Another week at Abu Ghraib. Today is Friday, July 2nd. I woke about 9am and readied for mass, walked across the compound and arrived to the chapel just past 10am. But, due to increased restrictions on convoys (more attacks recently) the priest was not able to come to the prison for mass. It was a pretty depressing moment for me. We have Protestant services on Sundays, both morning and evening, which I will be able to attend this week since I have Sunday off for the 4th of July. Thank God for that, but keeping the Liturgy with others and taking the Eucharist, Communion, is the most important part of the week for me. So, I found a candle, lit it upon the altar, prayed my Rosary and then proceeded to do the Liturgy and Scripture readings by myself. I was glad to be able to offer this service in the absence of the priest, as the prayers and readings still needed to be said with or without the priest, but the absence of the Eucharist was difficult. I sat in the chapel, reading and praying, for about 45 minutes and when I reached the end, I simply sat with my Bible and Prayer Book in hand, pressed to my forehead, not wanting to leave - wanting to stay in the comfort of a Church, even if only constructed impromptu, and congregated only by myself and the Holy Spirit.
This week has definitely had its ups and downs. Last Sunday I attended evening Protestant services, and lost my voice singing. I stayed to pray, mostly on account of my duties as an interrogator. The weight of the job sometimes is more painfully present to me than other times. Sometimes the lies I hear from detainees are easily distinguishable from the truth, but at other times, it is not so easy to discern. And, while I understand quite clearly the role of judgment and wielding authority for the punishment/prevention of crime in society…this is a duty I assume with no joy. I do so because it is what has been asked of me, and I continue to do so with the greatest amount of integrity I can muster. But, how I would much rather speak of grace with those across my table, and tell them of the alternative to their chosen path, which I do whenever possible. And, for as long as I sit in my current seat of authority, with a weapon strapped across my back, the moral high ground is somewhat clouded.
While praying that Sunday, however, I pleaded for a reason or insight into my current role that would help me see more clearly. And, the very next thing I thought in my head was the turning of the tables of the money lenders in the temple; Christ calling them a den of robbers, a brood of vipers. I am quite sure that Christ sympathized with their circumstances, Israelite and Palestinian country tradesmen in Roman occupied Jerusalem. Dire circumstances produce dire strivings, and the established Jewish leaders of Jerusalem were not necessarily a highpoint in the history of Jewish moral leadership so to give guidance to the desperate and disenfranchised. But, understanding and sympathy itself does not equate to moral tolerance: action and accountability was still required of the tradesmen turning the temple into a strip mall. Similarly, might I sympathize with the disenfranchised of this country being taken advantage of by the foreigners flocking to Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul. But, something must be done to show the grave consequences of these choices. I most commonly do this by attempting to speak with them on their level - get to know them, understand where they come from, their families, and show them the futility of their violent choices. But, every time I kneel before the cross, praying both for them and more me, I ask God to give me the time where I might put down my own sword, put down this seat of authority, and pick up the Eucharist. How much I would rather be a priest to these men, than their accuser.
This week has seen other interesting developments as well. I think Monday or Tuesday we received mortars at about 9pm. I was helping my roommate sling his weapon, when a big crash rumbled somewhere in the compound. I asked him if he heard it, and he replied, “yeah, we’re being attacked.” And then we continued about our business. The casualness of it all was pretty humorous. “Yeah, we’re being attacked…no big deal.” I was just getting ready to go to the shower trailers to get ready for bed when the mortars came in, so I had to nix that for the evening. Minor inconvenience, I guess, in exchange for my safety.
A few days ago, I got nicely sick in the stomach. Something in the food, I imagine. I’m not quite sure. But, I ate breakfast (something I usually don’t do, other than fruit and coffee), and started to feel cold and achy. For the next day and a half I had the constant urge to vomit and defecate. But, the job went on, so I just tried to walk slowly and concentrate. The sun, for some reason, felt much better during those two days. That was the first time I was thankful for the blistering heat, as it somehow comforted my cold and achy muscles, and even helped a constant headache.
Yesterday, more mortars came down on other bases in the Baghdad area. At lunch yesterday, a troop of Marine engineers came to clear a minefield outside the interrogation facility, and once we were given the “all-clear” sign to go outside, I ran post haste to a porta-jon, being that we’d been locked-down for about two hours! While in the jon I heard another boom, which I later heard had been an improvised explosive device (IED) that had gone off on one of our convoys 160 meters from the prison…but was still powerful enough to shake the building (and my porta). I haven’t heard anything about the convoy, injuries or other. We basically take no news as good news. But, due to things like this, we haven’t received any mail convoys (or priests).
Today I sat down in the dining hall with two of my Iraqi friends and discussed the current state of Iraq in Arabic. My ears are still pretty shoddy after a rifle qualification course back at Fort Gordon where I accidentally forgot to use hearing protection on a timed qual-course…so, 20 rounds of M-16 fire went off inches from my head. Needless to say, it makes hearing in crowded places kind of difficult. But, we were still able to have a pretty good conversation. The every day Iraqi, in the opinion of these men, simply doesn’t care about politics, democracy, Islamic Caliphates, pan-Arabism or other idealistic concepts. They want electricity, running water and food on their tables for their children. They want whatever can provide for their basic necessities, and if America and the coalition can bring that to them, great. If not, “who can?” is there basic question. Pretty reasonable, I think. Since the invasion things have been pretty difficult for them. They had more consistent basic services under Saddam, although things are certainly now improving the more reconstruction efforts are garnering the support of other nations and wealthy corporations making contracts in large centers like Baghdad. Foreign terrorists, however, constantly strike at infrastructure, in an attempt to weaken the resolve of the coalition, deplete its resources, and exacerbate the desperation of impoverished Iraqis.
But, Baghdad inhabitants also have the bad luck of having received the first installment of amenities, and then having to part with them as the coalition tried to extend facilities more evenly throughout the rest of the country. So, electricity is about 40% less available in Baghdad now, than about four or six months ago. Numbers change all the time, and sentiment changes with them. Ideas, Western or Islamic or other, don’t have as much a sway, though, it seems, when put against the basic needs of fathers to put food on the table for their families. Please pray for these needs, much more than my own. I have my needs met, and a great many of my desires, even. But, desperation does not knock on my door like these people. Extremist offers to meet such needs do not come in my direction either. Humanitarian assistance is our best weapon against terrorism, give the terrorists no social or economic foothold into the weaknesses of the poor. We don’t have to export and expand America (or Democracy even) to our places of fear and struggle. I truly believe we simply have to but offer out of our abundance to those that have little. Snub the skepticism of those who fear we will be another imperialist benchmark in the history if Middle Eastern colonialism. Extremists are the minority, but skepticism and contempt for the West is widespread. Our fight cannot be against flesh and blood, but against doubt, against mistrust, against fraud, and against manipulation.
To the legalist-extremist Muslim, evil is something that can be eliminated by eliminating the “evil-doer.” If a woman is perceived indecent, kill her. If a man commits apostasy, kill him. I fear that the West has also adopted this view in certain of its policies to attempt to “rid the world of terror.” Evil cannot be destroyed by the destruction of things or persons, it can only redeemed by those willing to lay down themselves for others. This of course is now a discussion of goals, and how broadly we wish to expand the borders of our goals; if we want our goals to be tied to lands, to nations and to the traditions of men. It is also a discussion of faith, if we still believe redemption is possible. Evil has no existence of itself, it is simply the consequence of an amnesiac people bereft of memory. Goodness forgotten is goodness perverted. We must be that much more fervent in remembering and reiterating God’s initial words over His creation: “It is Good.” When we know not what we do, God grant us the grace to forgive, so that we might in turn remember how we, too, were once so forgiven.
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