War Zone Touristing

A bird is spotted and so all cameras work to capture the image


August 17, 2007
We used them as comic relief…the folks who would show up at the Baghdad hotel “we” all stayed at back in early 2004. “They” were the war tourists. Folks who would simply buy a ticket, hop a plane and somehow make it to Baghdad. One day, a US postal worker arrived with his yearly vacation savings tucked safely in his pockets. He informed us as to how each year he would take a “war” vacation – picking a different “hotspot” each year. Some came with no money at all – having spent it along the way. Like the young American man I spied sleeping on the lobby couch of my hotel one day. His gapping holes in the knees of his jeans got my attention. His only belongings were the dirty clothes he wore. He himself, looked haggard and worn from the journey. I later heard he had actually asked the management for a free room for the night. This, in a country where even as the bombing was going on, the Iraqis would create whatever miracles they could muster to look fresh, clean and crisp - loathe to appear unkempt in any way.

“We” were a healthy mix of international do-gooders: independent journalists, photojournalists, peace activists, NGO workers, and people looking for work in the newly freed Iraq. Equally aghast at this display of the worst of western behavior, we would listen to the tales of these war tourists, or share their tales among ourselves. Later, sometimes in the evening, when blasts of Kalashnikov fire could be heard just outside our windows while we were comparing our photos of suicide bombing sites, squatter families, demonstrations and the like; or in the mornings at breakfast when we would gather, happy to see each other before setting out into the surrounding environs, we would say clever things in relation to these wandering souls – the object to make each other laugh. Like I said, we used them as comic relief.

And so now these memories come to mind as I begin to question my self. I have been here in Sulaimania for over 2 weeks and have hiked, swam and traversed some of the region’s more spectacular sights. OMG. Having come here to report on the effects of the war - have I become a war tourist?

Our Captain taking us to various sites on Darbendiken Lake

It’s not like I haven’t been working. In addition to attempting to make sense of this never-before-visited territory of Kurdistan, Iraq, which does not feel like a war zone, I have been interviewing people on the serious issues of the day: the ever-growing number of displaced,



refugee and homeless Iraqis;



















Qalawa Refugee Camp, Sulaimania,
Kurdistan Iraq






the humanitarian rights violations, specifically gender-based violence, present in Kurdistan, Iraq; the setting up of the brand spanking-new American University of Iraq in Sulaimania; the work of an NGO that has spent over a decade helping to clear landmines left from Saddam and the Iraq/Iran war, and has also been working to help spread such civil society tenets as gender equality - in a section of the world where women are chattel to the men – and has helped to build schools, roads, and supplied over 2000 sheep to destitute widows. I’ve been to a refugee camp,






















Qawala Refugee Camp, Sulaimania,
Kurdistan Iraq







made arrangements to visit a PKK camp in the mountains. (Word finally came tonight that I passed muster and could visit on Sunday – unfortunately, it is the same day as my flight to NY!)

The list continues and suddenly I realize I have been working my butt off.

But then again, no bombs have been exploding. I don’t recall hearing even a gun go off. The only shouts I’ve heard have come from crowds of people watching local soccer games and I did hear my first ambulance siren tonight. The central souk area, a seemingly endless maze of shops, has been nothing but teeming with people and goods of all kinds. I’ve been to an art opening, went bowling with the guys (I’ll explain in a minute), ate at a Chinese restaurant and took a 3-hour drive through thriving towns on the way to the burgeoning and modern city of Erbil. The only alarm that went off was within me, and it was in relation to the lack of a female presence on the streets in these smaller towns. Men were everywhere…but no women. I don’t think I have ever experienced this before.

I suppose it has been risky being here. I’ve been swimming in remote






and not-so-remote mountain lakes and rivers,



and climbed down into a dangerous but stunningly beautiful gorge where I did come close to being incapacitated - by heat emanating from surrounding boulders.



Touching them literally singed my fingertips. I gave swimming lessons to at least 8 of the guys the other night – it was part of our day-off picnic. I must admit, it was a bit of a challenge to attempt to teach 8 grown men, whose languages of Arabic and Kurdi is alien to your tongue and who are terrified of the water, how to swim. Later, while photographing them playing soccer, I thought they might be thinking of eliminating me as the ball inadvertently went over the cliff, down a 30 meter rock scramble to a sheer drop-off into the water. “Lorna! Lorna,” went the war cry. The only one able to swim strongly, I was volunteered to retrieve the ball – not once, but 3 times.

Then there was the time I was tagging along at a meeting that I really had no business being at. So I left the building to go get some water. This is Kurdistan, Iraq where the men don’t allow women to do much on their own – tradition, defined within a certain desire to be polite masks a deep-rooted subjugation of the women. Our super friendly driver, Shorsh – who speaks no English, followed me to the grocery store. As we mounted the steps together, he non-verbally insisting that he was to purchase the water, I gently tugged on his shirt in an attempt to hold him back. It didn’t work and as he ordered the water bottles and took out his wallet to pay, my mind soundlessly spoke these words to him: “I am going to kill you.” At the very same moment – literally - he pointed to a toy handgun on the counter and said in pure, clear as day English, “I am going to kill you.” It was truly the funniest moment I have experienced in quite a while. We both laughed – tears streamed down my face.

And that is about the closest to danger I have come while here.

And so this guilt pervades my being. I have not been shot at once this trip. My American face at checkpoints sends us sailing through. I’ve actually felt relaxed and had moments of playing the role of tourist. I’ve discovered that incredibly good things are happening in this country – despite what at least one independent journalist (left-leaning, of course) told me at dinner last week. That is, that nothing good is happening in Iraq. Indeed, there are people in the US who are loathe to hear this…that good is happening in Iraq. They wring their hands, moan and wail on their way to their next shopping excursion. They criticize and make judgments from the darkest corners of ignorance, reading and listening to only that which supports their already cemented opinion, and rocket launch tirades of blame blame blame from their couch potato positions within the international arena.

And yet, good, if not great things are happening here. I kid you not. Take for instance the work of the environmental NGO I have been researching. The “guys” I have referred to earlier are living specimens of Iraq’s “brain drain” virtually rescued from the drain. Scientists all, mostly biologists, they are this very healthy mixture of Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and one Zoastrian. The project manager, Anna, is an American environmentalist who has become a good friend since we first met in Baghdad before the war. The guys come from Baghdad, Basra and Kurdistan and we have all been living together peacefully as family in the office/house of the NGO for a few weeks now.

They are all working together on a Key Biodiversity Area [KBA] survey of northern Iraq. The point of the survey is to document Iraq’s plant, mammal, bird, fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton and other plankton life. They all have cameras. They are all experts in their fields. They all work practically round the clock either out “in the field” collecting data from the lakes, rivers,



and dry areas within Kurdistan,



or back at the office/house organizing and analyzing the data. Or, in the case of Haidar Fishman (there are 3 Haidars here so I have made up my own identification system), dissecting the fish samples he has collected.



Or in the case of the water study team, analyzing the water samples for levels of different planktons. For the most part, they spend a good part of each day in full sun with temps hovering at 100 plus.




I have gone along with them - hiking and swimming – when safety permits. Some sites they have traveled to, I have not been allowed to go due to al Qaeda or Ansar al Islam sightings.

This sort of work, on this level, has never been done in Iraq before. They are not only pioneers, but also truly brave men. I cannot show you photos that show their faces for fear they will become targets by those they call “terrorists.” I can't show you any images that show them outside of the places they are housed, identifying the vehicles they travel in, or anything that could possibly identify them at all. And yet they work each day, willingly, diligently, gladly. All are working to rebuild their beloved Iraq. They each say that Iran and al Qaeda are behind the violence in Iraq. None want the US troops to leave. Just about all told me a few days ago – the day Bush announced that Iran’s Republican Guard is considered a terrorist organization and therefore subject to attack by the US without the consent of Congress – that they wished for the US to go war with Iran and wipe out the present regime there. It didn’t help that a few days before that, Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliky was seen on parade in Iran holding the Iranian president’s (Ahmadinejad) hand on TV. The image, show over and over and over again, nearly incited a gentle riot among them.

And there are those within America, driven by agenda and media hype that only allows the horrors to be shown, who would say nothing good is happening in Iraq. To them I say, shame on you for disrespecting these brave souls who are working under threat of torture and death, to improve the condition of their country and help to create a healthy future.

Next up: An interview with Cindy Sheehan in Amman, Jordan. An interview that she agreed to, gave me permission to record and once completed, informed me, via her press representative, that she didn't like the "tone" of my questions and therefore would not allow me to use the interview for any purposes. When I asked what would happen if I did use it, she said Cindy Sheehan would sue me.