End
Of Another Year
By Baghdad Burning
30 December, 2006
Baghdad Burning
You know your country is in trouble
when:
1. The UN has to open a special
branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch
cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked
to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside
of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US
and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year
blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly
'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line
for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no
electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government
announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported
the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or
'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves
lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's
been missing for two weeks.
A day in the life of the
average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car
bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been
detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.
2006 has been, decidedly,
the worst year yet. No- really. The magnitude of this war and occupation
is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece
of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the
first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and
the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several
smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim,
Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply
and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards
its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround
it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming
apart- a chip here, a chunk there.
That is Iraq right now. The
Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last
year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from
the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been,
simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the
Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly
terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari,
to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi
army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to
take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.
The question now is, but
why? I really have been asking myself that these last few days. What
does America possibly gain by damaging Iraq to this extent? I'm certain
only raving idiots still believe this war and occupation were about
WMD or an actual fear of Saddam.
Al Qaeda? That's laughable.
Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years
than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the
distant hills of Afghanistan. Our children now play games of 'sniper'
and 'jihadi', pretending that one hit an American soldier between the
eyes and this one overturned a Humvee.
This last year especially
has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much.
There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war
and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with
the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states
of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black
cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things
so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous- like whether your
name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things- like the
Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas
and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the
checkpoint.
Again, I can't help but ask
myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so
that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence
in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah
verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it
is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head
aches just posing the questions.
What has me most puzzled right now is: why add fuel to the fire? Sunnis
and moderate Shia are being chased out of the larger cities in the south
and the capital. Baghdad is being torn apart with Shia leaving Sunni
areas and Sunnis leaving Shia areas- some under threat and some in fear
of attacks. People are being openly shot at check points or in drive
by killings… Many colleges have stopped classes. Thousands of
Iraqis no longer send their children to school- it's just not safe.
Why make things worse by insisting on Saddam's execution now? Who gains
if they hang Saddam? Iran, naturally, but who else? There is a real
fear that this execution will be the final blow that will shatter Iraq.
Some Sunni and Shia tribes have threatened to arm their members against
the Americans if Saddam is executed. Iraqis in general are watching
closely to see what happens next, and quietly preparing for the worst.
This is because now, Saddam
no longer represents himself or his regime. Through the constant insistence
of American war propaganda, Saddam is now representative of all Sunni
Arabs (never mind most of his government were Shia). The Americans,
through their speeches and news articles and Iraqi Puppets, have made
it very clear that they consider him to personify Sunni Arab resistance
to the occupation. Basically, with this execution, what the Americans
are saying is "Look- Sunni Arabs- this is your man, we all know
this. We're hanging him- he symbolizes you." And make no mistake
about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American. Some
of the actors were Iraqi enough, but the production, direction and montage
was pure Hollywood (though low-budget, if you ask me).
That is, of course, why Talbani
doesn't want to sign his death penalty- not because the mob man suddenly
grew a conscience, but because he doesn't want to be the one who does
the hanging- he won't be able to travel far away enough if he does that.
Maliki's government couldn't
contain their glee. They announced the ratification of the execution
order before the actual court did. A few nights ago, some American news
program interviewed Maliki's bureau chief, Basim Al-Hassani who was
speaking in accented American English about the upcoming execution like
it was a carnival he'd be attending. He sat, looking sleazy and not
a little bit ridiculous, his dialogue interspersed with 'gonna', 'gotta'
and 'wanna'... Which happens, I suppose, when the only people you mix
with are American soldiers.
My only conclusion is that the Americans want to withdraw from Iraq,
but would like to leave behind a full-fledged civil war because it wouldn't
look good if they withdraw and things actually begin to improve, would
it?
Here we come to the end of
2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but
for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis. We've all lost some of the
compassion and civility that I felt made us special four years ago.
I take myself as an example. Nearly four years ago, I cringed every
time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers,
but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed
in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans
to attack the country, I actually felt for them.
Had I not chronicled those
feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now.
Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly
four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a
month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses
in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.
Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than
a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement
to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think
so.
Just because Americans die
in smaller numbers, it doesn't make them more significant, does it?
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