Tag Archives: Iraq

 
Reviews

Collateral Damage: A Review of Helen Benedict’s Wolf Season

Helen Benedict’s novel Wolf Season describes how old wounds from the Iraq War linger on in the lives of three women.

Priya Malhotra

In her latest novel Wolf Season, Helen Benedict tells the stories of three women in a small town in upstate New York coping with the trauma of war—not just the direct experience of violence and death, but also the collateral damage it inflicts on loved ones. Rin is a rape-scarred Iraq War veteran who has returned to her hometown of Huntsville. Naema is an Iraqi refugee who lost her husband during the conflict and now works in the town as a doctor. Beth is a military wife dealing with an abusive husband and a troubled child.

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The Global Peace Index


The Global Peace Index, which ranks 120 nations according to their relative peacefulness, has just released the 2007 rankings. The index is put out by Vision of Humanity, a website that was just launched in support of the index.

Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, many of the lowest-ranking countries are from MENA (Middle East and North Africa). Iraq, of course, falls into last place (121), while Israel, Lebanon, Algeria, and Iran are all pretty low (although Iran practically tied with the United States — they are ranked in the 96th and 97th places).

Morocco (48), on the other hand, was in the top 50, along with MENA friends Kuwait (46), UAE (38), and Qatar (30). Oman was the highest-ranking MENA country, falling into 22nd place.

Indicators used in the index include the number of internal and external wars fought, relations with neighboring countries, political instability, level of distrust of fellow citizens, and the number of arms per 100,000 people, among other things.

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My War: Killing Time in Iraq


"This is a totally screwed up policy… The commanders are just really nervous because they can't keep control any more."

—Colby Buzzell, winner of this year’s Blooker prize for his blog-based book, My War: Killing Time in Iraq, speaking about the recent Pentagon decision to restrict the soldiers’ freedom to post to blogs. Soldiers will need to present potential blog entries to their supervising officers before they may post their entries. Buzzell, a former machine gunner, recorded his year-long tour of duty in his blog, which today won the $10,000 annual Blooker prize.

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Child’s play


Right now I am teaching a seven-day creative writing program at a public elementary school in Buffalo, New York. On the second day I had the students write collaborative stories: One child wrote a fictional story's beginning, another wrote the middle, and a third penned the conclusion. Most of them struggled with this. Exchanging papers was an ordeal, and many were not happy with the stories they were expected to add onto. Girls did not want to write the plot for a story about football; others thought the people with whom they were supposed to trade papers were icky. But some rose to the occasion and collaborated to produce solid stories.

One in particular caught my eye. It was about someone serving in Iraq. Here's what the students wrote:

Once there was a man named John. He was going to Iraq. He was going to fight for our lives. But then he got a little scared because he was thinking of what might happen to him. But then he was feeling sad because he missed his family. Then he went to Iraq, and when he got there, he felt really better. So he got a popsicle, then he said, “I am going to write a letter to my parents.” He got another popsicle, then he went back to war. This time he was not scared, so he got all the stuff he needed. He got the best gun he could. He wanted to see his parents.

Say what you will about the popsicles and the fact that John ceases to be scared when he gets to Iraq, there is some real awareness here about the dangers of war.

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Iraq in 2006


As revelers rang in 2007, the Iraqi ministries released grim statistics for 2006: 14,298 civilians died violent deaths. Add to that the violent deaths of soldiers and police and the number rises to 16,273. The AP reached an independent count of 13,738 deaths.

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The odds of dying


As children across America greedily tore open presents on Christmas day, the Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani announced a grim statistic: 12,000 Iraqi policemen have died since the US-led invasion began in 2003. With the total number of police numbering at approximately 190,000 officers, that means the odds of an Iraqi policeman dying are around 1 in 16.

Despite the odds of dying, joining the police offers a prospect of employment, and according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, “when we call for new recruits, they come by the hundreds and by the thousands.”

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