billcoe
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Woof:
"What It Takes to Open a Bar in Baghdad
By Joshuah Bearman
Dec 20 2011, 1:30 PM ET 10
Welcome to the Baghdad Country Club, founded in the middle of the war zone of 2006 Iraq, where even the beer runs were a matter of life and death.
Iraqis have a word, barra, which means "out there," and for those lucky enough to be inside the Green Zone came to mean the rest of Baghdad, the bedlam beyond the T-walls. As the insurgency reached fever pitch in 2006, Iraqis and Americans alike were terrified that barra would not stay out there but come in here, that the war would breach the perimeter, that the place would collapse and there would be a mad scramble to evacuate, like Saigon in '75.
The Baghdad Country Club, the only authentic bar and restaurant in Baghdad's Green Zone, was one place where people could forget about barra for a moment. Anyone -- mercenaries and diplomats, contractors and peacekeepers, aid workers and Iraqis -- could walk in, get dinner, open a decent bottle of Bordeaux, and light a cigar from the humidor to go with it. Patrons would check their weapons in a safe, like coats in a coatroom, and leave the war behind as they wandered past a sign that read:
BAGHDAD COUNTRY CLUB
NO GUNS, NO AMMUNITION, NO GRENADES, NO FLASH BANGS, NO KNIVES--
NO EXCEPTIONS!
To keep the bar adequately stocked, the BCC's owner James -- a British ex-paratrooper turned security contractor who asked that I use his first name only, due to concerns that his past ventures in Iraq might affect his current work there (the Baghdad Country Club was a place where many people liked to recreate, but few later desired to admit they had) -- and his fixer Ajax had to venture out there regularly. To cross hostile roads in vehicles laden with liquor, James would trade his suit for overalls and body armor, his Glock tucked into his ops vest, an M-4 in the passenger seat, a bag of cash stashed in the back. Fatalism came easy in a place with so many fatalities -- if today's your day, it's your day, James thought whenever he eased behind the wheel.
Beer for the BCC was a loss leader: It had to be in the bar, but the extraordinary logistics to obtain it were bad for the bottom line. That's because beer came from downtown. The volume meant size, and size meant you were a target, winding through Baghdad's warren of confusing streets in an open truck. Proper security, however, disappeared in the face of overwhelming demand.
James couldn't go anywhere near the area himself, so Ajax was in charge of that department, even though Ajax was Sunni, which put him at great personal risk in Shia territory. "But I knew my way around down there," he says. "I could get what we needed." He knew all the principals in the local booze business, having worked at Habur Gate, the border checkpoint where deliveries from Turkey arrived. "I had the whole supply chain down, man!"
For the first beer run, Ajax stacked an SUV with 20 cases. It was gone within the hour. James called Ajax as he was driving home.
"Can you head back downtown?" he asked. "We're empty."
Ajax knew he needed a bigger car. He took his Jeep Cherokee, tinted the windows, and removed the backseats to double the load capacity. The vehicle still wasn't big enough. By the time Ajax upgraded to multi-axle trucks, the violence was worsening. This created an additional problem, since larger vehicles couldn't be armored. Sometimes Ajax stationed a guy with an AK-47 amid the beer, hidden in a makeshift turret assembled from cases of Carlsberg or Sapporo. His job was to light up attackers, but Ajax knew he was usually drunk by the time they got moving.
A month after the bar opened, just before Ramadan, some emissaries from the Shiite Mahdi Army alerted Ajax that the holiday would be an unfriendly time downtown. Realizing that they wouldn't be able to restock for a month, Ajax and James mounted nonstop supply missions, bringing in 6,000 cases of beer. It filled the BCC's storage rooms and the giant containers outside and then had to be piled on the roof until the structure bowed. Apache pilots rerouted their flights over the bar so they could check out the stash.
It might have been the most hazardous beer procurement process in the world at the time, which is why it drove James nuts when Green Zone guys in clean pressed khakis complained about availability or pricing like they were in a grocery store back in New Jersey. "People could get killed for your fucking Corona Light," he'd tell people at the bar. One day, a contractor suggested to James that he could get beer cheaper himself. "Oh sure," James said. "Go ahead and drive to Sadr City. See if you can find the warehouse. Make sure you're armored and locked and loaded, because if anyone sees you, you're fucking done, mate."
James himself often braved the deadly Route Irish to pick up shipments of spirits from Ahmed, a businessmen out at the airport who supplied him with most of his liquor. The road was a target for snipers and car bombs, resulting in trigger-happy U.S. military personnel and mercenaries. A typical private security detail cost basis, with a heavily armored airport pickup of one passenger, was five grand. James had done many such contracted Baghdad Airport trips himself. Now he was routinely making the drive in an unarmored vehicle, often alone.
Ajax was a drinker who liked to stay up all night, a combination that left James in lurch most mornings. In addition to IEDs and insurgents, Route Irish had commuter traffic. James really wanted to beat that traffic. Any idle moments stalled in gridlock on the pitted blacktop made you a mark. By 6:30 a.m., he'd have a coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, spend 10 minutes making futile calls to Ajax's voice mail, and then ease one of the jeeps out of the driveway himself. People thought James was reckless, hitting Route Irish solo and soft skinned. But he preferred going low profile, and he always double-checked the spare magazines and smoke grenades in his plate carrier as he left Checkpoint 12 heading west, toward the airport.
Route Irish was once a grand motorway though a bourgeois neighborhood, lined with palms. Now the road was extremely dangerous: Drivers were targets. James would hammer up it, hoping to make the seven miles in ten minutes. Such speed was possible but rare. Instead, the drive was often several harrowing hours, with military call signs barreling the wrong way through wreckage to dodge firefights against insurgents, who were known to release signal pigeons from nearby rooftops.
James's little jeep looked like Iraqi traffic, so he also had to worry about being fired upon by American soldiers or contractors. They tended to be quick with warning shots, and non-warning shots soon thereafter, when any vehicle came within 100 yards. Now on the other end of coalition military muzzles and bad attitudes, James understood Iraqis' resentment. But having been a military contractor himself, he also understood the fear that goes with wearing a bull's eye. The whole thing was a mess. And here he was, threading the needle every other day to pick up some Dewar's.
As he drove, James would blast music to distract himself, usually whatever was on Armed Forces radio. Everyone had lost friends on that road. He'd felt the pressure sucked out of the air by massive explosions and braced for the blast that followed. Once he'd hit the T-walls of Checkpoint 1, the gateway to the relative security of the airport, he'd let go a sigh of relief, but even that wasn't quite safe. He'd seen car bombs go off right at the checkpoint, and he'd jumped out to assist, only to find people he knew on the ground, too far gone for a medic.
Once through the entrance, James would show up at Ahmed's compound, jittery smoke in hand. Then he'd stack up his supply and head back out through the checkpoint for the return trip.
This piece is an excerpt from "Baghdad Country Club" by Joshuah Bearman. The full story is available from The Atavist for the Kindle, the iPad/iPhone, and other outlets via The Atavist website."
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Meh .... to much clothing on to be interesting.
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Did you find it yet? Does Jesus have it behind the couch?
Possible, I don't have any other explanation and it's still gone. (insert sad face here) Have already replaced the Totems which are the Radness, and had 39 Aliens before so no need to replace those......
Take care all!
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Copy/pasted below for posterity.
"À qui la chance !!!!
Ensemble COMPLET d’escalade de glace (USAGÉ)
En bon état…
included :
- protect helmet « Black Diamond » orange color
- 2 ice axes GRIVEL « Mont-Blanc » type Wing
- 2 Dragonne GRIVEL
- 12 tips boot spikes GRIVEL adjustable…
- KAYLAND boots waterproof, VIBRAM, size 12, -40 C
- 2 harness XL (1 PETZL type comfort)
- 3 webbing length 2 foot
- 2 webbing length 4 foot
- 2 webbing length 4 foot
- 1 webbing length 8 foot !!!
- COMPLET nut set (total 10) gr. 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 (different color)
- 2 clip carabiners
- 7 screw carabiners
- ATC device « Black Diamond »
- ATC device
- GRIGRI PETZL
- Plus plus plus….
*** Contact the seller for more information. I can provide more pictures. Shipping fees will be charge on weigth and sixe of the boxes. No extra charges. shipping only to US and Canada.,.. Contact seller for total shipping fees... depending on distance. CONTACT the sellet for the EXACT shipping total...."
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These kinds of trips are full-value, nothing n00b about them, good job!
Ditto: coming down that kind of stuff when you are tired from walking in snow with no one to break trail, at altitude when you are sucking O's and all alone, can be a total bitch. I've done some pretty stupid things in my life, but it seems that the times I second guess myself and call myself an idiot even years later are not when I've headed down but when I have gone for it. Even successful. You made the right choice.
Nice.
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Hijacked while away!
I think I might head out that way if the errands get done before that. Billcoe, you want to do a few laps while they play with their toys
Good meeting you last night Teh. Love to tie in, if we get a good day speak up or send a PM. However, Christmas means busy and lots of family, and, I have a project that must be sent as soon as the snow melts at the 2,000-3,300 feet level. So if it doesn't happen real soon, it's not you, it's me.
...John, your thread has 694935 page views....
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Ya all run around screaming "HOPE AND CHANGE". Now we've got the "CHANGE" and no one is happy. No ya all are looking to change back.
IMO, the only way to reduce the morass and this kind of continual pressure from big government is to reduce the size of it. That's what I'm hoping for - less government. I think that the only way to make it happen is to try and give them less money and the best way to do that is to vote for those who want that to happen.
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Gawker published the results of the Freedom on information act on Blackwater in Iraq which they had filed 4 years back. Copied and pasted most as well in case the link disappears. Short version: "GET OFF MY GRASS...."ERR SAND..." Interesting comments below the story if you click the link.
"‘Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge’ and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy’s Rampage Through Iraq
Every time a Blackwater centurion discharged his weapon in Iraq, the company filed a written report with the U.S. State Department. Blackwater shot Iraq to shit. Here are the reports.
Blackwater, the private mercenary firm that became synonymous with Bush-era war profiteering and reckless combat-tourism, announced yesterday that it has changed its name to Academi (after a previous incarnation as Xe Services) in a bid to distance itself from its history of wanton lawlessness. We've obtained a 4,500-page record of that history in the form of State Department incident reports documenting every time a Blackwater guard shot at an Iraqi between 2005 and 2007.
We got them in response to a Freedom of Information Act request we filed four years ago. They come from the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which was charged with overseeing and monitoring the contractors hired by State to secure its diplomats and other VIPs in the war zone. While firms like DynCorp and Triple Canopy make frequent appearances, the reports are dominated by Blackwater, which was paid roughly $1 billion between 2004 and 2009 to provide "worldwide protective services" for State Department personnel. (It continues to surreptitiously weave its tentacles into various government contracts; hence the name changes.)
In Iraq, Blackwater's "protective services" consisted in large part of preemptively shooting any car that drove near its convoys. Page after page of the reports feature drivers (and occasionally boat pilots) who were fired upon simply because they drove "aggressively," attempted to pass, or didn't heed warnings to keep their distance. There was no routine mechanism for following up with the drivers to determine if they were injured or were actually hostile. Blackwater (and DynCorp and Triple Canopy) guards roamed Iraqi cities and highways, ignoring traffic rules and shooting at other drivers literally at will, and driving on. According to a 2007 investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [pdf], between 2005 and 2007 Blackwater operatives fired on Iraqis at least 195 times, or an average of 1.4 times per week. That included an infamous Baghdad firefight at Nisour Square that killed 17 civilians.
Much of what these files contain has already been reported—the authors of the Oversight Committee report appears to have had access to them, and various reporters have covered some of the incidents they record. But as far as we can tell, the documents themselves have never been published in their entirety. We have only been able to read a few random slivers of the 4,000 pages—we're posting them here for readers and researchers to pore over and help us find untold stories—but here's some of what we've been able to find.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
Shot at for Using a Cell Phone
On February 19, 2007, a Blackwater motorcade carrying a dignitary to a local juvenile prison was attempting to make a left turn when a parked white four-door sedan entered oncoming traffic. "The lead [vehicle's] rear gunner...noticed that the lone occupant had a device in his hands," reads a report on the incident. "Suspecting that the vehicle may be a Vehicle-Born Explosive Improvised Device, [redacted] fired one round from his rifle into the grill of the suspicious vehicle.... The impact of the round caused the driver to bring the vehicle to an immediate stop. He raised his hands in the air revealing that he held a cell phone." The same Blackwater team fired on cars three other times that day.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
"Any Disciplinary Actions Would Be Seen as Lowering Morale"
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
In February 2005, a Blackwater team fired hundreds of rounds at two different "aggressive" cars during an operation in Baghdad. Team members subsequently told State Department investigators that 1) one of the cars' occupants fired on them, striking a vehicle in the motorcade, and 2) one of the cars was on a Be on the Lookout (BOLO) list as a suspected insurgent vehicle. Both were lies. Investigators later found that bullet holes in the Blackwater vehicle had been caused by friendly fire and that none of the Blackwater guards involved could recall the make or model of the car that was allegedly on the BOLO list, making it impossible for them to have known such a car was on the list. (The team's leader told one investigator that he always claimed that cars he fired on were on the BOLO list, whether they were or not. Indeed, the vast majority of shooting reports claim that the target vehicles were on the BOLO list.)
State Department investigators came to the conclusion that the Blackwater team was unjustified in firing on the cars, coordinated their stories to avoid suspicion, and lied about it later. So what it it do? "[investigating agents] concluded that several of the...individual [sic] involved in the shooting provided false statements to the investigators as well as failed to justify their actions. When investigators briefed [the State Department Regional Security Officer] on their findings and inquired about what disciplinary actions were to occur, RSO informed the investigators that any disciplinary actions would be deemed as lowering the morale of the entire [personal security detail] entity." No one knows if the occupants of the targeted cars were injured of killed. USA Today has previously reported the incident and lack of disciplinary action.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
"Well Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge"
On July 16, 2007, a DynCorp (not Blackwater, but still) convoy traveling near Erbil fired five shots at a red Isuzu because it was driving "at a fast pace" toward the caravan and failed to heed warnings to keep back. According to an after-action report filed by one of the shooters, the driver pulled over, "got out of the car," and "appeared to be OK."
In fact, he was shot in the leg. And he was an Iraqi civil affairs judge. The incident resulted in a $2,500 payment to the judge for damage to his vehicle and formal letters of protest from Kurdistan's minister of justice and the Kurdistan Judges Union. But not an apology: The State Department determined that shooting at judges for driving too fast in their own country is "within the established Department of State policy for escalation of force." One State official wrote in an email to his colleagues that the DynCorp guards did exactly the right thing:
Well gentlemen—I met with the Director this morning; as such, I am convinced that we shot the re-colored SUV driven by [redacted], a civilian affairs judge in kaler [sic] court, who was transported to the emergency room with a minor bullet wound to the leg.
I am certainly not questioning the judgment of the PSD members involved in this incident; in fact, the contrary. Based on my review of the reports... the PSD members did exactly what they should have done and we should hope they react similarly if presented with the same scenario in the future.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
The judge case is illustrative because the initial reports in almost all of the shootings we looked at included language along the lines of "the driver did not appear to be injured" or "the driver appeared to be OK." In the Erbil shooting, obviously, that wasn't true. Since there was almost never an effort to track down the victims of contractor shootings—which in effect means Blackwater left hundreds of presumed insurgent suicide bombers on the streets after disabling their cars with shots to the engine block—it's impossible to know how many were actually injured or even killed.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
"I'm hearing stories of [contractors] using bullets like hand signals."
A July 2007 email from one State Department official to several colleagues—apparently in reference to the judge's shooting—openly worried about contractor teams indiscriminately shooting their way around Iraq:
When was the last time we...looked into all the other contractor PSD elements running around Iraq? I'm hearing stories of quite a few PSD elements moving from Mosul to Irbil firing up to 50 rounds per move and using bullets like we use hand and arm signals, flashers, or a water bottle. [security teams would often toss plastic water bottles at the windshield of a suspicious car to get the driver's attention—Ed.]
It doesn't appear that anyone wrote him back or addressed his concerns.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
"Several New York Times reporters were saddened to learn that their favorite dog had been shot."
Shortly before Christmas 2007, a Blackwater team went to the New York Times compound in Baghdad to conduct a security sweep it in advance of a dignitary's visit. They encountered a stray dog that the Times' security team had raised from a pup. And (as Reuters reported at the time) shot it.
The dog became aware of [blackwater's K-9] and became extremely aggressive, lunging at the K-9 and prompting the k-9 handler to place his body between the two dogs and draw his pistol. The K-9 handler and another [personal security specialist] assigned to cover him shouted at the stray dog, kicked it, and struck it with a [redacted] muzzle to try to repel it, but the stray dog would not back off. [T]he PSS member shot the stray dog with two [redacted] rounds.
After killing the "stray" dog, the Blackwater team learned that it was in fact was a pet and "basically a mascot.... Several New York Times reporters subsequently came out of the residence and were saddened to learn that their 'favorite' dog had been shot. [Redacted] spoke to [redacted] and the reporters and did a good job smoothing things over and de-escalating the situation."
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
All 4,500 pages of reports are embedded below. As we mentioned previously, we haven't read them all, but they don't appear to include some high-profile events, like the Nisour Square shootings (presumably because the State Department considers them to still be under investigation and exempt from the FOIA).
We've uploaded them to Document Cloud, an excellent service that allows readers to search and annotate documents and send around links to specific pages. So we encourage you to peruse them and flag any interesting incidents worth following up on."
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Sounds like if they could have dropped someone off the chopper with an extra sleeping bag, pad, some hot liquid, a nosh and a tent, dude would still be alive. Not being critical, when it's our time to go it's time and this guy chose to do out into that weather alone so I'm sure he'd be good with it, just basing that on the media story below where he was left to lay in the snow overnight. It sounds like if the guy had a buddy with him he'd most likely still be here.
"Six search and rescue teams, as well as a helicopter, began a search. Late in the afternoon, the helicopter crew spotted Grobois lying in the snow at the top of the Stevens Creek drainage. There was a dusting of snow on him, and he was unresponsive to the helicopter.
The scene is northeast of Paradise at 5,500-6,000 feet in elevation, near the Paradise Glacier Trail on the south side of the 14,411-foot mountain.
Because of rough terrain and fast approaching darkness, it was decided not to send in a ground team Monday evening.
A ground team was taken Tuesday to the Stevens Creek Bridge by a tracked snow machine and then made their way up the drainage to the scene. Grobois was unconscious and severely hypothermic when the team got to him, Wold said."
I go out myself alone into crazytime place on occasion, I've had some ....interesting ....moments over the years too. If you ever find me face down in the snow, or with my leg pinned by a boulder stuck half way up a cliff, or half eaten by a big cat - whatever you do be safe for you and your group. I'm there cause I'm gladly and happily there and it's OK. Jus sayin'......
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Chaps is back. Minnesotaclimbing.com is gone:-(
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Sweet stuff!
Salopette Bill ?
(ie, "Many thanks to Northwest Alpine for making niche alpine gear. My search for a better salopette led me here. Steve and I weren’t disappointed. I haven’t found anything else comparable.)
http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/angelic-pretty-inspired-salopette
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Dude!!! Well played on a gnarly solo Crackman!
Yeah, what he said!
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nice - glad to see you talked jim into the swanker, camel-friendly venue
If people are bringin camels can I bring a sheep as a date?
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Tried my hand at clean Aid yesterday at Beacon. Free for Some to the first anchor. Was wondering how long it takes an experienced aid climber to get to the first anchor? My belay partner waited patiently in the cold for 1.5 hours(or so he says). Any one else have a time taken?
thanks, Tom
I've never tried to aid that pitch but I would think 1.5 hours is fairly respectable time in those conditions if you did the full first pitch. I've found that my time to aid something can go radically down in bad weather. For instance: I've did the first pitch of The West Face of Monkey in @25 min in good weather, and then come back 2 months later when it was butt assed cold (so wearing multiple layers and you are less able to move freely or quickly) with perhaps 25-30 MPH winds. Just trying to get your feet in the aiders each time was a major success as they were blowing sideways and you had to pull them under so your feet would get in the rungs, and in that environment I took 2-1/2 hours on the same pitch with the same gear. I was using hand tied aiders, and it caused me to get commercial aid ladders for both myself and Ujahn as the rungs are less likely to collapse.
It always impresses the hell out of me to see things like the 3 Russian chicks who just did a new line up Trango Tower. Damn:-0
Anyway, good on ya for getting out there and getting on it! Woot!
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Good on you Chris. I agree with you, and thank you for putting this out there. I think that a FA has a duty to all those who follow. That doesn't mean adding more bolts either although having that discussion on a route by route bolt by bolt basis as a community can be a good thing.
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Tim linked ALL the Gorge cameras on his web page! Hot damn! This is so freaking awesome. Marginal days like yesterday, I was checking all the cameras before we headed out late morning yesterday. (31 degrees at Cascade Locks at 10 frikkan am in the morning which in fact translated to rappelling past icicles at days end - LOL) But I could have gotten my fix on Tims web page. Just book mark it in your weather section and one click tells you you need to add 4 more layers or just stay home:-)
http://www.portlandrockclimbs.com/webcams-col-gorge
Good stuff!
Side note/heads up, the Cape Horn cam is pointing directly at the 2nd pullout, (Easternmort) Ozone parking in case anyone is thinking of getting randy in the car with your significant other pre or post climb.
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What did you fuckers do to him?
Was he caped
on the Interglacier? 
His incessant posting stopped like a car into a brick wall about a week ago. Hopefully it's just a vacation from his crazy and heavy posting schedule and is doing OK.
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Anyone know of Picassa will do it for sure?
Hi Dennis. Wuz up?
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He got off easy, could have been Drews tub girl link.... whow....
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While you work on this self discovery trip, I'd suggest starting work on a book called "Fast food around the world" wherein you eat at various fast food joints and rate them on how sick you get. No one will know it's really only "Fast Food in 3 states". It will be a big seller, and you can double dip on the trip and recoup all the money you spend.
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...and dvdvideosoft.com says it will flip it, but when I go to load it in a pop up explains that it's not a valid Win32 file (I don't have win 64.
Looks like this might end up as a new Macintosh.
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Thanks Otto, downloaded it and tried. It plays it but appears it only rotates stills, not movie files. Unless there is a plugin or sumpin'......
That led me to virtual dub, which doesn't do .MOV files.....
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Men in Back
WT hell?
And I get grief for not spelling H8 Trane correctly.
Blackwater Question
in Spray
Posted
I can't help but feel that if your current career goes all trash, there's a job waiting for you in writing country songs Paul.