A Letter From Baghdad Buddy

Back on November 15/04, I posted an article titled Annex Canada?. Near the end of the article I made a short blurb about the propaganda wash that Americans live in, using a sound clip found on the web site for a Mussel Shoals, Alabama radio station, WQLT.

The sound clip is of 'reports', phoned in from Iraq to the station by an Army Major who calls himself 'Baghdad Buddy'.

Here is what I said on November 15: On a different note: A bit of home cooking in the form of an interview on a Mussel Shoals, Alabama radio station. Baghdad Buddy, is an Army Reserve Major stationed in Iraq, this is his last 'show' before returning to Alabama, on leave. Go there, click on "Baghdad Buddy" on their home page.For Canadians and others not familiar with the feel of local media in American cities, check this out. This is mainstream small town radio, all over America. No questions, no doubts, just wave the flag and god bless us lucky folks who are free to buy anything we can afford.The Major who understands his political responsibilities does a good job of painting the Bush correct image but does have a slip of the tongue when he describes the events in Iraq as an insurgent war. He quickly covers himself by calling opposition fighters "ex-surgents", as "they mostly come from outside the country."The Iraqi people love us, of course.

Buddy did a google search for "Baghdad Buddy" and found seven or so pages of entries, mostly about some Air Force Major who was referred to as Baghdad Buddy. But he also spied what could be construed as negative comment from what he took to be a Canadian.

A day or so ago I received an email from Buddy. Buddy is his real name. He doesn't say so, but, given his Army job of training Iraqi soldiers I would hazard a guess that Buddy is an intelligence officer. I did ask but Buddy did not reply.

Check out the WQLT web site for Baghdad Buddy clips and a blurb about him that seems to support my assumption.

For the sake of this piece, I am going to display portions of Major Buddy's email, for response. I will post the entire contents in the comments section. I have removed his email addy from his post as I've not heard back from him since informing him that I would post his email.

As I read it, Buddy's main point is that he isn't spouting the official line but just telling an observed proof. My contention is that whether the lies are believed or not, he is playing the role of a Military Intelligence/information officer. Per the restrictions, beliefs, and interests of his class and role, he spouts disingenuous propaganda as part of his job.

This isn't about Buddy, it is about the role he plays in the ceaseless propaganda wash that the American people are subject to. Good old buddy is just a small cog in the machine.

Thus we begin.

I am the Baghdad Buddy that was mentioned on one of your postings. Interesting that you somehow acquired the radio show in Canada. It is a shame you missed the show where one of my interpreters went on the air with me and thanked "the President and the American People on behalf of millions of Iraqi women because now they have hope". I could probably get you a copy if you would like. I am curious as to how you came across it.

Well Buddy, hit the link above and you will come across it the same way I did. I'm not sure why you think I should have heard the clip you mentioned. George Bush has been spouting the same empty rhetoric. No one can seem to find the millions of Iraqi women who now "have hope". Hope is one of the things in scant supply among the Iraqi people right now.

The only hope that millions of Iraqi people, in the rubble you created, is the hope that the destroyers will leave.

Buddy continues: I wasn't playing the party line. You must understand my mission was to live with and train the Iraqi Army. I spent the entire time living, eating, patrolling, convoying with these people. This was my personal experience with them…

What is being clearly said is that Buddy believes in the party line. He believes that Americans should see the situation the way he describes. He spent his time training and indoctrinating unemployed Iraqis, who desperately need the money.

The hope, the jobs, business, schools, hospitals, sewers, phones, and electricity are all destroyed by the 'liberators'.

Back To Buddy: ... For whatever reasons you or all others believe we went into Iraq, the end result is I saw many people who are starving not just for food, but information, new ideas etc. Not so unlike you in Canada and I in America. We have always been able to speak our mind, they have not. They can now, those that are brave will. Those that are not will wait to see who the winner is before they get off the fence

So, we will just drop the reasons for going in now that they have all been prov-en lies and concentrate on the fact that you saw people who seek freedom of information and the right to speak.

How do you get all that new free flow of information to people who have no electricity or phones and little contact with the outside world? All of that was destroyed.

In recognition of these simple facts, the insurgency now represents more people than the entire US Army. And you are right, only the brave speak up, no matter what they believe because some one, likely a Marine, maybe an insurgent, is going to have an armed opinion of their own. Is that the democracy that is being spoiled by a few trouble makers? Or the one that is being rejected by the Iraqi people in very large numbers?


Now we get to where Buddy is really coming from: usually much less than 10% of the a country's population does the fighting for the freedoms that the rest of the country enjoys. That same group of complainers are the same ones that use those freedoms to talk bad about the ones that have the stomach to fight for what they believe. By fight I don't mean stand behind a protest sign in a free country. I mean put their lives on the line. Not their attitude. Soldiers are citizens too they just earn it and cherish it. Others are recipients born into it.

You see, Buddy is a special guy representing special citizens. Those who have earned freedom as opposed to those who are mere recipients. This thinking is often at the core of the political logic of the army mind. In the modern context it is bullshit and a dishonest claim for special status.

It starts with the most important and most egregious lie. that the soldiers of America are representing or fighting for anyone's freedoms. The people you claim to have liberated have never experienced the level of violence and oppression brought to them by the 'liberators'.

To fight for corporate domination of the world and then pretend that odious work makes you one of the few Americans who have 'earned' their freedom is irrational, at best, and intentionally deceptive at its worst.

America's freedoms have been served not one whit by this ruinous, hideously destructive war. Americans have fewer freedoms and fewer constitutional protections than ever before. Those freedoms are being taken by the political and economic elite of America. Not by Iraqis trying to push a brutal foreign army out of it's home.

Saddam had lights, water, and sewage fixed in two months after first Gulf War. The rich smart American military and corporations such as Haliburton have spent billions, that's billions, of American tax dollars and have done nothing but continue to destroy the country, killing over a hundred and fifty thousand civilians in the process.

The current insurrection grew directly out of the chaos created by our 'freedom warriors'.
We created the chaos and have refused to fix any of it. The insurrection grew out of the despair America created and then ignored as not important.

You are not fighting for freedom Major Buddy. You are quite the opposite of the image you attempt to paint and a lovely example of your ilk.

In Buddy's world view, those who resist and speak against this on going slaughter of innocents are just complainers and cowards, perhaps unworthy of what freedoms the government and it's army and police choose to allow.

In Americas' revolutionary war, Buddy's ilk wore red uniforms.



The entire email is posted in the comments section. You may find it informative. Some Canadian readers may find it a bit bizarre. It is more of the same and it still reads like a script.