I just saw a movie, Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories. This is an independent movie shot and directed by Mike Shiley, who was able to get over to Iraq for two months, December 2003-January 2004.
Shiley doesn’t claim to be a journalist. He made travel videos before he decided to make this jump into Iraq. He had the motivation, a camera, frequent flyer miles and fake press passes he made himself.
I got to say… I don’t know what to say, exactly. Shiley has been traveling around the country with his movie. He introduces it and remains for Q&A afterwards. The film is provocative, as he intended it to be. His view is fairly balanced, too. But this diary is about the nutshell.
First off, I want to say the best thing the film offers is footage and interactions in Iraq I have seen nowhere else. He is among the population of the country and presents a feel of the pulse of everyday people, as well as the communication process between soldiers and Iraqis.
I don’t want to walk through the whole film. Its a must see for no other reason than the groundlevel viewpoint it provides.
What struck me about the movie was the juxtaposition of two things.
The first was this scene at the dump by an airbase. The army guard in charge there showed him the tremendous amount of usuable material others in the army were throwing away. From food, to surface to aircraft transmitters, to lumber, to steel, all being thrown into the dump. All stuff that could be used.
While this soldier was salvaging some of this stuff, he and others were also in charge of keeping groups of children from braving the razor-wire and getting in and out with some of the trashed goods. He admitted their orders were to shoot them if they got in, or even if they got too violent on the outside… throwing rocks, injuring soldiers. The soldier did not look like he enjoyed the position. He did not appear disgruntled either. He was acting like a soldier.
This soldier was passed up for promotion and given an early release. Shiley says this had to do with the soldier’s statements about the waste at the dump. Shiley had written articles on a blog about this and the news had gotten out. That’s the first thing. Throwing out useful material. Soldier gets released earlier opposed to being promoted.
The second thing that really threw me off guard was Shiley’s desire in the movie to operate the front gun in a Bradley tank. Shiley and I have served the same amount of time in the military. Zero days.
Now, I could go off a bit on Shiley’s desire to operate a tank gun. Not just operate it, but operate it during a mission. But that’s not what this diary is about. But while I am on the subject, he did decide to put himself in a position, not just to get shot at (which he is already in, because he’s in Iraq), but to shoot back, and by that I mean to potentially kill another human. When asked in the Q&A afterwards if had taken this into consideration, he responded it was a spur of the moment decision, his opportunity was a “now or never” and he jumped at it.
I would argue he had time to think about it. This is because the army had to certify him for the weapon. He was taken to a gunning range and got used to the machine gun. There was no intensive training from what I could tell. But at least he had time to think about it. Perhaps not when the actual chance arose to go on the mission, but up to that point he had time to think about if he would go had he had a chance to go. He did go.
He went on a night mission. The purpose of the mission was to harass and draw out of hiding insurgents in the city. What they would do is take the tanks and go to a point in town and fire all their weapons into a dry river bed at the end of some block. Just shooting the fuck out of the other end of night.
Shiley was the gunner in one of the tanks. I forget if he said for sure, but I don’t think he actually fired his weapon during this. His commentary during this period suggested he was rather unsure if what the army was doing was kosher. A couple houses caught on fire from the arm’s discharge. It was in the middle of the night. The army didn’t do anything to put the fires out, at least he didn’t say they did if they did.
What is for sure is that Shiley was the gunner in that tank that night. The real gunner stayed at the barricks. Had there been a real firefight, had Shiley been in a position to fire his weapon, he would have had to.
Now, just what the frickity-frack is going on here? Shiley’s personal decisions aside, since when in the hell can an American with fake press passes traveling around in Iraq get the permission to be in an offensive combat position? Is this normal? He has no training. Yet these other soldiers have put him in a position in which they may need to rely on him.
What’s his legal status? Does he have a legal status? Had he killed anyone, would that have been legal? Do you not have to be a soldier to legally kill another in an offensive operation? The purpose of that night mission was to draw insurgents out. They were going out looking for a fight. A night or two later, a tank in that group got hit with a rocket. He was in a potentially live situation.
Shiley also got a medal for that. I don’t think it was a real medal, maybe it was, but he said he was given one for that night. Probably just a gesture, but it brings me back to the juxtaposition raised during the Q&A, the juxtaposition that keeps me repeating in my head, “whatthefuckwhatthefuck” how is it the soldier, with all the intentions of a man gifted with nothing more than common sense, was passed on for promotion, and in fact released early during a time when the Army is hurting for trained, experienced soldiers, and because he showed wasteful practices by the army, while Shiley, who, if he were any smarter wouldn’t have gone there in the first place, received a medal for his questionable participation in a offensive action.
Responding to this when raised, Shiley essentially said: That’s the situation in Iraq in a nutshell.
