I bet some western tourists would get a kick out of some kind of joke "weapons of mass destruction" attraction. I don't know if any Iraqi people would though.
The red carpet leads up to a huge vault door. The carnie promises you the sight of your life. You tell all your friends and bring them along. Your buddy Dubois stays home, and you resent him for it. The vault door opens, and you walk around the corner. You see a roped-in platform. The platform is empty and the carnie is gone.
The price of admission: two trillion dollars. The door is now locked from the outside.
This reminds me how I used to smooth out people's extreme views of areas and regimes:
One day your child will be going on a senior trip to Disneyland Iraq and your protest against it will simply make you look like the old prejudiced bigot. Nobody will care that you were fed propaganda and also reality for 20 years straight. No different than our parents, grandparents or refugees having haunting views of other countries that are major allies now.
Reminds me of the Mad Men scene where the old guy is in a conference with a Japanese firm and freaks out, still mentally fighting the war, while everyone else stares at him like he's crazy
Yes but we don’t know. Saudi Arabia could be a secular dictatorship/kingdom similar to Turkey or Syria by then.
Iraq might be much more inclusive by then.
Then again Turkey could go full Islamist crazy and be more Saudi Arabia and Erdogan could declare himself president for life.
But I think globalization will somewhat liberalize all of the above in the coming years, and the desire to fit in and do business globally will push for liberalization.
> Then again Turkey could go full Islamist crazy and be more Saudi Arabia and Erdogan could declare himself president for life.
It would never happen. Turks are Turks first and Muslim second. Erdogan is a neo-ottomanist, not a salafist.
He’s as much of a Muslim as Trump is a Christian.
Now I do see him trying to sell more of the nation to Saudis and Emirates while also forcing enough pro-sunni legislation down our throats to keep the Conservative / Nationalists happy and ensure that Saudi / Qatari investment coming and to ensure he can profit like a bandit off of his pre-doomed “Islamic Finance” initiatives.
However, Turks are fairly centrist by American standards. They drink, a lot (alcohol tax revenue is crucial to the government, as well as direct sales as the government still owns some of the Raki and Beer production), smoke weed, party, are getting married and having children later in life, and fewer.
I watched the sweaty shirtless guys beating mislead soldiers to death during the failed coup a few years ago. They weren’t shouting allahu akbar while they did it. They waved Ataturk flags and sang the Izmir march.
Climate change is real, and oil is in decline. These countries will only become harder to live in, and their incomes will only decline. That these countries will modernize and liberalize in the face of these challenges is not at all a foregone conclusion.
Is the implication that Islamic terrorist groups operating in Iraq were propagandist fiction? That the real reason westerners fear Iraq is bigotry? I’m specifically unfamiliar with “grandparents and refugees having haunting views of other countries”. I have grandfathers who served in WWII and Korea and they don’t have any particular antipathy for Germans or Koreans. I’m not really familiar with that meme.
Isn’t the answer oil money? I know it’s been said a lot that the KSA has a serious fundamentalist problem but they are able to basically bribe the large parts of their populace that would otherwise turn the country upside down.
The answer to your first question is no. It's still up to you to figure out which parts were propaganda and which parts were reality. The only distinction between a terrorist group or otherwise is sovereign immunity, if you succeed in getting a state then you aren't a terrorist anymore by definition of having political goals met.
And the answer to everything else is now you are familiar with the meme.
Enjoy the new valid experience you went your whole life unaware of.
It's almost like countries comprise human beings with varying attitudes, and the fanatics don't speak for everybody, much less the kids currently being born.
There are only a few dozen countries that allow people to express those attitudes, or even recognize the right of people to harbor varying attitudes in the first place. No matter how much you might not believe in God, there are plenty of places where your life will be in danger for expressing that attitude, so you don't.
I think you're being a bit obtuse about a perfectly reasonable point that yes, someday the war is over and the other side becomes entirely normal. It happened relatively quickly with Germany, in fact maybe quicker than the rehabilitation of Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_city
(well, West Germany anyway!)
On the other hand, the war has to end first. Some simply haven't. Europe's oldest frozen warzone is still there, the Green Line across Cyprus. The tourist resort of Nicosia is still a no man's land. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-green-line-nicos...
Plenty of suitcases full of cash travelled to Iraq when the neocons were looting the treasury during the project. It's not like that money is going to go to the right people anyway - but nice houses will be built.
The problem with this corporatist neoleftist thinking is that "the west" are the victims too. Thousands and thousands of people in "the west" were killed or horribly damaged by the war. And they were forced to pay trillions of dollars for it. And like clockwork, the elites will tell those people they are to blame for it, they must pay reparations, they must bear more burden of taking refugees, etc.
The actual people who should pay reparations are the war profiteers and those who lied and committed crimes to start these wars.
"Clashes between security forces and protesters left one person dead and over a dozen injured Tuesday after hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets in Baghdad to protest a rise in targeted killings of prominent activists and journalists."[1]
This was news to me and it turns out that this is indeed the case: https://e-visa.ie/usa/news/iran-and-esta. They mention the 1st of March, 2011 as the cut off point, but I haven't been able to suss out why it's that date exactly. I'm guessing it has to do with the Arab Spring, but that is just conjecture. Hopefully someone can correct me if I am way off base.
Holy moley, thanks for the heads up! Your comment should be the top comment, given the business of business which for us non-US citizens still requires often interacting with the said polity!
Also - US, hello? That kind of sucks. Tourism would be a great way to integrate these areas more to the "western" spheres of business (I'm not saying that is a valuable value as such, I take no sides, but I presume US would consider this still advantageous to it's positioning).
When I read this news I immediately thought I could go and visit the ruins of Babylon (yes, I can go and see pieces of it museums in non-ESTA-nulling places but it's not the same thing). Now - ancient babylon vs. ESTA privileges? Oh man, choices, choices.
I'm European-Kurd, and had to travel to Kurdistan Region (northern Iraq) for my sister's wedding a few years before I had to go to the US. I was denied my ESTA without a refund (it was $20 iirc, so not a huge amount but as someone who had just graduated, every penny counted for me) due to this exemption. Had to get a full visitors visa to go which took a lot longer, and was way more expensive. The exemption, which was put in place due to ISIS in 2013, seems reasonable though unfortunate.
Years back i seriously considered an Iran trip out of general curiosity about the region. It quickly became clear this would inhibit future travel to the US so i figured it wasn’t worth the trouble. Super disappointing, it would be cool to see the area.
You can travel to Saudi, sell rockets to the Butcher of Arabia himself, take pictures with enslaved workers in the gulf and watch a public execution for adultery and they'll let you travel to 'merika no questions asked.
Lets say you have two passports. One Irish and one Russian. If you use Russian passport to enter Iraq, will you still have trouble with ESTA with your Irish passport?
You're asked to fill in a questionnaire when entering the US as a foreigner. I think lying at the 'did you visit...' questions would be grounds for the US to declare you 'persona non grata', so it's not a risk you'd want to take if want to keep the possibility of entering the US again.
usually such places (destination under embargo or sanctions) are happy to not mark your travel document in any way and let you through. they may issue a booklet to indicate when your stay there should end which you can discard when you're out.
I guess it depends on where you live, and if you have regular reasons to come to the US. I live in Europe and have visited the US maybe three times in my life, and I wouldn't necessarily be terribly sad if I could never visit again. So, I'd take the risk.
This, plus also if you change passports because they happen to expire or you lose them, the trail is completely broken. US immigration doesn't have a clue, not from global flight data, not from your IDs. The negative side is you have to lie on ESTA form which sucks, but the whole US approach to Iran is plain stupid and amoral so I didn't mind it.
I went to Iran, it was the most amazing 1-week trip vacation I've ever done (Damavand, Isfahan, Yazd, a bit of Tehran). Amazingly friendly people, everybody spoke english, most signs are dual farsi/english, and the best part - its completely untouched by mass tourism. Feels surreal in current world, in the best way possible.
Even if this trip would ban me for life from US which is practically impossible with current tech, trips like these are 100x worth it. Can't recommend enough.
Some info, yes. Definitely conclusive? I don't think so. It can be ie in form of my name & passport number. Which after changing the passport can suddenly point to number of persons from my area.
Even if it includes my address (which I highly doubt), it will be different than it was 10 years ago.
Eventually, they'll get there. But I am fairly certain today they are not there and they don't bother for average Joe anyway. For me personally, the experience, especially in hindsight for what it offered, was/is well worth this minimal risk.
The problem with the U.S. and Iran is between the governments and small sections of the population, not the general population. Of course you met friendly and amazing people!
Iran is on my list of places I'd love to go though. I can't imagine how awesome it is. There are so many sites I'd love to visit but I know as an American it's not a good idea to go right now, unfortunately.
> the whole US approach to Iran is plain stupid and amoral so I didn't mind it
What about the Iranian approach to the U.S.? What if Iran stopped development of nuclear weapons and attacking U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere, or sponsoring organizations that are destabilizing the Middle East? It's not like they're not also agitating the situation. It's in their best interest because that way they can maintain power.
I'm more and more becoming of the opinion we need to take away all the toys of these governments (U.S., Iran, and others).
> What about the Iranian approach to the U.S.? What if Iran stopped development of nuclear weapons and attacking U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere, or sponsoring organizations that are destabilizing the Middle East? It's not like they're not also agitating the situation. It's in their best interest because that way they can maintain power.
It takes threee to tango in this situation
Provocations and aggressions that maybe the US should perhaps stop doing:
- presidential candidates gleefully parodying beach boy songs about bombing Iran. [1]
- spending many 10s of billions of America’s hard earned tax dollars surroinsing Iran with several dozen military bases. [2]
- Assassinating or supporting Israel in assassinating Iranian scientists abroad.[3]
- or assassinating Iranian military leaders [4]
- Organizing violent military coups to replace democratically elected governments with Radical Islamist puppet dictatorships [5], [6]
- Gatekeeping nuclear power by releasing destructive viruses into the world to destroy Iranian Nuclear research labs [7]
I can list out lots of dumb and bad things that Iran is doing too, but that's besides the point. There are multiple agitators and lots of dirty hands, and that is the point.
Your frame of reference is something something U.S. bad. Others have a frame of reference that is something something Iran bad.
Both governments are bad and both continue to provoke and attack each other. For Iran it's in the current regime's best interest to stay in power. For the U.S. it's multiple other reasons.
Again, we need to take away the toys of these childish governments.
That's what I wondered. It is pretty easy to get a second passport in Germany for cases like that, e.g. Israel and certain Arabian countries. Show one passport to country A, the other one to country B.
Just get another passport. Or have them stamp your entry on a piece of paper separate from the passport.
Notice it says in the article:
> Entry: If there is evidence of travel to Israel in your passport entry is unlikely to be granted.
Israel will, upon request, give you a removable sticker for your passport instead of stamping it if you also need to travel to unfriendly countries. I'm sure Iraq will figure out the same thing. (despite the irony!)
That unfortunately is a very dangerous and very bad advice in this case. The ESTA doesn't just check your passport for evidence of you being traveled to these countries. They ask you if you did. If you tell the truth, you don't get a visa waiver. If you lie and they learn about it from some source you can be in a heap of trouble. This trouble can include deportation, inability to ever again enter the USA, complications with entering many other western nations, etc.
I don't know about the probabilities of them figuring out the lie. It can be anywhere between "being hit by lightning" and "almost certainty". The potential consequences on the other hand are known and quite dire.
I guess it depends on the passport you are holding, doesn't it? Having a German one gives you the highest number of countries without visas, so I personally wouldn't mind. Something people travelling to Israel and the Arabic world are coping with two sets of passports anyway already.
Different if you are from another country, read poorer and not part of the Western world.
All: please avoid cheap comments about inflammatory issues. If you have something thoughtful to say, say it substantively; otherwise, please don't post it here.
It should be noted that tourism to Iraq's Kurdistan province has been going on for years, with a steady stream of backpackers entering from Turkey. That region is autonomously governed and has been relatively spared the violence of the rest of the country. But the opening of tourism to the south of the country is a surprising development.
As an American who has been traveling for over 18 months now, I have two suggestions:
- find & join an expat group on Facebook to ask questions like this
- consider not over planning and just go, figuring it out when you’re there, as I promise you there will be plenty of locals willing to arrange things for you when you get there
- for a place like Iraq, the hardest part might be getting cash. I was in Pakistan last year and a lot of the ATMs wouldn’t work with my debit card. Eventually I found one. Just don’t assume you’ll be able to pay with a Visa card everywhere. In Pakistan I simply sent myself a bunch of money via Western Union.
- register with the State Department’s STEP program if you go.
As an European journalist I’ve been to Iraq, Mosul and Sinjar during the war 3 times in 2014-17-18. I’m a photographer, here are my reportages www.giuliomagnifico.it (under reportage menu).
The north Iraq (Kurdistan region) is a wonderful place for tourist! I absolutely suggest to go there, with all the precautions of course.
If you need something, just ask me. I’ve got some contacts/friends in Kurdistan.
Beauty is subjective but the people are very friendly, there aren’t other tourists and the city like Erbil are very very nice IMO.
Here I’ve uploaded(G. Photos) some “stupid/phone” photos from my last trip to Iraq: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TrRVhH6uDAmMU5cNA so you can view that there are a lot of tourists attractions and beautiful places!
Whats the man talking about in the video with the children? Liked the pics though - would be up for going if I had a guide. I feel like it's like when I went around rural China a bit, if you dont have a native its easy to get turned about or stuck!
Best photos are on my website, those are quite stupid photos just for documents the trip. The man is talking about the injuries of the little girl caused by the ISIS during the genocide. She was escaped from ISIS.
If you need I can send you the contact I’ve used in Iraq. He’s a friendly student/guy :-)
I am one of those who’d seriously consider going. I was even watching many videos of people traveling to the region. One big disadvantage is that once you go there, you won’t get ESTA to the US and would have to go thru lengthy visa process. And I’m afraid you’d be getting more attention in general, unfortunately.
For what it's worth, Kurdistan, the north of Iraq has been open for tourism for many years.
Kurdistan is the semi-autonomous region of Iraq, whose capital is Erbil.
I've been through twice, the first time at possibly the the 'worst' time - just after the rise of ISIS in Mossul, and when the US was bombing just south of Erbil.
Despite initial concerns, safety was never a problem. I felt safe; did not feel like an unwelcome presence, and moreover, it was an incredible experience.
No visa is required, you get stamped in at the border. The police and Pershmerga were kind, dutiful and not overbearing.
Although it's a sliver of the rest of the country, there are many very interesting things to see (the spiritual centre of the Yzidi, Erbil, the mountains to the North, etc etc).
Kurdistan is secular, with a mix of ethnicities and religions. There is at least one third of women who do not wear the hijab, and the burqua is rare. (You see more burquas in the east of Turkey).
My second visit was during Ramadan, and I was surprised to see people drinking alcohol in the streets and bars.
(Please note, I don't consider a country's "modernity" by its acceptation of alcohol. The point is more that there is a deep culture of tolerance and acceptance within Kurdistan, which can be demonstrated with examples such as the consumption of alcohol).
In regards to losing rights to travel under ESTA, I have visited the US since without issue, even with an Iraqi stamp in the passport. With that said, I imagine that simply replacing your passport after a trip would be a workable solution as well.
For anyone considering visiting this region, or any regions with potential conflict (or anyone with an interest in 'raw Intel', https://liveuamap.com/ is a vital resource.
Borders and zones are classed green/yellow/orange/red, incidents (ranging from protests to bombings) are in realtime.
It allows for pragmatic decisions relating to movement than the standard news channels.
Iran has good relations with the Arab Shia elite currently attempting to govern in Iraq. Iraq is today as it was in antiquity, the key to greater Iranian influence throughout the region. You might want to consider that before funding that government with your tourist dollar.
I remember my tourism moment in northern Baghdad in 2010. I actually flew there from Kuwait to take a scheduled CISSP exam. I got to tour palace row on Camp Liberty. I got lost the evening I arrived which made me nervous because I recently paid $700 to attend this exam the next morning despite sleeping only about 2 hours and using almost the full 6 hours of test time I still passed (first time go).
I remember the enormous catfish in the largest palace moat and the bats swarm from the local bat tower at night. That large palace was truly exquisite with tall brilliant marble walls and gold lettering in-laid. I also remember the Flintstones palace for Saddam’s grandchildren.
Then I spent a week at Balad playing Guitar Hero awaiting transportation back to Kuwait.
I’d advise against this unless you have an insane appetite for risk. The problem with going there as a white tourist (and not a Turkish backpacker) is that you will look like you belong in some way to coalition forces. This poses a kidnapping risk in a country that doesn’t have a functional legal system, but also has a internal passport system enforced by semi-state militias.
Problem is, if something does go wrong, it is not entirely clear who’s responsibility it is to get you out.
Your life is not necessarily in danger, but if anything does go wrong you’re in deep shit.
But if you want to see Abbasid and Mesopotamian ruins all the power to you. Just remember, you’re going to be in rural areas with a very flakey state.
Iraq isn’t a poor country either, it’s just incredibly poorly managed. You’ll find the food and hotels there surprisingly expensive and bad. Bribes will also cost you western sums. Infuriatingly, if you’re American you might even be committing a federal crime by giving one demanded at a checkpoint.
One thing that’s properly weird about getting an Iraqi visa is that the process is like stepping back into the late 70s. The USA disbanded rather than reformed the civil service (before it engorged itself to an absurd size post civil war again) but what’s left of it is properly dysfunctional and dated.
Another thing now that precludes actually going is that there are regular ‘lockdowns’ ostensibly for COVID, but are just really an excuse to stymie protests.
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