[lit-ideas] Private Security people in an American Compound in 2004
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:08:04 -0700
I ran across a snippet about security forces at one time and one place in
Iraq. This is from the book, The Foreigner's Gift, The Americans, The
Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq, by Fouad Ajami. Ajami is a Shia born in
Lebanon. Wikipedia says, "Ajami arrived in the United States in the fall of
1963, just before he turned 18. He did some of his undergraduate work at
Eastern Oregon College (now Eastern Oregon University
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Oregon_University> ) in La Grande,
Oregon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande%2C_Oregon> . He did his
graduate work at the University of Washington
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington> , where he wrote his
dissertation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissertation> on international
relations <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_relations> and world
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_government> government." "In 1973
Ajami joined the political <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science>
science department of Princeton University
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University> , making a name for
himself there as a vocal supporter of Palestinian
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian> self-determination. He is today
the Majid <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majid_Khadduri> Khadduri professor
in Middle East Studies and Director of the Middle East
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East> Studies Program at the Paul H.
Nitze
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_H._Nitze_School_of_Advanced_International
_Studies> School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIS> ) of Johns Hopkins Universit
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins_University>
This is from one of Ajami's visits to Iraq in 2004. I gather this was from
a time General Petraeus was letting him hang around to watch what he was
doing. While he was doing this, Ajami stayed in "the American compound,"
which he then goes on to describe:
". . . On days when I could spare the time, I would take in the wide range
of people pulled into this American enterprise. There was a huge cafeteria,
in the ballroom of this sprawling palace, which fed more than two thousand
soldiers and civilians a day. The people in this bubble within the Green
Zone took their meals here. There were soldiers of fortune (this was my
label for them), security people - Lebanese, South Africans - who had come
here for the money, providing security details for those venturing beyond
the confines of the compound. The Lebanese were no doubt alumni of the wars
of Lebanon: they were young men who had done a fair amount of bodybuilding,
and they kept their own company. There was a South African, beefy and
heavily bearded, with a T-shirt a size or two too small for him, and the
muzzle of a gun artfully showing through the top of his backpack. . . ."
[this is from page 23 of Ajami's book]
Lawrence Helm
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