Prayers For
Vengeance, More Death
By Dahr Jamail
12 November, 2004
Dahrjamailiraq.com
Today
Abu Talat meets me and he is in a somber mood.
Hes down because
last night after the curfew began at 9:30pm, US military helicopters
were circling his neighborhood until 3am.
How can we
live like this, he asks while holding up his hands, We are
trapped in our own country.
He tells me, You
know Dahr, everyone is praying for God to take revenge on the Americans.
Everyone! He went on to tell me that even while people are praying
in their homes, they are praying for God to take vengeance on the Americans
for what they are doing in Falluja.
Everyone Ive
talked to the last couple of nights, 80 or 90 people, is telling me
they are doing this, he says somberly.
Later that night
Salam shows up with a wild look in his eyes, sweat beading on his forehead.
My friend has just been killed, and he was one of my best friends,
he tells me, I cant imagine that he is dead, really, but
I guess it is ok.
He talks to me about
his friends family. They are so poor, they live 21 people
in a house with three bedrooms, and they are good people, he says,
before going on to explain more about his dead friends situation.
He was working as
a translator for the military because he had to earn money for his family.
Unfortunately, he was working with TITAN, a private security company.
It was either starve to death, or work with the coalition.
He was on a military
patrol in Baghdad when it came under attack near the Taji airbase and
his friend was shot by the resistance.
This isnt
all. A relative of Salam had been missing for six days. Today, his body
was brought to his family by someone who found it on the road. The body,
which had been shot twice in the chest and twice in the head, was dropped
off to the family. There were visible signs of torture on the body,
and the four bullet shells which were used to kill him had been placed
in his pants pocket.
This is life in
Baghdad today.
I am crazy
today with this news Dahr, exclaims Salam while holding his hands
up in the air, The number of people killed here is growing so
fast everyday, it is shit. He hangs his head back and takes a
deep breath, then exhales slowly.
He explains how
it has been this way in Iraq his whole life, but not ever has it been
like this. When I was a child, it was common to have some family
member who was killed in the war with Iran, he says, But
now, everyone is dying everyday.
I can feel the tenseness
of being in Baghdad-the relentless threat of being kidnapped or car
bombed, or simply robbed, grinding on me already
and Ive
been here less than a week. Sleep is oftentimes interrupted by mortars
exploding in the Green Zone, helicopters rumbling low overhead,
fighter jets roaring towards Fallujah, or gunfire which is sporadic,
yet persistent, in the streets of Baghdad.
Yet my friends,
who are living here, how do they do it? It saddens me to see them so
increasingly somber, withdrawn and angry than they were a year ago when
we first met, as their hope for peace, resolution and true sovereignty
in Iraq dims a little more with each passing day.
Dahr Jamail
is one of those very few independent journalists in Iraq. His travel
and reporting expenses are covered by the donations he receives from
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