A Family in Baghdad

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
Good morning……..
Yesterday evening, several trapped cars exploded in Baghdad, at the Hotels area in Al- Ferdoues Square… and the result was, as we gathered from among a torrent of interlaced sentences in the news, that some American Media offices were the target, as parts (or all of) the Radio SAWA and Al- Hurra Channel offices were destroyed…
Hummm… for the Iraqis, these offices are another face of the American occupation, even though it contained nice songs broadcasted on air, and colorful news reports on screen….
Well then; what did the spokesman of the Iraqi Government say as a comment on this incident, and as a justification for the government's weakness in controlling security, he said: The criminals do not refrain from bombing hospitals and public markets to kill civilians…
Hummm…
Where are those hospitals and public markets now in this incident?
As if he memorized some poem, which he repeats in all occasions!
Usually Al-Zarqawi was the tool to implement these criminal acts, to deform the image of the real Iraqi resistance, which is quite legitimate against the foreign occupation, recognized by human laws, and is very much agreed upon… resisting an occupier is a legitimate right…
Terrorism is forbidden?
Yes, Terrorism is forbidden for as long as it means operations against peaceful civilians, and destroying the infra-structure and the civilization of any country, in an absurd, meaningless way.
But where is the absurdity in the acts of the national resistance?
There is an evident difference that should be noted, and avoid mixing things up to delude people, which is what has been going on in Iraq for more than two years now….
Now, Al-Zarqawi bombings wave decreased, which was aimed at dedicating sectarianism and divisions among the Iraqis, then came the constitution of Primmer to fulfill Al-Zarqawi's wishes, and divide Iraq into federalisms. Then, there was some quietness, and the absurd bombings that killed Iraqi civilians stopped…
Now, in the scene appeared the bombings wave that targets the occupation…and that is embarrassing to both; the American administration, and the current Iraqi government…
And of course, both shall wail and cry, and say these are acts of violence and terrorism, and…lab…lab…lab…
The question is: Who puts down the rules of the game between two parties? I mean; who started the war on Iraq, and how was that war managed on the ground, and through the media, so as to take over people's minds and justify the beginning of the war, and justify its continuity?
America was actually bombing us, destroying houses, and killing civilians on the ground, but didn't show the story this way through the media… they showed the brave pilots bombing bridges empty of cars and pedestrians, streets, or far away targets of which only the smoke can be seen… they showed the heroic soldiers of the American army, very clean, sitting on elegant, sophisticated tanks, firing at targets from far away, and killing evil men like Saddam Hussein.
This is how the story of the war on Iraq was marketed by the western media…
While we, who lived inside Iraq, and through the war's daily experience, know the names of the civilian victims, men, women, and children, those who were wounded or killed while inside their houses, the hospitals to which they run to be treated, or in which they died, so we went to offer condolences to their families, and to curse Bush, his administration, and his unjust war….
And by this we have another side of the story…. We look at the American administration, its soldiers and pilots with another eye…
Simply, when someone is asked: What do you know of "that person"? He will either answer by something he heard somewhere, and will repeat like a parrot. Or he might have had a real experience with "that person" which gave him his own special view to evaluate that person…
And this the story of our experience with the American war in Iraq…
We found it a war that came to bombard us mercilessly; people, bridges, streets, buildings, water treatment stations, electricity stations, and sewage water treatment stations…
We discovered that they do not hate Saddam Hussein alone, or bear a grudge against him alone, but they hate us all, treating us with the same cruelty with which they treated Saddam Hussein and those with him…
And when the Iraqi Museum was destroyed and looted, when the National library was burned, and the historical documents with it, we saw that they hated Iraq and its culture as well …
How can we trust them, and believe they came as liberators?
If, on the face of earth, there were some people who believed such a story, let them, for we cannot, because the actual experience told us something else………
Is there someone who thinks we are putting preconceived judgments against the occupation, or merely repeating words like the parrot?
When we go through the experience, we gain the theory of knowledge that comes from that experience….this is usually the reality for all humans…..
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America was the one who started by forming the media speech of war, and the media works side by side with the military, which means it is a No. 1 partner to the military operations, and from another point, it washes people's minds, tricks them, and tells them stories far away from actuality. America justifies killing the Iraqi civilians, considering it within the acceptable causalities considerations, which means the causalities they could disregard in order to destroy the enemy, so, disregard humanity, the women, the lovely children victims…
But in an explosion of another kind, like a residential complex for the employees of an American security company, they do not show that this complex is a justified target for the resistance, but show the pictures of the women and children who died in that terrorist operation, and pour down their anger on the committers, describing them as criminals, and savages…
Why?
Maybe, from the view point of the committers, these are "unavoidable victims", like "acceptable causalities", for the sake of destroying a military or economic target that would harm the enemy…
But the American media shows the tragic, humanitarian side that would break hearts, and evoke indignation at the committers of the operation, and call them criminals…
So was the equation for Israel, historically… how did she win her media war against the Palestinians?
Killing thousands of Palestinian children and their mothers, but they wouldn't be shown by the media….there would be a cold, neutral news item declaring that Israel made an air raid targeting Palestinian gunmen…….. and when a rocket launched by the Palestinian resistance falls on a settlement, once a year maybe, an Israeli man, wounded in the head would appear on TV, carrying his child, and run in panic…then, by GOD, the audience's hearts in the west would break, and they would say: oh, those Palestinians are terrorists and criminals, eliminate them!
But that same media covered and hid the bodies of the Palestinian children and their families, the victims of the continuous Israeli air raids, for years and years….
Isn't this media an accomplice in the crime, by covering it up?
If it was possible to fool people in the past, we today are no longer fools to believe all that we see on screen…we started to realize that they are saying half the truth to deceive people…
And this is a shame on the Media, and the newsmen…
There are some honest newsmen who want to tell the whole truth, Arabs and Westerners, but who will let them? Who will broadcast their viewpoint?
As the military control the battlefield with their tanks, so there is an intellectual, media terrorism against the "Other" viewpoint, and this intellectual terrorism exists first of all in America and its media, because those who own it are the powerful rich who gain benefits out of wars, and the people there are besieged with the official viewpoint that chase them in the TV, radio, and newspapers…
Where is the western democracy here??
Why are people compelled to adopt the government's viewpoint, and believe it?
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There is a point that has always puzzled me, which appears after reading the survey results about the American president's popularity, which is of course linked to the performance level for him, and his team…
We always read these days that the popularity percentage of the president has declined since he assumed power, or in comparison with the former American presidents and the rates they used to get…
What's the people's fault so they have to endure a president and a government who are not successful in their foreign and internal policies?
I suggest, for example, adding a paragraph to the American constitution that says: The president and his working team can be removed from power when his popularity sinks down below certain levels….
What is the meaning of the constitution, the elections, and democracy, and what good are they? Weren't they invented for the people's welfare, and good? Why then they turn into heavy burdens, forced upon people, breaking their will? Why are the people forced to wait for three more years until this presidential team would budge away from power, and decision making?
This is so unjust, by GOD… and reasonable solutions must be found for this problem, not only in America, but in all countries; there must be some items for people's protection, to rid them of the presence of leaders the country do not want, or trust…but they remain, in spite of "people's noses", because their presidential period isn't finished yet? Their performance is bad, but they still cling to the "chair", protected by the constitution, which gives them the right to remain, and sit over people's hearts…
What a boring condition, that is in need of a constitutional solution!
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What is happening to Syria makes us sad; after the killing of the Lebanese Prime minister, events accelerate to appear as if there is some punishment about to be taken against Syria. This is a story in which we do not know the measure of the real Syrian involvement, then came the Meles report, evoking commotion and doubts to add over a bad condition, as was expected…
Very well, let us assume the assassination of a political figure took place…but that doesn't require the interference of the Security Council, the exaggeration about the matter, demanding penalties against a country like Syria, and lab…lab…lab… it looks very much like the story of the Mass Destruction Weapons in Iraq…and all the exaggeration about them, then the war against Iraq.
It is evident that those presently in the American administration are specialized in feigning matters against people…preparing accusations, fabricating them, turning stories from here to there until it becomes a serious charge that requires the most severe actions of the Security Council, ( the wand is in the hands of America, and she uses it whenever she wants, under the name of the International Legitimacy).
Where was the International Legitimacy when Iraq was destroyed, and is still being destroyed? I see she was silent; an accomplice?
Where was she when Israel assassinated the Palestinian resistance leaders, in the past, and lately? Or are they terrorists, by the standards of the International Legitimacy?
America will not hesitate to provoke clashes between the Kurds in Syria and the Syrian government, will not hesitate to look for monkeys, I mean; Syrian opposition men abroad, who are ready to destroy their country to get to the power seat, like what happened in Iraq, and will not hesitate to impose a blockade, starve the Syrians, and pull the rope tight around their necks to convince them to change the present leadership… and so, we came to expect all the stories that will come…and those possible to occur…
I discovered that America is not ruled by stern conservatives like Ramsfeild, dick Cheney and those with them and behind them; the giant, trans-continents companies' owners, the capitals and financial establishment's owners, for those are clutching the power now, affirming the capital power, and how it has the ability to control the fate of the world's people and countries, supported by intellectual institutions called " think tank", like the Institutes of Strategic and Political Studies, these institutes specialize in studying countries and their internal conditions; economically, socially, and politically, so they can draw plans and ideas in collaboration with the Central Intelligence (CIA), to turn over the ruling systems in those countries, or to wage wars whose results would be guaranteed in favor of the capital, and the present American administration, which dreams of controlling the world, under the banner of "Globalization"….
I can almost see that the plans to implicate Iraq in war with Iran were laid there, how they took advantage of Saddam's mistakes by entering Kuwait, and how they were invested to bring the American army into the Gulf region to occupy the oil sources, under the pretence of protecting Kuwait from its evil neighbor, and then; how the embargo was planned, how it was implemented, then the Mass Destruction Weapons stories, Iraq's connection with Al-Qaida, and so on, until the war happened…
Then, they started arranging the after-the-war-stories; between the Sunnies and the Shia'ats, the Arabs and the Kurds, then Al-Zarqawi, then building American military bases in Iraq, away from the eyes of the media, and behind the death stories and daily bloodshed in Iraq, and, the story series produced by the American Intellectual Institutes still goes on….
Perhaps they are the same who is fabricating the stories against Syria now, weaving a way to topple the regime or besiege it to throw it out without a war or blood… and so these institutes shall produce stories about Iran, and the way to isolate her, or topple her government…
America is not ruled by President Bush…
America is ruled by a bunch of thinkers and planners, vicious, covetous to get everything, and have the dream of controlling everything on the planet earth…
There is no ruling president, and no parties…
There is a small faction clutching the authority, money, and the media, trying to control everything inside and outside of America….
I see America is occupied….and needs that who shall get her back her freedom….
And also, her democracy!
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Translated by May/Baghdad.