It's Good to Be the King

So, John McCain chewed up a boatload of resources trying to make himself look less of a jackass for saying that the streets of Bagdad are safe for Americans.*  The very next day, 21 Shia who worked in the market that McCain, Mike Pence, Rick Renzi and Lindsay Graham strolled through were executed.  McCain's not directly responsible for their deaths -- the people who killed these Shia would have killed someone that day, and the killing is on their heads.  But his need for a photo-op  sure helped with the target selection.

Oddly, the thing that really struck home for me was the stories that Pence and Graham told about buying carpets in that market.  Here's Pence (from his blog -- I won't link to it):

Before I left for Baghdad, my 12-year-old daughter asked me to buy her a souvenir and I had responded by reminding her gently that I was visiting Iraq and that wouldn’t be possible. As I stood on the street, I decided to come through after all. I bought my kids some rugs in Baghdad, Iraq. The merchant almost refused to take my money. He kept touching his heart and shaking his head no. His eyes, like so many others, radiated with affection and appreciation. He wanted to give me the rugs. I insisted that he accept my ten dollars and, happily, he relented.

And Graham:

“We went to the market and were just really warmly welcomed. I bought five rugs for five bucks. And people were engaging,” said Graham.

What unutterable shitheels these guys are.  I don't know what kind of carpets they bought.  If they were hand-knotted or hand-woven, they represent hour upon hour of back-spasming work and should be worth hundreds of dollars.  Even machine-made carpets are likely to be imported into Iraq at this point, since their native manufacturing capacity is completely blown.  In other words, they would probably cost a bit less than a carpet at your local megamart, but not a goddamn dollar.

And more to the point, Pence's guy did not want to do business.  I've been in a few bazaars, and I've never seen that.  A commenter at Balloon Juice says that the guy knew he was screwed if he did business with the American.  Could be.

Here's what I think. I think the merchants saw the security sweep coming, and knew they had to hunker down.  Then these four American bigwigs show up, protected by sure killers in the sky and on the ground, so they're pretty damn important, and you're scared that you're going to be face down in the dirt or dead if you do anything wrong.  Whatever they want, they get -- don't haggle, just make nice and hope they move on quickly. 

In other words, McCain and his photo-op entourage were treated exactly like any muckety-mucks high up in a dictatorship would have been treated.  I have no doubt that there are pictures of Saddam Hussein standing next to smiling Iraqi citizens.  Those were probably just as sincere as the "affection and appreciation" radiating from the eyes of Pence's merchant.**  Of course the merchants were friendly -- friendly in the time-honored manner  of subjects of mercurial kings.

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*As an aside, I would like McCain's Presidential campaign to reimburse the American people for that photo-op, but I'm not holding my breath.

**Another aside -- is it only me, or does Pence's description of the merchant he dealt with sound almost exactly like the language used by white colonialists to describe the doglike affection and simplicity of their native servants?  It makes me genuinely uncomfortable.

Comments

[Redbeard]

Isn't putting a hand on one's heart a gesture of begging a favor? As in, "Please don't give me that money!"

The U.S. has opened up a trapdoor to hell in Iraq.

[Redbeard]

My mistake. it means Thank You.

Perhaps as in "Thank You for your business now leave me alone..."

[eRobin]

It's that insulting and omnipresent insistance that the Iraqis are grateful to us that drives me the craziest. I guess we're supposed to feel okay about killing them, destroying their infrastructure and bringing death, pestilence, war and depleted uranium to their county because they're grateful that we did it. And in the same breath the same people will turn around and lecture us and all Iraqis about how the Iraqis have to start standing up for themselves and what they owe us. They're dogs, they're wayward children, they're target practice but they're never adults with free will.

[mick arran]

NPR interviewed the rug merchant after the Dynamic Duo left. He said he didn't want to take the money because it would make him and his market a target - which it did.

But then he went further: he said he was "on the side of the insurgents" and wanted the US gone. But, he said, it was wrong for the insurgents to kill Iraqis. "Why aren't they killing US troops?"

I think it's safe to say Pence had his head so far up his ass he read the signs wrong.

[paperwight]

@mick - do you happen to know which show did the interview?

[graefix]

Hi paperwight,

Here's a link to the NPR audio.