Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War (37 page)

More than a year later, I asked Raheem if he thought he was beginning to heal.

“Whenever I am alone, I can’t control my tears,” he said. “Even when I am walking in the street. Alone in the house, and even when I am sitting on my computer during the working hours. But I am always trying to be strong in front of my family.”

Raheem’s wife can’t stand the house anymore.

“Everything in it reminds her,” he says.

I was in Cairo when I heard about Raheem’s son. By then, I had already packed up my apartment. I was staying in a hotel, waiting for a Russian visa. I had asked for another job, and I was going to Moscow, in large measure because I didn’t expect to find any war there. When I got the note about Raheem’s son I was sitting among boxes and dust-streaked notebooks in the
Los Angeles Times
bureau, packing up all the things I’d written down during six years of chasing war. When I read the news I dropped my head into my hands and cried for a while, sitting there at the computer. I thought about quiet Raheem and the careful, proud way he spoke of his children. Then I wrote him a note. There is nothing you can say. Even if I were there I wouldn’t hug him. We have never touched. And he wrote back, sounding hollow and gracious, saying thank you. And then I cried some more, even though if there’s one thing I learned at Raheem’s side, it’s that crying doesn’t do any good at all.

For a while Raheem was trying to get a visa to live in the United States. He worked with an immigration lawyer. He fretted over how he would find a job. What kind of job do you want? I asked him. Anything, he said, so that I can offer something to my family. He was fifty-five years old, ready to pick up and start from scratch all over again.
Ten years in the Iraqi army, eight years in the hell of the Iran–Iraq war, nine years living alone in foreign countries, missing his children’s childhood so that he could buy them a house. Six years and counting of this latest war. Quiet all the way. Courteous and dignified and careful. Laughing despite it all, listening, offering friendship. All of that and he was still chasing this meager dream: to live in peace and earn enough money to support his family.

I was a little surprised when he told me he was hoping for a U.S. visa. Didn’t he resent the land whose soldiers killed his son? I asked him. Wouldn’t it be hard to live in the United States after what happened to Mohammed?

“Do you mean because he was killed by U.S. soldiers?” he said. “Of course I don’t have such feelings against the Americans.”

“So you don’t blame the Americans for what happened?”

“Not in general. As you know, in each society there are good and bad people. I blame those who have a quick decision of shooting at civilians.”

“For the war itself, for invading Iraq?”

“I don’t blame them for that,” he said. “I was one of those supporting such a step.”

It was true. I remembered our trip into the south. Raheem had been happy. He had been optimistic. I remembered the small smile on his face when he watched the Shiites march in public for the first time. The ice-cream parlor in Nasiriyah that we’d visit at dusk, when the white owls rose out of the swamps and little boys scampered barefooted after a soccer ball in the darkening streets. His morning strolls to the market, the chats he had with strangers. The wonder in his eyes as he savored the days, as we wandered through Iraq together, watching history happen. Back then the future looked clean and good, and Raheem was full of simple hope—that he and his sons would find stable jobs because Saddam was gone. I’ve never seen him so happy again. Every time I made it back to Baghdad in the subsequent years, at some point one of us would say to the other, “Remember that first trip down south?” We’d talk about the people we met, about the amazing things they’d said, about the stories we found, and we’d smile. Iraq had never been that good again.

In the end, the American visa came through. But Raheem balked.
Financial crisis had gripped the United States. The Iraqis who’d crossed the Atlantic before him sent back dire reports—they lived in empty apartments; they couldn’t earn enough money to support their families; they couldn’t find work. The surge brought American soldiers pouring in to police the streets, and for the time being Baghdad had grown quieter, life more livable. And so he waits. Raheem is an Iraqi; his country and mine are tangled together and so our lives meet, pause, and part. All those hard years he would have snatched at a chance to start life anew in the United States. The invasion of his country brought that opportunity at last, but it also weakened the U.S. economy and helped turn the promised land of the past two centuries into a place that suddenly looked to Raheem like a dubious proposition. War is a total change, unleashing all things light and all things dark; we are pushed forward and our lives are invented by the history we live through.

These days, I watch “the region”—we used to call it that, as if it were the only one—from a distance. People are still being tortured, and demonstrations disrupted, in Egypt. In Afghanistan, they throw acid into the faces of girls who try to go to school. As for the U.S.-backed warlords of 2001, Haji Zaman has been driven back out of the country; Hazrat Ali has emerged as a notoriously corrupt security official in the U.S.-backed government; and Abdul Qadir was assassinated—there is a story among old sources from those times that Zaman may have been involved; that it was a clash over drug smuggling. Saudi women still can’t drive, mingle with men who are not blood relatives, or leave the country without permission from a male guardian. Qaddafi is still lording it over Libya. Hezbollah still holds its guns, and people in Lebanon whisper that another civil war will come one day—that it’s a question not of whether, but of when. Iraq Body Count says that around 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the invasion. There is a graph with red spikes, like a picture of shattered windows and broken bones. Nobody knows how many Afghans have been killed; it is thousands and thousands of people; by some estimates, tens of thousands. In Iraq, 4,349 U.S. soldiers have died, and 873 in Afghanistan, and more all the time. That is not counting the deaths of local people who are tallied as combatants, or wading into the question of whether they were or weren’t. Either way, that’s six digits of
people, dead for a cause I cannot articulate except in the most abstract terms.

But we lived through it, and we are living still. And in the end, survival is not a meager redemption; it is substantial and it will not last forever, either. Maybe there is greater redemption still to come, an understanding or clarity of vision. I am waiting for it.

When you ask strangers to tell their stories, you ask for blind trust. The surprising thing is not that people sometimes say no; it’s that, usually, they say yes. I am deeply thankful for the many people who paused long enough to relate their stories; without them, there would be no book. They often spoke at considerable risk, perhaps with the implicit hope that violence can be eroded by talking, over cultural and political and religious divides, across oceans, in spite of everything. Many of them never made it into the newspaper or this book, but I remember them all, and they have permanently informed my work. I thank them.

These pages contain the invisible work of scores of translators, local reporters, and drivers who risked their lives and labored long hours to transmit the plights and graces of their home countries to a foreign audience. The ebullient Majeed Babar lightened my first days at war in Afghanistan and permanently impressed upon me the need to look for society’s most vulnerable victims, even or especially in the midst of conflict. Naseer Ahmed, without a day’s training in journalism, plunged fearlessly into Tora Bora to translate. Batsheva Sobelman and Efrat Shvily patiently demystified Israel, while Maher Abukhater showed me the ropes of Palestinian politics in the West Bank and Fayed abu Shammalah guided me through Gaza. In Baghdad, I am deeply grateful for the friendship and patience of the Sphinx-like Salar Jaff and, of course, Raheem Salman. Suheil Ahmed, Mohammed Arrawi, Caesar Ahmed, Said Rifai, Saif Shakir Humood, and Zeinab Hussein were also instrumental and inspirational colleagues. In Cairo, Hossam
Hamalawy was a gifted colleague and dear friend. Sayed Bedoui and Jailan Zayan also played key roles in my understanding of Egypt and, by extension, the collective Arab experience. In Beirut, the wise and patient Raed Rafei helped deepen my understanding of Lebanon. In Amman, Ranya Kadri was a steady source of insight and gossip, as was Leena Saidi in Beirut.

From those first days in Afghanistan, Tim Weiner imparted the lasting sense that the best journalism is informed by deep appreciation of places and people. It was Tim, too, who years later convinced me that there was a book, and that I could write it. Lisa Junghahn talked me through the formation of the narrative, and pointed me to other books that would help the ideas take shape. My agent, Kathy Robbins, was an early believer in this book and lent badly needed moral support during a cold, dark Russian winter of writing. At Doubleday, Bill Thomas shepherded the book from proposal to print. Kris Puopolo was a dedicated, enthusiastic editor who exercised great patience throughout the process. An old friend from Texas, Brad Tyer, gave me an incisive, illuminating read of an early version of the manuscript. Ted Anthony offered valuable suggestions early on.

At the
Los Angeles Times
, I was privileged to work for John Carroll, Dean Baquet, Simon Li, and Doug Frantz—dynamic, intellectually curious journalists who would go to any length to foster and defend a good piece of reporting. Scott Kraft lobbied, defended, and advised me through the years. Marjorie Miller was a tough, honest, inspirational boss and an insightful editor. David Lauter, Mary Braswell, Mark Porubcansky, Roger Ainsley, Kari Howard, Geoffrey Mohan, Davan Maharaj, and Paul Feldman were patient, gifted editors and, along with Mike Faneuff, became members of an extended foreign-desk family that kept me grounded through the years. Finally, Rick Meyer taught me about narrative writing and story structure, and remains, in my mind, one of the truly great people.

I am also grateful to Rana Sweis, Jehad Nga, Rone Tempest, John Kifner, and Mark MacKinnon, each of whom did something wise, kind, or illuminating at a critical moment.

My husband, Tom Lasseter, lived through much of this book with me, from the places and events of the news to the slow limp of the writing process. He was my first and best reader, and I have relied on
him for advice, insight, and support. Inevitably, my lasting impressions of these conflicts were shaped by our ongoing conversations and pooled experiences. In a sense, this is his book, too.

Finally, my family—especially my mother Kathleen Stack, sister Martha Stack, and brother Greg Stack—were patient, loving, and supportive throughout extended absences and frightening days. I am grateful for them, and for the memory of my father.

Megan Stack has reported on war, terrorism, and political Islam from twenty-three countries since 2001. She was awarded the 2007 Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper reporting from abroad and was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. She is currently the
L.A. Times
’s Moscow bureau chief.