One of the great joys of book publishing is connecting with people around the world who are inspired, delighted, or interested in past projects.
I was contacted by an editorial staffer from a Swiss publication. She saw one of the photos I took in Guatemala City for “WAR: The Afterparty.” The photo, the journey, and the story of the CIA overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacob Arbenz are powerful memories. Guatemala was the first stop on the trip around the world for the Afterparty project and the first chapter in the book.
I was privileged to license the photo for their use.
I learned from an Afghan friend that one of my most memorable Kabul interviews, Dr. Ayaz Niazi, was killed by ISIS terrorists at his Wazir Abul Khan mosque, the city’s largest. At the end of our interview, concerned that an intimate photo with a Jewish American writer could be dangerous, we posed for a photo after he received my promise that I would not publish it. With his violent, tragic death, I share it now, along with our interview published in WAR: The Afterparty. He showed me extraordinary hospitality and warmth, his staff hosting and caring for me for four hours, then a one hour interview, then a second after he leads the call to prayer. Rest In Peace, Dr. Niazi.
Excerpt from Chapter Six of WAR: The Afterparty, “Without Peace, We Have Nothing”
I want to speak to a local cleric about the Quran. Fawad’s close friend in school is a mullah’s son and, after several requests, he arranges a meeting. Over lunch, both Farshid and Javid dismiss meeting with a local mullah (a Muslim religious leader, scholar or teacher) as a waste of time. Instead, they insist, I should get a meeting with Dr. Ayaz Niazi, the country’s leading scholar on Islam, educated at a prestigious Cairo University. I call Fawad later to ask if he knows anyone who could get me to see Niazi. He says that’s the guy we’re going to see.
Niazi greets me at the entrance to the Wazir Abul Khan prayer hall with a small entourage, thanking me for my visit. He is in full regalia, and exudes warmth and charm. In the course of six hours, I meet a steady stream of mosque clergy and staff. One, in white dishdasha and headdress, tells me that there is greatness in my face and that I must come to Islam. I tell him flattery will get him everywhere.
Mohammed, the imam’s media producer, shows me his television production gear and downloads the Quran Explorer app to my phone. I am the first American he has met. I am treated to lunch and tea and a visit to the mosque gift shop, where I am presented with black prayer beads. The welcome is warm and expansive.
After the imam leads Friday prayers and counsels families, a weekly tradition, he joins me along with his son, Fawad, Mohammed and several staff. Maybe it’s a sort of learning moment for them as well, an American Jew in Kabul.
The imam admires my hat. “This is a Chitrali cap. You went to Chitral?” I start by asking what for him is the most important teaching of Islam and how Islam brings beauty to his life.
Islam consists of four main parts, or columns. First, faith and belief. Worship and prayers. Moral attitude. And social life, how to build relations with other people. So, it’s not just belief.
Islam has a message for each of these four parts. How we build a connection with Allah, with God. But our sense of worshiping means keeping Him always in mind, having a deep relation with Him.
I didn’t follow Islam like a blind man without any research. I have researched other religions, I have compared mine with others and then I came to the conclusion that Islam is the best religion that we can apply in every part of our life. Economic, political, family, social life, psychological life. When I accepted Islam, I felt like I don’t have to worry about anything in life, no stress, no worries. Islam brought calm and happiness to my life. Being kind to any creature in the universe, animal or human.
If Islam is the one true faith, how do you respect other spiritual paths if you believe that, in effect, they are inferior? The imam directs his media producer to start recording video and asks if that’s OK with me.
Humankind from the creation of the universe has passed through many phases. At the beginning, life was simple. Human life was all about feeding ourselves and staying alive. It’s like when someone gets a simple sickness, we need simple medicine. Allah’s books, scriptures and messengers are like doctors and medicines for humanity. In a specific period in history, there was a specific illness, so that prophet was sent to help the people to solve that problem. It’s like when you go to a doctor, he gives you a prescription with an expiration date.
And when you go back to the doctor, you get the new prescription, and the old ones are no longer usable to you.
Humankind’s problems are like diseases that need deep resolutions and solutions. When someone gets a really serious disease and he goes to a doctor, the doctor doesn’t write all the prescriptions at one time. He instructs the patient to use this medicine for 10 days and then come back. After that, he writes another prescription and he says you can’t use the first medicine anymore.
After this short period, he writes the permanent prescription that you should use forever. And the last prescription must be complete. And other religions and Islam are like this, the prescriptions that Allah gave to us. And then when the last religion came, the other religions are expired. And this is the new complete prescription.
Humankind’s problems are getting more serious day by day. If we look at the Christian’s bible, you cannot find resolution on the use of drugs. Or Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism. Islam has a resolution for preventing use of drugs and solving this problem in human society. In holy Quran, in the speech of prophet Mohammed, in Sharia. So we need a religion, a complete religion for our daily life. In the holy Quran, there are verses about science and technology. Galileo spoke about his theory of the motion of the earth.
“The Church condemned him,” I interject.
But in the holy Quran, there are verses that indirectly address the motion of Earth. In Europe, in the French Revolution, people were forced to separate law from religion. They left religion just in the framework of a church, nowhere else.
The Enlightenment. At that time there were hundreds of years of religious wars, Catholics and Protestants killing each other. One of the reasons for the Enlightenment was to stop those wars and allow freedom of religion. Do you see any benefit in that or is that an apostasy?
In the noble holy Quran, Allah said there is no pressure to force someone into Islam. (Niazi starts to speak in English and his son interrupts him. I congratulate him on his English and tell him he’s doing fine). It is totally wrong that people in the West believe that Muslims only want Islam on Earth. That is a totally wrong idea.
Islam has two kinds of citizenship. One is for Muslims who live in an Islamic state, and the other is non-Muslims who live in Islamic states and those who live outside Islamic countries. The policy of Islam and its citizens is equal about their rights and laws, for Muslims and non-Muslims. An example of this equality is if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he will be punished according to the laws of Islam, and he must be killed. Muslims and non-Muslims must be treated with respect.
There are radical Islamist groups in the world now, the Taliban, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda that seem to justify violence against non-believers or Muslims who don’t measure up to their standards. Why does this kind of radical, more violent understanding of Islam seem to be spreading?
You started our conversation by asking me about Islam. Islam totally differs from what these Muslims are doing today. Those Taliban, radical groups, they have their personal ideas. You should ask them why are they doing such things. Is what they are doing in the holy Quran, did Allah say so, to kill people, to murder non-Muslims? You should ask them. It’s all a reaction against global policies. For example, I ask you, do Palestinians have the right to live in their territories?
I answer, “yes” and say, there is a similar issue with Jewish fundamentalism. Some Jews believe that God gave this land to them. So they owe Palestinians nothing. This seems a big problem in the world, where people are saying, “I have the truth and you don’t, so I have a divine right to oppress you.”
The world accepts that Palestinians should live with the Jews, they should make a Palestinian state. Germany agrees with them, France, England, Russia, but the United States doesn’t accept them. The U.S. accepts and supports Zionist policy. Why are they doing so? If they are doing so, Muslims must react.
When the U.S. attacked Iraq, what was the reason that they destroyed the Iraqi government? And now, they are seeing the reaction — ISIS — to what they did. There is no problem in the world between people and religions. The problem is the wrong ideas and the wrong policies against Muslims, against humanity.
What change would you like to see in U.S. foreign policy, the way the U.S. approaches the world?
The Afghan nation is thankful for the help and support the United States gave in its struggle against the Soviet Union. But after the battle was finished, the U.S. policy toward Afghanistan changed. For example, Osama bin Laden was traveling to Pakistan and Islamic groups were active. America was supporting them. But after the U.S. achieved its goals, why did U.S. policy change and become against Muslims around the world?
You said two things, One, you said the U.S. should have continued to help Afghanistan. Two, I’m curious as to why you believe the U.S. was against Muslims. Is that because of the Iraq war? I don’t think American policy changed toward Muslims. The Persian Gulf is a major source of oil, and when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, many Muslim countries opposed Iraq. The second Iraq war is widely viewed as a mistake.
That was all about the battlefield, the field of war. But in the political field, with American policy in Algeria, there was a democratically elected government. Islamists were elected to run the government. Why were America and European countries opposed? The same in Egypt, when Mubarak fell, there was a peaceful and democratic election, why did the U.S. support Sisi. Israel helped the government and the Muslims were ruined there. Why did America do that?
Well, you are talking about Algeria and Egypt. In Egypt, I agree that it is problematic to promote democracy and then bring down the democratically elected government. But while the U.S. provides military aid, it did not invade Egypt. The Egyptian people felt there was chaos and Morsi was bringing the country to a bad position. They protested in the streets and wanted him out and there was an undemocratic solution, and, yes, the U.S. did not prevent it, but this was Egyptians coming to a political resolution in their country.
The muezzin begins the call to prayer. Niazi apologizes that he must go and asks me if I need more time. I tell him I have a few more questions.
After leading late afternoon prayers, the imam comes back in the meeting room. I cut to the chase, “Two final questions.”
He interrupts. He has more to say about American politics.
In President Obama’s first presidential speech in Cairo, he pointed out some important things and he said that U.S. policy was wrong toward Islamic countries and promised changes. I still remember that speech. I had so much hope when I heard that President Obama won the election and he got to the White House, but unfortunately, he failed. He didn’t fulfill his promises. I wish and I hope that the U.S. will stop solving problems from a military basis. This is not the solution. I wish that America comes to discuss with us in a diplomatic way, that it invites these radical groups to sit together to solve it in a political way, not by assassinating or creating bloodshed. Islamic countries are not only countries, they are a union of all Muslims, and the world and America must change its policy toward Islamic countries because what they are doing is totally wrong. Why did Obama not fulfill his promises?
First, I am not an apologist for Obama nor for the American government. Obama withdrew troops from Iraq, as promised. He has now withdrawn almost all troops from Afghanistan. He chose not to invade Syria. He helped rebels in Libya but did not occupy or invade the country. He resisted political pressure to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. So there has been some reconsideration of attitudes toward Muslim countries.
We must have a new look and resolution to today’s problems. That was President Bush’s fault, that he made a grave mistake in Iraq. We and Obama must have a new look and we have to have a new approach for these problems. It is not all about fighting battles.
A few final questions. Once al-Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban removed from power, should the U.S. have left Afghanistan? Were there positive effects from 13 years of the U.S. presence here? And should the U.S. now leave Afghanistan completely?
As far as al-Qaeda, America will never be able to defeat al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is an international reaction to policies, and the only way to defeat or destroy al Qaeda is not the way of bullets. It depends on the Afghan people. Now, I ask you, America came here with the aim of destroying terrorism and the Taliban, and in one day they bombed and pushed out the Taliban. They came for security. Can you say that America was successful in its aim?
No.
Then what is the benefit of America to stay here when the U.S. cannot defeat terrorism? (He laughs, warmly.) So why stay? That will not solve problems. That will create more problems.
One final question, as you are a revered Islamic scholar in Afghanistan, what message do you want to give to the American people?
My message is, it’s not about Americans or Spanish or Afghans, we are a universal family, we are one, so as a brother, my message to the American people is to do not be the victim of wrong policies of the U.S. government, and the people of America should not be the victim of the wrong policies of Israel. For Israeli and Zionists, wrong ideas and policies, American youth mustn’t be killed in war in Afghanistan. All these things go back to Israel and Israeli policies. Not Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria.
We take a picture together, which he asks me not to publish, and we walk together to the door. He embraces me and says, “You must become a Muslim, and move to Afghanistan.” I answer, “Then you have to find me a nice Afghan girl to marry.” He laughs and takes his leave. His son, who translated our discussion, invites me to stay and hang out at the mosque for the evening, but I have another interview at the City Center mall. He tells me that I am welcome back, any time.
One of the first public pieces by the new Quincy Institute was just published in the New Republic and it is worth a read. Adam Wunische is a research fellow with the Institute and a PhD candidate at Boston College. He served two deployments to Afghanistan while serving in the U.S. Army. “The Real Costs of the War in Afghanistan” documents an issue which was a key focus of my book “WAR: The Afterparty.”
A baseline annual cost for the United States to continue its war in Afghanistan is approximately ten to 15 U.S. service member fatalities each year. (With 17 fatalities thus far in 2019, this year has been the deadliest year for the U.S. since 2014.) Additionally, the war costs approximately $50 billion per year; the U.S. Department of Defense estimates $45 billion, while others place it at $52 billion.
In the context of other DoD operations and activities—as the ambassadors’ argument places them—these numbers appear low. More U.S. service members did, indeed, die in training accidents than in combat operations. The DoD budget for 2019 approaches $700 billion, and $50 billion might not seem like so much as a share of that. But this annual budget is separate from the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which has been described as a war-making slush fund and has added $1.8 trillion to military spending since 2001. And clearly neither kitty tells us much about the war’s hidden costs.
This young Afghan girl approached me on the street each day to sell me old Dari language children’s magazines. It was only on my final day in Kabul that she told me her name.
I spent a month in Kabul in December 2014, the month the U.S. withdrew all but a few thousand of its troops. Among the numerous interviews in the Afghanistan chapter is this one with a 25-year Middle East/ Afghanistan contractor which explores the question, how long does the U.S. stay to fulfill its moral and military obligations to Afghanistan?
From “WAR: The Afterparty” Chapter Six: “Without Peace, There is Nothing.”
Staying with Farshid begat my meeting with Mr. E, a long-time American contractor who prefers to be anonymous, which begat my meeting with Will Everett.
Will, a former NPR (U.S. national public radio) reporter, arrives at the Kabul Serena Hotel lobby, where he identifies me, a westerner pecking away on a MacBook Air. The other people in the lobby are either behind the reception counter or carrying automatic weapons. Will works for Roots for Peace, an NGO that clears land mines and provides farming resources such as seedlings, fertilizer, tools, and training to increase crop yields. “Mines to Vines.”
I’ve been here once before, during an ill-advised late night walk that ended up in a cul-de-sac surrounded by snarling dogs and barbed wire fences. As the sun was setting with the call to prayer beckoning from the Wazir Abdul Khan mosque, I walked past the Lycée Esteqlal and ducked into the Serena. I stayed for dinner even though the hotel was a Taliban target earlier in the year. My elderly waiter casually mentioned that he served two of the fellows involved. They were young and well-mannered. After excusing themselves for the rest room, they returned spraying automatic gunfire through the restaurant. The waiter, unharmed, was back at work the next day.
Ghafar Haidary, a former mujaheddin who fought the Soviets with sticks after their invasion of Herat, shows me the proper way to wear a traditional Afghan pakol after one of our encounters.
Mr. E arrives and the three of us dine at the Asian fusion restaurant Wild Rice, sharing a savory spread of Nasi Goreng, Teriyaki Chicken and Sweet and Sour Fish. Will suggests a possible trip to Mazar-i-Sharif. I mention my interest in the Panjshir Valley. He promises to keep me posted on his plans. And he mentions his neighborhood swimming pool, which sounds splendid. I need a place to work out. Near the City Center mall, there is a huge banner promoting a gym on the second floor. When I climbed the stairs to check it out, there was only rubble, and a fellow with a gun telling me to get lost.
Mr. E’s bottom-line assessment after 12 years in country about whether the trillion dollars spent and blood spilt was worth the effort is discouraging.
It absolutely wasn’t worth the effort. I hate to agree with Donald Rumsfeld, but coming in with a small footprint and leaving as quickly as possible would have been preferable. It would have left the Afghans to their own devices and let them figure out how to take care of themselves. The same situation that they have to face eventually anyway.
In the meantime, a corrupt apparatus was developed which happens all the time after our entries into these countries and it just severely dislocated many, many things in the country. Rather than being liberators we became occupiers.
What was the U.S. mission originally?
Revenge. So close to 9-11. And then we didn’t want to leave Afghanistan to its own devices, because that was too dangerous, as it might slip back to the same condition it was in before. So then we got into nation building, digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper, and one thing led to another. It’s now time to get out.
To elicit further Mr. E. insights, I related how I was in Mohammed’s carpet shop the other day and there was an older gentleman present, well-dressed, excellent English, a successful merchant from a nearby province. His son is a college student in Texas, working on Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. He said two things to me. One, our problem was we put black people in the White House. Two, he said, “You American people, if you start something, you have to finish it.”
Still tweaked from his first comment, I pointed out that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan 13 years, three times longer than World War Two. My question to him was how much longer should the U.S. stay? His response was, at least another 10 years.
I countered by asking, “Where is it written that United States taxpayers need to underwrite 25 years of Afghans trying to figure out their future, assuming we are providing security you want and development that is meaningful?” Mr. E responds,
I think the media construct was an assumption that we shouldn’t have departed the first time. And that led to these unfortunate consequences and eventually to 9/11 and now we are here to do things in a proper way. And that was just a sort of common denominator media understanding of Afghanistan.
We don’t think in terms of how long that might take. We get involved, get excited as the military parade passes by with all the boys in their finery and nice uniforms. In the same way as with the aid juggernaut coming into town. Change is happening, hospitals, girls educated and aren’t we exceptional because we are helping these people?
A lot of good has been done in Afghanistan, but it’s a hole without a bottom. You could have put in five trillion dollars and you would still have desperately poor people.
But is that really central to the U.S. as it’s falling apart? Probably not.
Also, we traumatized a good portion of our youth in uniform. We train them to be killers and they see horrible things and they go back and they are members of our society.
We have remote control warfare and we develop a national case of bad karma. We are not aware of what we are doing to other people and what we are doing to ourselves. We celebrate soldiers as heroes when they are more than likely just a kid from a small town in Arkansas who didn’t have a job.
It’s part of the uncalculated consequences whenever we make these interventions. It’s multi-dimensional, the blowback that we generate. It’s happened before and before and before and we still act surprised.
In Chalmers Johnson’s book on blowback, he says, blowback is not just what comes back to you, it is when your country is doing things you are not aware of, so that when it does come back to you, you’re mystified by it.[i]
That’s a good explanation. It’s awfully complex. The military mission was ill-conceived in the expansion of NATO outside of Kabul. It transformed us into occupiers, inevitably. So that the people resisting it became mujahedin, holy warriors. That didn’t happen until we expanded outside of Kabul. Many people warned about that, and it was still done. As a bit of insurgency ramped up outside, the idea was, we clamped down on difficulties in Kabul pretty well with NATO, why don’t we do it all over the country? And there was a lot of dissension saying this is going to have consequences. And then we had to justify that, or disguise the military presence, the nature of occupation, with economic assistance. So that ramped up the economic assistance.
[i]Johnson, C. (2004). Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (American Empire Project). New York: Holt Paperbacks.
And do check out the Quincy Institute. A new, rather extraordinary partnership of progressive billionaire George Soros and right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, led by one of America’s foremost foreign policy thinkers Andrew Bacevich. From their website:
The foreign policy of the United States has become detached from any defensible conception of U.S. interests and from a decent respect for the rights and dignity of humankind. Political leaders have increasingly deployed the military in a costly, counterproductive, and indiscriminate manner, normalizing war and treating armed dominance as an end in itself…
The Quincy Institute is an action-oriented think tank that will lay the foundation for a new foreign policy centered on diplomatic engagement and military restraint. The current moment presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring together like-minded progressives and conservatives and set U.S. foreign policy on a sensible and humane footing. Our country’s current circumstances demand it.
Trying on Kurdish and Arab scarves in chilly Erbil, Iraq with my guide and friend Samir Barznjy
I completed my research for “WAR: The Afterparty” with a trip to Iraq in January. While I found most of my lodging for my round the world journey through Expedia, Airbnb and Lonely Planet, I came across generous Couchsurfing hosts in Afghanistan and Vietnam. And that’s where I encountered Samir Barznjy, a 31-year old surgeon and businessman in Erbil, the Kurdish region of Iraq. He is visiting the U.S. this week and my old cable TV colleagues are hosting him for lodging and meals in Denver. Samir drove me through the region, from Halabja, site of the chemical bombardment n 1988, to the Citadel, the oldest continually occupied habitat in the world and to the ISIS front lines outside of Mosul. In honor of Samir’s visit to the States, and as Iraqi, Kurdish and U.S. forces mass to retake Mosul from ISIS, please enjoy the recounting of our visit to an Iraqi Army base from “WAR: The Afterparty.”
“There Is No State”
ISIS destroyed the bridge on our right so we went over the Peshmerga-built replacement to get to the army base.
The ride from Erbil to the Iraqi Army base where Fakhradin’s brother serves takes less than an hour. Samir closely controls what sounds float out of the car radio while Fakhradin provides ongoing narration from the rear as we pass each military checkpoint. He points to a small village visible from my right side window. The former residents were no longer interested in being in the middle of periodic skirmishes.
That town is ISIS, abandoned, empty. Twenty days ago, Daesh came through these homes and Peshmerga fought them with the air force, and they retreated.
As we approach the Tigris River’s Greater Zab tributary, separating Erbil’s suburbs from Mosul’s provincial towns, Fakhradin points out a bridge blown up by Daesh and the smaller one which we will cross, built by Peshmerga.
Samir is in a jovial mood. “We are now past the last Peshmerga checkpoint,” he smiles, adding, “We thought we would bring you as a small gift for ISIS.” Funny.
Barznjy, Fakhradin, Gruber, Captain Shamsadin
“This is group number five in Iraqi Army, but they are all Kurdish,” Samir translates as we pass through Army security. Captain Shamsadin, Fakhradin’s brother, greets us in the base parking lot, a collection of buildings spread over a few hundred meters. Fakhradin wears Peshmerga fatigues, the others standard Army issue.
Shamsadin was born in 1979, the year of Saddam Hussein’s ascent to power, and attended the military academy in Kurdistan. After graduation, he joined a Kurdish group in the Iraqi army, becoming Peshmerga when Kurdistan fought for its autonomy from the Iraqi government in 1991. He fought with Peshmerga and U.S. forces in Mosul and Baghdad for the “liberation in 2003.” When the post-Saddam Iraqi Army was formed, he officially rejoined its Kurdish unit.
I confess to Samir that the distinction is confusing. Samir explains,
Iraqi Army Kurds report to Kurdish leaders. And they have told the Iraqi army, you are not permitted to enter Kurdistan. If you do, bad things will happen.
Shamsadin adds, for effect, “We will turn our guns towards the Iraqi army.”
I ask the Captain what was going through his mind when the U.S. invaded Iraq.
In the beginning, most Iraqi people think it will be a good thing for the U.S. to destroy Saddam, the Army and the Ba’athist Party. It was positive for us Kurds, negative for the south and middle of Iraq. Religious men found that some American soldiers had bad attitudes toward the people of Iraq, they used bad language, they hit people, took them away.
Samir adds that there were many reports of sexual harassment by U.S. soldiers, in addition to widely publicized incidents of torture of prisoners by U.S. guards in Iraqi prisons.
Did Shamsadin have mixed feelings fighting with a foreign army against Iraqis?
No, we used to fight Saddam, a dictator who used to oppress my people, destroyed our villages and killed our people with chemical bombardments.
What about the decision to fire the Army and members of the Ba’ath party?
My personal view is that it was a bad thing. Even the military forces did not like Saddam Hussein. When U.S. troops came, they did not fight and handed themselves over to U.S. soldiers. They liked democracy. Why did they send these soldiers home?
We move to Shamsadin’s bedroom to talk further. A uniformed soldier serves tea in a paper cup; it’s very sweet and very hot. A pile of books is stacked by the bed; an automatic weapon leans against the wall. The room sports two portable heaters, one gas-fired, one electric, two metal lockers, a small white fridge and a TV. A rug covers part of the tiled floor. There are two clocks, one wall-mounted, another propped up on the fridge. I’m guessing the green can of Pringles is sour cream and onion. Shamsadin continues.
Mass graves outside the Halabja memorial for the 5,000 dead and 20,000 injured in the 1988 chemical bombardment.
Most soldiers did not fight America. When they lost connection with high-level officers, they left the military bases and went back home. Only two groups fought: at Baghdad International Airport, relatives of Saddam Hussein. And special forces at Saddam residences. Only these two groups.
To what degree are Islamic State officers, leaders and soldiers connected to that event?
The captain folds his arms. His temperament is serene, polite, even gentle. Everyone I meet on the base seems relaxed and confident.
The number one reason for the creation of a terror group was, in Iraq in 2003, high-level colonels were sent home, lost their jobs and money and lost their dignity, became taxi drivers, sold things on the road. Because of this, they joined the terror groups and many years after that they created Daesh. The number one reason for terrorist group is sending these solders home.
The Iraqi Army base auto repair shop. During the ISIS assault three weeks before, a fighter sprayed graffiti which Samir translates as, “Only for cars of the Islamic State.” Most ISIS attackers were later killed by a U.S. airstrike.
In Mosul, most of the wealthy were in the Army. After losing money, job, dignity, they sought an alternative to be back in a higher position. A lot of them went to the military academy, they were military engineers, so they were very experienced.
What was your experience in fighting ISIS in Mosul?
One week before ISIS came to Mosul, we had news that there is a group well-trained in Syria and they wanted to occupy Mosul province. They will come to break out 4,500 terrorists in prisons. They occupied two quarters, I was there fighting. If not for armored vehicles, we would have been killed. These groups, when they came, had new models of HILUX trucks. While Iraqi army had old-fashioned Hummers from the Americans. They’re called Egyptian Hummers. Not good because the weather is too hot for the vehicles. A lot were broken. We were obliged to use these old-fashioned Hummers because they were armored and terrorist groups used bombs. There were 1,500 Daesh fighters. The Iraqi army had much more than that, including army, civil police, anti-terror groups.
Later over shisha and tea, Samir relates the story that Kurdish President Barzani called Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, and told him we must do something to protect Mosul before Daesh attacks it. Barzani was Peshmerga since he was 13 years old, fighting in the mountains with his father (Mullah Mustafa Barzani, founder of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, in 1946). Maliki replied that you have nothing to do with Mosul. Take care of Kurdistan and leave Mosul for us. He called him again, three months later. Same answer.
Why could they not hold Mosul? Conspiracy theories I heard said Maliki ordered his leaders to abandon his troops. Shamsadin says he also wondered, was this Maliki’s order, how to find the exact cause?
When Daesh came to Mosul, they occupied only one or two quarters; then there was a meeting with high level officials in the Iraqi Army and they said at 4 a.m. they will go to attack Daesh and we will take them out. All of a sudden, at 2 a.m., the two most high-level leaders fled Mosul. After that, the low level leaders fled, then the others.
Lunch is served at the army canteen for me, Samir and Fakhradin.
This is usual for Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was captured, a lot of small groups were fighting. But when they relayed that he was captured, they left their guns and did nothing. In Mosul, the same thing. Two commanders, left, then the others; one of the groups of the Iraqi army stayed and fought, and were brave, but only one group.
“Those were the Kurdish troops,” Samir interjects.
Fakhradin asks his brother for something. The captain pulls a roller suitcase from under the bed. He pulls out what looks like an ammo clip and gives it to his brother. It turns out to be a mobile device charger which Fakhradin uses to recharge his brother’s phone.
It is also unbelievable and strange for us. We were ready to fight and all of a sudden they fled. We didn’t believe it when we first heard.
In this region there is one group of Iraqi army which is totally Kurdish. Usually, little collaboration, but when Daesh came to Mosul, only this group remained and they joined Peshmerga to fight. Because of this, they can keep the territories (the area between Erbil and Mosul we drove through).
Here on the front line, you see them first hand, you fought them. What is the solution for defeating the Islamic State?
Fakhradin raises the wooden slat blinders and puts aside the yellow daisy curtains, allowing sunlight to stream into the room. The lower left windowpane is cracked. A tree and a sand-colored building are visible, perhaps 50 meters away.
You, as an American, you know better than us, Sunni and Shia will never collaborate with each other. Maybe they talk on TV or in newspapers, but only talk, and nothing will happen in reality. Iraqi people have lost their dignity, this is the main reason Shia and Sunni will never unite. Even if you want to try to keep it united, any simple thing may make it explode, so it will be only temporary.
This civil war that happened in 2007 in the middle and south of Iraq, a lot of people died and were injured and left a lot of scars in their minds and they will never forget this. So they will never unite. A lot of collaboration between great countries against Daesh, but as we know there is only one in reality, Peshmerga, that on the ground in reality fights Daesh. A lot of countries that says we are allies but in reality they don’t fight. Maybe they are helping Daesh in other ways.
If you and Syrian Kurds get all you need, the Islamic State is finished?
With the support of air force, it will be like a piece of cake.
Shamsadin excuses himself to make a phone call. He says the area commander would like to meet me.
The four of us head to lunch in one of the barracks. Plate after plate is put in front of us, chicken, beans in a tomato-base sauce, vegetables, Kurdish flatbread, hot tea and soft drinks. As soon as I polish off one bowl, another is put in front of me. “I can’t . . .” is ignored.
A tour of the front lines
After lunch, Samir and the captain casually mention that it’s time for Friday afternoon prayers and we walk back to Shamsadin’s bedroom/ office/ meeting room. A green prayer mat is unrolled next to the bed, and, one at a time, they perform their prayers. I am curious how comfortable they seem with this Jewish American civilian stranger sitting and watching.
When prayers are completed, we load into a car for a short ride of a few hundred meters to the sandbag and gun-laden line of defense. The constant refrain of Kurds that their weapons are old, that they are under-equipped is plainly true. We tour the bunkers as accounts of a recent attack is related. Shamsadin pointed to places where Daesh fighters penetrated the perimeter, and where U.S. air strikes incinerated 85 of them. A building with a “Motopool” sign in English and Kurdish has Arabic graffiti sprayed across the front wall. Samir translates: “Only For Vehicles of the Islamic State.” Not anymore.
“With binoculars, we can see the Daesh flags there,” Samir translates guidance from a soldier. A small column of white smoke appears, perhaps two kilometers to our right. A second appears, closer, this time 10 o’clock to our left. Samir asks if I know what that is. I have no idea, maybe small fires, maybe even the results of an air strike. “ISIS,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Iraqi Army Major Luqman Chaw Sheen meets us outside of a larger building housing his office. Chaw Sheen translates as “Blue Eyes,” a nickname, not a family name. He is the Commander of the front line base. He is older and more war-weary than his younger charges.
He understands why many Sunnis have embraced Daesh.
If I am a Sunni who doesn’t want Daesh, what do I do? What is my alternative? Daesh is their only answer. The way to destroy or weaken Daesh is for Sunni people to fight them.
A lot of Sunni IDP (internally displaced persons) live in Kurdistan provinces and they fled Daesh. The problem is that when Iraq was ruled by Sunni, they were very bad toward the Shia and Kurds. Now all political rules are under Shia, they have in their mind to get revenge against Sunni. And they will continue to the end.
A lot of former Iraqi officers joined Daesh with a lot of jihadis from Pakistan, Afghanistan. They have been deceived by religion. Seventy percent of Iraqi officers were from Mosul. They are experts in making rockets and bombs. They say you cannot find this experience now in the Iraqi army.
Brian Gruber with surgeon, driver, fixer, friend Samir Barznjy.
Makhmour, briefly overrun by ISIS, is the staging ground for Iraqi Army, Kurdish Peshmerga and U.S. forces in advance of the retaking of Mosul. I spoke with a Peshmerga commander and the former mayor of Makhmour during my visit in January.
From “WAR: The Afterparty,” available now on Amazon here.
—-
Samir takes me back to Amazon, a popular Erbil cafe with rich desserts and wall-to-wall hookah smokers. I generally gag at indoor cigarette smoke, but join him for the occasional round of shisha (fruit-flavored tobacco covered with foil, roasted with charcoal in a glass-bottomed water pipe). A young guy comes around regularly with red-hot coals and tongs to stoke our meter-high hookah. Each smoker has a mouthpiece that comes on and off when the pipe hose is passed. Samir tells me the liquid in the hookah is milk, not water, for a smoother inhale.
We are joined after dinner by his cousin, Peshmerga Commander Kurdo Barznjy. He looks more film star than Daesh fighter, with a stylishly-cut gray sport coat, long sleeve black polo shirt, upmarket glasses and a closely-cut head of hair. He says he is 40 but looks younger. He is confident, warm and friendly and in excellent physical condition.
Refugee from Mosul, a sportswriter, selling produce in front of a camp in Erbil.
The United States spent tens of billions of dollars training and equipping the Iraqi army. That army vastly outnumbered Daesh fighters and had far superior gear. Then why did the Iraqi army collapse during the assault on Mosul, just west of Erbil?
No one in the Iraqi army has sympathy for their country. It’s not “my country.” If you compare with Peshmerga, it’s my country, we shed a lot of blood and have a lot of martyrs. They (Iraqi soldiers) joined to take the money, they had no jobs. And where there is a fight, they fade away. Iraq does not exist anymore. You have an army that is Sunni and Shia and no one has sympathy for the other regions, so why fight?
Samir adds, the Shia-dominated Army is fighting well in Shia territories. “Shia say, why should they fight for the Sunni territories?”
I point out that many countries have armies composed of mixed ethnic groups and he challenges me to name one in the Arab world.
Not in an Arab country, never. Never happen. The reality of the Arabs is they cannot accept each other.
So is the Iraqi army able to defeat Daesh in its borders? Kurdo laughs at me.
Sleep and have nice dreams if you think the Iraqi army will defeat Daesh. If America does not want to deceive itself, they need to separate Shia from Sunni, like you did in Berlin, if you want the Middle East to be safe. In the Arab community, democracy will never succeed. They don’t want to give power away in elections, they need someone like Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, Gaddafi.
Should Sunni provinces be conceded to Daesh? Kurdo believes that Sunnis will not accept Daesh in the long term.
You are deceiving yourself if you think Daesh will then rule the Sunni areas.
What will happen after Sunnis are in control of their land. Will they turn on Daesh?
The Sunni have been oppressed by Shia. When Daesh came, it’s like someone was about to throw you in the sea; you want to grab hold of anything to get out of the water. When they saw Daesh coming, they could be free from Shia militia and the Iraqi army. But most Arab Sunnis want to have a life and many things are not allowed under Daesh control. It’s like living in a jungle, in darkness. It is an unrealistic view to keep Iraq united. One hundred years ago, they made a country by force.
Samir asks if I would like to meet the man sitting at the next table. Barzan Said Kaka is the ex-mayor of Makhmour, a town Daesh occupied for several days in 2015 before being pushed out by Peshmerga. Barzan is dressed in business clothes and is frequently interrupted by his playful children, intrusions which clearly delight him. He slides over to our table, insisting he needs a translator, yet speaks English throughout our encounter.
I was there that night when they came to Makhmour. The Peshmerga was not ready to fight. A Daesh leader called Omar said in an interview that Christians and Jews can stay, but no Kurds. Ideologically, they cannot stay. Christians saw how they killed them so they really cannot stay. A Christian was asked, how many times did you pray, the Christian didn’t know, so they killed him.
Our national way is to live with each other and accept each other. Kurdish people have kept their language and culture. We have very open minds, we have more than 1,000 years living with Christians, Jews, a natural ability to accept democracy. The Arabs destroyed cultures in Egypt, North Africa. We have a great opportunity to build a new history for this area and our nation.
One hundred years ago, (the) Sykes-Picot (agreement) divided this area. Saudi wants to sell its ideas, we want to learn from other ideas. We want to benefit from new technology, not build an empire. Saudis donate money to build mosques, to impose their religion on children, teach them to fight. The West gave the Arab world everything when the Saudis and Yemenis just had donkeys, but now they think they are better than other people. I don’t belong to any religion. I just believe in God. If you don’t understand their “true Islam,” if you don’t agree, then they want you to convert, or pay money, or be killed.
Democracy has to wait for a big revolution inside of Islam, similar to the Christian reformation, when they removed power from the church and gave it back to the people. The idea of America is not your economy. Many people who come to America already have money. It’s freedom and democracy.
The NETLINKS staircase. Located in the Shar-e-naw district of Kabul, the building served as my home for nearly three weeks.
While en route to Kabul, Afghanistan for my ‘Afterparty’ journey, I was without lodging. To my rescue, via the quirky, unpredictable but sometimes wonderful Couchsurfing site, came an extraordinary offer. The CEO of one of Afghanistan’s leading IT companies, Farshid Ghyasi, offered me an ensuite room in the corporate villa in central Kabul. Three weeks of free lodging, free meals, introductions to interesting people and a bit of covert nightlife. I describe my experience there in the Afghanistan chapter of “WAR: The Afterparty.”
COO Javid (left) is suddenly upstaged by CEO Farshid after-hours in the NETLINKS Executive Office, Kabul, Afghanistan.
Farshid shared his office with COO Javid Hamdard, who is now leaving NETLINKS for new opportunities. Javid offered incisive analysis on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and a host of other issues in an interview I am excerpting below. But before you read the interview, you should watch the video below.
Farshid and Javid provided more than lodging. Most days, they invited me into their office for lunch or refreshments, or a night out. They became for me the face of modern Kabul: smart, aspirational, compassionate, generous and patriotic. And after a stressfull day, the karaoke player was switched on.
In one of my first nights there, quite possibly the first, Javid belt out the Celine Dion standard “My Heart Will Go On” with tremendous emotional conviction, though controversy ensued when Farshid tried to upstage him after grabbing the second mic. The video will either give you renewed hope for the worldy cultural openness of Afghanistan’s educated, professional class or you’ll conclude the country is doomed. You be the judge.
Here is the interview with Javid. All of the Afghan interviews will be available free for one week via PDF download at my Patreon funding site which can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/5758679?alert=1
“WAR: The Afterparty” by Brian Gruber
Chapter Six: Afghanistan
“Without Peace in the World, We Have Nothing”
Javid showing me his award.
I met Javid Hamdard, co-executive at NETLINKS, during my first night living in the company office/ villa; Farshid and Javid invited me to their shared office for refreshments and an impromptu karaoke performance. Farshid, out of a sense of competition or uncontainable emotion, kept jumping in on Javid’s unforgettable rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.
Hamdard won the Afghan national award for IT innovation during my stay. He donated the funds to charity, Islam’s call to zakat. It’s acknowledgement that everything one owns belongs to Allah and one works toward the betterment of the Muslim ummah. According to Islamic regulations, zakat is 2.5 percent of one year’s total cumulative wealth which is distributed to the poor. I ask Javid his sense of the U.S./ coalition mission in Afghanistan and what he thought was accomplished.
Well, obviously it did not start as a humanitarian mission, as it started in reaction to the al-Qaeda attacks in New York, as a reactive combat mission. I personally think (the attacks) might not have happened if the U.S. did not abandon us like an orphan child after us winning the so-called ‘cold,’ but bloody hot for us, war for them. Of course later, the U.S. military presence was extended under the Bonn Conference under the ISAF’s assistance mission. So, all in all, a combat mission brought more war to Afghanistan.
Farshid was an extraordinary host, providing lodging, hospitality, meals, introductions and his unique insights into Afghan politics and culture.
It did end the barbaric reign of Taliban, and has brought some infrastructure development, economic stability and improvement and a government framework. There has been phenomenal development in the media and freedom of expression domain. Afghanistan has a better infrastructure in most areas, namely roads and aviation, telecoms, banking. The condition of higher education has visibly improved. And unlike 15 years ago, we have thousands of well-qualified Afghan youngsters with internationally accredited qualifications. There have been major improvements in the health sector, especially mother and child health, and the child mortality rate, which all became possible with the support of post 9/11 international support, led by the U.S.
But, of course, there are many problems attached to this as with every combat mission. The most significant and tragic are: the continuing loss of life, including precious American lives, but mainly innocent Afghans till this day. The re-empowerment of some sidelined warlords and war criminals to a level that will be almost impossible to fix. The misuse and mismanagement of billions of valuable American taxpayer dollars on very superficial and unsustainable projects and programs that empowered corrupt and dangerous elements in the country. The alienation of a large majority of rural Afghans because of bad governance and the unfair distribution and outreach of international aid.
His hope for the future of his country?
I shared many meals and conversations with NETLINKS staff at this table near my bedroom. For midnight Skype calls to family and friends, I sometimes sat here in 20 degree F weather to be closer to the wfii router (seen on the left).
I am still very optimistic for the future of Afghanistan. The source of my optimism is neither the American military and/or financial support nor our existing, mostly corrupt politicians and officials who are so honest and loyal to the country that most of their families are right now living comfortable and luxurious lives outside the country at the cost of millions of aid and assistance tax dollars of international donors meant for the common Afghan Joe/ Ahmad.
But my source of optimism is mainly the ever-growing and increasing understanding and knowledge of the world and its ways among common Afghans, especially young Afghans who are way smarter than we were 14 or 30 years ago.
The NETLINKS office had three posters as I recall: Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Ghandi.
More than nine million of us are going to schools, many of us have seen the world and have been to the most prestigious educational institutions, have visited the most developed countries of the world.
My sole source of optimism for a proper, peaceful, smart and equal Afghanistan is the more than 75 percent of under-30 years-of-age Afghans who will rise and grow as 21st century human beings, who will demand equal rights and treatment as such.
I was delighted to see one of my favorite interview subjects from Iraq, Professor Faris Nadhmi, post favorable comments about “WAR: The Afterparty” on his Facebook page. I’ve since been contacted and ‘friended’ by a number of his colleagues, sharing thoughts about the book. I have attached the interview with Farsi as a PDF on the Patreon crowdfunding site. You can download it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/5728981?alert=1
Facebook’s translation feature is imperfect, and perhaps someone can provide a more complete rendition, but here are his comments:
“A new book about the sins of the administration of America across the continents, including in Iraq..!
(an interview with the author within the chapter on Iraq)
• Issued before the days of a book in the English language, Who can translate is entitled to: (a world tour in half a century of military interventions in the American).
• The book is an important document on the overall survey of political and social developments that have occurred in a number of countries, including Iraq, in the aftermath of war or the interventions of America.
• The Author is an American journalist left Brian Gruber, who conducted a global tour included a number of countries that have suffered from the military interventions of America, where many survey conducted interviews with political figures and civil intellectual in those countries who lived experiences of war in their countries. Countries:Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan, India, and China, and Iraq.
• I was among Iraqis who made their perceptions in this book about the role of the post-9 April 2003, and what role played by the occupation in being the authority of the current political Islam
This interview is published within the pages (355-363) from the book.
• The book is available in paper within the site Amazon.com to those wishing to acquire it. It can also be downloaded from the site itself after the inauguration programme of Kindle download and buy the book for a visa card.
————
Patreon is a crowdfunded sight for artists seeking alternative ways to fund creative projects. By becoming a ‘patron,’ you assist in extending the Afterparty project, with the creation of new content and promotion throughout the year. I intend to drive across the United States (and back) during the general election campign to promote the learnings of the project. Your support of a buck or two (or more) for (at most) weekly paid posts helps make that happen. Visit https://www.patreon.com/briangruber for more information or to make a pledge.
————
WAR: The Afterparty is a round-the-world tour through countries that have received American military forces in the pursuit of freedom, democracy, justice, and the free flow of commerce. In Southeast Asia, the Greater Middle East, the Balkans and Central America, author Brian Gruber records oral histories from political and religious leaders, writers, teachers, mothers and combatants who witnessed history from the other end of the gun barrel.
Do we accomplish in war what we say we will? After the party is over, what are war’s real effects?
This is the story of the Afterparty, in the words of those uniquely able to make an assessment.
Are you interested in politics and foreign affairs? Would you love to embark on a great adventure, but don’t have the time to spend or the gumption to stroll into who-knows-what? Then join Brian on his amazing escapade. Read this book and you can be right there with him as he makes his way around the world and through modern history, interviewing those in the know about the effects of some of the decisions our leaders have made, hopefully with the effect of pushing us to do better in our present circumstances. Brian provides helpful information along the way, but generally lets you come to your own conclusions — high-level analysis is for the most part reserved for the Afterword. There are no easy answers to questions of how and when the US should inject itself into difficult situations in far-flung places. But understanding what’s gone wrong in the past is a good place to start.
This book puts our foreign policy mis-adventures in a completely new light. Amazing chutzpah from a journeyman journalist who managed to get himself around the world and back — including two active war zones. From taking one of the most powerful Imams in Afghanastan over his appalling incitement of violence that lead to a woman’s death by stoning, to a face-off with a leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, Gruber teases out what happens after the cameras, troops and attention move on — or don’t. This is a must-read for anyone who wonders about our foreign policy How did we get here? Gruber has a few answers.
Brian’s book is in the great tradition of true detectives on the beat investigating a case and chasing down the witnesses. Working the leads. Sometimes the beat is as interesting as the clues. The streets. Brian has lots to say about that as well as a brilliant analysis of his case– that is, what war and clandestine operations have done to the global population. This journey is filled with interviews with major figures in those wars and Brian stares into the heart of darkness with the eyes of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and a clear minded Hunter S. Thompson.
War: The Afterparty is silently passionate and immensely satisfying to read. A brilliant and thoughtful new-work— Gruber glides from one country to the next, each more fascinating than the one before. He travels to several countries and interviews the most ordinary citizens about the conflicts and the wars we left behind – nuanced, yet simple to understand.
War: The Afterparty is about the true human meaning and consequences of our wars. This is not another war or political book, but of the few truly great and enduring.
The proper question Gruber ask for the readers to contemplate is “… do we accomplish in war what we say we will and were the benefits of our interventions worth the costs? After the party is over, what are the war’s real effects”?
Brian Gruber is an author, writing coach, and marketing consultant living on the Thai island of Koh Phangan. He has spent 40 years studying, leading, and founding new media companies and projects.
