American Informant

Part of my childhood was spent in Baghdad, Iraq, during the rule Saddam Hussein. At that time, regime offered free and universal education healthcare. Literacy rates country surpassed much Arabic-speaking world and, indeed, Global South. As celebrated Egyptian intellectual, Taha Hussein, famously put it: “Cairo writes; Beirut prints; Baghdad reads.” Booksellers were everywhere Baghdad. Its people read voraciously passionately debated literature, poetry, a range other subjects. But what struck me, even as child, absence sustained talk about politics bookshops, markets, public spaces. I knew adults could not stay away from topic more intimate, private settings, where deeper level trust usually reigned. Once you entered sphere, however, discretion politics—and especially local politics—clearly became better part valor. Iraqi society had been so thoroughly infiltrated by elements Hussein’s intelligence services ordinary to tread with extreme caution. After all, person standing within earshot at bustling market, overhearing your conversation—or maybe direct interlocutor— be an informant. And stakes high: incarceration, torture, or death. That early introduction valency informants—their capacity interact surrounds them their distorting effect on it. The lesson has colored subsequent work surveillance, including this reflection contemporary role informants United States.