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22 December 2023
THEY'RE NOT CELEBRITIES. THEY WALK PAST YOU ON THE STREET, BRING YOU YOUR FOOD AT A RESTAURANT, AND LIVE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. THEY'RE EVERYDAY PEOPLE. JUST LIKE YOU.
SEPTEMBER 2003: RYAN CLANCY
LAND OF THE FREE? APPARENTLY NOT. HOME OF THE BRAVE? YES-- THE BRAVE RYAN CLANCY, WHO, IN PRACTICING HIS FREEDOMS, WOUND UP FACING A TERRIBLE ADVERSARY: OUR OWN CROOKED GOVERNMENT. A HUMAN SHIELD LOOKING TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN ILL-INFORMED AMERICAN AND IRAQI PEOPLES, CLANCY VISITED THE "ENEMY" COUNTRY AT A TIME OF WAR AND RETURNED HOME TO FACE A RIDICULOUS FINE AND POSSIBLE JAIL TIME, ALL WITHOUT THE RIGHT OF DUE PROCESS. VINNIE BAGGADONUTS SAT DOWN WITH THE YOUNG ACTIVIST, AND LEARNED ABOUT THE WHOLE MESSY ORDEAL.
Vinnie: Tell everyone your name.
Ryan: Ryan Clancy.
V: And tell everyone why I’m interviewing you.
Both: (laugh)
V: Well, tell me the whole story. Start with why you went to Iraq.
R: I went to Iraq with the intentions of giving the children a voice, to voice their fears about the war. I wanted to give them a means to express their fears. I’m a certified English teacher and had traveled overseas with the Peace Corps before. The other reason, which I’ll get into later, was to give the Iraqi populace a face; to humanize them to the American people back home. Especially after the war began, we didn’t have access to pictures of students and families just going about their daily routine. All we saw were pictures of Saddam with his gun in the air and the terrorist training camp. And that was not an accurate depiction of the people we were about to drop bombs on. I was interviewing the students over there, and I was devastated to see what their impression of the American public was. They didn’t think that we were just over there to remove Saddam Hussein. 95% of the people I talked to over there thought the American people were there to invade the Iraqi people. I went into elementary schools, and asked the students there to draw pictures of their homes and family. One student drew her family standing in front of her home, and a cruise missile with a picture of the American flag on it aimed at her home and family. It’s really difficult to see how,.. I mean, when little American boys draw pictures of war, they draw very abstract depictions. They don’t include their own homes and families. That really is a terrible, devastating thing to see.
V: Right.
R: I went into some secondary schools, and asked the students there to write letters to their American counterparts. You know, letters from Akhmed in Baghdad to John in Chicago. And again, those are pretty well summed up by one of the lines in one of the letters: “We like you, and we don’t know why you don’t like us.” Again, these people didn’t think we were just after Saddam. They thought we were after them.
V: Damn.
R: It’s not a good situation for the kids, and it’s a reflection of how the rest of that country feels. And that’s not a good situation for us, because that opinion is leading to the attacks on a lot of American troops.
V: So, what made you decide to go over there? Was it just that you wanted to humanize the Iraqi people?
R: Yeah. I would sit around at night watching the mainstream network news, literally yelling at the TV because I had a pretty good idea that the images we were seeing were not accurate ones, or were ones that didn’t tell the whole story.
V: Yeah.
R: I went over there so I could confirm that theory. When I was overseas with the Peace Corps, I had a chance to see that there was some positive affect from American foreign policy. But, more often than not, we were doing a tremendous amount of harm to developing countries. Another reason I was interested in conducting another mission similar to the Peace Corps was that when I was with the Peace Corps, I saw people starving in the Philippines. It would have been a much different country had it not been an American colony for half a century. We did a tremendous amount of economic and cultural damage to that country. I was over there on one mission, and quickly stopped that to start these livelihood projects, giving the English teachers over there creative writing strategies as much as I could in the native language, which I had to pick up fairly quickly.
V: Oh, really?
R: Yeah. So, that provides some background into why I didn’t want to see something similar happen in Iraq. And I would hate to see the once-proud people of Iraq become puppets. And it pretty much looks like the government we’re installing over there is a puppet government that will only do what someone tells it to. That’s not a positive thing.
V: Did you get into politics fairly young?
R: Well, I wasn’t into conventional activism. Prior to going to Iraq, I never marched in a parade or anything like that. I was always outspoken among my close group of friends and family, but much of that is like preaching to the choir. In high school, the ACLU helped me sue my high school because they wanted to expel us for handing out a newspaper that I put together. I’ve been represented by the ACLU, like, three times!
Both: (laugh)
R: But that’s not conventional peace activism. Going to Iraq was an organic experience, but a lot of reporters were coming to me and saying, “You came out of the blue. You didn’t have any history of being arrested for protesting.” But I wanted to go over there and let them know that I was not in favor of this war, and that not all American people are united against them. I’ve also been asked several times if I would do what I did again, knowing that it was a failure because I obviously didn’t avert the war. And my response to that is that none of the kids that I spoke to-- kids that I came to and said, “I am an American, and I don’t dislike you. We’re not united against you. It’s just our elected leader arbitrarily taking this action."-- None of those kids will perpetuate any harm against the American people. And one of the reasons I went over there is out of concern for my own country. It was important for me to tell as many people as possible that George Bush’s actions don’t speak for us. These are not the actions of the American people, and we are not going to fight behind him. And although some would look at that as unpatriotic, I see it as very patriotic.
V: That’s what this country was founded on.
R: Right, right. The whole idea that me going to meet the people that we are about to bomb or kill or “liberate”, that any of that isn’t patriotic is bizarre!
V: Maybe the Bush administration is just pissed you have a better foreign policy than they do.
Both: (laugh)
V: So, do you think reporters ask you those kinds of questions because, with this particular administration, it’s seen as unpopular to speak out against it?
R: Yeah! And one of the weird incongruous things I’ve seen in the last couple weeks is that there's a tremendous groundswell of resentment against our presence in Iraq. We’ve had, what-- three U.S. soldiers committing suicide in the last couple weeks. We’ve had 600 or more families of U.S. troops saying, “Bring them home!” The rates of depression are increasing, and resentment against the troops over there is skyrocketing. Yet we don’t see a backlash against Bush from either the mainstream media, or the average person on the street. And they don’t seem to be connecting the fact that Bush’s policies and actions are the reason that we’re over there, and the reason that our troops are dying. We were told at the very beginning that this was gonna be a quick strike. Obviously, that didn’t happen. It’s unfortunate that the American people are so easily misled.
V: I know very few people who were in favor of us having a military presence in Iraq. I think a lot of the people I know who speak out actively against it just aren’t given attention. I think the media won’t pay them any attention, because they don’t want to show other people that Americans disapprove of their own president.
R: So much of what I’ve said in interviews-- and this applies a lot more to when I first came back than it does now-- there has been a definite shift in it being okay to criticize the president and our foreign policies without being branded "unpatriotic". I think that’s a good thing, and I hope it keeps going in that direction. But, three, four months ago, when I got back from Baghdad, very little of what I actually said made it to the airwaves. Right now, it seems to be somewhat more positive. When I first got back, there was an explosion of liberals who were in favor of what I did, and conservatives who definitely weren’t. Now it’s a lot more complex. Liberals are in favor of due process. And conservatives,.. I got a call again from somebody who was actually one of the ones who, when I got back from Baghdad, was like, “You fucking hippy faggot.” He called me again to apologize, and say “I still don’t agree entirely with what you said when you came back, but my government is going to jail somebody without due process, and that’s not right. They shouldn't be able to tell us where we can and can’t go, and what we can and can’t see.
V: Right.
R: So, the conservative camp is split on this one.
V: My thing is, I’m starting to see how people are reacting after three years of this administration being in office, and it seems like people just gave up. “Oh, this guy just robbed his way into office.” But nobody did anything. Slowly, people started to see that he was screwing up, but people were afraid to speak out against that. I think that it’s just a case of this being the first time in a long time where we’ve had a president who really isn’t our president, and people are like, “Wait-- this is wrong. What do we do?" Because it’s been so long since anyone’s protested anything. I wonder if you’d be getting the attention you’re currently getting if Bush were doing a good job.
R: I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. Even the mainstream press prints that George Bush blatantly lied. The American public seems to be like, “Well, of course he lied. He’s the president!”
Both: (laugh)
R: Until we hold our elected officials to a higher standard than that, I don’t think much is going to change. It worries me that somebody can say, “He lied? Oh, well. He's the president.” That's completely backwards. He should be held to higher standards than that. Not lower.
V: Have you ever read Fortunate Son? It’s a book that came out on Soft Skull Press. It was about President Bush, and it ran into pretty big trouble because it revealed with some evidence that he used cocaine at one point in his life, and it revealed all these shady ties he had with other people. The man who wrote it wound up being harassed by federal agents, and they did a smear campaign against him. Have you fell victim to any of that stuff? Any sort of agency backlash?
R: I was asked by a reporter yesterday, “Do you think that the CIA is tapping your phones?” (laughs) I told him, "Well, they could be. But all of the phone calls I make are to the media. So, I'm not really hiding anything anyway."
V: What about things along the lines of Patriot Act II, where they’re keeping an eye on people in this country they perceive to be a minor threat?
R: Well, it’s a tough question. If I say, “Yes, I’m worried about that,” then I seem paranoid. And if I say, “No,” then I sound stupid. It’s unnecessary, though, for them to take covert actions against somebody when the overt action is so ridiculous and already happening. They’re saying, essentially, that they're going to put you me jail for ten years and fine me a million dollars for having gone and met these people that we’re going to bomb and kill. It seems sort of redundant for them to have to do anything else.
Both: (laugh)
R: They’re already coming out and very overtly saying, “We’re going to jail you and charge you this fine.” What else could they possibly do? It doesn’t make sense that they would try and do anything else. But, at the same time, it doesn’t make sense that they would try and lock me up for having gone to a place we’re at war with.
V: Let’s talk about what’s going on with that.
R: Well, there’s not much I can do. (laughs) They’ve suspended our right to due process. I don’t get a hearing, I don’t get a trial. Have you ever read anything by Kafka?
V: Yeah.
R: I was talking to someone who was a temporary intern over at the Treasury Department. He was really helpful, so he probably won’t be there very long. (laughs) But I’d mentioned that I’d felt like a Kafka character, and he said that he "...wasn’t familiar with this Kafka case." And I said, “Well, it sounds like one of yours. You should really check into it.” (laughs) I tried to do it with a straight face, but-- (laughs) that was rather amusing. The whole thing is, I’m somewhat scared about what they’re trying to do to me. But I’m also horrified and appalled that something like this could happen in this country. I don’t consider myself un-American. I am very proud to be an American, in most aspects. But I’m simultaneously embarrassed about everything we do overseas.
Both: (laugh)
R: Part of that pride I have stems from the rights which, until very recently, I thought we had: freedom of speech, the right to travel, the right to due process; things I’d taken for granted in the past. It’s unconscionable and bizarre that we're taking due process away from somebody, while at the same time claiming to bring freedom to Iraq. It’s almost laughable that they seem to be getting away with it.
V: Has anyone noteworthy and powerful come to you and said they want to help you fight this?
R: Yeah, they,.. uh,...
V: You don’t have to name names.
R: Several lawyers, and a large, civil rights organization will hopefully be representing me if we have to file a federal suit. But with due process being taken from me, there’s only so much a lawyer can do.
V: Have any government officials called and said, "I don’t really agree with what’s going on here?"
R: Well, I had a funny conversation with the PR guy over at the Treasury Department, and he basically lied to the press. He was saying, “Sure, he’ll get a trial.” But the truth was that they were telling me I would not get a trial. He was either very mistaken, which is a generous assessment on my part, or he was flat-out lying about what the procedure is. And they can get away with that, too. It’s like if they turned to you and said, "You went to Iraq. You owe us a million dollars." Even if you didn’t go, you wouldn’t get a chance to say, “I didn’t even go!” And then they start freezing assets. And according to the law as it’s written right now, they have the right to do that. And that scares me. Obviously, I went to Iraq. At this point, there’s no denying it: “Wait-- What?!? I thought it was Cancun!” (laughs) “I stepped on the plane, I stepped off the plane, and suddenly there are bombs flying overhead!”
Both: (laugh)
R: Obviously, I went to Iraq. But the lack of due process is the scary thing. Especially considering we're pretending to be bringing freedom to Iraq.
V: So how does that affect waking up in the morning and doing your job here?
R: I left Iraq with a lot of misgivings. I left Iraq hoping to get more money. I went to Amman, to Jordan, because there are no ATM facilities in Baghdad. And when I ran out of the money I went there with, I traveled to Amman to get more money. I got more money, but then couldn’t get back into Baghdad. So all those kids I was playing soccer with in the street every day, I left. All the kids that I befriended, all the students I worked with regularly, I left. I felt really terrible leaving the people that I’d just befriended. And I couldn’t sleep well because of that. It was only until recently that I started sleeping well again. But not that well, knowing that our troops are dying at the rates they are every day and that the Iraqi people are being decimated. But, personally, I slept a little better because I was finally removed from the situation. But then I get a call from the Treasury Department, and they start to screw everything up again. It’s shitty.
V: So, if there’s one thing you could tell people, having seen what you saw in Iraq--
R: I came back in early March-- that was just prior to us dropping bombs-- and the first American I talked to was a customs guy who obviously knew I was coming, and obviously knew who I was. So he takes my passport, reads through every single page, and when he got to the Iraqi page he got red-faced and mad, and was like, “Why did you go over there? All those people hate us!” And I didn’t know where to start. I spent three weeks among some of the kindest people I’d ever met. People that, although my country has prevented them from getting adequate food and medicine for 13 years, they were inviting me into their homes, giving me food, and kindness and generosity. They were giving me the last of their food, which otherwise would have gone to their children. I mean, I was humbled to the point of tears on several occasions by the kindness and generosity of the Iraqi people. And their big message to me was, "We like you. We don’t know why you don’t like us." So to come back to my country and have the first asshole I meet tell me that all those people hate me, I wanted to kick his ass.
Both: (laugh)
R: I didn’t. I managed to get out, “No, they don’t.” But I didn’t even know where to begin with him. It didn’t make any sense. It’s unfortunate that the American population and the Iraqi population have very inaccurate perceptions of one another. One of the small things I’d hoped to do was try and correct that.
V: Is there a place people could go to learn more about that and realize it? Other than by our biased media, or traveling over there?
R: There really isn’t. One of the things I had hoped to do, and still hope to do once we finally end these sanctions, is go back and try and talk to them again. Or the thing I would like to do is get a student exchange program going, and continue with what I started to do over there. To get Iraqi students to write letters to their American counterparts, and vice versa. It’s important to me that both groups do that-- and especially let Americans know that Iraqis are not some abstract enemy. You know, it’s Akhmed, an eight-year-old and wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. It was amazing to see how many of them wanted to come to America when they grew up. On the one hand, they thought we didn’t like them. But on the other hand, they think that it’s a place where they’d have many more freedoms.
Both: (laugh)
R: I don’t know if they’ll stay that way. (laughs) Once people get to a certain age they tend to be a little more set in their convictions. And if there’s a 30-year-old person from Alabama, I think he’s a little harder to reach than kids in elementary schools.
V: Absolutely.
VISIT RYAN HERE.
SEPTEMBER 2003: RYAN CLANCY
LAND OF THE FREE? APPARENTLY NOT. HOME OF THE BRAVE? YES-- THE BRAVE RYAN CLANCY, WHO, IN PRACTICING HIS FREEDOMS, WOUND UP FACING A TERRIBLE ADVERSARY: OUR OWN CROOKED GOVERNMENT. A HUMAN SHIELD LOOKING TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN ILL-INFORMED AMERICAN AND IRAQI PEOPLES, CLANCY VISITED THE "ENEMY" COUNTRY AT A TIME OF WAR AND RETURNED HOME TO FACE A RIDICULOUS FINE AND POSSIBLE JAIL TIME, ALL WITHOUT THE RIGHT OF DUE PROCESS. VINNIE BAGGADONUTS SAT DOWN WITH THE YOUNG ACTIVIST, AND LEARNED ABOUT THE WHOLE MESSY ORDEAL.
Vinnie: Tell everyone your name.
Ryan: Ryan Clancy.
V: And tell everyone why I’m interviewing you.
Both: (laugh)
V: Well, tell me the whole story. Start with why you went to Iraq.
R: I went to Iraq with the intentions of giving the children a voice, to voice their fears about the war. I wanted to give them a means to express their fears. I’m a certified English teacher and had traveled overseas with the Peace Corps before. The other reason, which I’ll get into later, was to give the Iraqi populace a face; to humanize them to the American people back home. Especially after the war began, we didn’t have access to pictures of students and families just going about their daily routine. All we saw were pictures of Saddam with his gun in the air and the terrorist training camp. And that was not an accurate depiction of the people we were about to drop bombs on. I was interviewing the students over there, and I was devastated to see what their impression of the American public was. They didn’t think that we were just over there to remove Saddam Hussein. 95% of the people I talked to over there thought the American people were there to invade the Iraqi people. I went into elementary schools, and asked the students there to draw pictures of their homes and family. One student drew her family standing in front of her home, and a cruise missile with a picture of the American flag on it aimed at her home and family. It’s really difficult to see how,.. I mean, when little American boys draw pictures of war, they draw very abstract depictions. They don’t include their own homes and families. That really is a terrible, devastating thing to see.
V: Right.
R: I went into some secondary schools, and asked the students there to write letters to their American counterparts. You know, letters from Akhmed in Baghdad to John in Chicago. And again, those are pretty well summed up by one of the lines in one of the letters: “We like you, and we don’t know why you don’t like us.” Again, these people didn’t think we were just after Saddam. They thought we were after them.
V: Damn.
R: It’s not a good situation for the kids, and it’s a reflection of how the rest of that country feels. And that’s not a good situation for us, because that opinion is leading to the attacks on a lot of American troops.
V: So, what made you decide to go over there? Was it just that you wanted to humanize the Iraqi people?
R: Yeah. I would sit around at night watching the mainstream network news, literally yelling at the TV because I had a pretty good idea that the images we were seeing were not accurate ones, or were ones that didn’t tell the whole story.
V: Yeah.
R: I went over there so I could confirm that theory. When I was overseas with the Peace Corps, I had a chance to see that there was some positive affect from American foreign policy. But, more often than not, we were doing a tremendous amount of harm to developing countries. Another reason I was interested in conducting another mission similar to the Peace Corps was that when I was with the Peace Corps, I saw people starving in the Philippines. It would have been a much different country had it not been an American colony for half a century. We did a tremendous amount of economic and cultural damage to that country. I was over there on one mission, and quickly stopped that to start these livelihood projects, giving the English teachers over there creative writing strategies as much as I could in the native language, which I had to pick up fairly quickly.
V: Oh, really?
R: Yeah. So, that provides some background into why I didn’t want to see something similar happen in Iraq. And I would hate to see the once-proud people of Iraq become puppets. And it pretty much looks like the government we’re installing over there is a puppet government that will only do what someone tells it to. That’s not a positive thing.
V: Did you get into politics fairly young?
R: Well, I wasn’t into conventional activism. Prior to going to Iraq, I never marched in a parade or anything like that. I was always outspoken among my close group of friends and family, but much of that is like preaching to the choir. In high school, the ACLU helped me sue my high school because they wanted to expel us for handing out a newspaper that I put together. I’ve been represented by the ACLU, like, three times!
Both: (laugh)
R: But that’s not conventional peace activism. Going to Iraq was an organic experience, but a lot of reporters were coming to me and saying, “You came out of the blue. You didn’t have any history of being arrested for protesting.” But I wanted to go over there and let them know that I was not in favor of this war, and that not all American people are united against them. I’ve also been asked several times if I would do what I did again, knowing that it was a failure because I obviously didn’t avert the war. And my response to that is that none of the kids that I spoke to-- kids that I came to and said, “I am an American, and I don’t dislike you. We’re not united against you. It’s just our elected leader arbitrarily taking this action."-- None of those kids will perpetuate any harm against the American people. And one of the reasons I went over there is out of concern for my own country. It was important for me to tell as many people as possible that George Bush’s actions don’t speak for us. These are not the actions of the American people, and we are not going to fight behind him. And although some would look at that as unpatriotic, I see it as very patriotic.
V: That’s what this country was founded on.
R: Right, right. The whole idea that me going to meet the people that we are about to bomb or kill or “liberate”, that any of that isn’t patriotic is bizarre!
V: Maybe the Bush administration is just pissed you have a better foreign policy than they do.
Both: (laugh)
V: So, do you think reporters ask you those kinds of questions because, with this particular administration, it’s seen as unpopular to speak out against it?
R: Yeah! And one of the weird incongruous things I’ve seen in the last couple weeks is that there's a tremendous groundswell of resentment against our presence in Iraq. We’ve had, what-- three U.S. soldiers committing suicide in the last couple weeks. We’ve had 600 or more families of U.S. troops saying, “Bring them home!” The rates of depression are increasing, and resentment against the troops over there is skyrocketing. Yet we don’t see a backlash against Bush from either the mainstream media, or the average person on the street. And they don’t seem to be connecting the fact that Bush’s policies and actions are the reason that we’re over there, and the reason that our troops are dying. We were told at the very beginning that this was gonna be a quick strike. Obviously, that didn’t happen. It’s unfortunate that the American people are so easily misled.
V: I know very few people who were in favor of us having a military presence in Iraq. I think a lot of the people I know who speak out actively against it just aren’t given attention. I think the media won’t pay them any attention, because they don’t want to show other people that Americans disapprove of their own president.
R: So much of what I’ve said in interviews-- and this applies a lot more to when I first came back than it does now-- there has been a definite shift in it being okay to criticize the president and our foreign policies without being branded "unpatriotic". I think that’s a good thing, and I hope it keeps going in that direction. But, three, four months ago, when I got back from Baghdad, very little of what I actually said made it to the airwaves. Right now, it seems to be somewhat more positive. When I first got back, there was an explosion of liberals who were in favor of what I did, and conservatives who definitely weren’t. Now it’s a lot more complex. Liberals are in favor of due process. And conservatives,.. I got a call again from somebody who was actually one of the ones who, when I got back from Baghdad, was like, “You fucking hippy faggot.” He called me again to apologize, and say “I still don’t agree entirely with what you said when you came back, but my government is going to jail somebody without due process, and that’s not right. They shouldn't be able to tell us where we can and can’t go, and what we can and can’t see.
V: Right.
R: So, the conservative camp is split on this one.
V: My thing is, I’m starting to see how people are reacting after three years of this administration being in office, and it seems like people just gave up. “Oh, this guy just robbed his way into office.” But nobody did anything. Slowly, people started to see that he was screwing up, but people were afraid to speak out against that. I think that it’s just a case of this being the first time in a long time where we’ve had a president who really isn’t our president, and people are like, “Wait-- this is wrong. What do we do?" Because it’s been so long since anyone’s protested anything. I wonder if you’d be getting the attention you’re currently getting if Bush were doing a good job.
R: I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. Even the mainstream press prints that George Bush blatantly lied. The American public seems to be like, “Well, of course he lied. He’s the president!”
Both: (laugh)
R: Until we hold our elected officials to a higher standard than that, I don’t think much is going to change. It worries me that somebody can say, “He lied? Oh, well. He's the president.” That's completely backwards. He should be held to higher standards than that. Not lower.
V: Have you ever read Fortunate Son? It’s a book that came out on Soft Skull Press. It was about President Bush, and it ran into pretty big trouble because it revealed with some evidence that he used cocaine at one point in his life, and it revealed all these shady ties he had with other people. The man who wrote it wound up being harassed by federal agents, and they did a smear campaign against him. Have you fell victim to any of that stuff? Any sort of agency backlash?
R: I was asked by a reporter yesterday, “Do you think that the CIA is tapping your phones?” (laughs) I told him, "Well, they could be. But all of the phone calls I make are to the media. So, I'm not really hiding anything anyway."
V: What about things along the lines of Patriot Act II, where they’re keeping an eye on people in this country they perceive to be a minor threat?
R: Well, it’s a tough question. If I say, “Yes, I’m worried about that,” then I seem paranoid. And if I say, “No,” then I sound stupid. It’s unnecessary, though, for them to take covert actions against somebody when the overt action is so ridiculous and already happening. They’re saying, essentially, that they're going to put you me jail for ten years and fine me a million dollars for having gone and met these people that we’re going to bomb and kill. It seems sort of redundant for them to have to do anything else.
Both: (laugh)
R: They’re already coming out and very overtly saying, “We’re going to jail you and charge you this fine.” What else could they possibly do? It doesn’t make sense that they would try and do anything else. But, at the same time, it doesn’t make sense that they would try and lock me up for having gone to a place we’re at war with.
V: Let’s talk about what’s going on with that.
R: Well, there’s not much I can do. (laughs) They’ve suspended our right to due process. I don’t get a hearing, I don’t get a trial. Have you ever read anything by Kafka?
V: Yeah.
R: I was talking to someone who was a temporary intern over at the Treasury Department. He was really helpful, so he probably won’t be there very long. (laughs) But I’d mentioned that I’d felt like a Kafka character, and he said that he "...wasn’t familiar with this Kafka case." And I said, “Well, it sounds like one of yours. You should really check into it.” (laughs) I tried to do it with a straight face, but-- (laughs) that was rather amusing. The whole thing is, I’m somewhat scared about what they’re trying to do to me. But I’m also horrified and appalled that something like this could happen in this country. I don’t consider myself un-American. I am very proud to be an American, in most aspects. But I’m simultaneously embarrassed about everything we do overseas.
Both: (laugh)
R: Part of that pride I have stems from the rights which, until very recently, I thought we had: freedom of speech, the right to travel, the right to due process; things I’d taken for granted in the past. It’s unconscionable and bizarre that we're taking due process away from somebody, while at the same time claiming to bring freedom to Iraq. It’s almost laughable that they seem to be getting away with it.
V: Has anyone noteworthy and powerful come to you and said they want to help you fight this?
R: Yeah, they,.. uh,...
V: You don’t have to name names.
R: Several lawyers, and a large, civil rights organization will hopefully be representing me if we have to file a federal suit. But with due process being taken from me, there’s only so much a lawyer can do.
V: Have any government officials called and said, "I don’t really agree with what’s going on here?"
R: Well, I had a funny conversation with the PR guy over at the Treasury Department, and he basically lied to the press. He was saying, “Sure, he’ll get a trial.” But the truth was that they were telling me I would not get a trial. He was either very mistaken, which is a generous assessment on my part, or he was flat-out lying about what the procedure is. And they can get away with that, too. It’s like if they turned to you and said, "You went to Iraq. You owe us a million dollars." Even if you didn’t go, you wouldn’t get a chance to say, “I didn’t even go!” And then they start freezing assets. And according to the law as it’s written right now, they have the right to do that. And that scares me. Obviously, I went to Iraq. At this point, there’s no denying it: “Wait-- What?!? I thought it was Cancun!” (laughs) “I stepped on the plane, I stepped off the plane, and suddenly there are bombs flying overhead!”
Both: (laugh)
R: Obviously, I went to Iraq. But the lack of due process is the scary thing. Especially considering we're pretending to be bringing freedom to Iraq.
V: So how does that affect waking up in the morning and doing your job here?
R: I left Iraq with a lot of misgivings. I left Iraq hoping to get more money. I went to Amman, to Jordan, because there are no ATM facilities in Baghdad. And when I ran out of the money I went there with, I traveled to Amman to get more money. I got more money, but then couldn’t get back into Baghdad. So all those kids I was playing soccer with in the street every day, I left. All the kids that I befriended, all the students I worked with regularly, I left. I felt really terrible leaving the people that I’d just befriended. And I couldn’t sleep well because of that. It was only until recently that I started sleeping well again. But not that well, knowing that our troops are dying at the rates they are every day and that the Iraqi people are being decimated. But, personally, I slept a little better because I was finally removed from the situation. But then I get a call from the Treasury Department, and they start to screw everything up again. It’s shitty.
V: So, if there’s one thing you could tell people, having seen what you saw in Iraq--
R: I came back in early March-- that was just prior to us dropping bombs-- and the first American I talked to was a customs guy who obviously knew I was coming, and obviously knew who I was. So he takes my passport, reads through every single page, and when he got to the Iraqi page he got red-faced and mad, and was like, “Why did you go over there? All those people hate us!” And I didn’t know where to start. I spent three weeks among some of the kindest people I’d ever met. People that, although my country has prevented them from getting adequate food and medicine for 13 years, they were inviting me into their homes, giving me food, and kindness and generosity. They were giving me the last of their food, which otherwise would have gone to their children. I mean, I was humbled to the point of tears on several occasions by the kindness and generosity of the Iraqi people. And their big message to me was, "We like you. We don’t know why you don’t like us." So to come back to my country and have the first asshole I meet tell me that all those people hate me, I wanted to kick his ass.
Both: (laugh)
R: I didn’t. I managed to get out, “No, they don’t.” But I didn’t even know where to begin with him. It didn’t make any sense. It’s unfortunate that the American population and the Iraqi population have very inaccurate perceptions of one another. One of the small things I’d hoped to do was try and correct that.
V: Is there a place people could go to learn more about that and realize it? Other than by our biased media, or traveling over there?
R: There really isn’t. One of the things I had hoped to do, and still hope to do once we finally end these sanctions, is go back and try and talk to them again. Or the thing I would like to do is get a student exchange program going, and continue with what I started to do over there. To get Iraqi students to write letters to their American counterparts, and vice versa. It’s important to me that both groups do that-- and especially let Americans know that Iraqis are not some abstract enemy. You know, it’s Akhmed, an eight-year-old and wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. It was amazing to see how many of them wanted to come to America when they grew up. On the one hand, they thought we didn’t like them. But on the other hand, they think that it’s a place where they’d have many more freedoms.
Both: (laugh)
R: I don’t know if they’ll stay that way. (laughs) Once people get to a certain age they tend to be a little more set in their convictions. And if there’s a 30-year-old person from Alabama, I think he’s a little harder to reach than kids in elementary schools.
V: Absolutely.
VISIT RYAN HERE.
artid
1564
Old Image
6_1_clancy.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 01 (sep 2003)
section
everyday people