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My first question to the man at the cafè was this: “If you could vote freely and fairly, would you choose that over an armed resistance?”

He replied, “Freely and fairly to me is to vote without U.S. intervention. I would love to vote, because in theory this means that my voice is heard, but we Iraqis know what happened last time the U.S. was involved in our political process - America gave us Saddam. And after 30 years of hell with Saddam, we can no longer trust the U.S. policy.”

Keep in mind that the man I was talking to was a Sunni and he is complaining about Saddam. In the U.S. media, both liberal and conservative, the impression was that Saddam loved the Sunnis and he hated the Shiites and Kurds. This was later clarified after I visited Saddam’s home city of Tikrit and saw some of Saddam’s relatives (from the tribe of Albu-Nasir) walking barefoot.

Saddam loved no one but himself, it seemed obvious to me. He was selfish and terrible with everyone. As I talked with this man at the café about the voting process, he surprised me by telling me “Malcolm X once said in a speech, ‘It is either the ballot or the bullet,’ and we Iraqis believe that is correct. Until we get the ballot fairly the way we define fairly, I vote with this [picked up his assault rifle and pointed to it].”

Contrary to media portrayal, what becomes obvious when you go to Iraq is that the resistance fighters are
not just Bedouins with nothing better to do, they are educated individuals who often bear high degrees and diplomas.

Coming from America, I came to Iraq with the image implanted by the U.S. media that these resistance fighters are largely remnants of Saddam’s regime, or al-Qaeda fighters. I quickly learned the contrary.

Saddam’s loyalist fighters were “in it” with Saddam for the money, as they were corrupt even before Saddam was in power. They fled to neighboring countries or locked their doors shut, never to show their faces again. Al-Qaeda did indeed exist but didn’t amount to even 10 percent of the resistance effort.

The vast majority of existing fighters were Iraqis who classified themselves as simply patriotic, and they don’t target fellow Iraqis, only U.S. troops. As one of them said to me, “I could not stand the sight of watching our Iraqi oil fields pumped dry by foreign companies while our people [the Iraqis] are trying to survive.”

The most important issue regarding armed resistance could be summed up by a bumper sticker I once saw here in the Twin Cities: “It is not wise to create enemies faster then you can kill them.” I completely agree. I learned that this was occurring in Iraq. U.S. policy did not not give enough attention to winning hearts and minds as much as to being cowboys from the wild west. This ties into the next segment of the article which explains why I believe our U.S. government lacked strategy. We didn’t have a plan going into Iraq.

Plan to not plan

I met a relative on my dad’s side of the family in Iraq who was taken in by U.S. troops at 2 a.m. as his house was stormed.

He was taken to a military base in the outskirts of Samarra called “The Siloh.” He was accused of being a member of Saddam’s loyalists, even though he had never been political in any way. He was arrested in December of 2003.

He recounted the event to me: “They first dragged me out of the house in a fashion to humiliate me in front of my wife and children, then when we arrived at the base they made us strip to our underwear and they left us to graze like animals outside in the cold surrounded by guards and barbed wire. They would occasionally spray us with cold water for fun.

“I will never forget looking at the U.S. flag raised at the base and I never hated the colors red, white and blue so much.

“Is this what democracy is? If it is, I don’t want it. I never hurt anyone; what have I done to deserve this? I never liked or supported Saddam. At most, I kept my mouth shut about his injustices. But I do recall one soldier who was nice enough to give us some cardboard to burn and warm up when it was his shift of duty to watch us. He was the most decent of all the troops we saw. The others were young animals.”

From interviewing more and more people, I learned that the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad was not the only U.S. facility where Human rights were violated and injustices occurred. There is also a U.S. base in Mosul called “The Disco” because they turn on disco music to keep prisoners awake for interrogation purposes.

The recurring theme that I heard on a daily basis was that the number of people picking up arms against the U.S. forces was increasing every day. I was not surprised.

I blended in pretty well with Iraqis. I approached U.S. troops on a number of times and their attitude was very degrading.

They never knew I understood English because I could so easily pass for a native Iraqi. I want to be positive so I choose not to talk about the things they said or did to people in public.

There were a number of scenes that occurred where I felt compelled to take out my camera and take pictures, but I quickly learned from the atmosphere that to do so would be suicide. I would have been shot at by U.S. and other troops. I learned that the level of accountability in our military is often “shady.”

The protocol of abuse exists on a systematic level as it is enforced all over in different U.S. military bases across Iraq. Some may contend this truth in an effort to preserve the positive image of America. Let me remind the reader that while I love America with all my heart, for me, being American also includes standing up and speaking the truth.

Muath Asamarai, 21, is a junior at Hamline University where he majors in pre-dentristry and biology and is applying to the University of Minnesota’s dentistry program. He traveled to Iraq with his immediate family to visit relatives, some of whom live in Baghdad.