I often find myself in arguments with people about the behavior of American soldiers when they search homes and many of the people I talk to base their argument and negative impression on the footage of some raids we see on TV or on experiences of presumed relatives or friends.

When I try to counter the idea of ‘they knock down doors unnecessarily, steal jewelry and treat people bad’ by saying that there must be a good reason the troops sometimes act rough and that ‘for every reaxction there must have been an action’ I often get the response of “what do you know about that? The Americans never searched your home”

Well, last night they did…

The Iraqis and Americans exchanged words of greetings.

The soldiers now began to feel a bit relaxed seeing the relaxed friendly mood, the barbeque and the drinks in Iraqis’ hands.

That’s a large fish! Looks good! One soldier noted.

There’s enough food and drinks for all of us here, please join us, said one of my friends.

Nah, we can’t do that. Thanks anyway.

We know the Americans were on duty and had a job to do so we didn’t repeat the offer violating the tribal Iraqi tradition of persistently offering food.

One of the soldiers asked for the keys to the cars and he and his colleague started checking them one after the other.  I lead three others into the house showing them the rooms explaining what each one was.  When we entered the living room they were surprised to see 4 laptops scattered around.

What are these for?

One’s mine, the other is my brother’s and the rest are our friends’, I said and explained that our friends always bring their laptops with them when they come because they can use our wireless.

My brother and I are bloggers, our friends work in the computers business, I added.   Ah, you got wireless! I should bring my laptop too next time I come here, one of the soldiers joked.

We went up to the second floor, then the roof and they looked around around, opened a few drawers, asked if we had any weapons. I told them we didn’t have any.

That’s fine, no problem.

Within roughly 20 minutes the soldiers had completed searching the house and by now they seemed convinced that this household is ‘clean’. So we all went back to the back yard and gathered around the tasty-smelling fish and we all had some short friendly talk about food, booze, the city, the war, the internet, etc.