself a social individualist rather than a libertarian most of the time). Without a common law right to go where you must when faced with a clear and present danger, a “libertarian” social order will simply fall apart the first time it faces a collective threat (be it a war, forest fire or plague).
In the real world, a few weeks after a war in which a dictatorship that had been in power for over 25 years was overthrown, normal rules of civil interaction do NOT apply. It does not mean all notion of civilised behaviour goes out the window, but search warrants? Oh please. The only legitimate use of force is if force can be used effectively… and tying up soldiers in such notions as search warrants during a counterinsurgency action means you would be better off just abandoning any pretence that you are using force to suppress Ba’athist remnants in Iraq and just replace the squadies with an equal number of unarmed American lawyers.
Hmmm… considering the likely outcome of doing that, maybe it is not such a bad idea.
What do you call a Jumbo Jet that crashes with 500 lawyers onboard?
A good start
But Perry, they are not just mounting a “counterinsurgency operation” – they are following a policy of disarming *all* Iraqis, the majority of whom took no part in the dictatorship at all.
It is a question of legitimate use of force. The US and UK armies had every right to punish Saddam Hussein, since he was a mass murderer. But where do they get the moral right to forcibly disarm normal Iraqis and remove their ability to defend themselves in a dangerous situation? The people of Iraq did not attack the US or UK, nor did they elect Saddam Hussein, so there is no grounds for punishing them.
“In the real world, a few weeks after a war in which a dictatorship that had been in power for over 25 years was overthrown, normal rules of civil interaction do NOT apply.”
No, but the normal rules of morality DO apply.
“It does not mean all notion of civilised behaviour goes out the window, but search warrants? Oh please. The only legitimate use of force is if force can be used effectively”
I never said search warrants should be used right now, simply that their absence means that the Iraqis rights are less well protected, and the occupying powers have more scope to abuse this position (for example by unilaterally disarming civilians).
The key point is not that there aren’t search warrants, but that there is little consideration given to respecting the rights of Iraqis. If it’s more convenient to disarm the lot of them, then the US/UK think that is a legitimate thing to do. Well hey, I’m sure it would be convenient to make them all carry ID, stay inside after 8pm, give their iris scans and DNA samples to the local army barracks, and start paying tax to fund the allied occupation, but would that make it a legitimate course of action?
I’m with Perry on this, the requirement of a search warrant is not serious – who would issue such a warrant ?
Still it would be wise policy to try and respect local customs and sensibilities as far as possible, and not alienate the population by arbitrary and unproductive measures. How to strike a balance between this and fighting terrorism is a delicate question. I, for one, doubt that universal confiscation of arms is necessary.
Cobden:
Oh I agree that it is wrong to disarm all Iraqis. However I am reliably informed that there is relatively little effort aimed at ordinary Iraqis and hugely more aimed at disarming Ba’athists. But yes, the policy of just disarming everyone is wrong.
There is a Ba’athist insurgency going on right now, so it is not that simple.
Sure… but that is what I said.
“It does not mean all notion of civilised behaviour goes out the window, but search warrants? Oh please. The only legitimate use of force is if force can be used effectively”
I never said search warrants should be used right now, simply that their absence means that the Iraqis rights are less well protected, and the occupying powers have more scope to abuse this position (for example by unilaterally disarming civilians).
Well yes, that is of course true. That is what happens in a war.
Well the brutal reality is that is exactly what ‘war’ means. Nice? Hardly, but what did you expect? War is about killing whoever you need to in order to win. This is exactly why it is a rather good idea to avoid wars whenever possible.
Well if we agree on disarmament per se being wrong, then the rest is mostly splitting hairs. I’m sure the UK army is trying its best to target genuine threats, and I realise the constraints and difficulties imposed by the situation they operate in. However, I think it is still a legitimate concern to ask what the limits on their powers are – search warrants, no; right to self-defence for Iraqis, yes.
I would however quibble with your final comment:
“Well the brutal reality is that is exactly what ‘war’ means. Nice? Hardly, but what did you expect? War is about killing whoever you need to in order to win.”
I disagree – your description is accurate when applied to unrestrained total war, but not to wars between civilised countries, or wars of liberation. That kind of behaviour one might expect in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or some African tribal conflict, but not in a postwar UK/US coalition occupation of Iraq. Surely any “just war” must concentrate on killing only those on the enemy side, and make best effort to *avoid* harming anyone else in the process?