Reconciliation Redux

Last week there was a series of reconciliation meetings, basically, two tribes that had issues. One tribe (a shia tribe) chased a member of another tribe (a sunni) away from his house during the insurgency. The theory is that the sheiks of the tribes will sit down together and figure out a way to make things normal between the two tribes, and that normally takes cash. The victim (pictured in Iraq #7) basically stated his case before an assembled group of sheiks, who listen patiently then discuss if the victim was truly wronged, and if so, what will it take to have everyone reconcile and promise to get along.

The victim ended up losing 4 houses, 7 cars, a tractor, and two pools of fish. He was asking for compensation of 1.5 billion Iraqi Dinars ($1.25 million dollars). His sheik stated that everyone should reconcile, and they should be able to walk out of the negotiations with their heads held high, for the price of 1 billion Iraqi Dinars. The other tribe (just happens to be the largest and most powerful tribe in the region) stated that the victim was truly wronged, but asked how you could put a price on reconciliation, after all, wasn't admitting past wrongs and moving along the biggest part of this process? Back and forth for two hours (never drink gatorade and tea before you go into one of these things, it is tough to get up with all your stuff and walk out without being noticed). After two hours, the assembled sheiks decided that reconciliation was more important than money, and the victim will get 1.5 million Iraqi Dinars (125,000 dollars) for his suffering.

In order to force the reconciliation meeting, the victim had sworn out 18 arrest warrants for members of the opposing tribe, so he had a little leverage. In exchange for the money, being allowed back on his land and the promise of reconciliation, he agreed to drop all of the charges. Pretty interesting process to watch develop, there was the large forum of sheiks, after the haggling was done there, a small group of sheiks (led by Sheik Q) went outside and huddled and came in the room with the final settlement. After the final settlement was announced, all the sheiks got together and pledged on a tribal flag to reconcile. After the flag ceremony there was only one argument left: Who was going to pay for lunch. Everyone demanded that they be allowed to pay for lunch, I was going to offer, but I only had 70 bucks on me. The big tribe sheik told everyone that if he wasn't allowed to pay for lunch, he would divorce his wives. He got the check.

I have to be honest, the whole thing was cool and all, but it really reminded me of an episode of the Soprano's, where two rival mob gangs have a sit down to discuss mob violations. Just like in the Soprano's, it all came down to money being passed around.

Reconciliation Redux

Only one snag - - there were 18 warrants for arrest, that the Government of Iraq wanted to be enforced, that same week. The General was ordered to go do some arresting, which made him look pretty bad considering he gave a good speech supporting the tribal reconciliation process during the meeting. All in all, 4 folks were arrested, they will be detained until the victim goes and sees the judge to withdraw all of his statement and warrants.

Other Notes

The team is dreading the next few months: College football season is over, the pros are almost done and the only thing between March and August is NASCAR. After March Madness there won't be too many good sporting events to talk about. I am partial to NASCAR, but nobody else really speaks that language or has absorbed that culture, so I may be watching a few races solo. No big deal, but I will certainly miss my surround sound system and big screen TV, there is nothing that says NASCAR like a surround sound, volume cranked race as the cars scream around the room. Very cool, sigh.

Speaking of cars, we are starting to notice that a lot of folks over here have a taste for Caprice Classics. It all started during one of our patrols when a car was getting a little goofy with our convoy. Normally, folks pull over and get the heck out of our way, which is cool. There was one car about 3 weeks ago that didn't move over and almost cut between two of our vehicles, which is quite unacceptable. The confused driver was waved off by using a green laser pointer, and he pulled on over. He was driving a brown Caprice Classic. Ever since then, we have been noticing that there are a lot of Caprice Classics on the roads, Iraqis must appreciate the soft luxury and huge engine that comes with an early 90s Caprice Classic. Today alone we counted 11 of them as we were cruising around.

Very cool blog posting: Check out the Sandbox web page for yesterday, there was a posting on "how to prepare for a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan", pretty funny. Link:

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/