We ARE There. Now What?

Given my diverse military, intelligence and international background, I often hear one question from people who already have the answer firmly nailed into their minds, but who want to make the point that they are open minded by reframing their fully-formed opinion into the form of a question:

“Is ‘G.I. Jane’ realistic?”

Just kidding. Of course, I have heard that one many times, but my response as an old SEAL is too passionate and lengthy to include in this forum.

No, the actual question I’ve heard 1,000 times is, “Do you think we should have gone into Iraq (or Afghanistan)?”

This to me is more appropriately the domain of our nation’s policy makers. More specifically, this issue is a valuable tool for politicians from every point along the lib-con spectrum to point to their record and convince you that they were the only one in Congress to be on the correct side of the Iraq (or Afghanistan) debate. Re-elect me.

A much more appropriate focus for you and me and all the other regular folks is this: We ARE There. Now What?

I think back to when my best friend Jerry and I were kids, and we found a stash of gentlemen’s magazines in an abandoned house. By the soft but menacing light of kerosene we cleverly ignited in a tin can, we were able to peruse this literature at leisure. Until, that is, my disproportionate size 12 boot tipped over the can of flaming kerosene and threatened to immolate Jerry, me, the abandoned house, and our newfound lady friends.

One question we might have deliberated is, “Do you think we should have been reading by the light of flaming kerosene in a tin can?” At the moment that didn’t seem appropriate. At that moment, the most appropriate response for two young teens was summed up in one word: “Douse!!!”

And douse we did. There weren’t many fluid sources around that abandoned house with the flames licking toward the tinder-dry old wood walls, but we managed to put it out all the same. (The subsequent stink rendered that property un-sittable for long afterward, and nobody would have wanted to peruse the charred and soiled remains of those girlie mags.)

It is very useful to keep one eye on history to avoid repeating its mistakes, but there is no value in self- or others-flagellation once a threshold has been crossed. The stakes and the search for solutions are large enough to demand the bulk of our attention. We are there. No matter who started what, we are the owners of a big mess and had better maintain a proper focus on dousing…lest we all go up in smoke.

Copyright 2011 J. Robert DuBois

Heroes of Every Complexion

We are first humans, then genders, then what our caregivers say, then what our peers and authorities convince, and finally, we become our choices.

Among the near-infinite divisions of this human world are men and women, Muslims and Christians, Shi’a and Sunni. There are billions who perceive large groups of Others inaccurately (all of us do, to some extent) because of our experience, “learning” and personal prejudices. Powerful Peace seeks to tease out and display the common human experience we share across the planet.

Last Thursday’s NY Times offers such a story. It may surprise some Western readers to admire a man who is an Iraqi Muslim, if their only experience has been to watch the spectacle of “crazies” on television screaming Death to America. Nevertheless, this story describes heroic deeds as occur daily around that troubled nation. Every man – in every nation – creates his life by his choices. I am deeply humbled by the sacrifices described in the following article, and grateful to have started my day with a reminder of the best we can be. May my choices today also be in the best interests of others, not a constant pursuit of superiority over them:

BALAD RUZ, Iraq — As the suicide bomber clutched the detonator to his explosive belt, preparing to spray fire and shrapnel into a religious procession here, an Iraqi police officer named Bilal Ali Muhammad faced a choice between his own life and something larger.

If he ran and took cover, Mr. Muhammad, 31, had a chance to save himself, to continue supporting his widowed mother, to help put his younger brother through college and to watch his three young daughters grow up.

Instead, the officer — a Sunni Muslim — threw himself onto the bomber, blunting the explosion’s impact on the Shiite worshipers.

“He gave his soul to the country,” said his mother, Alaahin Hassan, holding two of his daughters in her lap as dozens of black-veiled women filled her living room this week with ritualized wails of grief. “He believed in God. That made him great.”

Read the rest of this New York Times feature at:

http://tinyurl.com/2udm43t

Copyright 2010 J. Robert DuBois

R & R, the Poem

Dedicated to everyone who ever went away to war…and everyone they ever left behind.

R & R (Rest and Relaxation, or military leave)
by Jack Oatmon (PowerfulPeace.net)

I lost a few friends
Just a few days ago
They died in the desert
Now I’m in the snow

They fell all around me
Now I’m in my bed
I’ll rise in the morning
My brothers are dead

I’ll be okay if you’re a few minutes late
Airplane, take your time

Oh, God, how I miss them
Those brothers of mine
My family surrounds me
They pray I’ll be fine

I’m kissing my mother,
My daughter, my wife
This leave’s almost over
It’s back to real life

I’ll be okay if you’re a few hours late
Airplane, take your time

I knew when I signed up
I might go to war
I’m willing to fight, that’s
What freedom is for

It’s just that this time home
Is never enough
I don’t mean to snivel
But damn, this is tough

I’ll be okay if you’re a few days late
Airplane, take your time

I feel so much older
Than friends that I meet
I understand now why
We say “bittersweet”

I’ve been gone for months
I’ll be gone for months more
This respite is precious…
Surreal…back to war

I’ll be okay if you’re a few minutes late
Airplane, take your time

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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48. I’m Sorry for What We’ve Done to Ourselves

After a particularly valuable engagement with a local Coalition leader here in Baghdad today, I set out for a beautiful, cool-sunny afternoon stroll back to my office at the palace. Walking alongside a shimmering lake, I felt drawn to stop by the mosque I’d noticed en route.

According to custom – and military law – I did not enter the facility (I’ve been accompanied into several others by Muslim friends), but I did poke my nose in around the outside. My buoyant mood was transformed into an anchor.

I’ve always wandered, and I’m always saddened to discover abandoned houses of worship in my wanderings. They represent centers of community and spirituality that simply aren’t doing their jobs any more. Inevitably, they represent a place in which crime, poverty, or in this case, war, have overcome the local population’s ability to satisfy its need to congregate.

Each of these places has seen its former occupants of self-sacrifice, humility and generosity replaced by dust and bird droppings. Most, of course, are not physically scarred by the wounds of war as this is. I can’t know which “side” is responsible for slamming high caliber rounds into one wall of this building and shattering out some of the carefully crafted windows. Probably both sides. (In Afghanistan, entire towns have been leveled by heavy weapons; 95% of that ordnance was fired by Afghans of one group or another. Despite the physical shattering of these communities, the people still live there…simply because that’s where they live.)

I’m reminded that the loss is not limited to this formerly-beautiful site, or this type of damage. Isolated American soldiers displaying very poor judgment have shot bullets through the Qur’an, abused the Qur’an in other ways, and made deliberately antagonistic comments about Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The loss is not limited to this faith. Men calling themselves Muslims have pointedly massacred Christian and Jewish men, women, and children. They’ve done the same to the “other” kind of Muslim (Sunni on Shi’a and vice-versa). They’ve even brutally raped women of their own “kind” of Muslim in the name of righteous discipline.

The loss is not limited to faith on faith. Some individuals take great pleasure in attacking a religion not to their liking, such as the late Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo of the crucifix in a glass of urine, compassionately titled Piss Christ. (No, I won’t show that particular piece of “art” in this forum. You’ll have to Google it yourself.)

As you may have deduced by now, the point of this piece is that disrespect of others’ personal beliefs is a harmful thing – ultimately, even to the disrespecter. Is it not possible for us to simply heed the famously common-sensical words; “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

 

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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44. Hope – It Screams

I spoke today with an Iraqi Army General on the subject of our way ahead in Iraq. Like many of his peers, he has invaluable insight on problems and solutions regarding the ongoing struggle for Iraq. Like many of his peers, his recommendations (the other-than-combat efforts we will need for a long-term “win”) sometimes compete with more immediate Coalition needs for force protection and combat readiness.

Hope in Iraq

Hope, we concluded, is the most urgent commodity we can provide to the men and women of this ancient, noble and profoundly historic land. There are many other essential ingredients; most of them are merely steps along the path to hope.

Hope screams to be heard. Hope screams, desperately, to be felt.

It’s just at the edge of their hearing, for some of these. Hope is screaming its fool head off, just – just barely – out of reach from hundreds of thousands of decent people who can’t take their children to the market with them.

It’s just beyond the hearing of people without enough power, work, or water that won’t make them sick.

I can hear hope. In fact, I can’t hear anything else. It’s inevitable, now. I sense hope itself trembling in the unlimited potential of this moment. Hope knows its release is just around the corner. Any day, any moment, and hope will burst forth across this torn landscape like a storm. Those who fought for stability will fight ten times harder, in ten thousand little ways. But right now, before this great release, it’s so hard for many residents of Iraq to know hope.

Unemployed men with small children dying of illness and malnutrition fear to step forward to accept work with the Coalition, knowing that cruel, organized thugs may torture and kill a father who seeks to provide for his family in this way. Losing the only breadwinner jeopardizes the wife and other children in homes from which these fathers are too frequently lost.

My friend Jamal lost his family home, lifelong friends, and fiancee when he was identified as an interpreter. He very nearly lost much more.

On the other hand, there simply is not a great deal of work available with Coalition forces even for the willing, since positions for locals are competitive and jealously guarded.

In a society so wracked with danger and fear, much of the work from commerce and production is likewise only a memory. There is very little demand for non-essentials; when a citizen ventures to the market downtown even for necessities he knows he takes his life in his hands. There may be a car bomb rolling up to any part of any bazaar at any moment.

The citizens of Iraq are in desperate need of hope in order for them to see any purpose in striving and risking for change. When hope dies, initiative follows. Why bother?

In contrast to this dangerous apathy, I recently published an extracted article on the Baghdad Zoo now being open, safe, and enjoyed. (See A Walk in the Park). When a couple can take their little ones to such a pleasant and ordinary place, this glimmer called hope begins to take root. They taste freedom from insecurity – and like it. They begin to ponder the instability and terrors of the family neighborhood, and find a fresh energy to reclaim this rightful territory for the good of all.

They begin to say…”Oh, hell, no! Anything is better than this.”

The energy of hope can produce startling results. In a book entitled Let’s Roll, we read the story of true heroes, doomed passengers on a hijacked plane. They had some certainty that something very bad was going to happen with their plane. They realized that there might not be anything they could do about it…but they hoped they could. They hoped they could, and they acted.

They saw no gain in hiding in the herd and praying not to be the next one culled. They acted in the hope of stopping terrorists with their own hands. They succeeded. With this hope and their own hands, they saved hundreds or thousands of other innocent lives. They died, yes – they died because fighting to defend involves risk, and some pay the price for the rest.

Hope is something that can be given. It can’t be forced, because a person can not be “convinced” of something against his will. Hope can be inspired by example, as when the United States of America still inspires the hope of a better life for hundreds of millions who live in tragic poverty. Hope can be revealed in the genuine, consistent effort of outreach from those who have to those who have not.

Hope sometimes stays out of reach for those without hope, until someone who holds it…offers it. In some cases, it must be given from one group of people to another. Or, from one group of nations to another. When we grasp hope firmly in our hands, we perceive the extraordinary future we can create.

This isn’t a war for Americans to bring peace, or for “the West” to establish democracy, or for any other reason than simply this: this war in Iraq, however it may have started, is a war for the Iraqi people to experience hope, say “Let’s Roll”, and take back their land for peace and safety.

Hope screams to be known. With hope, anything is possible.

Without it, nothing is.

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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43. The Whole, Impartial Truth (TWIT 01) A Walk in the Park

Welcome to the Grand Opening edition of The Whole, Impartial Truth, a new and sporadic exposition of what’s “really” going on out here in Iraq.

By implying that you aren’t already getting the whole truth, I don’t mean that anyone is lying. Rather, I’m acknowledging that agenda drives communication; whether it’s a husband arguing for a big-screen TV or a statesman seeking concessions from a neighbor country, the skillful use of words creates a reality.

Each writer writes from a personal perspective, and not all media outlets provide an actual fair and balanced picture. Because of each outlet’s agenda, in fact, it may even be fair to say that not one commercial outlet provides a full and unbiased version of life as it occurs.

                Here’s an example:

The Pope and President George W. Bush were fishing in a little rowboat one day. A gust of wind blew the Pope Hat off the Pope’s head and splashed it in the pond 10 yards away. The Pope was beside himself, naturally, because this is an important symbol of his office. President Bush calmly rose, stepped onto the surface of the pond, and walked over to recover the Pope Hat.

The next morning, headlines across the country blared out, “George Bush Can’t Swim” (Thanks, Gabe!)

Here’s another example. In the days before this presidential election, I was amazed to hear CNN and Fox News paint two realities based on this one, undisputable fact: the polls favored Obama 52 to McCain’s 44. Here are the two realities:

CNN: “Senator Obama continues to surge ahead with his ever-widening gap.”

Fox: “Senator McCain is really making a comeback as the gap rapidly disappears.”

(Please understand that those are not actual quotes, but paraphrasings. I don’t want to be accused of still further distortion of the truth!)

So, while Powerful Peace recognizes the existence of continuing beheadings and that little girls have been blown up by terrorist bombs as recently as this week, we must also keep in our hearts the stories that don’t sell commercial airtime such as the following, lifted intact from the “Coalition Chronicle” magazine that we read out here in the sandbox:

Baghdad Zoo – Returning to Normal

- Army Staff Sergeant James Hunter

BAGHDAD - The Baghdad Zoo opened its doors to Iraqi citizens in 1971. Since then, it has been a key centerpiece to the lives of many Iraqis. Many travel from throughout Iraq to enjoy a peaceful day at the zoo with their families.

Time Alone

Due to the potential threat of violence and security issues in Iraq however, the last several years have not brought many people to the zoo as many feared leaving their neighborhoods and the safety and security of their own homes.

“After coalition forces pushed into Iraq, ousting the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, the zoo and surrounding park were left unattended and desolate,” said Staff Sgt. Paul Sanford…. “Animals were abandoned, stolen or freed by looters and the park grounds were vandalized.”

It was nearly two years before coalition forces began to seriously focus their efforts on the zoo after troops gained a foothold on the adjacent International Zone, which provided the opportunity for Dr. Salah, the Zawra Park director, and Dr. Adel Mousa, the zoo’s director, to truly begin rebuilding the area.

Their efforts, combined with the efforts of MND-B [Multi-National Division, Baghdad], have brought life back into the zoo.

With Daddy at the Zoo

“The people of [Iraq] visit the zoo quite frequently,” said Sanford, who works closely with the zoo’s director. “It is a central location that helps them see the future of Iraq as a revitalized society and continues to build family relationships and a sense of normalcy in an area so often torn by hardship and conflict. Visiting the zoo and the surrounding Zawra Park area is as much a family outing here in Iraq as it is in the United States.

This time to forge friendships and strengthen family ties would not be where it is today without the efforts of Iraqi security forces and MND-B troops positioned throughout greater Baghdad.

When Iraqi security forces and MND-B cracked down on special groups extremists and sent many fleeing the area, it brought new life and a sense of normalcy back to the Iraqi people.

“The current security situation has been one of stabilization and peace in the area, drawing more families from their home and into the park and zoo for leisure and recreational activities once thought to be too risky to chance,” said Sanford. “The continued effort of both coalition forces and the Government of Iraq have allowed people who once only ventured out for necessity to stray far from their homes at times, even if just to see the new tigers, Hope and Riley, now being proudly displayed.”

Mousa said he now sees a secure place for people from all over Iraq to visit.

Family Picnic at the Zoo

“The people are all smiling; they are happy,” the zoo director said.

The security situation has made many Iraqis happy people, but none may be as happy as those children who walk through the gates of the Baghdad Zoo daily to see the lions, tigers, bears, an array of fish, flamingos, crocodiles, alligators or even a little girl’s favorite, a pony.

Many are seen smiling, maybe some a bit frightened by those larger animals, as they walk across the green grass or the natural or manmade paths during their leisurely strolls.

Sitting atop the freshly cut green grass are many families with picnic baskets and soda cans in tow. The children seem to run endlessly until exhausted from the heat of the sun.

When Sanford visits the zoo to meet with his Iraqi counterpart, he too feels a difference in his surroundings.

As he walks onto the grounds on the zoo, just as many do daily, he finds himself walking along a marble walkway with an array of birds and fowl on either side surrounding him.

“As you walk from cage to cage, you will almost definitely notice the significant difference in cleanliness of the area,” Sanford said. “Trash is placed in trash cans and sidewalks are kept swept and clean.”

“As you make your way around, you will see families laughing and smiling, couples holding hands and children tugging on their parents to point out some fascinating creature,” he adds. “It is truly an experience.”

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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42. My Blood Is In This Flag

Literally.
 
As I see the Stars and Stripes cascading majestically from the highest railings here in Baghdad this week, I am reminded that my own blood marks the seam, four stories above.
 
During one of my visits to the Baghdad Coalition Headquarters a few months back, I noticed a group of soldiers struggling to hold up the palace’s massive, forty-foot-long U.S. flag as they prepared it for hanging.
 
I jumped in to keep my little piece of our treasured national symbol from touching the floor. We needed to cut old zip-ties out of the grommets, so I opened my knife and set to work on the heavy plastic fasteners.
 
Distracted by the complex exercise of cutting while lifting, I nicked one of my fingers. It was an insignificant boo-boo, and I didn’t think much of it at the time. With some embarrassment, I later noticed that a spot of my blood had soaked into the edge of that flag, staining the white, red.
 
It wasn’t until hours afterward, as I stood staring in awe at this towering display, that the greater impact of the imagery of blood in the flag struck home.

Blood Marks Old Glory

Rewind a few years, and you’ll see me as a younger, pre-retirement Navy SEAL training at one of our desert locations. My platoon was completing a particularly unimpressive series of “Immediate Action Drills” (in a nutshell: shooting and running and dropping down and shooting again).
 
The cadre bellowed at us to get more aggressive with every iteration, and I took that seriously – to the point of inadvertently smashing my rifle scope against the corner of my mouth on one particularly enthusiastic “drop” to continue firing.
 
When our lackluster performance ended, the hardcore old frogman in charge of our training said he had never seen such a disgusting spectacle in all his years as a commando. (We take solace in the knowledge that combat critique is often exaggerated to drive a point home.) After he finally got done telling us what a bunch of [blank]-ing [blankety-blank-blanks] we were, he took a long, ragged breath and we thought he was spent.
 
He wasn’t. Glaring menacingly around our sheepish group, he suddenly locked eyes with me and said, “You. You’re bleeding…I like that.”
 
And we were redeemed.
 
I’ll let the reader unfold some of the profound layers of meaning at this concept of redemption through blood.
 
Despite such boo-boos, all of the accumulated dents and scrapes I acquired during my career don’t add up to one serious injury as suffered by hundreds of thousands over hundreds of years of American life; I can still count the same number of fingers and limbs as when I got born about four decades back.
 
What is most desperately important to remember on Veterans Day is that our precious flag is soaked in the blood of every wounded and slain warrior who ever served America and freedom. If not for the blood of heroes, this flag would be nothing more than the tattered and molding scraps of a great experiment which had failed to rise and inspire the world.
 
Our grand story has been and continues to be paid for, as they say, in blood and treasure. While those who have the treasure have often found it unnecessary to also contribute blood, we have awesome exceptions. Our legendary veterans, George Washington and his comrades, are among this noble crowd. These men would have suffered the horror of a traitor’s execution if captured. Many did. They willingly risked all for this cause so much greater than themselves.

Raising the Flag

Did you know this? Washington said, “The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage and conduct of this army.” Unborn millions! How could any ordinary man have the vision in the first, perilous birth pangs of a nation, to foresee how much would become of this fragile dream if only they risked and paid their all???
 
Let us remember our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who truly paid the costs of freedom and an example for the world. Let us especially hold ourselves accountable to those future generations within and without our borders who may one day look back and say – of us – “But for their sacrifices, we would not know liberty.”

 

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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41. Did You Understand the Barack Obama Piece?

I had such an interesting range of strong responses on article #39 (“Barack Obama – September 12th and November 5th”), that I wondered if my apolitical intent came through at all. Much of the negative and positive feedback seemed to be in response to a perception that I was cheering these election results, and that it was a political matter.

Barack Obama

It’s very important to the grasp of Powerful Peace that I clear this up. I don’t take any pleasure in one side humiliating the other; quite the opposite. I know being centrist still means being in the minority in the US, but it’s my belief that if I “lean right” or “lean left” according to political inclinations, I’ll put myself in some danger of falling down. In fact, I stand straight up in the middle, and measure each issue on its merit, not basing my opinions on what some affiliation tells me I should think and decide.

Please let me know if you share this vision. Sometimes this position of listening to all sides, and respecting all persons for the inherent value of their point of view, seems pretty lonely.

Article #39 is an observation on the profound nature of the world’s opinion of us, and our opinion of ourselves, as it relates to the election of this unique individual. Please do review it in this context: Barack Obama: 9/12 and 11/5.

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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39. Barack Obama – September 12th and November 5th

Days of National Transformation

Wherever you fell on the political spectrum when the final results were in, I would like to point out some details that have not yet been discussed. I would like to address the profound significance of this day, November 5^th, 2008.

I’m writing this piece from my station in Iraq. On September 11^th, 2001, I was working as a SEAL in another Middle Eastern country with some of my teammates. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we US SEALs and our class of local national SEALs endured the rare privilege of watching the events of 9/11 unfold live while half a world away.

It was evening, there. One of our number called out to the barracks that a plane had hit a Tower. We Americans and Arabs gathered in the TV lounge and sat silently for three hours as the unimaginable transpired.

The next morning, after a fitful night’s sleep, we cancelled all training and began readying ourselves for the inevitable war to come. I told a friend, “The world will never be the same.”

What I meant by this is that, as with the designations of B.C. and A.D. (or Before Current Era and Current Era, in some calendar systems), history would now be eternally fractured into pre-9/11 and post-9/11. These terms have in fact become part of today’s vernacular. That date can reasonably be likened to a national loss of innocence.

Now consider these facts that burst forth on November 5^th, 2008:

The Black segment of the United States has been uplifted in a concrete way which theories and declarations of equality could never fully communicate. This will open the eyes of every citizen that American diversity is real. It is finally true that each child can grow up to become the President of the United States of America.

Barack Obama is not Black

Simultaneously, the nation must realize that Barack Obama is not Black…not Black, that is, unless we are equally willing to label him “White”. After all, what is it that makes him Black? If it’s being born of a Black parent, then is he somehow less White in also being the son of a White parent?

(By the way, this isn’t political bandwagonning. I won’t tell you which way I voted. I’m describing our circumstances objectively.)

President-elect Obama is Black and White. Conveniently, so is America…and we are so much more.

America is also Native American, (which group, by the way, we honor in the month of November), we’re Hispanic, we’re Asian, we’re Polynesian, we’re Mediterranean, and still more. In other words, Barack Obama’s victory is not merely a win for Blacks. As he is the physical embodiment of the racial extremes of America, so his selection is a vote in favor of the entire spectrum of race in America. His victory is a win for Blacks and for Whites. It’s a win for every race between these extremes.

The nation, and the world, must also realize that he is not American…not American, that is, unless we are equally willing to name him a global citizen. If an American mother and a Kenyan father produce a child, does either side have the stronger claim to its native son?

In no way is this an insinuation that Barack Obama is not “American enough” to lead our nation. Rather, it’s an assertion that he is inherently and invaluably aware of the world beyond our borders. Our world is shrinking by the day. Great Walls and Iron Curtains are pitiful artifacts of a sadly frightened past in which nations looked at one another like suspicious townsfolk in a cowboy movie: “You ain’t from around here, is you, stranger?”

While on the subject of “(fill-in-the-blank) enough”, I want to point out that Jesse Jackson once apparently expressed that Barack Obama wasn’t “Black enough” to run and win as the Black candidate for President. Today I was moved to see Jesse Jackson weeping with joy over the election.

I say again: the world will never be the same.

A Change in America means a Change in the World

The United States is the single, most powerful people group on the planet. We have demonstrated the greatest willingness to extend ourselves out into the world to influence change – according to our best judgment. In helpful and not-so-helpful ways, we have proven over and again that we, as one entity, can move the globe.

That globe has in recent decades become less enamored of our ability and decisions to act or not act. Our face is mirrored in worldwide polls; the numbers do not paint a pretty picture.

We are perceived as a self-absorbed superpower. The image is that while our intentions may in fact be good, our values are not always demonstrated by our actions. We can swear to never tolerate genocide, then show that the slaughtering of families in Darfur doesn’t quite meet the threshold for meaningful intervention.

While the tapestry of our nation has been a multi-colored fabric since the first day, our executive has never been. This cannot go unnoticed by global neighbors. The proud label of Melting Pot must have appeared insincere as long as only the white wax floated to the top.

Raise your head high, America. If you voted for Barack Obama or against him, you participated in the selection of this living symbol of the whole greatness that is America. You were a vital part of the struggle that proves to a skeptical world that we love our country; we embrace the democratic process in choosing our leader, together; ultimately, we demonstrated that we treasure this grand, glorious, motley rabble of individuals…more than our individual selves. We truly value the diversity that is America – and the world.

I usually don’t say much to describe myself, beyond my status as a retired SEAL and global security professional. In case you’re interested, I’m White. Or rather, I should say, I’m a White American. Or rather, I should say…I’m a proud American. I’m proud that my country has so powerfully seized its own American-ness.

IF YOU APPRECIATE THESE COMMENTS, PLEASE PASS THIS ARTICLE ALONG TO LOVED ONES

…IF YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW THE OBAMAS, PLEASE DROP THEM A COPY, TOO.

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

38. Who Do I Belong To?

Today I present the words of an Iraqi author. This was written originally in Arabic, and is translated in an Iraqi magazine called “Gilgamesh (the Journal of Iraqi Culture)”. It was given to me by my new acquaintance, an Iraqi military general who needs to remain nameless.

Gilgamesh is an English language forum presenting the very human thoughts of Iraqi writers to help our English-speaking audience better understand this ancient, complex, and essential part of the world.

There’s nothing I can say to improve this piece; it is a laser-focused illustration of Powerful Peace in the life of one person.

Please enjoy:

Who Do I Belong To?

by Lamya’ Nu’man al-Dulaimi

Friends and acquaintances often tease and taunt me about the fact that I cannot truly say who I belong to. My identity, though, states my tribal and sectarian descent, which is a complex, heterogenous mix. I became aware of my diversified background early in my life; my family is the product of an intricate ethno-sectarian intermarriage that has been going on from time immemorial. The end result of these mixed marriages has been a tolerant community living in harmony and peace.

So, when I am in Kifri and Toozkhurmato amid my family and relatives I speak Turkomen and enjoy listening to Turkish songs. And when I go to Kirkuk and Suleimaniya I speak Kurdish, enjoy the mountain scenery and revel in seeing Gli Ali Beg and Shaqlawa Falls and the Dokan and Darbendi Khan dams.

In Baghdad, Mahmoodiya and Ramadi I speak with members of my family and relatives residing in these places in Arabic. However, I speak with my in-laws with a southern Iraqi accent which I am fond of as it evokes the kindness and generosity of Meisan, Dhiqar, al-’Ashar, Faw and the Gulf. This remarkable mixture has had a great impact on my mind and thoughts and injected my blood with the genes of this unique combination. I love all the contributors to my being and empathize with all. I don’t have to be biased to any party. I believe I was destined to be the epitome of Iraq’s composition; an amalgam of races, languages, traditions and cultures. Hence, the elements that contribute toward my make-up are the sum of the characteristics of the Kurds, the Turkomens and the Arabs all combined. I inherited a lot of the qualities that all Iraqis share: bravery, kindness, cheerfulness, patience and fortitude.

It is true that I can not define my true identity and origin but deep down I know that my sense of belonging is to the entirety of Iraq from north to south. I adore its mountains, its waterfalls, its Tigris and Euphrates and its Arabian Gulf port. Most important of all, I would not trade a single Iraqi quality for any Arab or international characteristic, whatever the latter’s merits.

In the days when Iraqis were either in prison or were fleeing the tyranny of the former regime, Kurds, Turkomens, Arabs, Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Yazidis and others shared the same ordeal. They all left the country carrying their love for Iraq wherever they went. Moreover, when they left they had Iraqi passports with them, not Turkomen, Kurdish, Sunni, or Shiite passports. They were all identified by their Iraqi nationality; a passport with the name of Iraq on its cover and pages.

Forgive me, dear family and friends, for rambling on so; my point is that Iraq needs us all whatever our ethnic origin and sect. It does not matter who belongs to what. We all belong to Iraq, and only that should count.

Translated by Dhafer Abed Mutter al-Tamimi

Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.

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