Iraq: March 2003

The following is a March 2003 conversation between an American G.I. and an Iraqi soldier trying to surrender before the start of the war:

Iraqi: [Waving a white flag] I’m here to surrender. Take me away.

G.I.: You can’t surrender, the war hasn’t started yet.

Iraqi: What?

G.I.: No shooting, no bombs, no war. If we’re not fighting, you can’t surrender.

Iraqi: But I heard gunfire and shouting.

G.I.: We were practicing, not fighting. You heard a training exercise.

Iraqi: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How am I supposed to know when you’re done practicing? I have to wait until we start shooting at each other, THEN I surrender?

G.I.: Yes, but we don’t have to shoot at each other. Just wait until someone starts shooting at
someone else, then come over here, wave the white flag, and surrender. Follow the instructions in the leaflet we dropped on your head last week. Piece o’ cake.

Iraqi: That’s not very comforting … What if I shoot at you right now?
[Pulls out pistol and fires into the sand, five feet to the G.I.’s left]
See, I just shot at you. War started, I surrender, you have to take me now.

G.I.: Oh puh-leeeeez, THAT doesn’t count!

Iraqi: What the hell do you mean? I shot at you. War. Bullets. Possible death. You’ll get combat pay for this.
[Fires into sand twice more for emphasis.]

G.I.: For God’s sake. Now you’re starting to piss me off. Just go over there and wait a couple more days. Be a man about it.

Iraqi: I will never understand how you people think.

G.I.: Go back, sit down, and wait.

Iraqi: Make me.

G.I.: I will.

Iraqi: Yeah right, like you can do that.

G.I.: I bet I can, and I know I can.

Iraqi: Can not.

G.I.: Can too.

Iraqi: Can not.

G.I.: Can too.

[Further deterioration of the situation triggers World War III.]

A few days into the war, another American G.I. engages an Iraqi civilian in a conversation about Operation Iraqi Freedom:

G.I.: I’m here to liberate you.

Iraqi: Liberate me?

G.I.: Yes. Liberate. Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ever watch the news?

Iraqi: Ah yes. I followed that on TV, until you bombed Iraqi TV.

G.I.: Dictator Saddam Hussein’s state-run TV…

Iraqi: … my only source of information, since I don’t have a satellite dish.

G.I.: Well, anyway, you’re liberated. Free as a bird. Free to be you and me. Free fallin’.

Iraqi: I know you expect me to be grateful. But, let me ask, in what way am I free that I wasn’t before?

G.I.: Let me count the ways. Political freedom, democracy, free speech, free thought, say and do what you want. Ever read the Declaration of Independence?

Iraqi: [Smiling.] I prefer the Treaty of Versailles. It teaches me more about the hubris of victorious warriors who want to re-shape the world. Tell me something. If you are so free, why aren’t you doing what you want?

G.I.: How do you mean that?

Iraqi: If you had to choose one thing on earth to do, I doubt it would be conversing with a possibly hostile stranger in the middle of the desert.

G.I.: Well, that’s my job. We all have to do something. Some people scrub toilets. No one has absolute freedom.

Iraqi: My point exactly. True freedom would mean doing what you wanted, when you wanted. You wouldn’t need to work, you wouldn’t have to do just about anything, and you certainly wouldn’t need to fight wars.

G.I.: But we don’t live in that world. We’re in the world of governments, international trade, and regular conflict.

Iraqi: Then you admit that you’re not free, even as you impose your brand of "freedom" on me.

G.I.: I believe Churchill said that democracy is a terrible form of government, but it is far better than all other forms of government.

Iraqi: Westerners are too fond of dead men. And dead ideas. True democracy perished in ancient Athens. Your concepts of "freedom" and "government" differ from mine.

G.I.: Stop quibbling with me. Modern democracy is representative government. All the major political philosophers – Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Rawls, to name a few – argued that people give up some freedom to have government in the first place. Then government provides roads, bridges, schools, and other necessities, limiting citizens’ freedom only to the extent necessary to accomplish those goals.

Iraqi: You left "armies" off your shopping list. Maybe government exists merely to protect the wealth acquired by the upper class. Isn’t "wealth" defined in the Declaration of Independence as "The Pursuit of Happiness"?

G.I.: Being truly free – no one has that experience, regardless of wealth and where they live. All I can offer is an opportunity to live in a place where you can stand on the street corner and freely say what you want.

Iraqi: That has some appeal, but freedom tastes better to those who earn it themselves. I think you underestimate how much people will sacrifice for the right to define "freedom" and "government" in their own way, even if other countries disagree with those definitions.

G.I.: I don’t know. We’ll find out who’s right, I guess.

Iraqi: Yes. We will.