Who can we trust?

“Man is corrupt. Man is unfair. Man is man. Man is holy. Man is different. Man is man.” I wrote that yesterday in my diary, inspired by the arrests of two prominent Iraqis.

I have read hundreds of books that the main characters were powerful men who seemed to be righteous, giving and compassionate, but in reality – behind the scenes – they were greedy, lustful and power hungry. Recently, we detained (actually Kurdish soldiers) the former Mosul chief of police for working with insurgents and allowing them to takeover the police stations on November 11. This guy had been shot by the terrorists a few months prior and now we learn he was working for them all along. Occasionally, a bigwig from Baghdad would travel up to Mosul or U.S. Generals would visit with Barhowie (former police guy) and we’d send a photographer along to document the meetings and write a possible news story. We have countless photos of this rather tall Arabic man with a long mustache and the smile of a rat nibbling on a piece of cheese. And every time I snapped his photo, I had an uneasy feeling about him. He really seemed like a slime ball. Turns out, my gut feeling was right all along.

About a month ago, the one Iraqi I thought was true to the core was detained. This guy was a high-ranking officer and he impressed me so much that I wrote a feature story on his leadership style and war record. Of the 125 stories I’ve written in Iraq, only one has been solely about an Iraqi man. I take that back I wrote another one, but that’s literally another story. Anyway, I admired this man for his courage, leadership and tactical thinking ability. He was also a very powerful man within his tribe. Not only did he believe in nepotism, he starved soldiers who didn’t belong in his tribe. That’s not all he did, but I can’t really get into specifics.

We had a governor in Mosul assassinated back in July. He was a true patriot and believed in this country’s future. The governor he replaced was fired for being crooked or as we put it in America “misappropriating funds.”

Who can we trust? As the Bible says, you cannot trust man as he will deceive you. However, I do trust in God, and the fact that we are discovering these crooked individuals and emplacing more reputable leaders is a sign that His will is being done. How do I know this? Well, the terrorists are threatening those who work for us more and more, and if somebody is still working for us, they are either rats or for real. And if they’re rats, we catch them every time with just a little piece of cheese.