You Want A Rabbit?
By Baghdad Burning
10 March, 2005
Baghdad Burning
We
are relieved the Italian journalist was set free. I, personally, was
very happy. Iraqis are getting abducted these days by the dozen, but
it still says something else about the country when foreigners are abducted.
Iraqis have a fierce sense of hospitality that can border on the obnoxious
sometimes. When people come to our houses, we insist they have something
to drink and then we insist they stay for whatever meal is coming- even
if its four hours away. We cringe when journalists and aide workers
are abducted because it gives us the sense that were bad hosts.
People are always
wondering why they abduct journalists, and other innocents. I think
its because the lines are all blurred right now. Its difficult
to tell who is who. Who is a journalist, for example, and who is foreign
intelligence? Who is a mercenary and who is an aide worker? People are
somewhat more reluctant to talk to foreigners than they were at the
beginning.
The irony of the
situation lay in the fact that Sgrena was probably safer with her abductors
than she was with American troops. It didnt come as a surprise
to hear her car was fired at. Was it done on purpose? Its hard
to tell. I cant think why they would want to execute Giuliana
Sgrena and her entourage, but then on the other hand, I cant think
how it could have possibly happened that they managed to fire that many
rounds at a car carrying Italian intelligence officers and a journalist
(usually they save those rounds for Iraqi families in cars).
There really is
no good excuse for what happened. Ive been racking my brain trying
to figure out what the Pentagon will say short of an admission that
it was either on purpose or that the soldiers who fired at the car were
drunk or high on something
I have a feeling
it will be the usual excuse, The soldiers who almost killed the
journalist were really, really frightened. Theyve been under lots
of pressure. But see, Iraqis are frightened and under pressure
too- we dont go around accidentally killing people. Were
expected to be very level-headed and sane in the face of chaos.
I wager that this
little incident will be shoved aside with one of those silly Pentagon
apologies that dont really sound like apologies, you know: It
was an unfortunate incident, but Sgrena shouldnt have been in
Iraq in the first place. Journalists should stay safely in their own
countries and listen for our daily military statements telling them
democracy is flourishing and Iraqis are happy.
I dont understand
why Americans are so shocked with this incident. Where is the shock?
That Sgrenas car was under fire? That Americans killed an Italian
security agent? After everything that occurred in Iraq- Abu Ghraib,
beatings, torture, people detained for months and months, the stealing,
the rape
is this latest so very shocking? Or is it shocking because
the victims werent Iraqi?
Im really
glad shes home safe but at the same time, the whole situation
is somewhat painful. It hurts because thousands of Iraqis have died
at American checkpoints or face to face with a tank or Apache and beyond
the occasional subtitle on some obscure news channel, no one knows about
it and no one cares. It just hurts a little bit.
The event of the
week occurred last Wednesday and I was surprised it wasnt covered
by Western press. Its not that big a deal, but it enraged people
in Baghdad and it can also give a better picture of what has been going
on with our *heroic* National Guard. There was an explosion on Wednesday
in Baghdad and the wounded were all taken to Yarmuk Hospital, one of
the larger hospitals in Baghdad. The number of wounded were around 30-
most of them National Guard. In the hospital, it was chaos- patients
wounded in this latest explosion, patients from other explosions and
various patients from gunshot wounds, etc. The doctors were running
around everywhere, trying to be in four different places at once.
Apparently, there
werent enough beds. Many of the wounded were in the hallways and
outside of the rooms. The stories vary. One doctor told me that some
of the National Guard began screaming at the doctors, telling them to
ignore the civilians and tend to the wounds of the Guard. A nurse said
that the National Guard who werent wounded began pulling civilians
out of the beds and replacing them with wounded National Guard. The
gist of it is generally the same; the doctors refused the idea of not
treating civilians and preferring the National Guard over them and suddenly
a fight broke out. The doctors threatened a strike if the National Guard
began pulling the civilians out of beds.
The National Guard
decided the solution to the crisis would be the following- theyd
gather up some of the doctors and nurses and beat them in front of the
patients. So several doctors were rounded up and attacked by several
National Guard (someone said there was liberal use of electric batons
and the butts of some Klashnikovs).
The doctors decided
to go on strike.
Its difficult
to consider National Guardsmen as heroes with the image of them beating
doctors in white gowns in ones head. Its difficult to see them
as anything other than expendable Iraqis with their main mission being
securing areas and cities for Americans.
It seems that Daawa
Partys Jaffari is going to be the Prime Minister and Talbani is
going to get the decorative position of president. It has been looking
like this since the elections. There is talk of giving our token Sunni
Ghazi Al Yawir some high-profile position like National Assembly spokesperson.
The gesture is meant to appease the Sunni masses but it isnt going
to do that because its not about Sunnis and Shia. Its about
occupation and Vichy governments. They all look the same to us.
What it seems policy
makers in America dont get, and what I suspect many Americans
themselves *do* get, is that millions of Iraqis feel completely detached
from the current people in power. If you dont have an alliance
with one of the political parties (ie under their protection or on their
payroll) then its difficult to feel any affinity with people like
Jaffari, Allawi, Talbani, etc. We watch them on television, tight-lipped
and shifty-eyed after a meeting where they quarreled about Kirkuk or
Sharia in the constitution and it feels like what I imagine an out-of-body
experience should feel like.
In spite of elections,
they still feel like puppets. But now, they are high-tech puppets. They
were upgraded from your ordinary string puppets to those life-like,
battery-powered, talking puppets. Its almost like were doing
that whole rotating president thing Bremer did in 2003 all over again.
The same faces are getting tedious. The old Iraqi saying sums it up
nicely, Tireed erneb- ukhuth erneb. Tireed ghazal- ukhuth erneb.
The translation for this is, You want a rabbit? Take a rabbit.
You want a deer? Take a rabbit.
Except we didnt
get any rabbits- we just got an assortment of snakes, weasels and hyenas.
Check out Imad Khadduri's
blog- he has some great links about the Italian journalist.