Mother Jones Releases Piece by Hiker Detained in Iran

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Source: Bay Newser

Mother Jones has taken the unusual step of putting one of its magazine pieces up on the Web site earlier than usual. The September-October edition of Mojo includes an investigative piece by Shane Bauer, one of the three American hikers detained in Iran July 31.

The piece, "The Sheikh Down," describes the purported practice of Sunni leaders in Iraq receiving inflated reconstruction contracts "to keep them and their followers from taking up arms against US troops," wrote Mojo co-editors Clara Jeffrey and Monika Bauerline on the Mojo Web site.

more: http://www.mediabistro.com/baynewser/people_places/mother_jones_releases_piece_by_hiker_detained_in_iran__124241.asp

The article:

The Sheikh Down

by Shane Bauer

It's a bright day in February, and I am in a pink villa on the outskirts of Fallujah, sitting with a tribal sheikh and a Marine commander as they hunch over a plate of truffles. The sheikh is Eifan Saddun al-Isawi, a charming 33-year-old Iraqi in a red-checkered kaffiyeh, a brown dishdasha, and DKNY wraparound sunglasses who uses phrases like "sons of bitches" when he talks about Al Qaeda with Americans. He is the head of Fallujah's Sahwa, or Awakening, council, the Sunni militia hired by the United States in early 2007 to fight its enemies in Iraq, and he's become one of the American military's go-to guys in the city, as evidenced by the photos on his walls of him with George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The American officer, Lt. Colonel Chris Hastings, apologizes for forgetting to bring Eifan "magazines with pictures of pretty ladies" and congratulates him for winning a seat in the provincial elections. He proceeds to tell Eifan to make sure that a certain someone the Marines are "concerned" about doesn't make it into local politics. Eifan assures him he'll see to it.

more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/sheik-down