A Short Guide to Iraq for GI’s (1943)

Submitted by pumpkin ash on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 6:30pm. Tags:

Foreign Affairs

It is easy to see why they called my grandfathers’ era the Greatest Generation.

A Short Guide to Iraq for GI’s (4.8 meg pdf) (Here is an html copy link to the guide).

YOU HAVE been ordered to Iraq (i-RAHK) as part of the worldwide offensive to beat Hitler.

You will enter Iraq as a soldier and an individual, because on our side a man can be both a soldier and an individual. That is our strength – if we are smart enough to use it. It can be our weakness if we aren’t. As a soldier your duties are laid out for you. As an individual, it is what you do on your own that counts – and it may count for a lot more than you think.

American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It might not be that simple. But then again it might.

It is truly ironic to read this simple but remarkably accurate and useful 64 year old guide to culture, etiquette, social mores and language of Iraqis, here in the 5th year of the Iraq war fiasco. It contains nearly all the do's and don’ts (and even the pronunciation keys) that George Bush and his arrogant Iraq War architects and advisers disregarded or were ignorant of 60 years later.

H/T to Wired.com:

• NEVER discuss religion or politics or women with Moslems.

• Don't stare at anyone. Remember the fear of the "evil eye".

• Knock before entering a private house. If a woman answers, wait until she has had time to retire.

• If you see grown men walking hand in hand, ignore it. They are not queer.

• You can usually tell a mosque by its high tower. Keep away from mosques. [Emphasis in the original] If you try to enter one, you will be thrown out, probably with a severe beating.

• There are four towns in Iraq which are particularly sacred to the Iraq Moslems: Kerbala, Najaf, Samarra, and Kadhiman. Unless you are ordered to these towns it is advisable to stay away from them.

• Moslems here are divided into two factions something like our division into Catholic and Protestant denominations -- so don't put in your two cents when Iraqis argue about religion.

• There are also political differences in Iraq that have puzzled diplomats and statesmen. You won't help matters any by getting mixed up in them.

“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”--William Tecumseh Sherman

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They didn't ignore it (#46364)

by luisalegria on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 9:57pm

Mr. Ash,

The current guide has everything in the old one, plus the advantages of 60 years of US military dealings with Arabs.

The "Wired" commentators sound like a bunch of cretins.

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My God, What a Book! Please Read Page 4.... (#46338)

by Traveller on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 6:42pm

....I'm still working my way through this, but it is absolutely amazing.

Thanks and thanks again!

Best Wishes, Traveller

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Double My God, The 2003 Version.... (#46341)

by Traveller on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 6:48pm

Here:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/06/gis_guide_to_ir_1.html

...and to think that I used to write for the 101st Abn, (after I got out of the hospital and everyone in my team was dead, they had to do something with me).

Believe me, I wrote better than this.

I am chastened, I am ashamed that the 101st wrote this.

Best wishes, Traveller

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Very interesting to compare the two guides (#46343)

by pumpkin ash on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 6:57pm

Thanks.

“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”--William Tecumseh Sherman

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