#nicholas olson

[indizombie]

About a dozen female service members were attached to the SEAL platoon during a six-month deployment to Iraq that began in March of 2019. On the air base, Grace and the other service members who supported Special Operations Task Force-West, the unit responsible for missions inside Anbar Province, Iraq, lived at Camp Fenin while the SEALs stayed at Camp Freiwald, about a 10-minute walk away. The deployment — Grace’s first with the SEALs — was slow, she said. Others who had deployed previously to Iraq told her they had never seen it so quiet. She was asked to identify ISIS targets for the SEALs in an area that had been largely untouched for the past nine months. Grace said the women worked hard to earn the respect of the SEALs. “We’re in there 18 hours a day. We wanted their respect. We were doing good work for these guys,” she said. But Grace said the intelligence staff was under a lot of pressure from the SEALs to do more. “People were itching to get outside the wire at every opportunity,” but not a lot of information was coming in that they could act on, Grace said. Then she said she started receiving text messages from Olson, the platoon chief, late at night that were not work-related. At first, she thought it was because he thought highly of her work. “After I’d been invited over to that side of the camp to have drinks on multiple occasions, I was like this is inappropriate, and that’s kind of when he and I stopped speaking,” Grace said.

'Former sailor details misconduct by SEALs pulled from Iraq', AP News

[theopenend]

A Life Returned

New #FlashFictionFriday on TOE :: A Life Returned by Nicholas Olson

I was at work when I heard the baby was coming. A nurse called, all business as she told me. But behind the official tone, her voice wavered, if only slightly. There was something wrong, and I told her as much. Complications. That’s all she would or could…

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[diaspora2012-blog]

Saddam Hussein's Iraq: Leading to the Emergence of the Iraqi Diaspora

As Sarah mentioned, the original definition of diaspora was meant to define the Jewish people that were displaced from Israel and forced into exile in the 6th century BC. This term, diaspora, has evolved and has been used to categorize many different groups of people forced out of their homeland by means of political unrest, such as dictatorship, violence, or oppression, among other things. The Iraqi Diaspora is one that is born out of a monumental mismanagement of Iraq by the dictator Saddam Hussein who rose to power in 1979. While he was in power he was responsible for the murder of over one-million Iraqis, as well as another million as the result of the Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988.

The Shia and the Kurds were strongly oppressed and persecuted by Saddam’s regime, and as a result many of the members of these groups left Iraq. The identity of Iraqis that left during Saddam’s rule had less of an intention to return to their homeland compared to those that were displaced as a result of the Iraq War in 2003, which is discussed further down. The Iraqis that left as a result of the Iraq War knew that the goals of the invasion were to overthrow Saddam. They could picture an Iraq that was better than the one that have been living in and they share the feelings of wanting to see it improved enough to return to. This is opposed to those that were persecuted by Saddam, or just left as a result of his rule. They are less likely to share ties with the homeland as it is harder for them to imagine Iraq as an acceptable place for them to live.

Cummings, Denis. Iraq To Open Saddam Hussein Museum. 31 December 2008. 2012 June 2012 <http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/international/2008/December/Iraq-to-Open-Saddam-Hussein-Museum.html>.

MacFarquhar, Neil. Saddam Hussein, Defiant Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence and Fear, Dies. 30 December 2006. 29 May 2012 <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30saddam.html?pagewanted=all>.

State, U.S. Department of. "Saddam Hussein's Iraq." 13 September 1999. FAS.org. 2 June 2012 <http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm>.

[diaspora2012-blog]

A Displaced Iraq

The Iraq War that was started in 2003 between the United States, along with numerous other countries, and Iraq has contributed a growing number of people that are included as the Iraqi Diaspora. The war was started with the invasion of Iraq, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which American, British, Australian and Polish troops went into Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime. Other countries joined after the initial invasion with the goals of disarming Iraq of its “weapons of mass destruction,” free the Iraqi people (by setting up a Democracy), and to end the terrorism caused by Saddam Hussein.

Even more violence and terrorism was invoked inside of Iraq as a result of its invasion than what previously was a result of Saddam Hussein’s rule. A direct result of the war in Iraq was a large exodus of Iraqis fleeing their war torn country. The population of Iraqi refugees jumped up to the third largest in the world behind Afghanistan and Palestine, in a time when the world’s refugee population had been decreasing.  4 to 5 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes since the start of the war in 2003, 2 million of those becoming refugees as a result of fleeing their homeland.

Where did these 2 million or so refugees leave to? Syria has been the most generous, having accommodated for 1.2 million Iraqis. Jordan has taken in 750,000 Iraqis, Saudi Arabia with 200,000, Iran with 54,000 and Lebanon with about 40,000. These countries share a fairly close vicinity to Iraq but it is interesting to note that before 2007 only 466 Iraqi refugees have come to the United States. This was until the Bush Administration agreed to accept 20,000 Iraqi refugees that year. 

See post below for an example of what the people of Iraq went through during the war and what life is like for one Iraqi refugee that came to the United States.

Iraqi Diaspora. 2012 Feburary 2012. 29 May 2012 <http://wn.com/Iraqi_diaspora>.

Larkin. The First Diaspora of the Twenty-First Century: the Iraqis. 27 April 2007. 29 May 2012 <http://wizbangblue.com/2007/04/27/the-first-diaspora-of-the-twentyfirst-century-the-iraqis.php>.

[diaspora2012-blog]

Young Iraqi woman tells what it was like in Iraq during the war, and the life she now lives in the United States.

[diaspora2012-blog]

Identity of the Iraqi Diaspora After the Iraq War

The Iraqi population that was living outside of Iraq before the Iraq War started in 2003 had their own opinions and feelings about the homeland. These feelings were used by those Americans on the side that supported going to war with Iraq to bolster further support. The Iraqi-American community played a major role in gaining the United States public’s support. Iraqis openly voiced more aggressive means to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, of course after they were promised that the invasion would be quick and easy. Members of the Iraqi Diaspora as a whole want to see Iraq restored to a safe and non-oppressive place to live, so supporters of the war tugged on these feelings to gain the Iraqi community’s support by promising them that these goals would be achieved.

The identity of the Iraqis that are members of the diaspora is one that has a strong connection to the homeland. As discussed throughout our studies on diasporas, the generations closest to the leaving the homeland share ties with the homeland the strongest. Because the Iraqi Diaspora is a relatively new emerging diaspora, especially after the events of the Iraq war, they feel very connected to the homeland. As a whole the Iraqi Diaspora has intentions of returning to Iraq when conditions become better (i.e. after Saddam’s regime is ended, the war tearing through their country is over, and the terrorism has ended). Similar to the Venezuelan diaspora that Jacob talks about, many Iraqis would return home once the dictator is gone, but in Iraq’s case they still have to deal with the after math of the war and terrorism. They still consider Iraq to be their home.  Many still return to their homeland frequently to visit the family they have left behind.

Even those living abroad participate in the elections that are held as a result of their newly formed democracy. They care about the living conditions enough to do so. A major point that shows their ties with the homeland and the feelings they still have for their people is the fact that many send money back to Iraq. Many diasporas send remittances back to the homeland, especially those that have homelands that are impoverished living conditions. The Filipino Diaspora is the most well known for this activity, but it is also extremely important to Iraq as the living conditions are below acceptable after the Iraq war and the ensuing violence caused, and from over 20 years under Saddam’s rule and not taking care of his people’s best interests. There are over 700,000 children living on the streets in Iraq, 70% of whom lost their parents as a result of the war and the violence of terrorism (car bombs, IEDs). More and more members of the Iraqi Diaspora are giving to charities that will help their war-torn brothers and sisters.

Akhlaghi, Reza. A Tale of Two Diasporas. 20 January 2012. 29 May 2012 <http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012/01/20/a-tale-of-two-diasporas/>.

Al-Shibeeb, Dina. Iraqis in the Diaspora Keen to Lessen Their Home Country's Woes. 22 Febuary 2012. 2 June 2012 <http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/22/196339.html>.

Our Soldiers, Their Children: The Lasting Impact of the War in Iraq. 28 June 2007. 2 June 2012 <http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/06/28/our-soldiers-their-children-the-lasting-impact-of-the-war-in-iraq/>.