Nearly every day, the sheik stops by the villa that was once his home, but is now an American garrison. Sometimes he comes with tips about the insurgency, or with news of political developments in this rural village near the Euphrates River.
But mostly he comes to ask for his house back.
“To take my home in this way is not right,” the sheik, Hamed Moussa Khalaf al-Duleimi, said one afternoon in April, putting a wrinkled, bronzed hand on the knee of the 31-year-old American commander, Capt. Chris Calihan.
Sheik Duleimi, 74, has not lived here since January, when marines on a counterinsurgency mission burst in late one night, announced that they were turning his house into a military base and evicted him. He sent his family to a rented apartment in Falluja while he moved into a son’s home just across the road.
Most Iraqis, particularly here in the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, regard the Americans as occupiers who came uninvited to Iraq and who, in their rush to remove Saddam Hussein, may have damaged the country beyond repair.
But the prevailing view is also a deeply conflicted one, because most people here now want the Americans to stay, at least until some semblance of stability is restored.
“It’s not just my house,” Sheik Duleimi continued. “They have taken Iraq. They have taken everything.”
I host a daily public affairs radio show in San Francisco called Your Call. It airs from 11 am - noon PST on KALW 91.7 FM. I am also happy to report that I recently got a book deal with PoliPoint Press to write about my road trip through the heartland and the interviews I did with people about why they vote the way they do (or not). It's scheduled to be out in September.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
"They have taken Iraq. They have taken everything."
Five years later, still winning hearts and minds:
"Five years later, still winning hearts and minds"
ReplyDeleteLooks like you're right. Did you catch this little bit from the Times article?.......
"But the prevailing view is also a deeply conflicted one, because most people here now want the Americans to stay, at least until some semblance of stability is restored."