A Family in Baghdad

Sunday, April 24th, 2005
Good morning…
Still, the news coming from Baghdad is bringing more depression, sadness, and confusion…
The gangs of killings are still having the loose hands, continuing to target the Iraqi civilians in various cities and towns in Iraq… and some endless explosions, that usually get the civilians, trying to evoke unrest and chaos for two years now…
The Sunni and Shia'ats Mosques are always the target, to kindle the fire of unrest among Iraqis. And thank GOD, we all realize that these events are fabricated, by our enemies to scatter us, and tear us apart, and no commotion nor a civil war shall take place in Iraq, as some people wish…
Some 50 corpses were found in Tigris River; a few days ago… the Sunni and Shia'at's leaders denied knowing about the subject's details, or the responsibility for it. The government had a story of the subject, but the people had other, different stories to contradict those.
Some people say that they were innocent Iraqis, who were arrested, shot dead, then thrown into the river, (the accused being the government, and the occupation forces), and others say some unknown gangs kidnapped and killed them, according to the government, and the occupation forces' story. And nobody knows where the truth is?
The nominated people to form the government haven't agreed yet on the distribution of governmental posts among them, the country is torn, the people are calling for help, and the men are wrangling among themselves: who shall have a supreme ministry, and who shall have the non-supreme ministry?
A comedy, by GOD…..
Look on with me… What are the priorities in Iraq now?
To secure the safety of people and their daily lives, or this silly debate about this being 'My Ministry", and that being "Your Ministry"!!
What a shame, for a country that has reached this degrading stage, while it is supposed to have become a model of Bush's democracy in the region…
Hayeee…
Thanks to this honorable model, that is worthy for us to lift up our heads with….after we lifted our ink-stained fingers, on elections day….
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Now I began to understand why some Iraqis objected to the elections, considering it illegal, with the presence of an occupying force… I used to see them as silly extremists, while I supported the theory of "try, work, and push towards achieving your national goals", and by your intelligence, you could achieve the demands of your people, bringing honest, nationalist men to rule, men who want to achieve much for the welfare of Iraqis, and push the occupation outside Iraq…
But I discovered that these were naïve dreams, and an un-achievable equation within the present circumstances of Iraq.
As long as there is an occupation… it means you are weak, and do not posses enough pressure cards to win against the occupation force…and push it out of the country.
And day after day, they confirm the theory that they didn't come for the eyes of the Iraqis, and that they wouldn't pull out, not even if some 20 million Iraqis walk in a demonstration demanding they leave Iraq, ( that is, assuming some 5 millions are supporting them).
"We are here to stay"… it looks like this is their undeclared slogan, which is slapping all our faces, and that is something that the whole world will know, after the Iraqis.
Time is the only wager…
And we shall see…
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The problem in the new government is…that the elections indicated some symbols, who were more national and more clearly related to Iraq, like Al-Jaffari…but he makes a worrying point to the American government, for perhaps he had no clear and enough loyalty, like Allawi. So, Ramisfeil came and visited Iraq for a few hours, had a meeting with the members of the new government, who are still unable to announce its formation, and gave his instructions about what should be, and what shouldn't!
Then he gave them instructions not to touch the security formations established by the occupation forces, who also gave them the authority to raid the houses of Iraqi people, take then into custody for investigation, men and women, then they would disappear, some would come back, but some wouldn't…
Where are the human rights in Iraq?
Bush cried for us, because Saddam Hussein was cruel to us, and look what the occupation forces have done to us?
Isn't what we got was more violations, mass killings, mass graves, and detaining without fault, most of the times?
What was the change for us? As the old parable says: The same bath, the same water scoop…
By GOD, it's a shameful comedy...
Is there any one fool who believes Iraq is free now? Is there anyone who believes that in Iraq, ( now and later), there is someone who has the guts to act, and make a decision, before taking permission of the American government?
Is this the model of democracy that Bush wants for the Middle East countries?? Hummm…
Do what you want, Dear…. The tide is with you now, ride the wave, the highest wave.
But you won't stay like this for ever… you will go, like all other tyrants went, ( a year, two, ten, or more), and every thing will get back to its rightful place.
This is the rule of life.
The tyrants fell, and nothing is left of them but the ugly memories.
Shall I recite their names?
We all know them… and Bush himself criticizes them, but he doesn't know that he is imitating them, moving on the same paths, thinking himself doing right for humanity.
Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, they all thought themselves heroes, doing right for humanity, they were all surrounded by bootlickers who supported them, applauded them, and covered their eyes from seeing their mistakes…
But the end usually comes, even if late, and they would be proved to have been merely fools.
Ugly memories were left of them, in most cases, covering even their small, good deeds, (if ever they had any).
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And the funny, sad thing in this new government, that couldn't announce the names of its members officially till now is; that there is only about six months left of its life. So, what is the point of insisting upon certain ministries, and losing time?
Or is the point of the subject IS losing time, ridiculing and weakening the results of the elections, about which the whole world rose and fell, picturing the Iraqis electing, defying fear, terrorism, and manufacturing a brilliant future?
But, there is someone who destroyed their dreams of a new, strong, solid government, containing new symbols, better than the ones who went by… a government that could fulfill the demands of the Iraqi citizen, who is tired of what he has seen of catastrophes and troubles.
Every simple, Iraqi citizen has dreams, and priorities: that Iraq should have a strong government, an army, and police force, working to provide security for people, and stability, then, to start re-building the country…
So, what is happening now? Are the supporters of Saddam Hussein, and the Arab Mujahideen the reason for the lateness of government formation, (they being the constant excuse for the destruction in Iraq)?
Do the new symbols who came to rule the new Iraq have a problem of not being able to communicate with each other? Or are these instructions coming from Bush and his administration, about who should be in the government, and who shouldn't?
Is the aim to thwart the Al- Jaffari government, strangling it before it comes to be? Are the specifications of the new government bothering the American administration, warning of the formation of a new tide that doesn't adhere to the American vision completely?
Hummm… perhaps these form worrying points, there… in Washington.
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when Premer was in Iraq, a governing council was appointed, men and women whom the Bush administration was pleased with… because they were driven to the vision of that administration…
The bad smell of administrational corruption and thefts spread in ministries and state administrations, so we started recalling the days of Saddam Hussein with mercy… then, came a temporary, transitional government, headed by Allawi, and of course its symbols were chosen with the consent of the American government, according to the required specifications.
Fallujuah was destroyed, and Najaf was attacked, by a green light from Allawi… for those were the occupation's priorities, to eliminate the opposition, by a hand of steel, and fire… Hummm… weren't those the same accusations historically addressed against Saddam Hussein's way of dealing with the opposition forces?
What has changed for us, with the fresh democracy, imported from Washington?
The more national members were excluded, or let's say, the less- near to the American government, like Al-Pachachi, in the formation of the transitional, or the present government…
And in the elections, we saw the same names heading the lists, the former members of the governing council, and the transitional government… then the election's results were announced, so, why this delay?
Is it because some of the names were not appointed by the American administration, as before?
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All right, let us leave what is happening now, and imagine six more months ahead; new elections, new alliances, and new names…
Will the game keep on going, and the miserable people open their mouths in amazement at what is happening, and keep on waiting… while more victims fall, without any real improvement in the people's daily lives.
The question that always comes to the mind of every Iraqi: who manufactures our future? The people, who go to the election boxes, defying death, fear, and threats, to elect those whom they think are suitable to carry the responsibility of making the country's future, knowing how to achieve the priorities that people want; security, stability, and good living?
Or those who have interests and benefits, leading the country's future to a path that is useful to them, fulfilling their own ambitions, connected to the White House's instructions, in Washington?
Is this what is happening in Iraq today? A small faction controlling the destiny of the whole, who do not know what is happening behind the scenes, without any transparency, or credibility?
But Bush insists in his speeches that Iraq is a successful experiment in democracy, worthy of being a model to the region's countries.
What kind of a model is this? The model of " Lambs and Wolves?"
Or the model of " Little Red Riding Hood", (where the wolf put on her grandmother's cloths, after he ate her, then slept in her bed?
Ha, Ha,Ha…. The worst kind of catastrophes, are the ones that make you laugh…….
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I finished reading a new book about the Iraq war: " THE IRAQ WAR : A MILITARY HISTORY", by the Harvard university Press…
I like reading such books, to identify the mentality of those who waged the war on Iraq, and how do they write history, from their view point.
Well, the writer says that war on Iraq gave confidence to the American army and people, compensating them on the frustrations of the Vietnam War, and its bitter memories. He says that drugs addicted, and weak soldiers no longer have a place in the new U.S army…
Hummm… so, they came upon us to boost their self confidence, ( never the less, we discovered that the majority of the "New Army" that came to Iraq were mercenaries, by high, tempting salaries, with promises of being granted the American citizenship when they finish the duty in Iraq).
Of course, the writer didn't mention this…but we live in Iraq, and we have seen those facts.
Oh, well… I can see the amount of arrogance and boastfulness that seeped through their words, that the modern technology they used in the Iraq war 2003 was better than that used against Iraq in the 1991 war, (they were experimenting their technology upon us), and that the Bradley tanks and the Humvee vehicles can not be penetrated, or cause harm to its passengers.
By GOD, after two years of war, I can see that the tanks were destroyed, and the great Humvees were burned in the streets of Baghdad, and all other Iraqi cities, becoming the laughing stock of the young and old…
And when the American soldiers met Ramsfeild a few months ago, they criticized the low efficiency of the vehicles, and its inability to protect the soldiers…
Hummm… a naïve person would read the book, and be overwhelmed by it…
But an Iraqi who lived the events…would feel the right from wrong…the truth, from what is false.
The book recited the events of war, and shown a portrait of the American army as if it was the undefeatable legend… picturing the Iraqi fighters as a bunch of cowards, hiding behind the civilians, opening fire onto the backs of women, the dirty, Bathi losers, and the anti-west Arabs…
He portrayed all the Iraqi people as seeking the protection of the occupation forces, kissing their feet in thanks and gratitude for the freedom and democracy that they brought…
But he didn't say "we were greeted with roses….."
Alas, that was their dream, which never came true…
But all the stories he told about the Iraqis, in the southern towns and elsewhere, that they complained from the injustice they endured under Saddam Hussein, and that they collaborated with the occupation forces, leading them to the resistance hiding places, and weapons…
And I say: GOD forgive them if they really did all this… for they were misled… and today they opened their eyes, and knew the truth.
Just like the conference I attended at the Dead Sea; if I would have attended it a month or two after the fall of Baghdad, perhaps I would have believed what was said, and had my mind washed…but after two years, the vision is different, the ignorant, fool, and dreamer opened their eyes… and saw the truth.
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The book spoke about entering Baghdad, its fall to the hands of the occupation forces, but didn't mention the Airport Battle, a battle that we, the people of Baghdad, lived through, and knew its details, as eye witnesses…
The occupation forces entered the Airport in the evening of April 4th, dropping cluster bombs on the adjacent areas, just in front of our house, a district called " Al-Furat- the Euphrates", a purely residential district, its residents are poor soldiers and farmers. That night, some 300 or more Iraqis fell; men, women, and children, dead or wounded. ( after the war, we discovered that they dropped cluster bombs in Abu Gahreb, Al-Dora, and the southern farms, where the limbs and hands of the young and old were cut, at the harvest season, all of them miserable Iraqi families, when Raid went with Marla Roseqa to count the civilian dead and wounded).
The Iraqi army defended the airport bravely, on April 4th….and the occupation forces were out of the airport, backing away to the Abu Gahreb area…
And two days or more later, the occupation forces regained their grip on the airport. The tanks and armored vehicles entered Baghdad, killing all they encountered on the streets in civilian cars…
Are these the deeds of brave soldiers?
What would the cowards do, then??
Then, a month or so later, the pictures of the Iraqi army corpses, evacuated by the Iraqi Red Cross from the airport, spread in Baghdad… I saw them with my own eyes…Majid published them in the Al-Muwajaha (confrontation) newspaper, where he used to work after the war…
All medical reports said that the dead were subjected to chemical bombs, or poisonous gases, there were no bullet confrontations, nor direct fights between men…
There were some bombs that suffocated the Iraqi Army, and killed the soldiers in the airport runways…
Just like that, in a clean way, without blood shed… their photographs say that they died of suffocation, with black and blue patches on their naked skins…
Are these the heroism of the American army?
What would the cowards do, then??
May god forgive whoever thought that the Iraqi army was a handful of traitors, and cowards….
They were defending Iraq, land and people, not Saddam Hussein…
They could have run away to their houses, instead of going down to the airport, and face a cruel enemy that knows no mercy, and no respect to rules of human rights, the important thing for it was to win…then brag about its heroism in books, papers, and media, to get applause, and admiration.
There has to be some Iraqis who would write the history of battles during the war, so the other side of the story would be known. If I have told you what I know, it is but a little, and GOD only knows the hidden details, and the scandals committed by the occupation forces, till the fall of Baghdad…..
And of course we always ask: why didn't they fight Iraq in 1991, and the "project" was postponed some ten years or more?
So they would enter Iraq while it was completely weak and broken, militarily, socially, and economically. So it would be an easy pray in their hands…
And they would brag about their heroism!, they who claimed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction threatening the world, and when you read the book, the writer says and repeats this sentence: …and by our strong intelligence about the subject, we did this and that, and we succeeded…
Or, he makes fun of the bad training of the Iraqi fighters, and the backwardness of their weapons…
Meaning, there were two factors of success: first; the weakness of the Iraqi army's weapons, being technologically old, and the embargo contributed to that item.
And second; the spy planes, and satellites that used to give them the precise details about every thing… (Even the size of Saddam's T-Shirt, as they say, huh,huh,ha…).
And that is the reason of the rapid fall in Iraq, and the arrival of the occupation forces to Baghdad.
If you were an honest, brave fighter, you would have picked a strong opponent, to be proud of your victory upon… and you would have got the appreciation you deserve.
But you picked a weak, torn opponent…and made imaginary heroisms for your self, so, YOU do really deserve Pity, and contempt……..
This is my comment on the owners of such mentalities that waged the war on Iraq, and wrote history its own way.
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Here in Amman, I met a man whose wife was an American. He said to me that the American people are of the most kind-hearted people on earth…
I said to him: and what have we seen of their good heartedness in Iraq?
We saw a stern, rightist American administration, malicious to Arabs and Muslims, making its first target now to destroy them…militarily, culturally, politically…and everything.
And what's wrong with us, the Arabic people? Aren't we good-hearted, peaceful, respecting the foreign guest, honoring him, and pampering whoever comes to visit us? Why are the campaigns of disfiguration and malice waged against us, then wars, armies, and destructive weapons?
Isn't there any democracy in America? Most Americans we meet apologize for the bad way their administration is behaving against us, well then, why don't they change this administration, or press it to become less aggressive?
The American people complain about their leaders? What is their difference then from our people, who complain from our leaders, most of them tyrants, their mentalities are old, their speech is also old, exhausted, and extinct…and we can't throw them off, and bring some new, enlightened leaderships…
We need new leaderships, yes, but not the type that would take off everything; our history, civilization, and culture, to replace it by the American cloth.
Thank you, we do not need such deformed models……
We need models that would love us, respect us, and trust what we have of culture, and civilization… we do not want to be the enemies of others… nor submit to others…
This is a complicated, and tough equation… but it needs supreme smartness….
We need leaders who possess this vision, and this smartness….
Time shall bring them on one day…. I still believe in this nation's ability to give birth to great leaders…
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There are two kinds of people I do not like dealing with, and feel very much cautious about.
First: one who thinks his culture and civilization are the best, and the rest is all crap. These people are dumb, aggressive, and their minds are small, and narrow…..whatever culture they come from…east, or west.
And second: one who would be a rebel against the culture and civilization of his people, despising them, considering them to be merely crap. That model evokes my pity and contempt, because he is petty, having no self-confidence, reading his own culture and civilization with scorn and malice, not being able to understand them, because he doesn't like them, in the first place…
I do not respect this model…be he an American, an Arab, from China, or India…
A human shouldn't love others, and hate himself…
That who learns how to love others….understands himself clearly, confidently, and quietly, then, moves on to the outside world to love and understand, clearly, confidently, and quietly too….
Yesterday, I saw a web site of an Iraqi young man, a blogger, writing his ideas about Iraq, the occupation, the Arabs, and Islam…
I found that his site was full of indignation and contempt against Arabs and Muslims, their history, and culture. He says in the title of the web site; that he was forbidden from speech all his life, so, let me talk now…
I smiled and remembered an old parable that says: he was silent a whole age…. Then spoke sacrilege… meaning; wish he would have remained silent…perhaps he would have gained respect more…
Who would respect a person despising and ridiculing himself, and his history? Who would respect a person making himself a clown, so the others would laugh at him, and the faults of his people?
Does he think himself a daring revolutionary?
Huh… being a revolutionary isn't like this, my dear…
Being a revolutionary is to love your people, and your past… looking for the bright sides of it, criticizing the bad sides of it…bearing the flag of advancing forwards…without spitting upon the whole past.
The past has beautiful things, and ugly things… hold on to the beautiful things, and look for them… you'll find them, because they are your beautiful roots… and there is no life for any plant, without roots….
Throw away the bad part of the roots, and hold on to the clean part…you will have more self confidence… you'll love your self more… respect her more… and present yourself to the others in a stronger, clearer, and more civilized way…
Believe me…they'll respect you more… more than when you play the clown who spits on himself and his kin, to make others laugh….
But even the others won't all like this way… some, the narrow minded, will like it, for it will make him happy, and give him a feeling of joy, and superiority… that "other" is another sick person… like the dumb, sick clown…
But some people… the rational mature… will be amazed at this clown, finding him worthy of pity, but not interest… because the way of presentation had pettiness, and cheap adulation…
One who doesn't respect himself….doesn't deserve the respect of others.
Believe me.
If you do not believe me today…the days will teach you what you don't know….
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Translated by May/ Baghdad.