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Starting my law office in Iraq was in some ways very similar to how I started my law practice in Towson. In both places, I need the basics: a work space; a private place to meet confidentially with clients; a computer with internet access; a printer; a phone; and a client base.

When I deployed, I arrived in Kuwait, where I took over the established office of the attorney I was replacing. (The Army unit that I support also has troops throughout Iraq, but we did not have an established law office in Iraq at the time.)

Shortly after arriving in Kuwait, however, I was taskedwith travelingto Iraq to assist with a number of investigations into potential soldier misconduct. When I arrived, I had no dedicated office space that I could use, so I networked and made connections that helped me work throughout the military complex using various workstations.

Word spread throughout the military complex that a military attorney was present, and I quickly realized that I was the only judge advocate on the complex. Soon, I had a number of personnel seeking and reaching out to me for various legal assistance from notary services to power of attorney to general legal advice. It did not take long to realize there was a need for legal services at the military complex in Iraq.

I was originally only supposed to stay in Iraq no longer than 10 daysto assist with the investigation, but when people found outI was leaving to go back to Kuwait, I was asked to stay to provide legal assistance for the military complex. I was quickly provided a dedicated office, a computer with internet, a conference room to meet with clients, a phone and printer access.

I have since posted walk-in hours, created flyers, and have an information slide on the local television network. There has been an uptick in client services since the law office opened a few weeks ago. What started out as a short trip to Iraq has turned into an indefinite stay and established law office here.

Since establishing the practice, I have traveled to other more remote locations throughout Iraq to provide legal services to personnel in areas without a judge advocate. The legal office in Kuwait is being run by my judge advocate colleague who handles the majority of work in Kuwait, while I handle the majority of work in Iraq.

I wonder if being the judge advocate for the military complex is similar to being the only lawyer in a small town and surrounding areas. I wouldnt know, as I planted and established myself as one of thousands of lawyers throughout the Baltimore-Washington metro area.

But what remains the same is that a need for legal services, both in Towson and Iraq, led to the establishment of a law office.

Excerpt from:
How I started my law office in Iraq - Maryland Daily Record (subscription)

Media Matters for America

Iraq War booster Judy Miller on Fox worries about mainstream press giving inappropriate coverage to liars Media Matters for America Fox News contributor Judith Miller criticized an upcoming interview of conspiracy theorist radio hostAlex Jones by NBC's Megyn Kelly, calling it completely inappropriate to give a platform to a man who is a conspiracy theorist and giving great pain ... and more »

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Iraq War booster Judy Miller on Fox worries about mainstream press giving inappropriate coverage to liars - Media Matters for America

By Jeremy Courtney By Jeremy Courtney June 15 at 7:00 AM

Dozens of Iraqi Christians were rounded up by immigration authorities in Detroit this week, separated from their families and are about to be deported even though they have lived in the United States for decades. I have one question: Where is the outcry from my fellow Christians, especially those who view much of the world through the lens of Christian persecution?

I dont think this is a cut-and-dry case. I dont think these individuals were rounded up because they are Christian. I know immigration authorities say they have criminal records. Sending them back to Iraq is not an automatic death sentence, but being a Christian in Iraq is hard.

If you are a Christian, you should be deeply troubled by the deportation of your sisters and brothers from Detroit. Because persecution is real and it has little to do with some of the silly issues that American Christians complain about so easily.

Our president elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelicals has repeatedly pledged to champion the cause of persecuted Christians, especially those from the Middle East. Yet in this case, his policies could inadvertently contribute to the persecution of Christians.

Many of these immigrants fear for their safety if they are sent back to Iraq. While its possible to live and even thrive as a Christian in Iraq, many Assyrians and Chaldeans have known immense hardship because of their faith. Many of them were marginalized by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which is why some of those now facing deportation came to the United States.

Christian persecution intensified after the U.S. invasion in 2003 and the sectarian war that followed. When the Islamic State swept onto the scene in 2014, they targeted Christians and other minorities for extermination, prompting the House of Representatives and the State Department to recognize these groups as victims of genocide. Christians are a tiny fraction of the total population, probably less than 1 percent, and they are not allowed to share their faith with non-Christians.

The immigration sweep in Detroit took place after Trumps executive order on refugees and immigration, which was signed in March. The revised version removed Iraq from the list of Muslim-majority nations affected by the order but only after Iraq agreed to U.S. demands to allow the deportation of Iraqi citizens from America.

Yes, they may be legally deportable. But none of this means the Department of Homeland Security is required to deport them. Many committed their crimes decades ago and served their time.

Some face deportation for minor crimes. One mans crime was reportedly letting someone else drive a car he had rented. Another is now being detained for marijuana possession more than 20 years ago.

Yes, the rule of law matters. Yes, people should face the consequences of their actions. These Iraqis whove long lived in America have. But what about mercy? What about paying your debt and getting a new start, with your family by your side?

Immigration and deportation are not merely policy issues. Theyre about people, those who have put down deep roots and made new lives for themselves. They are about to be separated from their families, driven from America the only home theyve known for decades and forced to live in Iraq, a country where many Christians have known persecution, a country those about to be deported can barely remember.

Many of my Christian friends in Iraq have been driven from their homes. Their towns have been destroyed. Yet they have had a lifetime to learn how to navigate the complexities of being a Christian in Iraq. How are those about to be deported who have grown up in America and dont have that same experience supposed to fare?

When Trump unveiled his first executive order on refugees and immigration in January, he promised to help persecuted Christians. His actions may have unintended consequences in the opposite direction, causing unnecessary hardship for at least one group of Christians. Their deportation will needlessly disrupt lives, tear apart their families and leave them vulnerable.

Many of my fellow Christians have showed up to serve persecuted minorities in Iraq. But the front lines arent just in some war zone over there. The front lines are where we live. Theyre in places like Portland, Washington and Detroit. If the suffering of our friends matters in Iraq, then their suffering matters in Detroit no matter what our political affiliation may be.

Its not too late to change course. Trump can direct the Department of Homeland Security to exercise its discretion to not deport Iraqi Christians and other minorities, especially if their deportation puts them at risk of persecution. Christians who have the ear of the president, including his vice president and his evangelical advisory council, could put pressure on him to change his stance.

Some of my evangelical friends Ann Voskamp, Ed Stetzer, the staff at World Relief are already speaking out on behalf of refugees and vulnerable communities from the Middle East. But more of us need to speak out and show up on our own front lines with tangible acts of love.

Will the church stand with its Iraqi Christian sisters and brothers? Will we put a commitment to love ahead of party affiliation or the pursuit of power? I hope so. Our witness depends on it.

Jeremy Courtney is chief executive of Preemptive Love Coalition, working on the front lines in Iraq and Syria to protect persecuted and displaced families from becoming refugees by delivering aid inside conflict zones and providing small-business empowerment opportunities. He is author of Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time and the forthcoming Love Anyway.

Read more here:
Trump promised he would protect persecuted Christians. But he's sending Christians back to Iraq. - Washington Post

I first encountered the work of the British traveller, archeologist, and spy Gertrude Bell many years ago, while hunting in the archives for a Carmelite priest named Pre Anastase-Marie de Saint-lie, an obscure figure in the history of Arabic lexicography. Hes a jolly monk, an Arab from the Lebanon straight out of Chaucer all the same and with a clear eye fixed on the main chance; very learned in his own tongue, he speaks and writes French like a Frenchman, Bell wrote of Anastase, in a letter to her father on November 9, 1917. I like him none the worse for his being in spite of his cloth, Im persuaded, a rogue.

In the course of the afternoon, I forgot about the priest and became absorbed by Bells letters, which are as rich in ethnographic detail as any of the great nineteenth-century European travelogues, but chattierdevoid of the heroic rhetoric of T. E. Lawrences Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Bell, who was born in 1868 to wealthy industrialists, and earned first-class honors in Modern History at Oxford, was sent to Persia by her stepmother in 1892, and, staying with the family of the British ambassador in Tehran, was immediately captivated by her environs. She returned to the region to travel across Syria and the northern reaches of the Arabian desert, taking photographs and excavating ancient ruins as an amateur archeologist. She also became fluent in Arabic and Persian, spending months at a time exploring some of the most forbidding landscapes in the Middle East. During her travels, she learned about the politics of the desert: who had sold horses, who owned camels, who had been killed in a raid, how much the blood money would be or where the next battle, as she put it in a letter to her family, in May, 1900. She also unnerved the authorities. The Ottomans thought her a spy, and the British made a show of discouraging her from venturing into unsafe territory, while also hoping to benefit from the information she gathered.

Eventually, Bell was entrusted by the Britishgovernment, on the basis of her unparalleled knowledge of the region, to sketch out what she describes as a reasonable border between Iraq and the territory controlled by Ibn Saud, the founder of the future Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This task, along with her advocacy for Arab self-determination at the Cairo Conference of 1921, is one of the reasons why historians, biographers, and filmmakers have crowded around her, particularly since Iraq has again become a focus of geopolitical contestation. The other reason is her letters, which capture both her charisma and the intensely social character of her time in the Middle East. Like the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks in recent years, Bells archive of correspondence is a reminder of the daily disorder obscured by other political documents: maps, treaties, bulletins.

In Letters from Baghdad, a new documentary about the life of Bell, by the filmmakers Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbhl, Tilda Swinton reads from the letters with a pitch-perfect mix of wit, world-weariness, and often childlike exuberance. The result is a film with the confessional authority that was lacking in Werner Herzogs Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, which was a sort of Downton Abbey on the Tigris. The fakery of Letters is more artful; in recreations shot in black-and-white, actors read the reminiscences of characters such as David Hogarth, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, and Lawrence, whom Bell described, with characteristic cheek, as an interesting boy. The documentary also includes loving descriptions of her, written in Arabic, by her many Iraqi friends.

Bell could be sentimental about the East, but, for every saccharine description of her beloved Damascus (the air was sweet with the smell of figs and vines and chestnuts, the pomegranates were in the most flaming blossom), there is an account of enduring the boredom of an endless Bedouin meal held in her honor. One of the most telling of these accountswhich doesnt feature in the filmdescribes a meal that took place in 1921, soon after the Kingdom of Iraq had been established, when the soon-to-be-king, Faisal ibn Hussein, was celebrated with various notables in attendance, including a Sunni poet named Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi and a Shiite who, in the letter about the event, goes unnamed. Bell writes that al-Zahawi stood up and recited a tremendous ode in which he repeatedly alluded to Faisal as King of Iraq and everyone clapped and cheered. The Shiite, meanwhile, stepped forward . . . in white robes and a black cloak and big black turban and chanted a poem of which I didnt understand a word. It was far too long and as I say quite unintelligible but nevertheless it was wonderful.

The question of what, exactly, Bell heard when she listened to Iraqis speak is treated only obliquely in Letters from Baghdad, which nonetheless acknowledges Bells prejudice that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority. (The voices of Shiite clerics are largely absent from the letters, perhaps because, as Bell demurred, Their tenets forbid them to look upon an unveiled woman and my tenets dont permit me to veil.) What the film cannot avoid is that, gradually, Bells optimistic tone about the country she helped to found gave way to something darker. After Faisal was made King of Iraq, Bell became his indispensable adviser, a right-hand man, as the British press clippings shown in Letters from Baghdad put it, but she was later marginalized by other influence-seekers. Bell occupied herself with antiquities, establishing the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, while battling bouts of depression, before her death in 1926 from an overdose of sleeping pills. These final moments in the film cast Bells letter-writing project in a new, melancholy light. I write you such long letters because its the only form of Diary I keep, Bell once wrote to her father, launching into an account of yet another dinner. In retrospect, the compulsion to write might also have been a way for Bell to imagine her own Iraq into being, to pull together the disparate narratives and connections that she had so effortfully forged. Oh, if we can pull this thing off; rope together the young hotheads and the Shiah obscurantists, she wrote home. If we can make them work together and find their own salvation for themselves, what a fine thing it would be.

Link:
What Gertrude Bell's Letters Remind Us About the Founding of Iraq - The New Yorker

Iraqs recent history has been dominated by wars. Generations of Iraqis have grown up in shattered families, living in camps or among the rubble of their home towns. Each conflict has left its scars, both visible and invisible. In Amriyat Al Fallujah camp where more than 50,000 people live, MSF teams treat patients for physical and mental wounds. When Islamic State (IS) took control of Anbar governorate in 2014, thousands of people fled their homes. Two years later, the Iraqi army ousted IS from the area, but many families are still waiting for the chance to return home. Most are living in camps with little aid. MSF has opened a clinic in Amriyat Al Fallujah camp, where one team treats peoples physical injuries, and a second team made up of four psychologists and a psychiatrist takes care of their mental wounds.

Iraqis have been through multiple traumatic events over the course of many years, says Melissa Robichon, MSF psychologist and mental health manager in Amriyat Al Fallujah camp.

When they tell us their story, they often start in 2003. Ever since then, they have lived with continuous conflict and violence.

Many have witnessed the violent death of family members and have lived in constant fear for their own lives, stuck in their houses without enough food, hearing their children cry without being able to reassure them.

And it seems like an endless nightmare. Although they should be safe once they reach the camps for displaced people, their future remains uncertain. Life in the camps is hard: people are exposed to the extremities of the climate, there are no jobs and returning home is not possible. Many no longer even have a home as it has been destroyed in the fighting.

I want to go home

Rasul is eight years old. Originally from Fallujah, he now lives in Amriyat Al Fallujah camp with his family. A week earlier, he suffered a common but very painful injury.

My father was filling the heater with fuel and it caught fire, says Rasul. I was playing nearby and the flames burned both my legs.

After eight days in hospital, Rasul is keen to leave.

It hurts a lot when they clean and dress the wounds on my legs he says. Being here is boring I want to go back home.

Rasul has not seen his real home for almost a year. When fighting intensified in Fallujah, they had no choice but to leave.

We left everything there, says Rasuls mother, Bushra.

And I dont know what happened to the house and our belongings. We cant go back to our neighbourhood I think that the military is there, clearing it of explosives.

Bushras extended family has been torn apart by the conflict.

My uncle and a cousin were killed in the war, she says.

My sisters and brothers with their families are all in different camps. Some are near Baghdad, others are in Kurdistan. We used to see each other often, but now I can hardly ever talk to them.

Pulling the trigger

Violence, displacement and separation are some of the many triggers that can lead to mental health problems, according to MSF psychologist Melissa.

The situation affects everyone, but in different ways, she says. Our male patients complain about a sense of uselessness. It is stressful for them not being able to provide for their families, and sometimes they express the psychological distress through aggression.

Women are particularly affected by the rupture of the social fabric caused by years of conflict, according to Melissa, while displacement brings particular hardship for women on their own.

The women who are here without their husbands become very isolated, as they cannot walk in the camp unaccompanied, she says.

Children and teenagers are an especially vulnerable group, says Melissa, as psychological trauma can have a significant impact on their long-term development and overall functioning, sometimes resulting in problems dealing with strong emotions or in learning difficulties and behaviours that put their health at risk.

The impact can last for years and years, says Melissa.

As children and teenagers cant ask for help themselves, we try to reach out to them through our community workers, who visit schools and child-friendly spaces in the camps. We also work with the parents to increase their awareness of symptoms of psychological trauma in children.

The importance of a strong psychological support system

MSFs clinic in Amriyat Al Fallujah camp is one of the few health facilities in Anbar governorate that provides psychological and psychiatric treatment for moderate and severe mental health conditions, in addition to its medical activities.

Peoples needs for mental healthcare are tremendous, yet Anbar governorate is a neglected area, with most attention currently focused on Mosul. But, as with Mosul, the population of Anbar has suffered intense violence over recent years, leaving thousands of people with physical and psychological scars.

The need for mental health support is obvious when I see the number of patients and the severity of their trauma, says Melissa.

However, there are many challenges, including the stigma that surrounds mental illness. Many people who would benefit from treatment will not join the programme for fear of what the community might think. There is also a shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists in Iraq, so we put a lot of effort into training our Iraqi staff. Some of them also have their own trauma to handle. They are from the same region and have been through similar things as the patients.

In a country where people have tremendous needs, but where there is a shortage of mental health professionals and stigma around mental illness, developing a strong psychological support system will take time and effort, but will be essential for Iraqs future health.

See the rest here:
Iraq: Mental health needs mount after years of war - ReliefWeb