True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. - Martin Luther King Jr.
On the very edge of our FOB is a dilapidated trailer that looks for all the world like it was cast here by some merciless storm. The trailer drunkenly cants several degrees off of center, like a shipwreck forever hung on a shelf of rock. To add to the entropic illusion a battered blue tarp stretches from one of its mangled corners to create a barren patch of shade net to the trailer.
In that small wreck of a building several Iraqi entrepreneurs gather to sell their wares to American soldiers. Six days a week they can be found huddled in the trailers selling the gaudy trinkets that they try to pass of as memorabilia. One wall of the trailer is adorned with faded movie posters, bubbled and wrinkled by the summer heat. Another is covered with commemorative OIF III prayer rugs embroidered with unit patches. One corner of the trailer is filled with Hookah pipes clustered together like octopi, smoking pipes sprouting out of glass bodies like thin tentacles. The last corner is filled with the leather 9mm holsters favored by those who never leave the FOB.
On most days the Iraqi’s shuffle around the trailer haggling over prices, or casually chatting with their customers. But today they were huddled almost out of sight, transfixed by a small television set teetering on a stack of cardboard boxes. It was a little odd to see them all bunched together instead of pacing back and forth behind their display cases, but I figured they were watching some new DVD and started flipping through their merchandise. As I thumbing through some of their black market DVDs I casually looked over at them and almost took a step back in surprise. What caught my attention wasn’t their clothing, they were still garbed in a mish mash of Western clothing and Dishkas. What was different was their eyes, they seemed to glow with feral enthusiasm. It was strange to see their chubby middle aged features etched with so much grim enthusiasm, and for a second it seemed to me I wasn’t looking at a group of shopkeepers. Instead it seemed like I was gazing at a pack of hungry predators enchanted by the images moving across the screen. As I watched them one of the shopkeepers snapped out of his trance and stood up, bellowing in laughter and heatedly pointing at the screen. I looked through the gap he had created to see what they were watching so intently… and then in a flash everything made sense. Because when I looked through their little gathering the face I saw staring back at me from the screen was none other then Saddam Hussein. The shopkeepers weren’t watching a movie - they were watching history.
I caught one of the shopkeepers attention long enough to make my purchase, and he quickly made the sale, looking over his shoulder the whole time. As much as I wanted to stay and gauge their reaction, it somehow didn’t seem right. This was their moment of triumph, a trial most of them thought they would never live to see. So instead of intruding I shuffled out of their little trailer and made my way back to the barracks. As I was walking away I heard a string of Arabic curses and smiled. Justice was finally coming to Iraq.
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