Human Shields: War Tourists
Where is Raed? on the subject of Human Shields:
One of the latest group to arrive in Baghdad, mostly Europeans, were welcomed to the Rasheed hotel , which is like the Waldorf Astoria of Baghdad, no other hotel is more expensive and exclusive. All of them were wearing T-shirts with what was supposed to be “Human Shields” in Arabic, but they had it all wrong it said “Adra’a Basharia” instead of “Duru’u Basharia” which got them a few giggles and a new name; they are now the “Adra’a” just to show how clueless they are. A lot of funny Arabic these days with all these HS’s running around, a van with a foreign number plate standing near the ministry of information has “No War” written all over it in many languages the biggest in Arabic. All over the front of it is says “La Harba” which is wrong and sounds like a night club, my cousin thought that was cute. Anyway, what really got my goat this time was finding out that they get food coupons worth 15,000 dinars per meal, 3 for every day.fifteen thousan.
Do you know how much the monthly food ration for a 4 person family is worth, for a whole month not per meal (real cost, not subsidized) ? 30,000 dinars, if you get someone to buy the bad rice they give you for a decent price. 15,000. What are they eating? A whole lamb every meal? Let’s put this within context. Today in the morning Raed, our friend G. and I went for a late big breakfast we had 2 tishreeb bagilas (can’t explain that, you have to be an Iraqi to get it otherwise it sounds inedible) and a makhlama (which is an omelet with minced meat), tea, fizzy drinks and argila afterwards (the water-pipe-thingy) all for 4,750 dinars, and we were not going super cheap. A lunch in any above-average restaurant will not be more than 8,000 dinars and that includes everything. 15,000 thousand is a meal in a super expensive restaurant in Arasat Street, in one of those places that really almost have an “only foreigners allowed, no Iraqis welcome unless you are UN staff” sign on it. I will stop calling them tourist when they stop taking all this pampering from the Iraqi government. Did I tell you about the tours? Today was Babylon day. You are really missing it, the cheapest way to do the Iraq trip you have wanted to do but were too scared.
Good to see that there are people willing to risk their lives to defend a regime they have absolutely no understanding of.
Monday 24 Feb 2003 | Paul | The Pit
Had you read more than that one piece of his blog you would know that he had far more ridicule for Saddam and crew than the human shields. When he first spoke of the shields he was welcoming thier good intentions but wanted them to be used providing care at the borders than sacrificing themselves for a power plant that was already disabled.
James,
As it happens, I was reading Salem Pax’s blog quite regularly in the run up to, and shortly after the Iraq war. Not surprisingly, he went very quiet while the war itself was being fought.
I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make here. The human shields took a very simplistic - and often inaccurate - view of both US motives and the nature of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq in the run-up to the war. As such, they allowed themselves to be manipulated by Saddam when they went to Iraq.
Pax makes quite clear that he felt that the human shields were behaving like tourists who had just been given free holidays from the Iraqi government. And when the going got tough, the tourists left.
I don’t see how the fact that he was also unhappy with Saddam’s regime contradicts this.