An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...

Syria.

2012-02-02T05:37:00.002+02:00

I can't go to sleep before saying what I need to say about Syria.
This is NOT going to be a political post. This is going to be just about me and Syria.
I can't begin to tell you the depth of sadness I feel for what is happening to Syria and to the Syrian people.
Again politics aside, I can't bear to see this lovely country go to pieces. I know Syria relatively well. Syrians are not an easy people, they are smart, crafty and know what they want. They are not easily fooled, and once they like you, or "adopt" you, they are loyal people. But it takes them a hell of a long time to like you.
People have always underestimated Syria for various reasons...they were dead wrong in doing so. Syrians are not to be underestimated...at all.
I personally have an affinity with this country...for so many reasons...first and foremost because it is Arab, yes, am that way. I care for Arab countries even though they never really cared for Iraq.
But then Iraq is known to be as generous giver...and maybe tonight I am reminding Syria, that despite our "differences" that Syrians looked down upon for long years...I, as an Iraqi, regardless of politics, am here, and stand by you.

#PaperTigers

2012-02-02T01:45:00.001+02:00

I am not sure if I have to laugh or cry...but I've decided to laugh. Even though none of it is a laughing matter.

But frankly how can one not laugh at this

or that

or maybe that one

Hahahahahahahahaha, hahahahahahaha, hahahahahahaha

These pictures are REAL, cardboard Khomeini to commemorate the Iranian "revolution", maybe we need more similar cardboards to salute all the Iran lovers and her "revolutionaries".

How about we have another cardboard for Maliki PM of Iraq, exiled in Iran and installed by the Americans, or maybe another one for the sectarian ethnic cleanser Muqtada Al-Sadr, still studying "theology" in Qum, and another one for Sistani the Persian Ayatollah crook, and one for ...keep adding....fill in the blanks with the names of all the Shiite puppets of Iraq who landed on American tanks from IRAN.

We must have another one for Seyyed Nasrallah of Hezbollah, with a halo over his head instead of a turban...since we are idolizing, might as well go all the way....why not liken him to the archangel Gabriel since we're at it ?!

And we should not forget another cardboard for the Assad regime, whose loyalty to the turbaned ones from Iran is now without a shadow of a doubt...

and a final one to......

the Emir of Qatar who happens to be the "missing link", you know the missing link as in Darwin's theory...

and last but not least ....

to all the "anti zionists" "anti imperialists" worldwide.

Let's all salute the paper tigers.

If you need to laugh some more do check out this LINK

Narrated by an Invisible Thread.

2012-01-26T02:46:00.004+02:00

I am stuck with words, a horrible feeling that feeling of being stuck...with words. Yet at the same time that gut feeling, like some stone, a rock lodged in my plexus needs to be dealt with, needs to be narrated, a short story maybe...that won't give it justice.

I do what I can. I am not a passive observer, a detached spectator engaged in some scientific study...even though I try to use "reason", like some safety pad, that will absorb the other's pain....and mine.

I like to consider myself a good listener. I am also curious, not because I want to invade the other's person territory, but because I need a complete picture...this need for a complete picture is crucial for me. I am not sure how, or why, but I find it necessary...maybe by forming this complete picture in my mind, the narrative speaks by itself, effortlessly...like a river, like the Tigris, like the Euphrates...maybe also because I need to take that trip myself, with the narrator, down his and her memory lane, and in the process find mine, so all the pieces may fit into a "rational" whole.A process of finding meaning, of tying loose ends, of uncovering secrets, lost hopes, vanquished desires and unfinished grief....but also a process of finding amid the pieces -- the resolve, the resilience, the faith...like some invisible thread that has kept it all together, in the realm of ...of Sanity... there is no better word...yes, a Sanity, that in retrospect, becomes a Life philosophy -- an acceptance of Life as it is.

It is only there, in that process of listening and narrating, does one realize, the courage, bravery, fortitude, strength, force, of the ordinary Iraqi. I don't think the word ordinary is befitting but short of a better word, I will keep it.

The very imperfect ordinary Iraqi, who has seen and experienced much, way too much...before 2003, after 2003 and until this very day... the hard times, the very hard times, the losses, the displacement, the separation, the abandonment, the neglect, the exile, the daily struggles, on all levels, plus the violence, an indescribable violence, an indescribable brutality, that has ripped through his being, and etched itself there, like some permanent sign post...yet she still manages, he still manages...to function, to interact, to create, to give, to receive...

We are not talking here of a couple of years period, we are talking decades...and that ordinary Iraqi is no blank virgin slate, she also has her own personal story, way before you appeared in her life...he also has his own "baggage" as you call it in your jargon...suitcases upon suitcase, trunk upon trunk of accumulated life traumas, shocks, losses, bereavement...

You take us for granted and we take ourselves for granted...none of you would have survived sane, none.None of you would have been able to function...I mean just look at you, over 60 years have elapsed since the 2nd World War and it still comes up in your discussions, yet so much is expected of us, encapsulated in that dirty phrase that you so often repeat --- Get on with it.

Get on with it - if you had gone through a small percentage of what we go through, you would not even get by, let alone get on with it. But you are not what matters, you are trivia - irrelevant. What matters is us and our story...and you only appear in it to confirm what we already know about you. You are the Devil's facilitator, so to speak...at the end of the story, like the Devil himself, you are nothing but a debased creature that rots in Hell. And your role ends there, miserably so.

You story does not interest me, but ours does and it is in these instances, when the story unfolds in its minutest details, that I see that invisible thread keeping it all together...an invisible thread you will never recognize, nor understand...because you simply don't have it in you. An invisible thread that no amount of violence, of losses, of grief can severe, or cut, it is an umbilical cord, it is beyond gut, beyond viscera, beyond mind, beyond logic, something beyond your grasp, beyond your reach...not through invasions, bombs, guns, drones, jets, soldiers, contractors, mercenaries, missionaries, preachers, businessmen, marketeers, traders, politicians, parliaments, councils, committees, NGOs, development, progress, modernity, technology, satellite TV, computers or cell phones...

A something, beyond language, beyond words, that made the ordinary Iraqi in ancient times and that keeps him together today...a something that only an Iraqi can narrate -- an invisible something that gives us resilience and in that resilience we find our resistance.

Pissing Contests...

2012-01-17T01:58:00.001+02:00

I've been reading quite a bit about the politics of "Urination", a series of articles expressing "indignation" at the video that proudly circulated, about some of your brave boys "urinating" on dead corpses of Afghans after being murdered by you.

All of you prime and proper people of "conscience" showed indignation, including your Hilarious Clinton, she's always in the habit of hilariously laughing when dead corpses appear on her phone screen. We are told that this "urination" business on dead corpses is not part of your morality nor of your ethics. OK I know you are still trying to figure out what these two words mean - morality and ethics, but then by now, we already know you use words you hardly understand the meaning of.

Frankly speaking, I don't understand why all this indignation, that has suddenly gripped you ?!
And what is this "urination" thing ? Can't you use the real words - after all your boys were pissing on the dead. Is "Urination" supposed to make it more sanitized, more medical like ? Or maybe it is supposed to make it more polite and more acceptable ? No darlings, you were simply pissing on the dead.

Is this a strange habit of yours, pissing on the dead ? Not at all.

I remember when I had the "privilege" of spending some time in England, the English boys at the closing of the pub, where they pissed themselves silly, would engage in pissing contests...who could piss the farthest. They would gather in packs like dogs, and start pissing all over the place, marking territory...How different are you from the dogs ?

My friend had a dog, when her father passed away in his bed, the dog stood still near the dead body guarding it until my friend arrived...the dog is more noble. He knew his territory and his duties...as a dog, but you pride yourselves on being "humans", "free humans"...

So pissing contests are not something so strange to your "culture", it's a male Anglo-Saxon thing, and am sure the "brave" stinks from America must have caught the Anglo-Saxon cultural bug...like some heritage, an inheritance of "values."

Furthermore why all this disconcertment, this bewilderment at "urination"? Did your not "brave" ones piss on the living ?

But of course they did, they did on numerous occasions, I reported it...but I saw no indignation then -- instead I was called a liar, a lunatic.

NO you filthy bastards, am neither a liar nor a lunatic...am truer than a polished diamond.

In July 2008 - I wrote about Ahmad and this is what I had to say :

"Once arrived, they placed them in a corner of a dirty cell and started pissing on their wounded bodies while hysterically laughing. Not contenting themselves with that alone, they (the Americans) brought in a basin used to collect shit from their mobile toilets and emptied it on Ahmad and the other detainees heads"

I was writing about Ahmad in Baghdad...I was writing about the women you tied with their legs apart until you split them in the middle...split loose from their bodies, their souls and their humanity...

I strongly suggest you re-read that post of mine - I called it "Crucified by Freedom."

No need to be so outraged, this is you.

You pissed on the living, on the Crucified, why surprised when pissing on the dead ?

Or should I say "Uri-Nation" ?

Impasse...

2011-12-31T19:06:00.001+02:00

Not a very nice title to start the new year. But an Impasse it is. And it shall remain so.
The deadlock of the Iraqi political process is not a coincidence, nor a mishap, nor wrong strategy, nor miscalculations, the Iraqi impasse is a natural outcome, a planned outcome, a wished outcome.

Failure to understand that, will always lead to a skewed view.

When the Americans invaded Iraq with a sectarian ethnic agenda, they knew in advance that the Shiite parties will have the upper hand, and will always control the political process. When the Americans came forward with bogus figures like Iraq is 60% Shiite, 20% Sunni, 20% Kurd, this ethnic sectarian division was the crux of the agenda. When the Americans encouraged, and extra funded the so-called Iraqi opposition, back during Clinton's era, knowing full well that most of this opposition was exiled in Iran, they knew exactly what the outcome would be. When both Right and Left, when both the Neo-cons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush as well as the disgraceful left of Chomsky spoke of some alleged oppression of Shias and Kurds in Iraq, they knew exactly what they were doing...

The Impasse is totally expected, a natural, normal outcome.

What is not normal though, is Iraqi stupidity. A stupidity that still baffles me.

When I heard some Iraqis say back in 2003 : - OK now they got rid of him (Saddam Hussein) let them leave, I used to jump from my chair possessed by the need to slap into sanity.

Why would Americans cross oceans with the largest movement of artillery and men since World War II, just for the love of your Freedom ? How could you have been so stupid and so shortsighted! Did you not read history ?! Did you not read your OWN history ?!

Well your History is being written now, but not by you. And that's a fact you will never be able to escape. Political process, reconciliation all that jargon is useless. You are not the writers of your own History anymore.

Yesterday, in Adhamiya part of the "Soooneee Triangle" (hope you managed to pronounce right by now), there were celebrations to mark the "day of Evacuation", the day we evacuated the American barbarians. Yes we did evacuate them, it did not look this way in your headlines and news captions, but 8 years of Resistance by a small group, a grass root group taught your brave little boys a lesson they will never recover from.
It is normal that we defend our land and our homes against barbarity. If you have any dignity or honor you would have done the same. We are not the slaves of America.

So yesterday in that Sunni neighborhood, which was a stronghold of the Iraqi Resistance, people celebrated, this day of Evacuation. They invited Shias to participate. No one turned up.
The Shias on the other hand celebrated today calling it a "day of Fulfillment".

One calls it EVACUATION, the other calls it FULFILLMENT.

Re-read what I said earlier, the promise by America to the Shiite parties and their supporters has been fulfilled. The promise to Iran has been fulfilled. That is another inescapable fact. But just as we are not slaves of America, we are not slaves of Iran either.

Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do NOT want Shiite party rule, nor do they accept Kurdish independence.

Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do not care what the sect of the Ruler is Sunni, Shiite or Martian, but they do care not to be ruled by Shiite parties.

This "democratic" theocracy is a stranger to us. We are essentially a secular people, we have intermarried for generations, and you will not be able to reverse that part of our story so easily.

You see, there's something you missed here, you came with an agenda for an Impasse and our refusal for your agenda has become our Resistance.

What looks like our Impasse, is in fact yours.

Intentions...

2011-12-29T03:39:00.001+02:00

There is no such thing as Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a handy word you invented...so you can get away with it. There is first Justice be done, followed by Forgiveness.

I am aware of all the proponents for Forgiveness...they are usually Predators. For, who will ask for Forgiveness but one ?!

Had it been a one time off, an independent case, a singled out case , a something out of the ordinary...I would have forgiven.

After all, humans are known to err...imperfect beings that they are.

But...

But, this is not a one off, nor an exception, this is a repetitive pattern, a repetitive pattern I have learned by heart (by the way that says much about your creativity or lack thereof...)

How can you forgive a repetitive pattern ?

Repetition means a deliberate repetitive Intention.

When someone intends --- you have to equal that power of intention...

Politics is all about interests, but it is also about intentions.

You Americans did not harbor the best of intentions towards us. You were in fact ILL intentioned (maybe that word does not exist, so there you have it now) ILL-intentioned.

When they wish you ill...if your body is weak...you will become ill...the Iraq body was weakened...over 13 years of sanctions debilitated the sick man till his death...

This was Your intention.

There is nothing to debate here, nothing to argue.

I spit on your condolences cards, your funeral attendance. I look at your attention, your intentions...

And I see it today.

Lost....Lost Homes.

2011-12-25T05:13:00.005+02:00

Women are peculiar beings...whoever, whatever they are...they are always attached to home.

Our home is our shell, our protection...the men may come and they may go, but our homes are our shelter...you take away our homes, you strip us naked...

Many of us Iraqi women have been stripped naked that way, some of us even more, a full striptease...until we ended up in brothels...

Most people don't understand...most people are stupid, make no mistake about the human race...very few of these fuckers are worthy of respect or consideration...they will only understand when they lose a home...until then, don't count on neither - nor their empathy, nor their understanding.

Specially don't count on empathy from those in the "first world", they are too polluted, these are people cut off from the most basics...they are far gone - down. Forget them.

Truth is -- don't count on anyone...take stock of your losses, all of them..all of them...if need be, ruthlessly strip yourself from the grief...and count...keep counting...

Turn that grief into the real thing...into an accounting exercise. Your language does not count no more...the language of grief, of feelings, of emotions, of sentiments, mean shit...you need to learn a new language...the language of accounting, of adding up figures...of even out...

This is the language they understand...speak to them in the language they understand.

You may never recover your home, your protective shell, but at least you would have learned a new language. You have been taught a new language for well over 9 years now... Speak it. And speak it well.

A New Iraq.

2011-12-17T08:22:00.000+02:00

The New Iraq is a pathetic non entity of a nothing...a mediocre product of a new world order...a country that can't tell what is what, who is who, which is which...a country where every moron becomes a spokesman for something he understands nothing about...and behind all this facade of verbal diarrhea, the diarrhea of Freedom and Democracy, lies an autocratic rule, run by Shiite parties and Shiite militias where black chadors and black flags adorn every street, every neighborhood, where not one poster, but thousands of posters are plastered on every corner, the same faces, the same turbans, the same titles....titles, all forged titles, forged diplomas,
forged ministries, forged identities, forged history, forged...

The new Iraq is a forgery...a fraud...a FRAUD, a fraudulent experiment, a fraud of conscience, a fraud of morality...a make believe, a lie...

Not the BBC, nor the CBS, nor the ABC will tell you any of that...they are there to sell you the final product, the experiment...the drug of Democracy...the FDA approved for consumption.

Iraq is a ravaged country, right down to its very fiber...all the rest is make up...the make up over scars of a savage makeover...the dabbing of eye shadows, creamy foundations and rosy blushers over a deformed face...a last minute dab in front of world projectors...

A Savagery, a barbarity that is now embedded in me...like one of your embedded reporters...like one of your experts, like one of your specialists... I carry that savagery everywhere I go...a flag, a symbol, a second skin...a new me...a new Iraq.

Persistence behind Shadows...

2011-12-11T20:51:00.007+02:00

I am constantly confronted with people's shadows...it is usually a mix of light and obscurity, and at times, most of the time - just pure obscurity. Seeing through the obscurity is not easy...it takes much focus, much senses, much intuition -- to feel your way through...

Painstakingly so.

If anything or anyone has been shrouded in much obscurity, it is Iraq. Not Palestine, not Syria, not Libya, not Egypt, not Yemen, not Tunisia, not Bahrain...not anywhere, but Iraq.

At least with the others, if it is any consolation, even though it is not, the faces have names, some story one can write about, a location one can refer to...in our case, we remain anonymous, faceless, nameless, history-less.

Iraq is the Haggar, the slave woman that no one pays attention to. Let her run and fend for herself...let her seek and beseech...she is nothing but a slave woman.

The cover up is still thick, a dense veil, a black Chador...hiding the Truth, the Reality.

It does not matter anymore how many posts I write denouncing, exposing, nor does it matter anymore what I say or don't say ---there's a consensus out there, a final verdict - Iraq is a done deal, let's move on...

And what if I don't want to move on ? And what if I wish to remain stuck because not all is said, because not all is exposed ? What then ?

Am told it is no longer important...am told there are Springs awaiting us.

The reader is always on the lookout for a new story, another piece of meat, to consume...I have no more stories, my stories are repetitive and in their repetitiveness they have a message, that you never digested...that you never really swallowed...that you have never bitten into...

I want to bring back Iraq to the very forefront, yes, to the very forefront of the battlefield.
For me there are no troops withdrawing, for me there is no pull out...the imprints are there. The soldiers boots are there, the debris are there. You will not efface that, just like that, simply put, in between deadlines.

I will not move on. I refuse to move on. I am adamant in staying put, picketing deadlines and checkpoints...I am adamant in the face of Shadows. I am adamant in the face of Silence. I am adamant in the face of willful Forgetfulness.

I am stubborn, I stick to it, I stick to what I love, even if what I love has become a Shadow of itself.

You will not get away with it. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, not after the famous deadline for a "withdrawal"...your good conscience Coitus Interruptus, when we are to swallow the morning after pill...abort monsters before they are due...outside delivery rooms of labour pangs ...the new birth pangs of your New World Order...of your new Middle East...that you are for ever trying to invent and re-invent...

A bit of democracy here and there, toilet paper publications and congresses for the good abiding Arab/Muslim.

Lulling us with religion, handpicked scholars and "open minded" preachers, shoving band aids on our wounds...like some comedian being ushered on a stage, at gun point - make them smile and laugh - he is ordered.

No, and a thousand No's. Iraq is not a clown.

I have seen way too many lives broken, I have seen way too much grief to become the good Arab, to become the acceptable audience that you hope for.

I am the dirty agent, that belongs to no one...I just do it for Truth, for Fun...yes Fun...I love it when an irrelevant voice like mine, an inconsequential one, goes at it again and again, in the monotonous repetitiveness of a story too often told...

I don't care, if it falls on deaf ears, I don't care if it is just a whisper, a murmur...all I know is that it is a voice from behind the Shadows...it is real, it is here and it will not let go.

#FACEBOOK

2011-12-01T14:00:00.001+02:00

I've had a Facebook account for several years now, which I hardly ever use. I totally dislike Facebook, their privacy and security levels are ZERO, and they effect many changes without notifying their users - it is a perfect place for a nest of spies. Hence my total dislike for it.

However, Uruknet on its FB page, had some pretty nonsensical comments on one of my posts on Syria bearing all types of stupid accusations, and I decided I wanted to reply to set the record straight.

By the same token I thought I'd make some changes to my Facebook profile.

One of the changes I wanted to effect was add a secondary email to my Facebook account. To my surprise when I tried doing so, I was told that this secondary email of mine let's call it X is already in use by someone on Facebook.

I found that most strange because I have never used that email X on Facebook before. So I researched a little and found out that my email X is indeed associated to someone impersonating me and using my name - even though I HAVE NEVER CONFIRMED THAT EMAIL NOTIFICATION FROM FACEBOOK SINCE I NEVER RECEIVED IT FROM THEM.

Not only do I find out that my email address X is being used but that there are several other impersonators with ghost accounts using my name Layla Anwar.

I was then told that this impersonator who used my email account X has disabled his profile. YET MY EMAIL X is still associated with this user.

I tried opening a new FACEBOOK account with my email address X, and was told it is not possible because this email address X (which is MY ADDRESS) has been disabled as well.

I then proceeded to write a report to Facebook asking for explanations as to how they could let someone use my email address X when I never received a notification from them to ACTIVATE it.

The formula on their website requires my name, my date of birth, my telephone number, a copy of my ID if I want to get answers to my query.

Another dirty ploy by FACEBOOK to get more information on their users.

So what that means in effect: if in the future I want to register for an FB account using MY email address X I simply can't do so. Which also means that my email address X has been hacked into several times.

After posting my replies to these stupid comments on URUK FB page, I decided that this was no longer worth it. I DEACTIVATED my Facebook account. Hence all comments, info, profile I have past or present are no longer there.

If you wish to contact me, my email is on my blog profile or you can follow me on TWITTER @ laylaanwar. No more FACEBOOK "friends" requests please.

AND NO MORE FACEBOOK FOR ME.

Oh and by the way from november 25 to november 28 I've had well over 1000 hacking attempts into my blog.

I will take that as a compliment.

# Notes to Self regarding "Arab Spring" Developments.

2011-11-30T09:07:00.010+02:00

Developments to follow up on :

- Yemen : on the edge of a civil war (Foreign Policy)

- Bahrain : opposition asking for the government's resignation

- Egypt : 80 wounded in clashes in post election, also seems that US had sent anti riot material to transitional govt and last but not least heavy arguments regarding some breach of trust and hurling of stones between some members of Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists

- Syria : the massacres continue and ditto as in Yemen.

- Lebanon : rocket "skirmishes" on the Southern border with Israeli retaliation. Lebanese government implicating "Al-Qaeda"- Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an ant- Assad, anti-Hezbollah group (yeah sure - old stale tactic)

- Iraq : violence on the rise again, several bombs in different locations of Baghdad including the Green Zone, Mosul and Anbar. Several dead and wounded. Biden on visit there, also Iraq now rated as worst country to live in with worst standard and quality of life. Also more crackdown on Baathists in Najaf and 9 arrests of so-called terrorists in Mosul. Plus about 700 US trainers to train Iraqi army while US trained Iraqi army has signed several defense pacts with Iran Revolutionary Guards this month. Business as usual.

- Saudi Arabia : 4 killed in Eastern province, demonstration calling for the fall of Al-Saud

- Libya : still no security throughout, conflict over power grabs, in fighting, lots of arms on the black market.

- Iran : not part of the Arab Spring, unfortunately, but note: take over of UK embassy by pro-government hardliners students, diversion tactic and message regarding Syria. UK to partially withdraw its embassy staff.

- Turkey : not part of Arab spring but related - anteing up pressure on Syria, said will divert trade route through Iraq to Jordan and elsewhere. How will it manage it with Iraqi government /Kurdish regional government ?

- Israel ex Mossad chief dismisses any strike on Iran arguing that rockets will fall from Hamas and Hezbollah - to the dismay and anger of Ehud Barak who accused him of sidestepping the political chain of command (Hareetz)

- Russia : angry for being cheated out of some NATO agreement on joint Defense strategy, will send fleet to Syria in December 2011 and will send its NATO envoy to visit China and Iran over missile defense

To be continued...naturally.

#Notes To Self regarding Syria

2011-11-28T07:36:00.032+02:00

I am jotting these observations and thoughts down for the record and for the future. I hope I can cover all the points I jotted down in my head first - been doing nothing but reading article after article on Syria, talking to Syrian friends, both inside and outside the country, and engaging some Syrians online to get their version of events.

I am also subjected to more vile emails and over 1000 hacking attempts. Hence I feel there must be a good amount of truth in my previous post on Syria. In any event, this post is going to consist of thoughts/remarks/questions and maybe an analysis would deduct itself by itself.

This post is for me first and foremost, not for any reader. So am not too concerned here if I make sense to you or not.

1. Spoke to Syrian family who is Christian, they told me that over 150 Christians were massacred in Homs. They believe it is "armed men" who are not tied to the regime, they were told they are bearded - the family did not say it but they implied they were Islamist/Terrorist.

2. By the same token, read several reports from Christian observers who traveled to Syria during the period September - November 11, they seem to confirm that "armed groups" are killing citizens and mutilating them, according to them they visited the government hospital in Homs and can testify to that - these reporters were invited by the Syrian government, so it is very likely that they only had access to the official version.

3. On the other hand, several videos and testimonies from residents living in Homs and elsewhere attest a) the capture of Iranian Quds Brigades, Hezbollah fighters and of course the confirmation of what I stated in my previous post - namely Muqtada Al-Sadr sending his militia in.

4. According to some reports of the FSA (Free Syrian Army), the number of soldiers defecting is around 50'000, of course this can't be verified, but most of the videos I took the pain to watch of FSA all the soldiers confirm no.3 and say they have defected because they refuse orders to shoot on their own unarmed people.

5. According to other reports, those who maintain the nucleus of the armed forces and the security apparatus are directly related to the Assad family, the name of Maher Al-Assad the brother comes up frequently.

6. Also watched a video in Arabic where Rifaat Al-Assad was giving a lecture in Paris, he by the way met with Bernard Henri Levy in October/November (one of the masterminds for Libya), in that video he was talking about Hama - he of course denied his role in the massacres of Hama, but more interestingly he blamed Hama on Iraq, saying that Saddam Hussein sent Takfiris, to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, and this group were anti shia, anti alawite anti ismaili. Watching this video of Rifaat Al-Assad confirmed to me the inherent sectarianism of the hardcore Alawite - of course these allegations are baloney since Saddam Hussein and his Baath were allergic to anything called Muslim Brothers or Salafists/Takfiris, furthermore in the 80's for the record, there was no such trend as takfiri/salafi, there were only the Muslim Brotherhood. The Salafist ideology came later onto the political scene. (also read an article which stated that there was a secret meeting between Sharon, Rifaat Al-Assad and US in 1982 organized by Kissinger -note Iran/Iraq war and Syria's stand)

7. So who are these armed groups currently at work in Syria - a) the Shabiha for sure b) Iranian , Hezbollah and Sadr militias c) BBC ran a video in which it also showed fighters/arms coming in from Lebanon and alluded to porous borders with Turkey.

8. On the regional level several developments I need to note :

a) the almost take over by Qatar of the Arab League
b) Libya's NTC offering help to the FAS also just read on Turkish newspaper that France training Syrian "rebels"- Got to be careful with such allegations/psyops as 1)compulsory military service in Syria and 2)FSA hardly needs training.
c) Belhadj of Libya arrested by Zintan brigades on a "special mission" to Turkey for carrying a fake passport
d) Iran stating that it has missiles that can reach Turkey, which is really a threat.
e) Turkey increasing its condemnation regarding Syria along with Qatar (more so than any Arab country I must say)
f) Russia sending a military ship to Syrian coastal waters - read the same for Iran.
g) Americans keeping a low profile on the matter
h) a rejection of any military NATO intervention and no fly zone by AL and EU
i) the Juppe France proposal for "Humanitarian Corridors" has also been rejected so far.
l) Iraq adamant about preserving the Assad regime from fear of an "Islamist" take over that will ruin its "democracy" (as per the statements of Talabani, Maliki and Zebari)And of course Lebanon.
m) Jordan also had its objections to economic sanctions vis a vis Syria - I think Jordan is trying to keep out of it as much as possible as some commentators alluded to fears of some sort of Hezbollah retaliation from inside Syrian territory.
n) Israel broke the silence only once on Syria which is kind of strange for Israel -stating that Assad's end is like that of Saddam and Gaddafi and since I have not read anything else from the Jewish state.

9. on the ground these are the observations I made again and again. The protests seem to be concentrated or should I say the armed conflict (which is not really a good term because there is no equality in balance of power here) in the periphery of Damascus - like Homs, Deir Ezzor, Idlib, Hama etc (maybe to the exception of Aleppo). From the Syrians I have spoken to, they confirm to me that there are sporadic unarmed demonstrations in Damascus but mainly in the "poor areas" and that overall the security situation there is good.

10. another observation I can't sidestep, is that Assad regime does still have support mainly in Damascus and maybe Aleppo (urban elites)and those supporters that include ordinary Syrians who are neither Alawites nor Baathists, seem to believe that there is a conspiracy against Syria by US/Qatar/Israel/Turkey/Saudi Arabia/ Europe. What I find objectionable is their denial of the hideous repression taking place outside of the capital. Either they don't have access to the information or they are absolutely convinced by the official version that all the killings, torture etc are done by infiltrators.
Another observation is that these protests which started off unarmed and peaceful, seem to be concentrated in the poor provincial areas so there is definitely a class element to them - looking at several videos from Syria the statement - they live well and we are poor - comes up again and again.

11. Another thing that still leaves me quite perplexed - two years ago in November 2009, I wrote a post and mentioned at length Syria - namely a) the great rapprochement between Syria and Turkey b) Sarkozy praising a new era of trust with Syria c) the relative normalization of diplomatic contacts with the USA - an ambassador was dispatched d) the piece of news of back door diplomacy with Israel in Turkey - the latter playing the mediator and very important e) the fall out with Maliki of Iraq in which the latter accused Syria of sending in terrorists/insurgents which Syria denied and last note not to forget the bombing of alleged Syrian nuclear site.

So what went wrong since 2009 ? Of course one may argue at face value the terrible repression /crackdown against unarmed civilians which is one aspect but there is more. Definitely there is more. I believe that Syria's ouverture to Turkey and France as well as Syria's rapprochement to Saudi Arabia during the period was not well viewed by Iran, hence that (partially) explains Maliki's (Iraq's) fall out with Syria for well over 6 months. I think that Assad was quickly called back to the Iranian fold sensing Turkey's ambitions in the "New" Middle East.
(Turkey-Gaza,Syria, possibly new Egypt, Libya) (cross out Syria now)

12. Also been reading statements from the Syrian opposition - some maintain insistence on a civil non armed disobedience movement, others inside and outside are clamoring for no fly zones, and some even go so far as to call for a NATO military strike arguing that sanctions are not enough.

13. the worrisome aspect for me is the regional political recuperation of an initially peaceful, unarmed, spontaneous, valid mass protest against social injustice. One can argue that this is expected, just as other protests in the Arab world have been politically recuperated by various outside forces (an argument that is quite valid for Egypt today for example). This regional interference coupled with the brutal repression on the inside is leading to what some may call a low insurrection or low civil war that will not flare up the way it did in Iraq. I suspect that the regime will try to keep whatever "civil war" or more like a sectarian war - because it is really taking up the colors of a sectarian cleansing on the outskirts of the capital, i.e outside of Damascus and possibly Aleppo.

14. I maintain that it is in both Iran's and Israel's interest to have this kind of longish low level insurrection in Syria, I also believe that Iran is betting it will come out victorious like it did in Iraq. Insofar as Israel is concerned and also Iran by the way, and this is something that both left and right seem to miss - in the long run any dismantling of any Arab state is beneficial. Could it be that the Assad regime has resorted to such a sectarian outlook that it can't see that or could it be that events have gone so far and so much out of control that it simply can't backtrack anymore ?

15) my final note to myself - last but not least - what is the political stand to take vis à vis Syria now ? Of course condemnation of the crackdown, no doubt about it, all these videos streaming in can't all be possibly lying. And surely all these people including women and children are not terrorists or insurgents, like the regime claims. Also some of the torture is so hideous, eyes gouged out, horrible mutilation, such a reminder of the sectarian cleansing that took place in Iraq by the Shiite militias.

Also the fact that Iraq US installed puppets backed by Iran are so adamant about their "own democracy" yet support the brutal repression in Syria and call for no foreign intervention when they themselves were installed by one of the most brutal foreign interventions in contemporary history, raises all kinds of red flags for me.

But also by the same token Qatari/AL EU US interference does not go down well with me.
Insofar as the Arab League is concerned - my question is - how come they suddenly woke up after decades of sleep when it came to Syria - why did we not see the same efforts vis à vis Gaza, or Iraq (with their silence) and as for Libya -where we clearly saw AL backing a NATO intervention.

I do note the different tone vis à vis Syria, the long process of sanctions as opposed to a direct military intervention - I believe this is due to the fact that Syria contrary to Iraq is backed by Russia and more importantly by Iran and its proxies in Iraq and Lebanon. Which was not definitely not the case for Iraq (weakened after a decade of sanctions and with no backing whatsoever), and the same parallel goes for Libya (also Libya was quickly isolated even though the Russian paid lip service to Gaddafi when in effect they went ahead and recognized the NTC) They did not put up a similar fight as they are doing for Syria. That is for sure.

The other thing that gnaws at me - another parallel with Iraq - in 2003, many antiwar, left, liberal progressive (which for me don't mean anything anymore by the way) went ahead with the slogan - not to the US no to Saddam. Is it possible to use the same slogan for Syria today - and say no to NATO no to Assad seeing what happened to Iraq ? By saying no to US no to Assad are we not saying yes to Iran or yes to Israel or yes to Turkey ? This is a valid question.

But also what are the families of these poor people on the inside to do ? Just go on being massacred like sheep ? Who will stop the carnage if there is no backing ? The only hope would be an independent patriotic Syrian Resistance that is visionary enough not to fall in either camp.
Quite a few Syrians are banking on that. I for my part will refrain for the moment from more notes on Syria - I shall be a quiet observer and jot down more notes for the record, bearing in mind all the above. And before finishing off - I must also note that pro Assad supporters online give their 100% support to the Bahrain protesters (who are funded/backed by A.Chalabi Iraq, Sadr Iraq, Hezbollah Lebanon, Qatar and Iran) and wish for the downfall of "Sunni" Saudi Arabia, and the genocide of all Sunnis - if that is not sectarianism I don't know what is.

The Complexity of Syria.

2011-11-20T06:03:00.005+02:00

A dangerous and complex situation in Syria, very dangerous indeed. But then so are all situations when it comes to the Arab world.

This is an attempt to make sense, and to infuse some light into what will prove to be a dark chapter of Syrian history. I am not sure I will succeed but I will try. I shall base my analysis on my various readings plus testimonies from the Syrians I have encountered.

Nearly a 40 year rule by the Alawite clan of the Assad family. Alawites are a branch of Shi'ism, and very difficult to penetrate i.e to access full knowledge of their belief system. A strange combination of Shiism and Druze ideology. Alawites are a minority in Syria, originally from the lower echelons of society. Their rise to power under the Assad rule and their grip on key sectors of government was ensured by placing their own people in key positions, as one Syrian acquaintance said - they have infiltrated Syrian society like an octopus. This is how the Alawites of Syria were able to maintain power for so long seeing that they are a indeed a small minority.

True, secularism was the order of the day and Syrian society was a secular one. Denying that would be a blatant lie. However, when the regime felt that the noose is tightening around its neck, due to genuine popular protests against repression plus a dire economic situation where roughly 3 Million Syrians live in abject poverty and privileges are only accorded to the elite related to the Assad clan, the regime resorted to its inherent sectarianism, emboldened by its special ties to Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon.

A regime cannot continue such a brutal crackdown on its own citizens unless it follows one of two options either : a) a nihilistic approach which basically says - on me and my enemies - a popular Arabic saying, translated as " we will burn it all down" or b) it pertinently knows that it will eventually get away with it.

The other scenario is a little more complicated and I think this is the one, one needs to reflect on. By persevering in its destructive course of action - the current Syrian regime which has been reduced to a small clique directing events - is actually inviting foreign intervention.

I personally believe that Bashar Al-Assad has lost control of his inner government. I say "inner" government because this is how things are in Syria. The key sectors in particular the armed forces and the security apparatus have an operating system of their own and are directed by the inner clique that is hardly ever public - back corridor operations.

It is said that the old partisans of Assad the father, are the ones who are controlling Syria today, that includes Maher Al-Assad, Bashar's brother.

I think that Bashar Al-Assad as a figure has become cannon meat. As we say in Arabic - he is placed in the mouth of the cannon and when that cannon fires, he will be the first to go. This does not mean that the whole regime will go with him, regimes when backed as in the case of Syria have amazing powers to shed skins and acquire new ones as we shall see later on.

But this is not sufficient of an analysis, because it does not take into account the other regional players - namely Iran, Turkey and Israel plus the other Arab countries in particular Qatar.

Since the fall of Iraq and now Libya thanks to Western intervention and occupation, it is clear that the Western Zionist agenda for the Arab region (Iran is not Arab) is first and foremost the doing away of secular, progressive regimes or what started off as progressive regimes. Regime change also means ERADICATING any ideological roots that are essentially anti-imperialistic (even if flawed) and born out of the colonial experience. That was the case for Iraq's brand of Baathism and Libya's popular Jamahiriyah.

These regime changes were followed by two distinctive traits 1) a replacement by parties that claim to be Islamic (i.e deriving their political ideology from Islam) and 2. a period of intense sectarian, ethnic, civil strife that completed the initial destruction triggered by these Western interventions.

In this Western agenda for these regimes (Iraq and Libya), there are other regional players that are also prominently competing for influence and power. In the case of Iraq it was - Iran and Israel, and in the case of Libya it was Turkey and Qatar. The preceding is an important point to bear in mind because you simply can't divorce the developments in any particular Arab country without placing them in a geopolitical context.

Getting back to Syria which is the initial subject matter. Drawing observations like the ones above from Iraq and Libya, one can also conclude that the West has an agenda for regime change in Syria. One can also add that regional players, notably Iran, Turkey and Qatar (again) are vying to either maintain, enhance or change the current regime.

This does not mean that the popular protests in Syria are all externally induced by foreign powers, nor does it mean that they are not justified, nor does that diminish the brutality of the regime crackdown, but it does mean that Syria is not an island and that regional attempts at power grabs are reflected internally.

Iran needs to keep its grip on Syria for several reasons, one of which is power continuity in Lebanon Iran will not give up Syria easily, hence the amazingly lax ultimatums that are given to the Assad regime by the Arab league and the International community. It is clear that meddling with Syria by flexing too much muscle will trigger Iran's (and Hezbollah's) wrath. Hence the "diplomatic" approach was favored which was clearly not the case for Iraq nor Libya where brute power was employed to achieve regime change.

Turkey and Qatar on the other hand are coaxing regime change in Syria. Not because they particularly care for the Syrian people, but since Iraq was generously given to Iran, by the U.S, Turkey in particular feels it's being thwarted in its plan for regional supremacy. The conflict or the competition for regional influence between Turkey and Iran is reflected in Syria.

Qatar on the other hand has also plans to become the major Arab player - superseding the role traditionally allocated to Saudi Arabia - and that too is part of the new American agenda for the region - the gradual isolation of Saudi Arabia.

One can see Qatar's rise to power through its machinations overt and covert in Lebanon (with its ties to Hezbollah) as the mediator of peace, with Israel as the first Gulf country who openly invited Tzipi Livni in 2006, with Bahrain where it's meddling in favor of regime change in collusion with Iran and the Bahraini opposition, in Libya where it openly supported and participated in NATO's operations, in Tunisia where it has extended a lifeline to the Ennhada Islamic party which is now in power after the fall of Ben Ali. Moreover, Qatar has excellent bilateral ties with Iran and nearly 40% of its economy is jointly owned with Iranian investors from the Islamic republic. And last but not least, Qatar is now the US Arab prodigal child to be nursed into full fledged political adulthood.
Qatar if you want is like a parasite trying to grow two legs. And the US will ensure it does.

So where does that leave Syria ?

All what I have mentioned above is reflected in Syria, be it within the regime or in the Syrian opposition to the regime.

Let's start with the Syrian opposition. The Syrian opposition has different voices and not one. Some want Turkish interference, some want Western intervention, some refuse categorically either. And one cannot deny the "Islamic" coloring to certain parties of the opposition. A reminder of the "Islamic" Shiite parties in Iraq and its Libyan variant.

Inside Syria, the same is true. Army soldiers are defecting including a few Alawites and Druze (as per the latest news) and are joining the protesters. Some of the protesters HAVE BECOME armed, allegations that they are armed by Turkey may have some truth in it, but the reality is that defectors from the Army are taking their weapons with them. That explains how a few protesters are armed today which was not initially the case when the protests/uprising started. However the majority of the protesters remain unarmed and are civilians.

What's happening on the regime front? Important developments to be well noted.

- First there is the local militia - the shabiha. Remember what I said earlier on, the Alawites are a small minority in Syria. The Shabiha receive reinforcement in men from the following a) Hezbollah of Lebanon 2) Iranian Quds Brigades 3)and this is the latest piece of news given by someone from Damascus - the militia of Jaysh Al Mahdi of Muqtada al Sadr arriving by bus loads into Syria. I need to remind the reader that Jaysh Al-Mahdi of Muqtada Al-Sadr is one of the biggest Shiite militias in Iraq and was responsible for massive sectarian cleansing of non Shias during the so-called "civil war" in Iraq that reached its apogee in 2006-2008.

- Secondly this reinforcement from Iran and its proxies make sense because of: a)army defection b)the need to keep Damascus in the hands of the regime - notice most of the killing is being done on the periphery of the capital and not in the capital. One reason for this is that (again according to my Syrian sources) the bulk of the Shabiha are spread throughout the capital and are quick to nip any protests with a swift crackdown without having to move tanks and men. c)it is a known strategy in warfare that if you lose the capital you lose the battle, hence the necessity to keep a tight control over Damascus.

- Thirdly the reinforcement by Iran means a preparation for a sectarian war. Is it in the interest of Iran to have a civil war in Syria ? My answer is yes it is. Just like it was in the interest of Iran to have a civil war in Iraq in which it guaranteed the outcome through its 33 armed Shiite militias plus its own revolutionary guards. It's called power leverage. Hezbollah a few days ago was on high alert and asked for mobilization of its men. Today we hear that Jaysh Al-Mahdi is arriving in Syria. These are two sure signs that something is about to be prepared on a full scale.
Is it in the interest of Israel to have a civil war in Syria ? Naturally it is. Ehud Barak for the first time today after a relatively long silence on Syria stated - "Bashar Al-Assad has only a few more months, his fate is that of Hussein and Gaddafi."

- Fourthly, the question to pose is what about Turkey ? Will it find itself relatively excluded again like it was in Iraq or will it be able to also have a piece of the pie but this time without NATO intervention like in Libya ?

As I said, am trying to shed some light and I don't have all the answers. I am also aware I did not cover everything like for instance the repercussions of a highly possible sectarian war in Syria on Lebanon and Iraq and I also have left out Russia.

However, despite the limits of this post, something rings true - and I must give credit where credit is due - someone on Twitter said to me, in reference to Syria - Iran will not be happy until the word Arab is erased from every Arab country's dictionary. He is right on that count. What he forgot to mention is that the same goes for Israel.

N.B: What is also interesting to note and keep in mind - from U.S occupied Iraq, through one of its puppet spokesman H.Zebari, Foreign Minister, pledging unconditional support for the Assad regime. Bear in mind that U.S/Iran installed Iraqi puppets are vehemently anti Baathists, yet U.S/Iran installed Iraqi puppets have no qualms supporting the Syrian Baath regime.

Cut & Silence

2011-11-15T06:17:00.006+02:00

Am surrounded by a strange kind of Silence...

From my experience, I can recognize two kinds of Silence. One is because one chooses to be silent, either you don't have anything to say, or you're just enjoying the Quietness in a peaceful sort of way. The other kind of Silence is very difficult to describe in words. The only words I can find to describe it -- a murdered Silence.

It's like when you have been badly beaten up, thrashed, shaken in the fibers of your soul, and you are left in that room alone after the event --and everything goes dead silent. It's like the aftermath of a battle in a war zone, when the cannons have stopped, you've survived and you look around and there's nothing but debris, rubble and that strange silence -- a silence that is in between life and death. Not quite the silence of the cemeteries - of Death, neither the silence of Peace.

A strange kind of Silence, because the horror cannot be described in words. What to do with all this horror that keeps seeping in bits and pieces, adding itself to the reservoir of horrors that you have already stored inside of you ? Where do you put it, where do you file it, how do you classify it ? but more importantly how do you accept it, incorporate it, digest it ?

I have no answers, so I fall into that strange kind of Silence.

In the old days when people could not read and write, they went to the market place and there was always a literate man who would be sitting behind a low small table, with a pot of ink and some paper. You dictated your letter and he would faithfully write it down for you. They called him the "kateb" - the one who writes...

Sometimes if the text was a standard one,or if the client did not really know what to say in a letter - he would use carbon copy papers - the modern equivalent of cut and paste.

It would go like this :

Dear X,
Hope you are well, we have missed you, everyone is fine and asking about you. Your absence weighs on us, so does your Silence. Give us a sign, send us a picture.

Tonight, with that strange kind of Silence surrounding me - I will do like the "kateb" - use carbon copies - use cut and paste...cut and paste...cut and paste...

I shall cut words and paste them...glue them to the page like a school kid preparing some decorative card for the coming holidays...

And by doing so I am elbowing that strange kind of Silence, pushing it sideways, to make room for my cut and paste...cut and plastered, cut and glued, cut and kept, cut and dangling, cut and hanging...cut and silenced.

And like the "kateb" in the market place I shall faithfully replicate what am told...

Dear X,
In March of 2007, I witnessed SSG Platt shoot and wound an Iraqi national without cause of provocation. The Staff Sergeant said that he suspected the Iraqi be a “trigger” man. We had not been attacked and we found no evidence on the man to support the suspicion. As the Iraqi lay bleeding on the ground, PVT Smith requested to administer first aid to the Iraqi. SSgt Platt said no and “let him bleed out".

Dear X,
In June of 2007 1SG Spry caused an Iraqi male to be stopped, questioned, detained, and killed. We had no evidence that the Iraqi was an insurgent or terrorist. In any event when we stopped he did not pose a threat. Although I did not personally witness the killing, I did observe 1sg Spry dismembering the body and parading of it while it was tied to the hood of a Humvee around the Muhalla neighborhood...I have a photo that shows 1SG Spry removing the victim’s brains.

Dear X,
On another occasion an Iraqi male was stopped by a team led by Sgt Rogers as he walked down an alleyway. The Iraqi was detained and questioned then with his hands tied behind his back, SGT Rogers skinned his face.

Dear X,
1ST Spry shot a young Iraqi teenager who was about 16 years old. The shooting was unprovoked and the Iraqi posed no threat to the unit. He was merely riding his bicycle past an ambush site. When I arrived on the scene I observed 1SGT Spry along with SSG Platt dismember the boy’s body.

Dear X,
In August of 2007, I responded to radio call from SGT Rogers reporting that he had just shot an Iraqi who was trying to enter through a hole that the platoon had blown in a wall to allow them observation of the area during a security patrol. When I arrived, I saw a one armed man who was still alive lying on a barricade. The man was about 30 years old. He had an old Ruger pistol hanging from his thumb. It was obvious to me that the pistol was placed there because of the way it hung from his thumb. The Iraqi was still alive when I arrived. The Iraqi was still moving. I was asking why they shot him again when I heard Sgt Hoskins say “he’s moving, he’s still alive.” SPEC Hoskins then moved to the Iraqi and shot him in the back of the head. SSG Platt and SGT Rogers were visibly excited about the kill. I saw them pull the Iraqi’s brains out as they placed him in the body bag.

Dear X,
On many occasions I observed SGT Temples, SSG Platt and SGT Rogers beat and abuse Iraqi teenagers, some as young as 14, without cause. They would walk into a house near areas where they suspected we had received sniper fire, then detain and beat the kids.

Dear X,
I am enclosing these pictures for the memory, the remembrance, the souvenir...

The Shabiha - A Sample of a Syrian Regime Thug.

2011-11-09T14:02:00.001+02:00

The other day on Twitter, I tweeted some fresh info I had just received - namely that 9 people were massacred in Homs, Syria - on the day of the Eid, among them 2 girls and one woman. These were no protesters, they were unarmed and they were targeted by Shabiha snipers while crossing the streets.

I will not go into the tens of videos that are streamed daily on uruknet.info of the brutality of a regime who despite its tanks, air power, and weapons is still powerless in the face of a brave people who are daily risking their lives and exposing the utterly vile nature of the beast.

So in response to that particular tweet, I had someone calling himself a "Syrian Knight" a supposedly "patriotic" Syrian on Twitter, obviously on government payroll and most likely part of the Allawite clique respond to me in the following :

I must also add that a few other Syrians and Lebanese are openly calling for THE GENOCIDE of SUNNIS in Lebanon and Syria and also for the assassination of Saad Al-Hariri while claiming that all these Sunnis are nothing but "Islamists." (i.e Wahabis, Salafists i.e pro-Saudi). And like typical criminal psychopathic Fascists, they end their tweets calling for murder -- with smiles and winks.

Needless to add that these people claim to be pro-Palestinian, and anti-Zionists. If you really need to know their true affiliation - they are pro-Allawite, pro-Hezbollah and pro-Iran.

In the past I have received many rape and death threats - some of a very ugly nature. Whenever possible I have pursued these people (in my own way). So if anyone has any information on this "Syrian Knight" please contact me. Also this particular post is to show the reader a small sample of the kind of murderous psychopathic Fascists the brave people of Syria are up against.

Democracy ? What Democracy ?!

2011-10-29T22:47:00.000+02:00

No system is perfect - that is a given.

Even your democracy is far from perfect - instead of a one man rule (which does not exist by the way) you have one clique rule. I don't see how that is any different.

In the case of Iraq, depending on which geographical area you are looking at - you have one sect or one ethnicity rule.

Baghdad, the center and the South are ruled by Shias and the North is ruled by Kurds. How democratic is that bearing in mind that Iraq is (was) a multi ethnic, multi sect, pluralistic society ?!

What have the Shias or Kurds done for Iraq during those 8 years of American "liberation"?

What does Iraq look like today? What has it produced, what has it achieved, what model has it shown to other nations ?

NOTHING is the answer.

Both rules - be it the Shia rule in South, and center of Iraq or be it the Kurdish rule in the North have done nothing but rape the country in a worse way than the Americans have.

Prove me wrong and prove the opposite --- I defy you.

Fate, Parallels and the Deity of Hell.

2011-10-23T04:18:00.004+03:00

I have just spent over 2 hours watching in details almost every video available on the lynching of the Libyan leader and martyr Muammar Gaddafi.

Not that I have a particular perverted penchant for sadism or masochism, nor do I particularly enjoy gory scenes, but it is something I felt I had to do, several times in a row. A bit compulsively, I must admit. I was looking for that one detail, that one image that would make sense of it all...

And I found it.

The images were somehow not unfamiliar to me, it was as if I saw them before, like a déjà vu. Yes they were happening in Libya but they had this eerie resemblance to what happened in Iraq.

It's as if the whole film is being played again, with an uncanny tactical precision, almost scary to see the striking parallels.

Even the words used - rat hole, sewage, drain, pipe, spider hole...the superimposition of the same pictures - the naked bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons, those of Muammar Gaddafi's son for public viewing, for scrutiny.

Then the bodies of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, tortured before and after their death, bearing marks of bruises, scratches, blows, kicks, blood...also made available for public scrutiny, the last souvenir photo shot for the family album.

There is also the way of capture - the Americans bombed and caught Saddam in a "spider hole", NATO bombed Sirte and Gaddafi's ended up in a "rat hole".

Another version transpired - NATO troops captured Gaddafi for two days and interrogated/ tortured him then handed him to the tribal rebels. US troops captured Saddam Hussein, interrogated, tortured him and handed him to the Shiite militias.

It seems that Hillary Clinton in her éclair visit to Libya had given orders that Gaddafi be killed. Two days later he was lynched. Granted he did not have the "luxury" of a kangaroo court like Saddam did. There was more expediency, urgency to Gaddafi's murder. Maybe the secrets were heavier and had to be buried fast.

Images of naked bodies, stripped of their clothing, of their dignity is also another common theme betwen Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi. Bodies investigated, mouths, eyes, chests, lower parts...

Another common thread are the insults and the "Islamic" flavor to it. Shiite militias chanting Allah Akbar and to Hell in Saddam's case. Rebel militias chanting Allah Akbar and to Hell in Gaddafi's.

The reaction of both leaders was the same. One said "do you know what chivalry and manhood are ?!" and the other said - "do you know what right and wrong are ?!"

Then of course - the dancing, feasting around the corpse both in Saddam and Gaddafi's case, the posing for photos and the withholding of the corpse as a trophy, delaying its lawful burial.

But there is more to it.

On the surface of things, you may argue - these are normal reactions of jubilation from a people who have been "oppressed for so long under the most abject of Tyrannies". And there may be some truth in that. However this is far from the true and complete picture.

This is the meat for your own personal consumption, to give you a good clean conscience, that you've done your job of a Humanitarian Imperialist Savior for the sake of Liberty, Dignity and Freedom.

The picture is way larger than those slogans and clichés that you hold so dear to your heart and which has cost us the destruction of sovereign countries and the loss of thousands of lives.

The picture is not only about Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi as such. The picture is found elsewhere...in those little details that you keep missing or overlooking, in those little details that you refuse to acknowledge...

Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi for all their ills, shared the same fate - not because they were tyrants but because they said NO to you. Yes, yes, I know they said YES occasionally, but their long term plan was a NO and you knew it. So they had to go.

These were not ailing Mubaraks of Egypt or Alis of Tunisia. Easily replaced by another clique whom you would guarantee power.

Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi had to die violently because they knew all about YOUR violence and they knew how to contain it, and fight it back at you.

In their own ways, they were Resisters to you. They knew it, you knew it. Hence they had to not only be lynched but had to be denigrated, humiliated, found hiding in rat and spider holes. You did the same with Che Guevara by the way. Go consult your annals.

But the story does not end here either...because the plan is way more diabolical than just demonizing and vilifying two sovereign leaders.

The symbolism and the message are all too glaring and can't be ignored.

Beside the rat holes and the spider holes, where sovereign leader supposedly take shelter to escape your deadly air power, the fire from the sky, the wrath of the white god, of the Bush of the Obama, of the Sarkozy, of the Berlusconi, of the Cameron...the wrath of the white god from the pure heavens sending his angel of death Hillary Clinton with the order to kill - "we came, we saw, he died " she shrieked with laughter...but since you are a white god and you don't dirty your hands...you do it differently...you pave the way for it.

You pave the way not just for the killing of sovereign leaders who did not abide by your bible, but you also pave the way for the destruction of the many Sodom and Gomorahs, the Babylons of your minds...you have to see them torn to pieces, otherwise how could you justify your existence as a powerful almighty white god on earth - you the divinely inspired slayer of Goliath incarnate.

So like a god, you fawn the fire from above, thunder and lightening....the superiority of your jets against small nations...then in the final picture before the curtain closes, you give it the tour de force, the o' so necessary tour de force -- you throw a mutilated piece of meat to the barking rabid dogs, to the vultures and hyenas who will feast on it until its final breath -- to the chants of Allah Akbar and recitations from the Koran.

You are hoping to strike several birds with one ball of fire.

First, eliminate those who resist you. Second, hand them over denigrated, humiliated, stripped of power to their militias and rebels who happen to love chanting the name of Allah. And third, you prepare the grounds for more bloodshed through sectarian strife like you did when you handed over Saddam Hussein to be lynched by Shiite militias and like when you handed Gaddafi to be lynched by the tribes of Misrata.

Condi Rice, another angel of death of yours, called it - the concept of Creative Chaos.

And just like in Iraq, Libya will go through that same hell...

But the picture does not stop here either.

In order not to dirty your pure white hands, you leave the dirty job to the brown man while you watch the porn film on your smart phone and make sure clips of it go viral watched by millions. That too serves a purpose.

Look at these bearded men, look at these Muslims, look at this savagery, look at this barbarity, this is their God, this is their religion, this is their Allah.

And this is the message you are after, this is the ultimate message you want to deliver, because you as the only true white god cannot accept having associates and cannot accept any partners ascribed to you.

You are indeed the Deity of Hell.

Painting : Iraqi artist Maath Al Alousi - Heads.

An Observer at the Banquet...

2011-10-21T07:01:00.002+03:00

I never liked gatherings nor banquets...I am allergic to hordes of people rushing to a buffet, gorging themselves with food, quickly stuffing down "all you can eat from 8 pm to 11 pm"

I've always found these buffets grotesque. They have always conjured up surreal images of apparently civilized beings in suits and latest fashion dresses, turning into a "modern evolved" Gargantua...

There is something crass, like morally and philosophically crass about this approach to eating.

Something reminiscent of cannibalism, where you carnivorously appropriate human flesh so as to take on whatever attributes you have ascribed to it.

This cannibalism - the eating of living human flesh is closely associated to necrophilia. In case you missed it when he was alive, you can always make up for it when he is dead.

There is no better way to describe today's event - the "capture" and lynching of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

I am beyond politics right now...I am into your banquet...your buffet.

I can't but notice that you rejoice whenever Arab flesh is served...I can't but notice how you cheer, gloat and lick your fingers in preparation...

I can't but notice when you immediately rush to get a piece of the meat and if you happen to be a politically correct vegetarian, you will find some other non meaty thing -- maybe hair from the vegetal/mineral kingdom, or maybe you're just a vegetarian pornographic voyeur from afar...watching a sovereign leader's body being stripped naked, or maybe you are a repressed closet homosexual, or a female who no man touched...salivating at carnal images of body parts ....

And just like in a banquet, it got you all excited...

Is it real vegetarianism this hair or maybe a just an acrylic wig ? your media asks.
Is this patch really bald so where is the toupee ?
What about the rest...not that you will eat it, God forbid, because you are true vegetarians, but show us, show us the rest...

So they showed you the rest...inert bodies, placid faces riddled with kicking boots made in America.

For some, that was not enough...they needed it UP CLOSE...a question of getting those gastric juices flowing....from the gut to the groin.

Wohaaa...and the erection happened, finally. No Viagra, no youporn, no blue film DVD or magazine - it's all hot - you exclaimed - check it out. You did manage to save a few dollars.

So you checked it out, like the little impotent voyeur that you are.

I saw others at the Banquet.

Bearded ones with long rosaries, hijabi women dying for a man, and your standard leftist - they said - God forgive us and had a peek or two...the bolder ones had more than just a few peeks, they licked their lips...and called it a Victory.

Did you notice a thing about banquets and buffets ?

There are always curtains, thick curtains somewhere...draped curtains, like in a show, like in a theater, like in a play.

And I don't know why, but this image of gargantuan eaters hiding behind curtains to masturbate, keeps assailing me...

There must be something very primitively archaic about these wars of Freedom. There must be something very hot about "brown" men being lynched.

A Downhill Crash...

2011-10-12T05:38:00.001+03:00

Of course, you are going to crash, you may stall it for a while but ultimately it's inevitable...

Nearly 3 TRILLION spent on the "war on Terror" and you don't expect to crash ? You terrorize the whole world, and you don't expect to crash ?

Of course you will crash, and you will crash bad. Very bad.

Honestly what did you expect ? Killing thousands of innocent people, families, women, children, elderly and getting away with it ?

Absolving, redeeming, atoning with a bit of protest here and there, 10 years on, 20 years on...with a bit of hip hop, a rap song, a forum, a conference ?

Why, are other's people's lives so cheap to be redeemed with a hip hop, a song, a forum, a conference, a petition ?

Don't rap your shit...I know your shit by heart...

You are collectively guilty for the murder of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans...and today 100's of Libyans and no amount of preaching, no amount of sermons, no amount of protest songs will obliterate that fact.

You need to own up, call things by their names, get outside and over yourselves...and realize that the drug you inject daily...has taken many downhill, has crashed many...and you are standing right there at the end of the queue, at the end of the line...another Troy Davis, another sheep taken to his execution.

Your crash is not my crash...but my crashing is yours.

It Didn't Happen, It Happened, It Doesn't Matter.

2011-10-11T02:45:00.001+03:00

The Fraud called Democracy.

Bahrain, Hezbollah and Iran's Common link.

2011-10-09T05:53:00.008+03:00

Darwin had this theory of the Missing link, I have a theory of the Common Link. That's just the way it is in the Middle East, to understand what's missing, you need to understand what's linking.

As you may well know (I doubt it but let's give you the benefit), Bahrain has been going through a bit of turmoil lately. Turmoil instigated by Iran and Qatar through its Fox News channel Al-Jazeera.

Bahrain has a Shiite minority (no they are not the majority as the Western press claims) and Iran since the advent of the disaster Khomeini has always laid claims to Bahrain as one of its provinces, the 14th to be more precise.

With the fall of Baghdad, and the empowering of Iran by the USA, I had predicted, rightly so, that wherever there's a Shiite minority present, expect Iran to play the imperial sectarian card of divide and rule.

Of course I was mocked then but am here to remind you again...

Al Wefaq, the name of the Bahraini "opposition" is funded by Iran. Of course they happen to be Shiites.

And since political Shiism of the Iranian "Islamic" Republic is sectarian by nature and sectarians love to support each other like the Zionist Jews, I must say, it then comes as no surprise that Hezbollah is hosting this Bahraini "revolutionary" opposition.

Of course one can see the clear link between Iran, Hezbollah and the Wefaq of Bahrain, so what's missing from the picture ?

Aha, this is where it gets very, very nice - what's missing is Iraq. But not really, because Ahamad Chalabi ex head of the Iraqi National Congress, the then Iraqi opposition, who was funded and hosted by Clinton in the 90's (during the sanction years where over 1 Million Iraqis perished due to the embargo) and later on embraced by the Bush administration - was present at this Hezbollah conference on Bahrain's Human Rights.

A.Chalabi, as you may well know, was the man who sold the idea of Iraqi WMD's to the US, and was one of the masterminds along with his Zionist buddies in the White House, for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Chalabi in 2003, entered Baghdad on American tanks (literally), formed his own militia and a few years later fell out of favor with Rumsfeld when it transpired that he was in fact a double agent for both America and Iran. Yet, Chalabi still managed to head the Debaathification committee starting under Bremer and beyond and is part of the current Iraqi INA - Iraqi National Alliance, an Alliance of sectarian Shias all loyal to Iran.

Ahmed Chalabi, besides being one of the instigators of the War on Iraq where another 1.5 Million Iraqis were killed, and besides being a double agent, he is also a known unscrupulous crook and a wanted black listed embezzler. Just google his name on my blog. I have made ample reference to this dog.

The other piece of the common link is non other than the Supreme Leader of Bahrain's Al-Wefaq, who happens to be Muqtada Al-SADR's Spiritual Uncle and this is what Muqtada Al-Sadr has to say about him : "if a hair on the head of our uncle AyotoAllah Sheikh Issa Ahmad Qassim is touched, then we will enter Saudi Arabia and burn everything and everybody."(source : English & Arabic)

Another piece of the common link now makes sense : Muqtada Al-Sadr visit to Qatar a few months back, where he and the Emir formed a "committee to find solutions for Bahrain and follow up on the situation " So far, the Qatari solution has been to ante up anti Bahrain Rulers propaganda through its mouthpiece Al-Jazeera Fox (thanks P.Pisi Editor of Uruknet for links)

A reminder : Muqtada Al-Sadr (renamed by the disgusting Alternative press as the firebrand anti imperialist Gandhi alike cleric) was/is responsible (his JAYSH AL MAHDI all Shiite militia) for one of the most hideous rampage of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis, Christians, other minorities and Palestinians in Baghdad and its provinces in collaboration with ; the US occupying forces, plus other ALL Shiite Militias such as the Badr of Iraq Islamic Council, the Maghawir or the Wolf Brigades of the Ministry of Interior, the Chalabi militia, the Jaafari and DAWA militias.

So now that I have given you some of the common links, the threads that tie the whole jigsaw together, I have the utmost pleasure of uploading this video, where Chalabi is giving a speech at the Hezbollah conference, filmed by Hezbollah TV, and gets a shoe on his head.

And next time you have some angry Arab piece of shit talking to you of the "revolutionary anti zionist" nature of Hezbollah, Iran and political Shiism, please shove this video in his face. Thank you.

Text of video below courtesy of Uruknet

On 5-6 October 2011 Hezbollah, together with Bahraini opposers and human rights activists, held in Beirut a conference on human rights violation in Bahrain ( Bahrain Forum for Human Rights) . The event was being carried live by Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV.

The Lebanese newspapers As-Safir reports that the forum was presided by Youssef Rabie and sponsored by former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss (just returned from Syria, where he met Bashar Assad and expressed to him his support ) , and was attended by Arab delegations and representatives of human rights organizations from Europe and America. In the opening session of the conference, the speeches were delivered by the Bahraini lawyer Dr. Abdul Hamid Dashti(Secretary-General of the conference for support of Bahraini people,- who is suing the Bahraini regime at the International Criminal Court), Nabeel Rajab (President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights -BCHR); Sheikh Hassan Sultan (a senior member of the Bahraini Al Wefaq Party), and the Iraqi MP Ahmad Chalabi (President of "The General Conference for Supporting the People of Bahrain").

But it seems not everybody knew that Chalabi - whose lies and manipulations provided the pretext for the war and destruction of Iraq - was one of the top lecturers at the Hezbollah's conference and the main adviser and collaborator of Bahraini opposers and activists. So, when Chalabi started talking an egyptian reasercher, Ashraf Bayyumi, interrupted his speech and told him "You entered Baghdad on US tanks!" and then another man got up and said "I refuse to be part of this and we have an American stooge ('Amil) in here" and got out. Finally, someone from the audience threw a shoe and it hit Chalabi on the head. Chalabi started chanting from the podium "Down with ignorance! You are all agents of Saddam!"

As-Safir (Lebanese newspaper) described the conference as "a success by all standards".

The "Negro" of the New World Order.

2011-10-04T05:49:00.007+03:00

As of late, I have had a renewed interest in African American speeches, discourses, articles on Race and Racism.

I believe that Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the logical continuation - Libya (as the gate to Africa) have been the trigger.

I am unhappy with the current Arab/Muslim discourse on invasion and occupation. I am searching for a more comprehensive framework in which to make sense of this string of "liberations" that has befallen us since 9/11 (official date).

I can't, in the space of a blog, get too much into the history of colonialism. I am assuming you have at least heard about it, and it happened not too long, by the way.
Instead, I want to use the discursive framework of African American thinkers and juxtapose it to us. By us I mean - us, Arabs and Muslims.

This by no means, lessens whatever discrimination African Americans still face today in White American society, but it does however, provide me - me, the discontented Arab Muslim Woman - the necessary "tools" to make sense of my own reality, and to include it in the overall "struggle", that the first slaves of contemporary history (contemporary in history means: since the formation of the modern nation state) started in the West.

In so doing, I am also attempting to bridge a gap, more like an abyss, between the West and myself. For in so doing, I am able to identify and recognize elements within Western society, whose struggle for liberation I can include in my own. And "hopefully" vice versa.

Furthermore, I believe that African Americans and African Europeans(to a lesser extent) (African European ? - it just hit me!)are just about the only group to articulate consciously and eloquently what Racism (in its deepest sense) is all about. This is not to say that other ethnic minorities aren't - but it is to say that Blacks in the West, are the pioneers of and for the Liberation discourse.

But there is more...

The discourse of Liberation also provides me with the necessary concepts to call things by their names. For example in this absolutely brilliant speech by Malcolm X on Uncle Tom - which he called the "house negro" probably in a visionary insight, referring to Obama, I too have my own house negros - they are called in my lingo the puppets of the occupation. They are the Afghan, Iraqi, Libyan equivalent of the American Uncle Tom.

Having said that there are qualifications I need to make here :

At some point, me and Black Americans need to part ways. For, I argue, that their struggle for the end of discrimination stops where mine starts...meaning : they struggle for the end of discrimination, while We struggle for literal Survival. In some way, am arguing that they are BETTER OFF today than an Iraqi, Afghan or Libyan is in his own country . In some way, am arguing that they have gone past survival and are into recognition, while we are still stuck in Survival.

Yes Survival - bombs and the nature of bombs (think DU), occupation, loss of families, loss of friends, loss of livelihood, loss of homes, loss of basic services, exile, destitution, and the rest...is called SURVIVAL, surviving the New World Order, into which my fellow black Americans and Europeans (still a shock to say that!) are already part of.

For, make no mistake, not every Black is a conscious Black. Nor every Muslim is a conscious Muslim, nor every Pakistani, or Afghan or Arab is a conscious one either. They are still Uncle Toms. Well adapted ones, well integrated and more or less well accepted. And they are not a few, there are thousands of them out there. They have become part of the White System. As Cornel West rightly remarked to the effect - when the Immigrant arrives here, he is struck when he learns that the founding fathers (of Freedom and Liberty) were also slave owners. A whole post is needed on this White "duality" - a political, cultural, ideological, schizophrenia that is very much at work today.

Let me define here, for Justice and "Objectivity's" sake. When I say White -- I am not referring to skin color alone. That is way too reductionist, simplistic and also unjust. Even though, these people have Zero notion of Justice, it does not matter what they have or don't have, it does not matter what they can or cannot conceptualize, I as a Muslim (even though am a pariah in my own "Muslim Community") am bound to think and act with Justice (Fairness).

Hence, by White, I mean - a political, social, economic, ideological, cultural, historical construct that has to do INITIALLY with skin color but is NOT limited to it.

Hence the question is not whether there are good Whites or bad Whites out there, or good or bad Blacks out there, or good or bad Arabs out there, or good or bad Muslims out there, the question is - Who has the power, who pulls the strings and who is the puppet ?

Or to borrow some of the wordings from Malcolm X - who is the Negro on the plantation field today and who is his Uncle Tom ?

P.S : the title of this Blogpost can be understood either way...

Sorry To Disturb You ..

2011-10-01T03:34:00.000+03:00

Am so sorry to disturb you...am awake and you are asleep...

Am so sorry to disturb your snores and your slumber...I happen to be wide awake. Sorry to nudge you in your coma, sorry to prick you in your amnesia, sorry that am not just laying down watching you breathe...measuring every one of your royal inhalation exhalation, like the good slave that am supposed to be...Am really sorry about that.

Did I forget my "natural" place in those moments of insomnia, that gnaw inside of me like hot iron rods, like the sound of drills piercing my flesh, expecting me to hang on a wall like one of your "art" tableaux.

It's nearly dawn in the ghetto, I just thought "I'd run my mouth" a little before the forces of law and freedom start ordering me about...before a car explodes in my uncovered face, before I get my early morning silencer gun threat, with my Corn flakes and OJ.

OJ is the way they speak...they can't be bothered to say the whole word. They are too busy you know...they love abbreviations...to save time. OJ is orange juice.

Am juiced before the early morning sun...I might become raw juice before the sun rises...

Am squeezed in the Freedom juicer. And as I see myself being whipped into, being desiccated into manageable particles, shredded into pieces...

I look into my Corn Flakes, and see my flakes floating in a sea of milk and honey...and a big mouth spooning, swallowing me...

Slogans and Appearances.

2011-09-23T04:58:00.000+03:00

This post is particularly directed to the "Muslim" Ummah. I don't know anymore what "Muslim" means nor do I know what "Ummah" means, I am using these words because you parrot them daily...so I figured maybe you know what they mean...

There is NO Muslim Ummah and there is NO Muslim. There are appearances, shadows, of meanings and definitions...

If you believe growing a beard and veiling yourself make you a Muslim then good luck with that. I have known way too many of you to know the fallacy of appearances.

If you think quoting, repeating Hadiths and Quranic texts make you a Muslim, then good luck again, I have sat through a hundred of your sermons before...

The time is now or never !

The time is now to dig deep.

You are always on the defensive...justifying...the one who knows the Truth does not need to justify...you need the Truth it does not need you. You exchanged the Truth for slogans and appearances....and you got stuck there...

And that being stuck in the out there, has tainted everything you say and do...

From your politics, to your so called salvation...

But re-assure yourselves, you are not the only ones. All other religious groups suffer the same fate.

They have traded God's name for a cheap price, just like you have.

Ground Zero.

2011-09-11T04:29:00.002+03:00

The Jews have their Holocaust industry, you have your 9/11 one.

I read a lot of your garbage - masculinity and 9/11, therapy and 9/11, unborn kids inheriting trauma and 9/11, love, forgiveness and peace and 9/11, Islamophobia and 9/11, conspiracy and 9/11, the new world order and 9/11, share your thoughts 10 years on from 9/11...

Oh it's 9/11, yeah 9 and 11 are part of calendar, they will keep repeating year in year out, so will you...9/11.

9/11 is the only thing that happened to numbed out America. Come to think of it, nothing else happened. Finally they are something important, they got a 9/11. I mean let's face it in two hundreds years of history if only one 9/11 happened, just shows a) how irrelevant you are and 2) very few actually give a fuck about you to carry some 9/11.

So I can really understand why you made it into such a big thing --you finally received some attention, you little ignorant narcissistic self seekers...

Besides, it was a good ploy to flex some of your muscles, the world had shelved you aside after Vietnam...but attention seekers you are.

You really like to believe that you are some big shit that rules the world...you can rule nothing except through force. You remind me of the neighborhood kid who bullies till he gets his way...you are pathetic bullies. All hot air, weapons, soldiers, muscles and nothing in your cabezas, in your heads...you scrape inside and there's nothing. ZERO.

A lot of brouhaha with machines guns, bombs and missiles ....Kill em'all...you say, in that ugly fucked nasal accent of yours...

And so people die all over...hundreds, thousands of them...and some did not even know what 9/11 was and others had nothing to do with it and some could not care less. This is how inconsequential you are. People just didn't know, care, about you. I wonder why ?

So like the good bully, you need to remind them...all puffed up, arrogant and vain, and Zero in the Cabezas, in the heads...

And millions of people were slaughtered since 9/11. Iraq was one of them. She had nothing to do with your twin towers. Who gives a fuck about twin towers when you have the tower of Babel, preceding your existence by thousands of years!

But no, you are always a hungry people, you hunger for everything...nothing fills you up. No amount of God, religion, food, sex, money, things, fill you up.

You tell yourself stories every night, you sing to yourselves lullabies made of denial...made of lies, made of films that you replay in your head...you invent jinns, ghosts, enemies to give yourself a raison d'être, a purpose...because you have no purpose, no aim and no goal...

You drift along, with the latest fad, with the latest self help book, with the latest celebrity, with the latest guru, with the latest whatever...you seek prophets and prophetesses to bring you out once and for all from your eternal spiritual numbness...

And a 9/11 happens. Finally you are a somebody, a something, you find purpose, you find meaning, you finally find a real issue around which you can construct your petty pitiful lives - you are finally envied, so you tell yourselves...

"They" are jealous and envy us...and your whole academia and experts gather to concoct yet another worthless theory of why sheep are envied. You are relieved. Finally, someone, somewhere gave you some recognition. You are a somebody.

Narcissism in its most perverted form, is better than nothing. So you rehash, repeat, and print T shirts, flags and souvenirs from a ground zero, always forgetting the Zero that inhabits you, always forgetting the Ground Zero inside of you.

Iraq, Libya ....It's all the Same.

2011-09-02T01:09:00.001+03:00

I was starting to feel guilty about my absence from this blog. Here I was supposed to continue on the Cleansing of Iraq, only to be faced with the Cleansing of Libya.

I hear myself say the same words - who would have thought that Libya would be suffer the same fate as Iraq.

Granted, there are some variations, differences, but is not the theme very much the same? Are not the discourses, be it from the media, the governments and that dreaded damned cursed "antiwar" the same ?

Did the Americans, and NATO (France, UK, and the coalition of the willing) not use the same excuses, the same wordings, the same sentences, identical to Iraq ?

Of course they did. And again, we are seeing it all over again, just like they did in Iraq, i.e use so called "Islamists" be it of the Shia (Iraq) or Sunni (Libya) type to invade and conquer another sovereign Arab state, destroy it and pillage its resources.

The "Islamists" have become the puppets of the Emperor.

It is an intelligent ploy, because after all, all those Arab and Muslim masses are so attached to Islam. Why not destroy it from the inside ?!

This is not a joke, this is a very serious and grave ideological manipulation, to not only occupy and plunder but also to kill any "fitra"- spirit of Resistance.

I will not say more - I urge the reader to think deeply. If that's at all possible.

The Cleansing of Iraq.2

2011-07-16T03:35:00.002+03:00

I am dreading writing this post. Seriously. Even though I know the whole picture, I don't wish to complete it.
Not that it will make a difference to you, but it does make a difference to me. My secret pathetic attempt to hold on to a peg of an illusion.

Stark facts spoil the picture. That's why romance films have no stark facts- or let's say, the story has a happy ending.
This is what the Western press likes us to believe, in particular the American press. Reporters are all too happy to wire stories of a pink Baghdad - lo and behold, they exclaim - things have improved - weddings are taking place, people walk the streets, it can't be all that bad...we did do a good job after all - is the implicit message.

You see because in the American mind, a wedding taking place or someone walking the street is a favor bestowed upon another country. Like - hey what are you complaining about - you had a wedding in your neighborhood, or we filmed you going to the market, and we aired you live.

So Iraqi sheep and Western liberals can sigh with relief - normal life is back. After all, there are 2 new shopping malls and a MacDonald is about to open. It can't be all that bad.
After all, a couple of Marriott hotels are being built in Najaf and Kerbala, it must be good.
After all, the average Iraqi salary has gone up from 200$ to 500$ with a 150% rate of inflation...things are definitely looking up.

You see, that is the problem with the masses - spring, summer or fall - they can't see beyond their nose, beyond their immediate pocket. The masses can't see the bigger picture. Am here to give it to you - whole.

So let me pick up where I left off, in the ongoing cleansing of Iraq...

In no order - since all is interrelated, interdependent...(do use those grey cells)

- The financial/economic cleansing of Iraq, of its resources :

I can't begin to tell you the amount of information I receive daily of how Iraq is being pillaged by both those in power and by foreign companies.
For example ; since 2008, I have read not less than 10 investment reports claiming that tenders/bids have been won by X and Y foreign company for Electrical power plants. Until this very day, the average Iraqi gets 1 to 2 hours max of electricity per day. Anyone who can afford it, lives off a generator. Those who can't buy a generator, are cooked, literally. We are talking of extreme weather conditions here. Very cold winters and excessively 50C in the shade summers.
The question is where did those millions of $ worth of contracts for electrical power plants go?
Total silence...and another bid is won by another foreign firm, and still no electricity.
This alone is one example. (this has just come in and relates to latest figures in 107Billion $ lost supposedly fixing electrical power plants - a must read HERE)

Let's look at oil now. You know oil don't you ? the stuff you would love to drink. Again, report after report of the new pipelines, the modernization of drills (not to be confused with the Muqtada Al-Sadr electrical drills), of tenders won by big companies in the South, in the North, oil exploration, oil this, oil that...and what do you get in reality ?
I will tell you what you get.

Each political party/faction, individual, in power will only sign a contract with you if he gets a 200% commission on your project, it can be an unrelated project to oil, it can be in anything else. This is the deal - I get a commission, you get your own pipeline for a limited
time and you can trade in it as much as you like. I am serious, this is what is taking place.

This is how oil smuggling operates. The Iraqi puppets installed by the Americans smuggle the country's resources for their own benefit. Billion of $ worth of revenue disappear yearly. Be it in the North "Kurdistan" (lol) or the South (Iranistan) of the country.

A special paragraph devoted to Iran. Since the puppets are mainly sectarian shiites, the privileged client is of course Iran. Iran has been receiving FREE oil for years, and numerous bilateral deals privileging Iran in all aspects of trade is a fait accompli. Iranian gas, Iranian fruits, Iranian vegetables, Iranian manufactured goods not worth a nickel, and so on and so forth...you want Iran, you got Iran in Iraq.

Billions of dollars of bilateral deals are guaranteed with the Islamic republic of Iran. And since some parts of Iraq have become a province of Iran, whole areas in the South, in Nejaf and Kerbala for example, have been bought by Iranians through land acquisition at preferential rates, for peanuts. To the extent, that Arab shias in this area are slowly waking up to the fact that the rug has been pulled from under their feet in the name of Ahl al Bayt, in the name of Imams al Hassan and al Hussein, ie in the name of Shiite political ideology.

In the North of the country, in so-called Kurdistan, the Kurdish mafia has appropriated not only oil wells, but also land by forcefully driving out non kurds. In the "independent" region of "Kurdistan", separate oil deals are contracted, guaranteeing a non accountable revenue for the Kurdish mafia and its "region", in other words an ILLEGAL APPROPRIATION of both land and natural resources. Last time I read of something similar, it was happening in Israel.

It is difficult to cover every single deal going on...but am just giving you a foretaste of the economic pillaging of Iraq - not that you care. My head is spinning big time at the extent of the theft.

Let me continue by briefly tackling the industrial and agricultural sectors.

Prior to the invasion, and in the period preceding the sanction years, Iraq for a "third world country" that had only been freed of British colonialism not more than 30 years ago had a thriving industry. Not totally self sufficient, but sufficient enough to fly with its own wings.

Of course, the sanction years destroyed that developmental leap, and the Iraqi industry suffered a major backlash due to the draconian prohibitions imposed by the civilized world. The 2003 war of liberation put a final end to anything called an autonomous industrial development. With the bombing of major infrastructure, also came the bombing of major industrial sectors - from textiles, to pharmaceuticals, to food, to cement...not even soap or baby food factories were spared. We were bombed back to the stone age.

That was of course a necessary step by the "coalition of the willing" to ensure the total destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, after they had bombed the electrical power plants, the communication networks, the media TV, Radio, etc, the water sewage and treatment plants, the roads and bridges...

The message was - start anew, from a "clean" slate.

Hence it came as no surprise when big American firms the likes of Halliburton and Co, hosting Iraqi "reconstruction" conferences in the post 2003 period and chaired by Iraqi traitors whose names I am keeping for future reference - admonished an audience of Iraqi engineers, scientists, planners, industrialists, chemists - to start looking into small farming instead. The Texan cowboy said that day - Iraqi Industry is ours.

True to his words, Iraqi industry is no more. Again, hundreds of bids for that or the other are published daily...and won. What is being produced, who is producing it - remains unknown.

A natural repercussion of the above, is the human element. And since you are all so humanitarian let me tell you about the human element :

Thousands of Iraqi workers have been laid off with no compensation, unable to be re-employed, living on less than a 1$ a day. You know why ? Because all those who have bought the industries in Iraq are employing either their own blue collars workers or hiring non Iraqis.

A reminder here - We are talking about IRAQ, about our/my country up for grabs.

Let me continue...because you have only read 1% of what is happening...

And I must admit, in between each paragraph, I stop, pause and ask myself - what good ? you are addressing nothing but vile idiots.

Good Lord, there is so much to cover under economic cleansing, am not sure if this will end...

Agriculture :

Just like in the Industrial sector, Iraq prior to the sanction years was nearly self sufficient in its agricultural production. Not only that, it also used to export wheat, rice, dates and other food stuffs to neighboring countries. Naturally the war with Iran plus the sanction years brought Iraq to its knees food wise, which resulted in poor quality edibles, long queues for a can of tomato paste...but was offset by a rationing system that worked pretty well during those 13 years of "civilized" punishment.

In post 2003 Iraq, the agricultural picture looks a 100 times worse. The American policy of scorched earth - by which thousands of arable land were either razed or burnt, coupled with a drought provoked by the water cleansing of Iraq (see next chapter on Geography), coupled with bilateral deals for imports by which Iraq now relies heavily on foodstuff imports mainly from Iran, have led thousands of farmers to abandon the land and seek urban dwellings in hope of finding livelihood. This rural exodus into the city is not without consequences. But am not here to give you a sociological treatise.

Hundreds of hectares of arable land (arab-le meaning fertile) have either been sold for a small price because too dangerous to reach or not profitable enough to cultivate, and hundreds of others have been replaced with a more lucrative farming - poppy fields, with the seeds given/donated free of charge by neighboring Iran. It therefore comes as no surprise, that in the latest wave of protests, hundreds of Iraqis marched to the borders of Iran (from the South), forming a human barrier saying - STOP.

I feel this post is never ending. I have only given you little and there is so much more... And to be honest, had you really bothered, you would have found out all this by yourself...which again brings me to the pointlessness of this endeavor. But I started it, I have to finish it.

I still need to address :

- the Kuwait connection and the strangulation of Iraq.
- the US billion arm deals with US occupied Iraq
- the fraudulent billion dollars deal in obsolete technology and imports
- the missing billions since 2003.

I will update this later...all this is too much for me now.

The Cleansing of Iraq.1

2011-07-13T01:47:00.007+03:00

When you destroy, when you ravage, when you pillage, when you annihilate, you are in fact cleansing...and Iraq is being cleansed of Itself.

Most people are very stupid. When one talks about the cleansing of Iraq, they immediately think - physical liquidation - as in killings.

Well you must be quite pleased to know that the above is ongoing, since 2003. The bulk of that form of cleansing has already been undertaken. Thousands have been killed, over 200 "fresh" mass graves have been unearthed, ethnic/sectarian cleansing of "minorities" has been achieved.

Another form of cleansing of Iraq is the massive exodus, with thousands of refugees that no one hears about anymore. Add to the above the thousands of maimed, handicapped by the occupation and what ensued. Add the missing in the hundreds and add the psychologically traumatized for life debilitated by memories of torture, rape and loss and also add...yet another form of cleansing -- the ever lasting effect of Depleted Uranium and other toxic waste, both of these have been addressed in this blog on numerous occasions. Long lasting Toxicity and its consequence as in premature birth, genetic deformities, cancer of soft tissues, and the rest -- ensure the cleansing of future generation...

This is the demographic arm of cleansing whose aim, after the tearing apart the Iraqi mosaic was to effect demographic changes that are irreversible. This is not even population control, this is beyond population control. This is erasure.

This is one level of cleansing, the physical as in the body, either eliminating it, or paralyzing i.e rendering it useless.

There are other forms of cleansing taking place in Iraq. Using a little grey cells won't hurt. Looking at things from a social/sociological perspective is not too much to ask is it ? Or maybe it is, in view of the disgraceful level of ignorance one encounters on this circus called the net.

The Intellectual Cleansing of Iraq is another aspect. I shall group under the heading "Intellectual" everything that is related to "Intellectual Property" meaning everything to do with Education, Learning and - the human cadre - also called the Brains of a Society.

Again I have tackled this issue in the past, namely that of the destruction of the Educational system in Iraq, the re-writing of the syllabus, of the history, the growing rates of illiteracy - a thing that was eradicated in the past, the dilapidated state of schools and universities with no proper sanitation or equipment, the no access to education by the newly pauperized class - the child of the occupation, the deliberate and organized assassination of academics, doctors, scientists, teachers, the brain drain of Iraqi society through exile or death.
The new Educational system, having liquidated the brains of Iraqi society, is now based on affiliation by sect/ethnicity regardless of academic competence, based on forged diplomas (this is another topic that touches every aspect of Iraqi society - this business of forged diplomas - from doctors, to lawyers, to teachers, to nurses, to government officials, to diplomats...)
The hiring of personnel with forged diplomas is also another way of maintaining the current level of intellectual mediocrity that characterizes occupied Iraq. The repercussions are enormous for the future.
Also under "Intellectual cleansing" I must add the burning and looting of archives and public libraries, where precious data, records and information are now for ever lost.

Another related aspect to this intellectual cleansing is the value of the printed word -the book. Iraqi society was known for its intellectual curiosity and historically so. During the sanction years when people were forced to sell their books to survive or burn them for fuel, there was still hope that the book' the written word can be redeemed. Today no such hope exists. It does not take a genius to figure out that when a society is too engrossed in daily survival, with matters related to water, electricity and security - it has no inclination to read anymore. Hence the intellectual degradation of Iraqi society. When a society stops reading, it stops thinking, questioning, contemplating...

Which brings me to the second form of cleansing - the historical cleansing of Iraq.
Iraq has been cleansed of its history, both literally and symbolically, not only through the re-writing of the educational syllabus, but directly through the destruction and looting of its ancient artifacts, its museums, the erasure of its past through illegal trading, smuggling, the theft of its heritage (again google my previous posts) where Iraqi history ended up in Tel Aviv, New York, Dubai, Holland, France, Germany...when even the in laws of the puppet PM were caught smuggling it.
The message sent- you no longer have a history. The message sent - is we have broken your ties to your past - the new Iraq has no sense of continuity anymore. You are a new invention. Our new invention. The bastards of History.

This is a monumental task trying to address all the aspects of the cleansing of Iraq, my head is spinning...

The cleansing of institutions, of civil society. Difficult to subdivide and group but am trying. Under this, I will include state institutions like hospitals, the medical field, civil society and its associations for instance gender based associations, journalists, trade unions and the rest.

Let's start with the medical because it is one of the most important ones. Again, I have written at length of the dilapidated state of government hospitals, where so called reconstruction money, which is Iraqi money by the way, ended up in the private bank accounts of the various parties and their militias that are currently ruling Iraq.

This of course has given rise to a huge black market that runs in parallel to the hospitals day to day workings. Medical equipment is stolen and sold on the black market, where that same hospital patient is forced to go to and purchase- be it band aids, syringes or medication. Added to that, a whole new medical mafia has entered the scene in the Iraqi medical services, where not only diplomas are forged, but where also your sect matters. It is a fact that non Shiites are too scared to go to government hospitals because the mafia that rules the polity also rules the medical services. This medical mafia also performs unnecessary surgeries to beef up their end of month revenues, surgeries undertaken in the most insalubrious of conditions, where the patient has literally no hope of recovery. This is no exaggeration. This is the truth.

The Iraqi medical brain drain coupled with the current corruption has effectively cleansed Iraq of any concept of public health prevention and cure. Hence the return of diseases that we thought had been long eradicated, hitting in particular the poorest of the Iraqi society, which for your info constitute the bulk of Iraq under occupation.

The cleansing of civil associations/bodies, such as gender based ones, for which I shall reserve a special paragraph, trade unions that have been infiltrated by party militias, press syndicates that are bribed by the government to report what it wants it to, coupled with the disappearance of journalists who struggled to report the truth making Iraq one of the most dangerous countries for reporters.

Of course I have failed to mention, en passant, the bizarre silencing by the silencer gun that takes place daily in Iraq and ABROAD, notably in Sweden, forcing many Iraqis to return to Iraq because they feel it is "safer".

I shall continue in the following post. I am overwhelmed with this eagle's view. Besides your attention span counts for shit. I need to break it down in small pieces.

To follow (Insh'Allah - if no silencer gun reaches me) :

- the cleansing of the economy - pillaging, missing billions, privatization, reliance on imports/bilateral deals, selling of Iraqi land/property, rise of a service economy, oil, gaz, smuggling, industry/agriculture...

- the Urban cleansing through geographical partition plus demarcation of areas through ideological/religious symbols.

- the Geographical cleansing - ecology, environment, delineation of areas, disparity North South of country, use of visas within country, water, drought, electricity, port in South thwarted by Kuwait, role of Iran, Turkey in the erasing of Iraq.

- the Social cleansing - drugs, trading in forbidden toxic goods, trafficking of children, orphans, widows, pauperization, disappearance of middle class, of technocrats, chronic unemployment, sectarianism - long term repercussions.

- the Gender cleansing - backlash for women, power of religious ideology, retraction of gender laws/rights, rape, domestic violence, prostitution.

- the Religious/Ideological cleansing - ethnic cleansing of non Shiites, non Kurds, imposition of new ideology, sectarianism, destruction of the arts, client/patron/tribal state.

- the Cleansing of dissent/protest/human rights, liberties, freedoms - sect based secret political prisons, no trials, infiltration of courts by sect parties, extensive use of torture, disappearance, kidnapping, abduction, bullying, harassment, silencer gun.

Am sure there are more "bullet" points I need to add in part 2.

- Last but not Least ... The Future of Iraq cleansed of Itself.

Vultures on a Carcass...

2011-07-09T02:26:00.001+03:00

The carcass is Iraq, the vultures are you.

I will NEVER swallow what you have done to Iraq. NEVER. And it has nothing to do with patriotism, nationalism or any of the concepts you keep regurgitating like idiotic parrots.

What has happened to Iraq, through your contributions; your efforts, your silence, your apathy, your indifference, your political correctness, your...your...your filth...this can never be swallowed. NEVER.

For I know...I know and I have seen, I have witnessed...what was before and what is now. You can't take that away from me. You can't take that truth away from me. And I shall post it, plaster it on every wall...because I will not let go. I will not let go of you and your crimes. I will pursue you, by whatever means available...and I will keep hammering it, as long as it takes...

I will never ever forget that first premonitory dream I had about Iraq and what was going to happen to us, to our children. It was a message from God. A message showing me in full colors what and who you are.

I will go back in time, back to 2003. I dreamt of two American soldiers lifting up a young Iraqi boy to be crucified on a cross, in the middle of the desert. The sun was setting, there was dust everywhere, everything looked blur, covered with sand, they left that crucified Iraqi boy in the middle of that desert and walked away...

You crucified our children and covered up the truth with dust...

There will be no escape for you. None whatsoever. As Bob Marley said it ' you can run but you can't hide.

I am here to make sure that nothing remains hidden...I make it my mission, my vocation, my calling...I am not in a hurry, I have all the time in the world...but demised you shall be...no one crucifies a child and gets away with it...no one.

My ink shall be like drops of water, drops of blood, eating away at the rock lodged between your breasts...

No matter - the insults, the threats, the mockery...no matter. I will not let go.

I was one of the first to write about the rape, trafficking of Iraqi Children. I was one of the first to say - Iraqi children are being sold, I wrote about the trading of organs, I wrote about the sex slavery of Iraqi children, I wrote about pedophile rings, I wrote about marrying off 5 years old girls, by exporting them first into brothels for "training". I wrote about the daily abduction and kidnappings of Iraqi children, I gave you numbers, figures...precise ones. I said there are over 5 Million Orphans in Iraq, 500'000 totally orphaned with no father and mother living in the streets of Baghdad.

I said this is something WE HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE your liberation. I said and I repeat and I repeat and I repeat....

Today a courageous woman, Ashwak Al-Jaf from Iraq, says it publicly...HERE.

I was mocked, insulted, threatened, with numerous attempts at silencing me...none worked. The message is out, the truth is out.

The truth...I have told you nothing but the tip of the iceberg of the truth...I have all the time in the world...but you don't.

The Silence of Dying Sparrows...

2011-07-05T01:08:00.003+03:00

Iraq - a bad place for children.

Before you accuse me of propaganda, this is not my title, this is the title of a UNICEF report which states : "Decades of war and international sanctions have turned Iraq into one of the worst places for children in the Middle East and North Africa, with around 3.5 million living in poverty, 1.5 million under the age of five undernourished and 100 infants dying every day, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) warns " (bear in mind that UN data is based on conservative estimates, politics oblige)

The report then goes on to say : " To achieve the MDGs, (millennium development goals) over 400,000 undernourished Iraqi children would have to receive adequate food, while nearly 700,000 would have to be enrolled in schools. Child mortality would also have to be reduced by 100,000, while about three million others need decent sanitation...."

“These are not just statistics, behind every figure there is a child suffering in silence. Achieving these goals is possible if Iraq manages to focus on the over four million most deprived children.”

Add to the above, the exploitation of children for war purposes and the report gives as an example the following : " the (Shia) Mahdi Army has recruited and used children as soldiers since the beginning of the conflict. In 2008, some 376 children were killed and 1,594 wounded, while in 2009, 362 children were killed and 1,044 wounded. In 2010, at least 194 children were killed and 232 wounded in the conflict, primarily in Baghdad, Diyala and Ninewa governorates."

And if the above is not enough, the report warns of "another threat to children identified -explosive remnants of war, which claim lives and cause injury long after combat operations. An estimated 2.66 million cluster bomblets and 20 million landmines remain on Iraqi soil, contaminating 1,700sqkm..."

The report however does NOT mention - the effects of US/UK Depleted Uranium on Children, nor does the report make any mention of Industrial and Nuclear contamination produced by toxic waste - dumping of Iranian waste in the South and in the Anbar. Nor does the report mention, 500'000 totally orphaned children living in the streets of Baghdad alone. Nor does it mention the increasing rates of child labor...nor the trafficking and selling of Iraqi children, their kidnappings on a daily basis, nor the big taboo - the sexual trafficking, exploitation, and slavery of Iraqi children...

Most importantly, the report fails to state that in 1980's, that same UN affirmed that Iraq had made a developmental leap, and that in the areas of medical care and education (by eradicating illiteracy and providing free education up to post graduate levels) it managed to reach the indexes of a developed country.

Last but not least, the report omitted to conclude that the Children of Iraq are suffering in silence, caged sparrows, of Freedom and Liberty.

Sorrow of a Child - Iraqi composer Omar Bashir - dedicated to the children of Iraq. 2010

Loss of Illusions.

2011-06-22T04:10:00.007+03:00

This is a blog about Iraq not a massage parlor...am not here to massage your balls. Am not here to ease it on you...am here to try to ease it on me. Do you finally get it ?

Some american whore writes to me, am always impressed when they manage to get it right the first time with correct spelling, then I remember the auto correct option...the american wankers write to tell me I should not have a chip on my shoulder. They preach to my head like on a Sunday...the motherfuckers...But am always impressed when the american asshole manages it without spelling mistakes...after all English is his/her first language..then I remember the auto correct option.

So motherfuckers, did you auto correct yourselves since ? I think not.

Fuck the american..the worthless piece of crap...the silent piece of garbage, who allows anything in his name as long as he gets his tax return and as long as she gets laid.

This junk does not interest me...I am interested in something, in someone else...I am interested in observing the loss of illusions...

I am interested in seeing its footprints on our bodies, on our faces, on our being...the american cunt and his/her would be problems do not interest me. I care fuck all for them.

I like to observe the loss of illusions, tracing itself like some missing map, on faces...I like to see it engraving its name on skins, coiling into a wrinkle, I like to see it manifest itself in the non verbal...I like to spot it, corner it, and make it speak...

Resistance. I see it all the time.

I see it in the lines around a pursed lip, that has remain pursed for ever..I see it in a sigh exhaled in the smoke of a burning cigarette, I see it in a head that veiled itself trying to recapture illusions, I see it in eyes begging but too proud to admit...I see it, I hear it in voices, in the unspoken...

I see it missing in dictionaries and in thesauruses, the loss of illusions...It has no definition, no synonyms...

Loss of illusions....illusions about You, about Us, about the All...

Loss of illusions, written on my skin, tattooed in red ink...loss of illusions, the necessary illusions to keep going, to keep believing....

I search for new ones - in dumpsters, in orphanages, in the streets, in the unspoken, in the silent prayer, in the sigh that no one hears...I search for it in the face wrinkled by war, beneath a veil of fear, I search for it...

You ripped my illusions about life, about you...I am grateful. Now I see the Truth.

A Wound That Will Never Heal...

2011-06-20T02:04:00.000+03:00

God works in the strangest of ways....He, She, It expresses itself in the multitude..and in Silence...

God is God...and I am me.

God is never wounded...theoretically so. Since He is omnipresent and omnipotent...

I beg to differ.

God was crucified in 2003, when you forfeited your conscience.

Since, it's been a downhill ride... God's name is called upon 5 times a day and once on a Sunday..God laughs at you.

He's saying - I don't need your rituals today, I need your Truth.

The Truth that no one would utter no more...the truth that was, that is...the truth that remains...hidden under heaps of politically correct covers, under blankets of forgetfulness - the truth of the greatest armada since world war II, as per the acknowledgment of one of your highest Pentagon officials.

What for ? is the question I keep asking myself... No WMD's, no ties to Al-Qaeda...literally an innocent people and an innocent country...What for ?

Oil, your alternative websites cry...drink the fucking oil. Drink it.

Why...is a question that keeps harassing me...that robs away my sleep...why is a question that turned 5 million children into orphans....

Why is the question that harasses me like an unwanted hand that gropes me in the dark...

I can't take your silence, I cant take your deafness..I can't take any of it...8 years on....You cover up the shouts, and in my ears they reverberate. They keep reverberating. They shake my being...until justice is done...until the wound accepts to heal...

A Pathetic Exile...

2011-06-16T02:19:00.002+03:00

There is a turning point when the dramatic becomes pathetic...am not quite sure when that happens, but I know it does...

It's more like one's pathetic attempts to re-capture what was lost...and each attempt becomes even more derisory than the previous one...one becomes pathetic in one's exile.

These pathetic attempts to re-capture what was lost are all meant to be...They want to show you how foolish you are, for trying...still.

You become like some lone beggar with a pack of memories...a few songs here, a few photos there, you re-hash them alone like a fucking idiot while everyone moves on...and moves away...

You become pathetic yourself...misunderstood, demode, and out of sync...You try to explain, but it's too late. The cover up is too great and you alone with your bare hands can do nothing about it...no amount of unearthing will do...you are alone, pathetically alone...in Exile.

Protest All You Can -- O'Aisha.

2011-06-10T04:11:00.003+03:00

Today, Friday, some courageous, brave Iraqis are venturing out again, to protest...

I don't want to be like the dampening waters from a dam that has overflowed...but...

Protest all you can... all you want...but know, you are late...it's called Late. Do we need to have the same discussion over and over again ?

Where were you, when B52's fucked our souls? Where were you when we packed in haste, hiding our names, tattooed on our legs, our hips, our bellies ?

Did you run after the Omar's, after the Othman's, the Bakr's, the Aisha's ?

I am Omar, I am Aisha, I am....

I am here...watching you...I have one Omar missing... the missing Omar...his name was Omar...Omar, Omar, Omar...

I was told Omar's death is a public holiday in Iran...they gave me the date, it did not coincide with my Omar's.

I am Aisha, that is my real name...I was the youngest...Aisha...in Arabic, it means the "One who lives"... I live and my name is Aisha...I love my name...I totally love my name...

Even though a few weeks ago, I went to a government public hospital...I was feeling unwell...the doctor asked me --- sweet girl, what is your name ? I said Aisha - the one who lives.

He closed my file. I still see the pages being smashed one against another, crashing one on top of another, like waves, hitting a shore, with nowhere to go...

He said : Aisha, your name is Aisha ?! I nodded my head...he became a God...the God of my neighborhood, all dressed in black...with a turban around his head. I felt God must hate me for my name...I was ordered out of the hospital... My name is Aisha - the one who lives, again and again...

I was chosen by Allah, to be the last wife, the last witness, the last one...I am Aisha - the one who lives again and again...

Protest all you can. Hold my name - Aisha.

Hold Omar, Hold Bakr, Hold Othman, Hold Ali --- hold them by their robes...and don't let go. They are all behind me - Aisha - the one who lives, again and again.

Iraqi FILTH

2011-06-05T14:02:00.001+03:00

I was not sure if I should title this post IRAQI Filth or IRAQ'S Filth. I settled for the former.
I felt there is a subtle nuance, maybe not so subtle.

The difference is not so subtle since anyone can claim to be an Iraqi nowadays, or even become one since thousands of non Iraqis have been given the nationality - namely Iranians, but not everyone IS an Iraqi.

I found the difference not only not so subtle but even profound. Iraq as a land, has always been a fertile one, a generous one, since times immemorial. Bad weeds sprout in fertile lands, that is a fact, but a loving laborer is quick to remove the bad weeds and cultivate fruitful harvests in lieu.

There is no loving laborer left in Iraq. The land is left barren, and all kinds of bad unwanted parasitic weeds have grown instead, feeding off remains. A parasitic weed that self propagates feeding on its own excrements...

It was allegedly reported that Saddam Hussein once said - Iraq is one big gutter, and I am the one who keeps the lid on. He was right.

It turns out that the Iraqi gutter has overflown, breaking the drains, leaking through pipes, swelling over dams, swamping the land and turning it into one huge sewage...

I may continue this later, but right now I am taken with a violent bout of nausea...

Little Saints...2

2011-05-30T15:52:00.003+03:00

It took me 3 days to dim the image of little Saint Rita, deformed and blind, running lost in a hospital corridor, bumping into broken chairs and bed with no sheets...with her name tagged around her neck like a dog's collar...it took me 3 days...and am wondering how many days will it take me to dim the following image from my mind ?

Yet I know the little saints icons will never be erased from my mind, they will forever remain a torch of truth burning, burning bright, the flames of Truth...

Diyala province, on the outskirts of Baquba.

The US brave boys, the rapists, torturers and killers who crossed oceans stinking of greed and hatred, bombed a lone house made of mud and bricks, in a field, on the outskirts of Baquba. Sunni insurgents - they said.

Troops then encircled the house, taking the mother and father. They were never seen again. The house collapsed except for one room. After some time, when things calmed down, a distant neighbor passed by the field and entered the house, he does not know why, he assumed everyone in the household was already dead.

What he saw, he still recounts with tears. In that one small room, he saw four orphans left behind, emaciated. 3 boys and one girl. The eldest boy was 11, the second 7, the third a 4 year old girl, and the fourth an infant boy in a crib.

No neighbor could take all the children in, Diyala witnessed many massacres and exiles and poverty rates are staggering there. The people decided to rebuild that one room left, collectively provide food and water, and take turns in guarding the children until a "solution is found"...

Some time passed, and a elderly man arrives, claiming to be a distant relative of the family. No one could ascertain the truth of such a claim since the children themselves did not know him, but it seems he looked of "good faith " and the people gave him the benefit of the doubt.

More time passed and one day this distant neighbor decided to pay a visit, the children and the elderly man disappeared...no one knows where to.

More time elapsed, and the neighbor spotted the elderly man and the three boys. He inquired what happened to the 4 year old girl. I shall call her X, the anonymous face. Little Saint X.

The oldest boy, the 11 year old, smiled with happiness, replying - Uncle married her off. Not knowing what this meant.

It turns out that this "uncle", so called distant relative, sold little Saint X to a matron who runs an overseas brothel. She buys the little Iraqi Saints, and after a period of "training", sells them again as sex slaves to the highest overseas bidder.

I don't want to know what the "training" of a 4 year old Saint consists of...I don't even want to imagine it...

But at night, as I lay down, it creeps in my mind...in between my futile attempts at feigning sleep...through the cracks of a bedroom immersed in total obscurity...I imagine and fight the images with pictures of singing sweet lullabies to a sleeping girl, I fight it with pictures of reading a bed time story made of beautiful princesses safely tucked in shiny marbled castles...but the images stay, they persist, a torch burning with your Truth...

N.B: A reminder - official Iraqi puppet government figures confirms the number of little orphaned saints at 5 million since 2003 and the number of street little saints in Baghdad alone at 500'000. The little saints of the "new" Iraq.

Little Saints...1

2011-05-27T02:12:00.003+03:00

They are little, and no icons nor statues have been carved or erected in their names...they will forever remain anonymous...but not to me.

I have not seen their faces, but I heard their stories...and every saint has a story.

No wait, I have seen their faces, I have...I have seen your filth and ugliness reflected in theirs...and is that not what saints are made of ? aren't they made of human filth and greed ?
Aren't saints the ones who took it all in, absorbed all of you and were eventually salvaged from the human garbage, because make no mistake about yourselves, you are garbage.

Aren't they the ones who witnessed the unthinkable as some training ground to redeem you later, you vermin of the human race ?!

Well I have many stories of saints in the making...and is Iraq not the land of Gods, Goddesses, Prophets and Saints ?

What you are about to read are true samples...samples of your "Democracy, Freedom and Liberty." How I have come to hate these words...they have become like small mirrors in which I see your lies written in blood, authorized and signed by anonymous corpses...living or dead, we have reached a point where the differentiation has become so blur...where it no longer matters, because death sentences are issued daily...and the living are dead.

They hang saints in Iraq, they lynch them at an early age, they penetrate their insides with words...and words become swords, daggers, knives...slashing, beheading, tiny anonymous faces with no names...the slaying of Saints...of little Saints...

She was found thrown away in one of the streets of Baghdad...her name is Rita, like Saint
Rita, the Saint who answers your prayers...

She was abandoned in the streets of Baghdad, with her name written on a cardboard, attached to her neck like a dog who was once owned. A three years old dog, puppy, girl, blind...Rita is blind. Totally blind. You bastards, call it in your politically correct jargon - visually impaired - because you are so fucking sensitive arent'you ?!

Well Rita is blind, and she is 3. She is not only blind, she has a severely deformed face, a cleft lip that goes up all the way to her nose...split in the middle, a mirror reflection of how you split us in the middle...in all ways. A small mirror of your own deformities, your soul deformities...

She was feeling her way around, blind, with a cardboard sign around her neck - my name is Rita.

The local police took her to a hospital, the doctors did not know what to do with Rita...the little Saint Rita...she was left in the corridors of a hospital, a hospital that looks and feels like a public toilet, because your whores stole the money, the money for the little Saints...

Little Saint Rita, walked the corridors of this public toilet of a hospital, bumping into broken chairs and beds with no sheets...hungry and waiting for someone to diagnose her condition...her condition of a blind street child, deformed by your toxicity and abandoned because no one can feed her no more in your new Iraq.

I can't go on...your filth is making me dizzy...its vapors are filling my nostrils...the little Saints are poking me...they want to play...let me take little Saint Rita's hand and go smell the flowers...

An Absent Future...

2011-05-23T03:27:00.007+03:00

Been without a computer for quite some time, a loving hacker decided to silence me again, hoping maybe I will lose the ability to put in words...he/she sort of succeeded, because after such an absence, I feel am a like a beginner again...even though it has not been all that long...or has it?

I don't know, I have lost count of Time, the Future, I have no vision for. I live one day at a time and go where the winds take me...

It might come across as strange for those who plan ahead, the famous - 1 year, 2 years, 5 years plan...how can one not plan for the future they wonder ?
I did not plan for the occupation, so why should I plan for the future ?

This has become my modus operandi.

When people ask me about the future, I just shrug and say - I don't know, maybe, maybe not, perhaps, we shall see, Inshallah, who knows, no guarantees...I noticed these are idioms I use often, almost automatically...like they have become part of my being.

I am not sure, maybe I am afflicted by some endemic Fatalism, where I have been robbed of the possibility of conceptualizing the Future. Or maybe, the Future in my mind is tied to Iraq and hence I see nothing but bleakness...

Not long ago, I promised someone that I was going to do my best to remain optimistic. Seeing that am constitutionally incapable of that, we struck a deal. I am allowed to retain my pessimism but only 40% of it. It worked for a few days until I met some fellow Iraqis, who paid me an impromptu visit.

We took a short break to breathe - he said.

I felt guilty, for several reasons...but mainly because I was secretly devising a strategy of interrogation and I knew the last thing he wanted was to be grilled with questions...because grilled he was, some years ago. He still screams in the middle of the night...

I felt guilty like a voyeur who realizes how intrusive his acts are...yet I could not stop myself...it was part curiosity, part reconnecting...reconnecting with something I try very hard to blot out, yet a something that remains alive, demanding to be addressed and recognized...fully recognized.

So I cajoled my way into territories that no one cares to visit no more...I wheedled my way into an imposed silence, a silence within and without, with the most innocuous, almost banal - how are you and how are things ?

Things - things are objects, hence the necessary distance...things can mean just about anything...it's an open ended question - with things.

Trying to go beyond the Hamdullilah - Thank God for everything line, I probed more...discreetly so...leaving the personal as the last item on the list of things.

This reticence to speak, I have observed it many times, it's as if the message is - why are you opening our wounds ? And my reply, even non verbal, is - they are already wide open.

I see them in the distance that separates us, in the forced smiles, in the sigh that breaks the silent pause. I see them in the eyes. I see them in the pair of shoes that is too worn out and can't afford to be replaced. I see them in the murmurs between you about "how much things cost, and how long can we afford to stay". I see them when you look out of the window and I can tell that the scenery, a scenery free of bombs, silencer guns and beggars - makes you long yet fills you with guilt...

I can tell, because I have learned to read the silence like an open book...I can tell because I stood there like you did, torn inside, longing for peace and longing for hell...

You and I shove the split, the schizophrenia of this dual reality, and pretend to be normal...this dual reality where we have been cornered into a position of total silence because still ruled by fear...the fear of saying things as they are...the fear of punishment, the fear of rejection, the fear of judgement,the fear of labels...the fear instilled by the ideology of political correctness with severe consequences in your case, should you break it, should you say that you as a Sunni Arab, you have been stripped of all of your rights, that you can't and others like you can't even hope for an employment because of your sect, that if you convert to theirs, or pay allegiance to one of their parties and their ideology they will back you and open doors for you, that the city you grew up in is now divided into Karkh and Russafa and that Russafa is your ghetto, that the mosque that your ancestors built has been appropriated and is now - a Shiite only - place of worship, that you have even been excluded from praying in the place that you tended and swept with devotion...because you are not one of them...

You fear, or maybe you just want to live the rest of your days in a little peace...who can blame you ? You who used to love taking long strolls, are now a prisoner of four walls, afraid to venture...is it going to be sticky bombs, the silencer gun, or a kidnapping ? You wonder each morning...so you shut up and you stay put in your rocking chair, rocking yourself and your dreams, rocking your absent future into a lullaby...hoping for a tranquil snooze, uninterrupted by the past, your past...your recent past, where they still visit you, with their black uniforms and hooded faces and where you found yourself chained like a dog, mercilessly tortured in the name of a God, that is theirs...and theirs alone.

Your heart breaks when you hear of another kid in your neighborhood diagnosed with leukemia, another tumor growing in one of the women in your entourage, another child abducted and sold for sex...but you sit on that rocking chair, with your wounds and mouth badly bandaged and you rock yourself some more, hoping to find cracks in a clement harmless present...who can blame you ?

Then Ali mentions Mosul and Basra. Ali is your trusted friend from Najaf...he too dares not say the truth...he dares not say what he sees daily...he gives me his words, offers them on a tray like old pieces of rotten bread...as if to partake in some secret communion of a final revelation, of a final communion...

He says - some of us do not approve of what happened and what is taking place...but we can do nothing...

I give him the benefit of the doubt and don't stop at the "but", I let him continue his real lamentation, his real self flagellation...I let him continue because I want to reach the bitter end...the bitter end of it all, where no Future is present.

He continues - the Persians they hate us, some of us in Najaf, refuse to sell them goods...they treat us like slaves...

- And your Sistani and your Hawza ?

- They are all paid...They tarnished our sect and what we stand for.

I did not want to dig deeper into what they stand for...You are his friend, and you experienced what they stood for, in that dungeon.

- So what about Mosul ?

- They, the Kurds. have cleansed Mosul of Christians. Christian women are forced to veil.

- And what about Basra ?

- It's an Iranian stronghold. The children are dying of leukemia, so many of them, so many...Depleted Uranium

- What about Baghdad's hospitals ?

- They are sectarian...too many troubles. You might not make it out alive.

- And the reconstruction money ?

Laughter filled the room...

Reconstruction money was the joke of the day...

- Corruption, severe corruption. They hoard the medicine and sell it on the black market. One tablet of Paracetemol costs 1$

- Do you remember when we received the memo from the Ministry of Health urging us not to use the pink tablets of Paracetemol made in Iran ?

- Yeah I remember, they were tablets that you throw into the car's gas tank and the car explodes. I was surprised the Ministry of Health actually sent this memo, since they are they are their guys after all.

- Maybe they felt a little guilty ?

- Yeah maybe...

The ball rolled by itself...I let it. I was no longer in the picture with my curious voyeurism...

- Even the gas, the petrol for car, we are importing from Iran. We queue for hours.

- No now its from Turkey

- Turkey...ah yes, they are competing with the Iranians for the Iraqi market. Their goods are flooding the markets now, even in "Kurdistan".

Did you need a visa to go there, I ask.

- Akeed, for sure. We need a visa and we need to mention the exact purpose of our visit and the exact numbers of days we are to stay there...but you know the Israelis, the Jews, they have helped the Kurds so much...it's like a different continent.

You need a visa to visit your own country ?

- Yes - more laughter followed by a silence, by the dawn of Reality.

A laughter made of smoke and fog. A silence made of corpses.

Tidbits of the Iraqi Reality...squeezing itself into conversations, into cajoled forced conversations, where the victim's only wish is to breathe...for a little.

But no, imperious as it is, it imposes itself, dressed in the black robes of Kings and Queens...there is no escape...it bulldozes through your silence, your siesta, your amnesia...
it invades you like the voyeur that I am, reminding you of an absent Future...

Bullets and Tumors...

2011-05-05T03:25:00.004+03:00

If I am to choose between dying from a bullet or a tumor, I'd choose the former...

I have seen the agony of those with tumors...I stood by their side, and saw them exhale their last breath...I saw the bald heads of chemotherapy, the bloated faces with cortisone, the final cry of mercy...

This sight is no joke...

Later on, I stood there, and prayed when their finally rested bodies showed up in coffins...

I will never forget the agony, nor the cries of pain...the coffin is relief, a sign that a clement God does really exist. And how many a times I prayed for Death, for Deliverance...

Is that what we've been reduced to - praying for the angel of Death to deliver us ?

Deliver us from your bullets or your tumors ?

Because I tell you, every single person I come across that arrives from Iraq will tell me the same...they tell me if you are not killed with a bullet, you will be killed with a tumor.

Iraq has become a disaster area, a health hazard...the levels of toxicity and pollution are so high, none are allowed to measure.

A relative arrived from Basra, I wanted to ask...she beat me to it and said "Don't"

I offered her lunch, tea, and tried again...

She finally spilled it - she said: the number of handicapped I have come across I have never ever witnessed in my life before...Layla, stop, don't ask me about the cancer cases. She is a medical doctor by the way...and they are known to have thick, tough skins...but even for her it was too much to witness in a 10 days visit.

Whenever I hear of someone coming over, they are coming over for treatment. The new laws stipulate you can get a visa if you are to buy a car, or seek treatment that is not available in your home country. Kid you not.

So those who land here, are either pretending to buy a car, or giving proof for curing tumors...

And there are hundreds of cases, that pretend to buy a car or are eager to cure a tumor...

Young and old...there is no age barrier...females and males...soft tissues.

It's all very discreet and no one talks about it...you just hear so and so has ovarian, uterine breast, lymphatic, blood, prostate cancer...you nod your head and offer another prayer...

And you know that the cases are multiplying...and you pray some more...like a beggar waiting for someone to throw crumbs his way...

The new Iraq is the Democracy of toxicity and contamination...it is the new democracy where you wish for a quick easy bullet instead of a long agonizing tumor.

Raw...

2011-04-28T03:55:00.003+03:00

I am Layla Anwar and I am raw...I am Layla Anwar and I am naked...I have been naked for the past 8 years...

I lost my skin, my dermis, my protection...what you see is nothing but flesh, raw.

Raw as in no place to hide, no bunker, no shelter, no nothing...naked as is no clothes, no protection, no cover...

Raw as in under open skies, raw as in unknown destinations, raw as in no country...

My country was my protection...a place, as imperfect as it was, I could run back to, a place...and now I lost my anchor...am sailing, not knowing where...carried by waves and winds I can't control. No one taught me how to navigate...I was just thrown into deep waters...naked and raw...

I carry my rawness with me, it is my baggage, my suitcase, my luggage...How can one let go of one's flesh ?

I, We, queue in waiting...unsure...we just queue hoping...hoping for what ? We don't know...

Here we are standing in line like good obedient subjects, objects, holding that rawness - that bag, in a hand - a passport, a document, an identity card...coaxing it to speak for us, coaxing to say - we were, we are...we once existed, we are trying to exist...

We queue and say Insha'Allah...

And in the rawness of our flesh - tempests scream, tornadoes blow, wild fires consume us...and we say Insha'Allah...

We swallow the caustic No, the indifferent Look, the slammed Door in our faces...

We swallow the Silence,

The bitter pill, your bitter pill, hoping to forget like you did.

But Raw stands in line - in front, behind, next to me...and refuses to forget.

Arab World Blues...

2011-04-24T03:04:00.001+03:00

There is not one corner of the Arab world that is not being turned upside down...

Why is that ?

What is this wabaa in Arabic, a plague in English that has caught up with us ?

Could that plague be called democracy ? Like after Iraq's style of Freedom and Liberty?

Sure, we have problems, had problems. But our problems are not any worse than yours...frankly not.

Looking at the bigger picture, we are not any worse than you. Actually if we were, you would not be flocking in mass, trying to learn the language, eating falafels and hummus and trying to figure out the "culture".

OK so you hate Arabs, many of you do. I never really understood where your inferiority complex came from...must be the language barrier, like the radical language barrier...

What is this obsession and fascination of yours with the Arab world ? Come on let's have it.

Apart from oil. Now, I know you can get intoxicated just thinking of it...but there is more to it. I know so. I viscerally know so.

I know the secret...

You are so obsessed with us...you really are. It has gone beyond fascination, it is something else...

I know the secret...

I know what that something else is all about.

But I will leave you to stew in your obsession...and what you can't attain by grace, you try to attain by force...and either way it won't work...and either way, you will never win...

Human Race, what Human Race ?!

2011-04-17T01:58:00.000+03:00

The Human Race, whatever this may mean --- is totally pathetic.

Now, I know this runs against your humanistic activism -- whatever this may mean...but let me tell you something else...you are as pathetic.

Overall, we are a pathetic people, striving for pathetic ends, using pathetic means, pathetically embellishing our accomplishments...

We are a fucking disaster of a race...we are petty, stupid, short sighted, arrogant, arrogant even in our so called humbleness, we are disgracefully dishonest, and yet we like to believe that we actually lead...lead what you idiots ?! we are being collectively led by our noses...towards our total annihilation...

Stupid, pathetically stupid...

The human race - can't get over it.

Since the Fall of Baghdad...

2011-04-11T01:02:00.005+03:00

Since April 9th, since the so called fall of Baghdad...I have sat back and watched you fall...over and over again...And every time you pick yourself up, you shall fall again...

I would be a disgusting liar if I fail to confess a certain pleasure in observing you. I love observing you from afar, totally incognito...and I secretly smile inside of me.

I am not by nature a vindictive person, nor do I believe in revenge, except in specific cases, and Iraq is one of them...

Oh how I saw you gloat, and you've been gloating for 8 years now, gleefully, nastily, slyly, you gloated....and you mocked...you mocked with your airs of intellectual knowledge...what knowledge you garbage, you have no knowledge...you are a self seeking, self promoting, sensationalists third grade columnists, writers, bloggers, activists, and the rest...

Oh and the self made experts, wanting a little bit of limelight in this grand web of illusions, pontificating about what was, what is and what should be...and our voices were silenced, stifled, choked, strangulated, drowned, in the sounds of bombs, of B.52s, of bullets...drowning in a sea of dust and ashes...incognito, just like I am right now...and will remain so, totally anonymous...not making the annals of a truthful history.

So let me not dwell too much on us, on me...let me give you the attention you have always sought...let me give significance, relevance to your insignificant, irrelevant beings...let me validate your non issues, your non existence...

Let me give you simple examples, simple examples for simplistic people...maybe, perhaps, you will get the gist...hopefully...

I know this Syrian Alawite person...for the past 2 weeks, he/she is going through a severe depression because of a few protests in Syria. It refuses to speak to anyone, is worried sick about its future, since the status quo, its status quo is being slightly tickled...That same it, after the fall of Baghdad, ululated with joy...

Let me give you another example, to get you going...

An Egyptian it, also smugly congratulated the Iraqis on the fall of Baghdad at the hands of the Americans and Iranians...today, that same it, is sullenly silent, worried sick, mortified about the future of its country...and at the same time has turned into an opportunistic revolutionary sneaking into the crowd for approval, the typical Egyptian way...

Another example for you.

Some it from the Gulf, with its belly and Rolex watch, who has never held a rifle in its life, with airs of smugness, assured me it was all for the best...today Bahrainis, Kuwaitis, and the rest of these inconsequential people are shitting bricks...

Do you want one more ?

Let me tell you about the Libyan who said we brought it onto ourselves, watch it now, not knowing which way to turn...not knowing in which "zenga zenga" and which tune it can dance to...

Yalla, one more, a few more...

A Lebanese, who said in its totally fucked up French, the way zee Lebanese like to impress "yay la dictateur, c'est finit" That thing moved neighborhoods since the fall of Baghdad, because it could not take Iranian flags flying right next to its balcony...I suppose "la dictateur" caught up with it right in front of its doorstep in zee, oh la la, Lebanon.

Let me not forget the Palestinian, who mobilizes and cries daily over the terrible horrible vile terror on Gaza, dancing to Hezbollah and to liberation, yet gleefully applauded the vanquished city...on the 9th of April...

Did I miss out on anyone else ?

Ah yes, the ignorant Jordanian, who hardly finished high school, yet pretends because it speaks two words of English, to be the role model for the rest...I remember that thing, with its dyed peroxide hair fluffed up like a peacock, exclaiming "Ya Haram, poor things those American soldiers, they've crossed miles..." That particular day, over 3'500 Iraqis were massacred by both Americans and Iranian militias.

Let me see, who did I leave out from the its ?

Now I remember, a Saudi thing who said "I am praying for the day that every Iraqi family has a funeral..." I heard that thing has its suitcase already packed about to jump on the first flight...ready, with its dishdasha (traditional outfit) held tightly between its teeth...you know, a question of being able to run a little faster...without tripping or falling...

There are a few more, a few Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians...but enough. I've given you enough attention so far...content yourselves with the above. Applicable to you, just add your own "cultural twists"...

As for the rest, these non beings, you know; Americans, Brits, French, Germans, etc...
Who ? Who did you say you are ?

Since the fall of Baghdad, I have watched each one of you...and I have not stopped smiling inside.

The Messenger and the Message...

2011-04-07T06:03:00.001+03:00

Some say, the messenger is not important, just hear, listen to the message.

I disagree with that statement.

The messenger determines the veracity of the message he conveys. How so ? It can't be but so. Otherwise anything one hears, reads is taken as Truth. But if you look at the messenger, who he is, where he stands, how he conducts himself in life, only then can you determine the authenticity of his message.

For me this is not open to debate. Iraq taught me so.

I always take Iraq as one of the deepest and most important lessons I have learned in Life and I have learned much from Iraq.

I learned all I need to learn about politics, people, loyalties, treachery, false piety, greed, corruption, violence, hatred, love, hypocrisy, lies, omissions, pain, suffering, exile, displacement, longings, yearnings, abandonment, neglect, arrogance, humility, pride, false pride, honor, dignity, truth, falsehood, beauty, ugliness, innocence, oppression...and I can keep on adding...

Iraq is a great messenger with an authentic message.

And since I am on the subject of Messenger and Message, my mind cannot but make the association with religion, religious people, faith, belief, acts and deeds...

Let me start with a simple Islamic saying, I can't remember where I read it, but am sure I did read it somewhere, it must have been a Hadith or some Sufi quote.

God's houses of worship are the Devil's favorite place.

The Devil prefers this place more than the market place. You know why ? Because the one who goes to the worship place is seeking inside...hence he is fragile and vulnerable...and what better condition for the Devil than this condition.

Which brings me to the subject of preachers, all kinds of preachers...you find them every where, dressed in all kinds of clothes, modern looking, traditional looking, rosaries, beards, or well shaved...does not matter...but they are there. And this is where the devil resides...in the preacher. Not all preachers but like 99% of them...

You see the Devil loves the turban, and the attire...there are also invisible turbans by the way, he loves those too...anything that gives you the impression of a learned man of religion, he adores...

Of course, to some of my "brothers and sisters" this may come across as pure blasphemy...not so in my opinion, THE MESSENGER taught me differently.

Again getting back to Iraq. After 2003, there sprung numerous beards, rosaries, turbans, the taqwa of the occupation, the submissive piety of the occupation - is what I like to call it.

Every governmental office and every public place had Ayats from the Holy book adorning the walls, pictures of the Holy Kaba'a, pictures of Imam Ali plastered in every corner, an overflowing zeal of religious fervor accompanied with the most impressive of speeches...the speeches, oh the speeches...the sermons of morality, of righteousness, of avoiding what is forbidden and endowing what is permissible...in the eyes of Allah...women flocked with their chadors, veils, listening to the preachers...sucking on their words straight from the Divine...

And the beards grew longer as well as the rosaries and the sermons increased, and so did the faithful bowing their heads in modesty in front of the TV cameras specially called in for the occasions... and so did the fatwas, the religious decrees along with the superstitions and the lies....

The Husseinyat and the customary religious observances were multiplied by a hundred...one would have thought that we reached paradise...except this paradise had no water...it just had overflowing blood in gold cups...

Those same men, and they were not only a handful, no am talking of hundreds, would spill blood, killing another Muslim, and then break for their afternoon prayers with their salawat, their praising of the Prophet and the Ahl Al Bayt,...Salawat after Salawat...

And before breaking fast, they would go and rape, torture and mutilate, and then say -- Thank you Allah for my fasting...unroll the praying mats and bow in "humility" to the Maker...

And during the religious festivities, they prey on needy women, and buy them for 10$ a question of a one night for a quick Muta'a marriage...in the name of Allah and his Messenger.

These are the killers, but there are also the merchants, who do the same, without the killing, they just kill by increasing prices and by hoarding...and there are the politicians who are corrupt to the bone, who steal non stop...they also give their "salawat" to the Messenger, and visit shrines with grand airs of piety...and there are the ordinary ones, the you and me kind of people, giving you great words to lure your soul, but it is only a lure, the lure of false piety...for the aggrandizement of their false selves, they too carry their share of lies and hypocrisy...transpiring through their daily acts...

You see now, when I tell you that whenever you hear a message, always look at the messenger and his deeds. Anything short of that are just words with no weight, you can easily throw away. Because it is only the authenticity of the messenger that will guarantee how you will receive the message. In other words, his intention will reach you well before his message does. If you only knew...

Homesick.

2011-04-05T16:31:00.004+03:00

I've written much about Exile, drawing upon my feelings and of those around me...it's never an easy subject to tackle, to confront, to ponder, to look at...

The thought itself, even though a stark reality, a daily lived one, is somehow always pushed at the back of my mind...I don't want to acknowledge it, I don't want to face it, I don't want to think about it...I stuff it in some corner and wish it will disappear by itself...but it doesn't. It will simply not go away.

Lately I've been overwhelmed with that feeling of Exile. Not quite the right word. The right word is Homesick - Home Sick. Sick for Home.

When this happens, my first reaction is to distract myself, like play hide and seek with it, diminish it, brush it off, pretend it's not there...and the more I do that, the stronger it knocks on my door, and the more I do that, the stronger it penetrates my house, like a burst dam of water that starts flooding the place...a deluge of feelings, of emotions that nothing can stop or sweep away...

When this happens, I know that I can no longer play hide and seek with it, I know that the water level has reached a point where it needs to be acknowledged, recognized and validated...it needs to be given an identity, a name, and oddly enough a place of belonging. It's like this homesickness is asking me to belong to something...to a place. I suppose you'd call that Attachment.

So faced with this deluge, I decided to swim in the waters instead of just watching the waves grow on an illusory shore of safety...for I know from experience, roaring waters when not faced will always grow into a tsunami...that is the nature of feelings, of emotions...they have this water quality to them.

I realized all the little tricks I play with myself, with it - the homesickness - keeping it at bay...the things I avoid doing, or keep at a strict minimum. For instance, I avoid looking at pictures of Baghdad, videos of Baghdad. I who absolutely loves cooking, avoid cooking Iraqi food unless there is a great urge to do so, I try other foods, as exotic, but foods that take me to farther away places, places away from my homesickness. I avoid listening to Iraqi songs, unless my hand unconsciously picks a CD, or clicks on a youtube video. I avoid discussing "it" with friends, with family, with strangers...if the subject is broached, I change it, I pretend I did not hear. I avoid meeting with other Iraqis. I avoid going to Iraqi grocers, restaurants, shops...but above all, I try hard to banish pictures, memories, sentences, faces, places from my mind.

This strategy of mine has obviously not worked very well, since am here writing about "it".

The truth of the matter that I refuse to face is that I can't go back home, I can't return.
Had I kept my mouth shut since 2003, I would have stood a chance, but not now, not anymore. I know that the minute I'll land in Baghdad, I will disappear in some "democracy" dungeon, like many others have...I will not only endanger my life but also that of my family. This is a great responsibility. People don't understand that. People are stupid, people are so stupid...people are beyond stupid. They just sit and read my blog and pontificate, they understand nothing because they do not wish to understand the reality of this occupation. They refuse to see. They simply refuse to see the truth that I and a few others put our lives on the line for...Bad faith. Arrogance. Stubbornness. Myopia. They just sit and get titillated with the writings...either loving or hating it...but it stops there...there is no after reflection, there is no deductive thinking...there is no imagination, there is no Reality for them. People are indeed stupid.

Maybe this is one of the reasons I have not blogged as much about Iraq...maybe because deep inside of myself I find it to be a "cause perdue", a lost cause and am left with the skeletons, my memories and this homesickness that gnaws at me in silence, when everyone else goes to sleep.

Seeing that this is the case, that this is the reality of the matter, I stuff "it", I shove "it", I hide "it", I cover "it" up...how can I afford thinking, feeling "it"...how can I afford facing the prospects that I might never go back ?! Just the idea in itself kills me...

Let's face it, am not 16, 18, 24, or even 30...am in my midlife...whatever this may mean. The question that poses itself is when then ?! Of course my elders have it tougher, because they know time is really running out...so the denial gets thicker, under walls of silence, I understand that...I really do...the pain would be too great to bear. Denial is sometimes a good thing.

So what do we do with our longings, yearnings...what do we do with the thought that we will never be able to return ? Where do we hide these, what can we cover them up with and for how long ?

I get feelings of envy and rage, whenever I hear of a foreigner going to Baghdad...I say to myself, this piece of shit can go to my country and here I am, I can't even set foot in my own land. And each time, I die a little more inside...

Last time an acquaintance went there, he asked me if I wanted anything - I said yes, bring me back a little earth, some mud from the river bank, in a plastic bag...I want to smell it again.
I never saw that handful of land, never smelled it...it got lost, among so many other things...

So has my home, so has my homesickness...

This is an old Iraqi song my grandma used to hum often...

Singer : Iraqi Bashar Al Azzawi
Video produced and uploaded by: FadiShabella.

Yemen, etcetera...

2011-04-04T06:41:00.012+03:00

I can already see the "left" and its "activists" drooling...they've already been shouting - freedom all the way from Tunis, to Egypt, to Libya, to Yemen...oh my what nobility of intentions!

Well drool some more "nice" advocates of political freedom and social justice, ha!

Just got this in and read it well. And read between the lines...if at all possible...but that would necessitate a bit of brains...sorely lacking in the sheep mentality.

But in any case what difference does it really make ? Knowing you bloody lot, you would be salivating even more...Uncle Sam is directing the show and you just love it despite your o'such "progressive liberal marxist anti-oppression" facades and veneers...

Here it comes the Reuters header -- hot from the Arab oven.

U.S. now seeks removal of Yemeni president: The United States has concluded Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh will not likely enact reforms demanded by opposition protesters (who happen to be the Houthis and/ or affiliated/ linked to and armed by Iran for the most part - my italics) and must be eased out of office. Rest of article here.

Undoubtedly our "progressive liberal leftist" will find this other piece of the "Arab Spring Revolution" most welcoming.

Better get a bucket ready next to my computer, I am preparing myself to read more vomiting stuff on Twitter and elsewhere...

Nota Bene to Self : US/UK : Saddam Hussein must go. US/France: Ben Ali must leave. US: Hosni Mubarak must step down. US/UK/NATO: Gaddafi must be removed . US : Ali A.Saleh must be eased out...
Still waiting for a few more orders on Iran. Iraq and Syria's leadership...am not sure they will be forthcoming, not in the foreseeable future, definitely not before Saudi Arabia's turn. I hope am wrong, but usually am not.

Leftists, Activists and all that Bloody Jazz...

2011-04-02T05:33:00.006+03:00

I really should stop reading other people's tweets and I should quit Twitter altogether...alternatively I should just talk to myself and pay zero attention to what others are talking about, because 9 times out of 10 they are talking from their asses.

The latest in line of pure bullshit coming from so-called liberals, lefties and activists for "human rights and social/political justice" is the abysmal stand on Libya. Truly disgraceful, shocking, flabbergasting...you name it they are guilty of it...

I observe people's reactions on the famous social media that has led so called "Spring Revolutions" in the Arab world...when the troubles first started in Libya, I said to myself - Foul play, foul play, I smell one big fat rat here and I don't like it one bit.

A reader and follower of the Iraqi tragedy of which I am part, has taught me to take every thing with a huge grain of salt...in particular all these movements for "democratic change" in the Arab world. I say so, because I am very aware that one cannot divorce domestic politics from geopolitics, nor from international politics.

Yet again, not learning from the Iraqi catastrophe, the sheep of the liberal left, the so called pioneers of activism and political change have fallen in the same trap again and again and again....

At the beginning all these idiots on Twitter and Facebook were crying for Libya, hundreds of videos were circulating, mocking Gaddafi, the regime, his sons, and the rest...

Within the space of less than a month, Libya has turned from a functioning society to a country in chaos, subjected to bombs by the West, again !

Gaddafi did say (and I don't want to hear that same bullshit question that was asked when Iraq was invaded and totally annihilated in 2003, so you love Saddam Hussein right? Love has nothing to do with it o'luminaries of politics, but sovereignty does). So Gaddafi did say that the rebels - so called revolutionaries - had ties to Al-Qaeda. He was not lying. It turned out to be true, but not only that, it also turned that the CIA is funding the opposition, helping them set up an independent oil ministry and funding Al-Qaeda in Libya.

And this is exactly what the Americans did in Iraq, a role that was later taken on by the Iranians - funding Al-Qaeda. The famous Al-Qaeda that has become the primary justification, the casus belli for a protracted war on "terror" which just happens to be taking place in the Arab & Muslim World. From Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Pakistan and now Libya. But we are all assured that it has nothing to do with being an Arab nor a Muslim. They just want you to be FREE.

Today on that same worthless medium called Twitter, those same protagonists of "Democracy" are crying crocodile tears about Libyan civilian losses due to NATO bombs and where DU (depleted uranium) is used again. Giving themselves a semblance of good conscience, this same morally depraved lot is assuring the Libyan people that their "revolution" has been hijacked by Imperialism....of course those same hypocrites will not admit that they were the first ones to encourage the "imperialist liberation" of yet another Arab country, just like they did in Iraq.

Now getting to Syria, these same spineless, worthless leftists, activists, liberals, have suddenly fallen in love with Bashar Al-Assad, his style of Baathism is not repressive at all, he has become a hero in their eyes...and do you know why ? Come on have a wild guess. Iran.

Yes Iran. Because Syria is aligned with Iran, the repression in Syria is totally kosher. Nay, it's even a sign of strong patriotism and nationalism.

But mum's the word when the protests took place throughout Iraq, and when report after report shows the real terror taking place under the sectarian Shiite fascist puppet government of Iraq, installed by both the US and Iran. And mum's the word on the gross unimaginable torture and human rights violations taking place in the new Democracy called Iraq. Silence, total silence from those debased political hypocrites who are as guilty as the worst of any tyrant, dictator or imperialist...

This is the filth, the daily filth I see in front of my very eyes in your so called social media of the "Arab Spring Revolution".

Quench My Thirst....

2011-03-31T06:19:00.003+03:00

How many of you out there quenched our thirst ?

How many of you out there cared enough about that dry mouth...seeking...

I am thirsty...

I am thirsty ...

I am thirsty...I drink you up

Sewage water...

Sewage water and my words

fall in puddles

putrid waters

made of your stench...

My belly touches the earth
while I bow down
tasting you,
while I quench my thirst
sewage water
putrid water
made
of you...

I smell you in my mouth
I gargle you
in the late evening
I vomit you in the morning
And the following day
I bow down
my belly touching the earth
sipping,
sipping you
sipping
your taste
the taste of sewage...

PS: Thank you David for making the picture alive...

El-Iraqiya.

2011-03-21T23:09:00.003+02:00

21st March 2011.

El-Iraqiya means the Iraqi She. The female, the woman, the mother, the grandmother, the aunt, the daughter, the sister, the friend, the wife, the partner...

21st of March is a good date to write about Her, about She. It happens to be the first day of Spring and Mother's day in the Arab world, in Iraq. And all women are mothers in the making...and not just biologically so. The latter would be a very limited, reductionist, simplistic usage of the term Motherhood.

And the she that I am, can only talk from my perspective, from my studies, from my observations, from my experience...

The Iraqi women I have known, the Iraqi women who raised me, the Iraqi women who nurtured me, the Iraqi women I have met in my lifetime...this is to them. Excluded are the female syphilitic sores and discharges of the Occupation.

It might come across as an Eulogy, and a well deserved one in my opinion.

In my eyes, El-Iraqiya is very special. The countless Iraqi women I have met were and are.
And without wanting to sound too arrogant, I can tell you that El-Iraqiya is like no other.

Am not talking about individuals here. Am talking about the women I grew up with, the society of women I have experienced and who have marked me.

So in my own personal experience, I have not come across one Iraqiya who was not strong. Not one. This may be due to historical and political reasons, not divorced from the history of Iraq.

Mesopotamia, Iraq has known numerous invasions by barbarians...this is something that has left its imprints on the Iraqiya. This is something that has shaped her and made her into who she is. Both on a personal and collective level.

We are not your standard run of the mill Middle Eastern girls. Nor God forbid, your Western girls.

Our ambitions and aspirations went beyond the crass, pop, understanding of the Feminine.

The Iraqiya through her struggles, trials and tribulations has been in a constant search for new understandings of what the word Feminine means. And she has experienced all the facets of it.

From - Resilience, to Patience, to Endurance, to Perseverance, to Struggle, to Battle, to Survival, to Love...

Do not ever underestimate that. And since you have done so already, I am here to redress the Balance. And I don't really care about the thousands of images portrayed of us. I know what mud we are made of and this is all what matters to me. Because you see, El-Iraqiya knows who she is and where she has come from...

Again am talking about women of my generation, a generation more and a generation less...I am not including in this conceptualization, the females who participated in any shape or form in the invasion of our homeland. Nor do I include those idiotic substance less females living in the West and elsewhere, who can't even talk the language anymore, and who have swallowed the so called "feminine" images of what a woman is or should be from video clips made in Lebanon and Egypt.

We had no video clips to emulate. No Rotana, no Mazzika, no Melody and no MTV. We had more important things to do. We had more important things than boob jobs, silicone implants, lip augmentation, and landing the right guy who will look after us. We had more important things than looking out for a bank account, a man's wallet and what kind of car he drove...

We were too busy creating, constructing and re-creating, re-constructing ourselves.

We studied, we worked hard, we managed, we led, we participated, we fought and we raised families all at once... The Iraqiya I know is no trivia and no nonsense...this we left for other females who have the luxuries of idleness...the mental, ideological, political idleness...

We buried our children and our men long before thinking of our own obituaries, and we scrambled with ingenuity when humanity forsook us through "intelligent" embargoes. And we ceased not...despite your perpetual violence and our perpetual -- fear, grief, losses, neglect, abandonment...

So who can you compare us to ? No one.

It is no coincidence that the first myths and legends were born in our land, it is no coincidence that Goddesses ruled with mercy and with wrath...it is no coincidence at all.

That was all but a preparation for the Iraqiya...

And to Her, this is my humble dedication.

Eight Years On....

2011-03-20T04:19:00.003+02:00

Eight years ago...like a today, like a yesterday, like a yesteryear, like years ago...
must have been the same date, more or less, maybe another full moon, maybe another first day of Spring...

Were we to be reborn on that Equinox of our lives ?

We just died in a long winter... a cold long winter...and the seasons passed and we are still hermits in a world gone silent. Frozen in lies and endless stories still recounted
in our names and after our deaths...

You see, there is no point anymore remembering - year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4, year ...year 8, year 10, year 20...

There is no point remembering...because when it was happening, when the fireworks of Freedom were grilling us alive, and the sound of the rooster mingled with the call for the morning prayers, from Minarets resounding, with Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar -- while fire poured from the skies - you were silent...you were silent while talking, you were silent while arguing, you were silent while debating, you were silent while laughing...

And eight years later...I commemorate that same silence...in Iraq.

You see, there is no point remembering anymore...

Sacred.

2011-03-14T02:50:00.001+02:00

Is our blood so cheap ? Did not the same sperm and ovum that made you, made us ?
Is the color of blood not red ?
Are the veins, arteries, limbs, heads, noses, eyes, ears, legs, arms, not the same ?
Is that not our common denominator, is that not our common Destiny ?

I will tell you something today that will shock you.

I will tell you something from the children of the maiden slave that will rock you.

I will tell you we are more sacred than all of you.

We are the pioneers, we are at the forefront, we are the first, and we will be the last.

No, this is no arrogance, this is Truth.

For what we have witnessed, what we have seen, what we have endured...is not counted in words

Words mean nothing.

You need to rip my heart open and see but you can't do that. You will never be able to do that. Because the Heart is not just an organ and you don't have it in you.

Iraq - A Nation of Tears.

2011-03-12T23:15:00.001+02:00

This video is a recent one, March 2011.

This video is a 17 minutes sample of your Democracy at work in the Iraq al Jadeed, in the new Iraq.

This video shows you the daily life for Baghdadis, through the eyes of a few.

I have no strength to write more words, I leave you to watch the fruits of your labor, of your indifference, your apathy and your deafening silence.

Video : Journeyman Pictures. A Nation of Tears - Iraq / 7th March 2011.

On Democracy...

2011-03-09T03:07:00.002+02:00

Sometime ago, an ex boyfriend - that's why he became an ex, in other words history -called me a simpleton and an idiot. He said I understand nothing.

So maybe I understand nothing, maybe you understand better...so please explain it to me.

What is this democracy of yours, am really very curious. No honestly, am not pulling your leg or anything...am just wondering...What does it mean ?

Because I still don't get it.

Is it purple fingers dipped in ink or red fingers of protests ? Is it Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib?
Is it Bush, Blair or Obama ? Is it Iraq, Afghanistan or drones in Pakistan...or maybe it's the price of oil going up and down ?

Really, am serious, do you care to explain it to me ?

Who the fuck do you think you are fooling with your democracy ? Me, an Iraqi ?!

No darlings, no one fools an Iraqi...your Democracy we tasted it...in exile. Your Democracy, we tore it apart in pieces, and saw the rags it is made of...Your democracy we hear it daily coming as screams of agony from your dungeons of Freedom...Your democracy, we witnessed it when we unearthed mass graves of anonymous corpses...Your democracy we felt it, when we walked the streets fearful of bullets and bombs...Your Democracy stinks on our skin, because we still have no water. Your Democracy freezes us because we have no heating...Your democracy is cold, it's the cold corpse of Death in a morgue that we visit daily, it's the cold of cemeteries, it's the cold of the missing, it's the cold wind from the West...

What democracy are you talking about ? Please explain it to me.

A Woman's Day.

2011-03-08T03:24:00.004+02:00

Today is International Women's Day. I don't believe in it. I've become skeptical, a cynic when it comes to these big titles...the Iraqi occupation has done a great job on me.

For 8 years we've been hearing about this famous day, and the gender situation in Iraq is getting worse and worse. I've covered that topic a great length in previous posts on this blog and the Uncensored one and will not go into it again...

I mean you know the whole story - right ? We're basically much worse off on ALL levels since we've been liberated by American Democracy and Freedom.

I don't trust these International day slogans anymore, nor the women and men behind them. A question of giving oneself a good conscience for the day and having one's name published in some newspaper as the Woman of the Year...kind of bullshit.

So I want to do it differently this year. All talk about empowering women, I want to address men instead. OK I promise you will not get insults, I'll try my best...but my patience does run out with you males, because of that idiotic stubbornness, obstinacy, myopia, and power trip you're on...OK I failed in my promise, you just got insulted again.

But let's see things as they are, you all live in a great cocoon called Denial yet all facts and figures point to a TRUTH that Women world wide are more disfranchised then men, that they have less access to education, equal pay, health services etc and that they are THE GROUP par excellence that suffers the most from wars and occupations and that they are THE GROUP, the recipient of your violence worldwide. A violence that takes on many forms, and includes physical and verbal abuse, rape, trafficking, harassment, stalking and the rest...

Women live in a state of permanent fear, even on a subconscious level, because of your violence.
This is a fact, and you can deny it all you want, but it will remain a fact...and it will remain staring you in the eye and you will have a pain in the ass like myself, who will hurl insults at you, kick you in your butts metaphorically speaking, so you can wake up just a little and do something about your own selves.

Facing yourselves as you are, and recognizing your personal share of the responsibility in all of this mess is one of the best things you can contribute to the International Women's Day.

Oh and developing some morals, values and principles that you could live by in your interaction with the opposite sex would not hurt either...You'd be setting the best of examples to follow.

The Eye of Greed...

2011-02-24T04:15:00.004+02:00

The Eye of Greed, or the I of Greed, there is no difference.

It is business as usual.

So many justifications, the business kind...if I don't go for it, someone else will...after all am helping the Iraqis...it's a clean business, no death involved...etc, etc...excuses and more excuses, lame ones...the bottom line is you're there for the profit...short term or long term does not matter...it's profit.

That means anyone who does business in Iraq, is a fucking profiteer. A profiteer of the Occupation, a profiteer of our mass graves, of our exile and our displacement.

I don't give a fuck how you look at it...

Any, ANY company, that does business in Iraq today is giving legitimacy to the invasion and occupation. Because it means that you are dealing with the present status quo, and the present status quo is built on DEATH. It is built on thousands of bodies, on the biggest war known since the 2nd World War, on silence, on indifference, on apathy, on lies...LIES and more BLOODY LIES.

I am talking about Ethics. 99% of you don't even know what the fucking word means. Go look it up. Ethics and Business don't mix...they never did.

Hundreds of companies and individuals landed in Iraq post 2003. They landed to pillage us. It's that simple. Yes it's that simple.

Companies, individuals from the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, Iran, Arab countries, all came to make a profit, they saw a fucking window of an opportunity...a fucking opportunity, an opportunist is always a profiteer.

Among those Arabs were prominent Palestinians, I have their names one by one...they worked not only with the puppets that are sodomizing, grilling our asses in dungeons, they even worked with the occupier himself. They won all sorts of contracts to feed, dress, clean, protect the mercenaries and the American invader. YES, Palestinians.

And those same people at night would hold charity dinners for the Cause...and they would praise Saddam Hussein, and cry over Baghdad and Jerusalem...but at the end of the day it was business as usual.

And those same people are urging us today to boycott Israeli products.

Never mind the Iraqi product, the product made of flesh and bones...these don't matter one bit...it's business as usual.

As for the Europeans, it's the same...

I remember a couple of years back, I was invited to some gathering and was approached by some European shit. He introduced himself, and told me that his business is in the medical industry.

I am interested in Medicine, so I wanted more details...he said am in the EYE industry, in the optical...when he asked me what I did for an occupation, I replied - I was just an Iraqi.

Assuming that he was working locally, I asked him how his business is doing...he said: business am afraid to say, is very good.

How so? I inquired. I work with eye lenses in Iraq, he said. We replace eyes with artificial ones...business is very good.

I can give you more examples, many more... of Americans, Asians, Indians, Latinos and the rest...

I have hundreds of examples to give you, on how it was, is, and it's business as usual.

So my Beloved, how many threw themselves on your dying body, on your corpse, out of Greed...hundreds, thousands...they'd kill you a thousand times over to make an extra dollar...they'd suck your bones, feast on your flesh for an extra dollar...

Never mind your mass graves, the floating bodies on your waters, the dying birds in your fields, never mind your prisons filled with detainees itching their scabs away, soothing their wounds with prayers, never mind all your women torn to pieces, never mind your beggars, your 10$ prostitutes for a piece of bread, never mind your street kids, lost wanderers, never mind any of that...

Money talks...

Big investments, let's go for the kill, profit shines - stars in a dark, obscure sky made of Death...

I need to vomit...again and again and again....

A Caption of an Iraqi Woman.

2011-02-23T05:17:00.006+02:00

Watched some advertisement on al Sharqiya Iraqi TV the other day. Some publicity for Iraq.

This is not a post to endorse the Sharqiya which is the only palatable Iraqi TV I can watch and only for a limited period of time.

But that advertisement stayed with me for several days now. It is ONE OF THE BEST I have seen so far in my life. And if I say it is one of the best, I usually know what am talking about. I can always tell the best from the rest...the best -- a terrible rarity these days.

The camera zooms in on a bride dressed in white, holding a mirror, making herself beautiful for that special occasion and then sitting on a well cushioned engraved chair, holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands, resting on her lap and the bouquet covers her belly.

She says: How I wish my parents to be present today, this is the most important day of my life.
Why are my parents not here, why is my family absent ?

Then the camera zooms on the chair next to her's where her groom is supposed to be seated. The chair is empty.

The Bride then says : Where is everyone ? Why am I so alone ?

Then she continues...

Why did you kill me ? You who is supposed to protect me, why did you kill me ? You want to protect Iraq from me ? Iraq runs through my veins...

She then removes the bouquet held in her hands and that covered her belly, and there is a huge blotch of blood on her white dress, right on her womb.

She was the one shot and murdered in the new Iraq.

An Important Note on the 25th of February 2011.

2011-02-23T02:40:00.004+02:00

This coming Friday, the 25th of February will supposedly be a day of massive protests throughout Iraq against corruption and lack of services.

From my readings and listening to various sources, it is clear to me, that the Iraqis who will engage in this day of protest are NOT asking for regime change, but are demanding better services, less corruption, jobs and the rest.

But this is not the main point of this post. My main point is a friendly warning to all those inside of Iraq who will participate in these demonstrations :

Both the government of Al-Maliki, members of his Dawa party as well as the official spokesman of the armed police forces Kassem Atta, are already warning of "terrorists infiltrating the crowds and blowing themselves up" and that Iraq can revert back to square 1 if people do not respect the "law".

My understanding of this warning is as follows :

- this is being used as a deterrent to scare people from joining.

- this fascist sectarian Shiite regime has already used terror means to paralyze Iraqi society, on many occasions. Last in line was during the so-called elections period where the Shiite parties were actually involved in blowing up homes, markets and government offices to retain power. I hope I am wrong, but this fascist Shiite sectarian puppet government may well use the same method again on the 25th of February.

- the third important point to retain for now, is that the head of the armed and police forces has issued a decree out of so called "security concerns", BANNING ALL LIVE media, press, tv coverage of these protests.

- and last but not least, there are very serious threats of blowing up the government offices where names of MPS, party members, etc figure, inculpated in corruption charges. One such office was blown up in Diyala on purpose to cover up names. Another office in Bikar, has a thick high concrete wall being built around it, so it will not be vandalized by protesters. As for the main HQ office which happens to be in the Karada district, in Baghdad, it is receiving similar threats daily from government officials, in other words from the Shiite sectarian mafia that is ruling Baghdad. Residents of Karada are living in a state of permanent fear, in particular those who live in proximity of this building, fear of being blown away along with all the evidence regarding names, embezzlement and corruption charges.

Forewarned is forearmed. So good luck.

Silencing...

2011-02-23T01:33:00.011+02:00

Many have tried to silence me...different methods used.

Some tried to silence me out of their own personal paranoia. A paranoid believes everything alludes to him or her. They, in their grotesque self grandiosity, actually believe every single post I write, is about them. They are delusional and live life through projections of their own pitiful selves. I guess, I always touch raw spots in people, be it political or otherwise, if you take it personally you have a huge problem and I suggest you seek urgent and intensive psychiatric care now.

Other people use veiled threats, in the beginning they come across as "nice" and "concerned", and I as a writer, keep writing on the spur of the moment, when am inspired by a thought, an idea, a feeling or a situation...again this category of people believe this is an affront on their "persona" and start using the old stratagem of veiled and indirect threats and intimidation.

Yet another category of people, will read a post of mine, and will go literally raving mad, they unleash their poison on me, and use direct intimidation and threats against my own person, or my family, promising to seek me and them out and punish me/us for my "transgressions".

Others use a similar variant of the above and the threats are direct, straight to the point and usually involve Rape and Death...

The most "benign" method I came across so far, is the one of ridicule, critique of style, content, vocabulary, punctuation...combined with personal slurs, insults and allusions to my sexuality, gender, race and religion.

ALL of the above has not stopped for 5 years now.

A message to all these people and this is not the first time I send out a message like this one. A quick search through my blog and you will find several similar messages previously issued.

I WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

No one, absolutely no one, will dictate to me what I write and how I write.

No amount of threats overt or covert will achieve anything. Of this you can be absolutely certain.

And as one commenter on one of my posts republished on ICH and who goes by the name of Raymond said :

Layla, it is amazing how with so many few words, you manage to let all these worms crawl out from under the ruins...He was alluding to the ruined, destroyed Iraq, I suppose.

And because Iraq has been so ruined and destroyed, it is imperative that my voice goes on...and no amounts of bullets to the head, rape and torture threats will silence this voice here.

And this is MY Resistance.

Protesting Iraq.

2011-02-18T02:31:00.002+02:00

Oh so now the Iraqis are protesting...protesting against what ?

Protesting against corruption, the 2nd most corrupt country in the world. Protesting for bread, for water and for electricity when 50% of the population is unemployed especially SUNNI ARABS. FACT.

Protest my ass. Where were you when the tanks rolled in ? where were you when the sectarian Shiites and their turbaned mullahs swayed you with a couple of hundred dollars for a finger dipped in purple ink for a "democratic" vote...

Where were you when we escaped in droves, living the lives of dogs in exile...where were you when the militias you praised and danced for decimated us all? Where the fuck were you?

Where were you when you let another sectarian whore from Iran take power again, for a second tenure and you sat and talked of national reconciliation and ballot boxes ?!

Where were you when the Iraqi Resistance was struggling against the invader ALONE ?

That same son of a bitch who put in place the most corrupt government that rips us all of...that is stealing your resources, that is torturing your own, that is letting thousands of us rot in jails like sub humans...so where the fuck were you ?

I see you on TVs with your ties and you airs, talking about constitution and law ? What fucking constitution and what fucking law ? There is NO constitution under Occupation, there is NO constitution under American and Iranian rule. And there is NO law.

Demanding better living conditions from puppets is IDIOCY. Hundreds of foreign companies are making a living off your backs, bringing in their own staff and leaving you, so called educated class working as blue collars in your own country. Ditto for the shit Iranian companies, that you bow to like fucking idols, just because they have a turban on, are stealing your resources, your land and everything you own, you fucking idiots.

And what about you fucked up Kurds? Do you think you are any better. Your Barazani to whom you dance like fucking monkeys, makes a cool 1 Million dollars a month as salary...and you tell me fucking Kurdistan. What Kurdistan you bunch of pastoral herd keepers? The Kurdistan that Israel is building for you ?!!!

So where were you ?

Now you are tearing your ID cards in protest, saying am no longer an Iraqi...

Give me a break you hypocrites.

Iraq is my biggest love and you are my biggest disappointment.

Go protest as much as you like, I will not lend you my voice. I've been a lone voice for the past 5 years and suffered the worst abuse in your name. Go protest all you like.

But you may need to remember one thing --it is not bread, jobs, electricity and water you need to protest for...you need to protest against being occupied first. That would be a good start.

The Impossible Love.

2011-02-17T01:44:00.008+02:00

A beautiful song by Kazem El-Saher - The Impossible Love song.

I will give a rough translation that does not do full justice to the lyrics. The non Arabic speaker may not appreciate the depth of the words, but then you may...depending on how open your heart is...

And maybe this is also an attempt on my part to remind myself and indirectly others that the land of Uruk is also the land of Love, a self-less Love.

I love you so very much
knowing the road to you
is impossibly long
I know that you're the Woman
for whom there is no replacement
I also know that the age of tenderness has ended
and that of beautiful words has died.

I love you so very much
and I know I live in an exile
and you in an exile
and between us
storms, ligthning, thunder, snow and fire
I know, arriving to you
is an illusion
I know arriving to you
is suicide

And I rejoice
to tear myself into pieces
for your sake, my precious
and if I am to chose
I would try your love a second time, again.

You, whom I washed
from falling tree leaves
you, whom I covered
with patience, from the rain
I love you so very much...

I love you so very much
swimming in the ocean of your eyes
unconsciously
and I leave my reason behind
and run, run after my madness...

Oh you Woman,
Oh you woman who holds
the Heart between her hands
I asked you
in the name of God
Don't abandon me
Don't abandon me...
For what will become of me
if you are not.

I love you so very much, so very much
I prefer your Love's fire
than abdicate
can Love's captive resign ?
and what do I care
if I come out of Love alive
or killed...

Egypt : Some other Perspective.

2011-02-05T04:03:00.014+02:00

Been thinking about Egypt a lot. This is a country I fell in love with in the past. I called it then "la magie des lieux" - the magic of places.

For me, Egypt represented many things. It represented history, civilization, culture, simplicity, and a certain wisdom...

The flip side was poverty, despair, struggle and human misery.

Some things in the Egyptian character (if one may call it that) I always appreciated...and other things I tremendously disliked. I suppose no love affair is perfect.

I can't claim to know Egypt very well, but I can safely say that I know it quite well. In any case, better than your (below)average Westerner who spends 99% of his/her time in Zamalek, working for an NGO and who will sit for hours pontificating about what is best for it. Landing with a blue print, a booklet and eating a couple of sandwiches of Falafel do not make you an expert.

And even though I am keeping a close eye on the latest events in Egypt, which I deem to be of great importance for the region, I still maintain that necessary skeptical distance. The proverbial grain of salt.

There are many levels to the story, many levels of understanding, that is.

On the one hand, there are genuine aspirations, demands, of let's assume the majority of the Egyptian people gathered in Tahrir Square - the Liberation Square. And from the looks of it, there is a stubborn regime refusing to immediately step down.

On the other hand, grosso modo put -- there is the actual Egyptian political opposition who is trying to make headways, inserting itself into the grass root movement and there is the United States of America.

Moving aside, taking some distance from the political brouhaha, there are some important points to note down :

Regardless of what one thinks of Hosni Mubarak -- and as an Iraqi who witnessed Gulf War 1 and 2, I don't have much good to say about him, in view of the overt Egyptian involvement in the occupation of Iraq --and Iraq will always remain a focal point of reference for me, and not including Iraq is missing the point.

Both Iraq and Egypt were considered Arab countries with "weight", with strategic, political, cultural, economic, social, intellectual...importance. And for many reasons : History, geography, learning, human resources, natural resources and a common struggle against British colonialism which culminated in Iraq with Abdel Karim Qassem and in Egypt with Gamal Abdel Nasser. These struggles for Independence were not without a price tag, both in human and material costs.

Hence for me, both countries represent the epicenters of the Arab world. One towards the Mashreq and the other towards the Maghreb. In other words Doors or as the West in its vulgar crass lingo calls it - windows of opportunities.

Bearing in mind the different levels mentioned above, ie. the orphaned grass root, the political opposition, and the United States (the Imperialistic replacement for the Old World), I can't help but notice the following :

- It is clear that at the popular (populace) level, the demands of the people are un-ambiguous. The demand for regime change is not open to debate. Do these 8M Egyptians as per the opposition claims - represent all of Egypt, all of its silent majority, is another story. But assuming that it does represent all of Egypt, where does that leave us ?

- Let's look now at the opposition parties - who constitutes them and who will be leading next?
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is a key player, alongside some shady characters from the Wafd party and another even shadier character El-Baradei who greatly facilitated the task for the US in presenting its bogus charges for the occupation of Iraq.

- At the American level, we are witnessing a definite change of foreign strategy. I earnestly believe that the US has learned its lesson in Iraq (in toppling regimes) and has opted for an indirect approach capitalizing on mass grievances, enhancing, exacerbating popular demands, pleas, only to appear as some Savior of Reform and Democracy without the actual use of military force.
There is no doubt whatsoever, that both the US and the EU have washed their hands from Hosni Mubarak and his regime and are propping him up as some nasty dictator that needs to go NOW as per the statements of the US administration. In other words, the US is now dictating from afar, by using the mass protests, regime change in Egypt -- NOW.

- The reaction from the old regime is a recourse to some "reactive patriotism" with - We decide when we leave not you - the US. Hence, concessions have been made (regardless of how much you like or dislike Hosni Mubarak) - a stepping down in September, some promises of reforms, some public apologies, a reshuffling of his cabinet, presenting old members for trial on corruption charges, and the statement made by Mubarak himself : I am an Egyptian, I will die in Egypt...

- US interference under the guise of Democracy and Freedom led old schoolers like Fidel Castro and Chavez to side with the "Tyrant". They understood the plot. Experience has something to do with it.

Hence, the words that are circulating today, by the silent majority are - you have endured decades of Mubarak's rule, surely you can wait another 6 months until September, when he will step down.

The opposition, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood coupled with Al-Baradei echo the American administration mantra of - no, not in September but NOW.

From a regional perspective, Iran and to a much lesser degree Turkey, are hailing the Revolution against "Arab Tyranny". Iran in particular, issued several statements praising the End of Dictatorships in the Arab World.

Of course Iran is hardly well placed to do so, but seeing the delirium in the Arab street, it has no doubt scored a few extra points in its direction. And I do not exclude the very high possibility of the Muslim Brotherhood (who is in bed with Iran) to come out as the ultimately victorious ones. And by the way, that includes Tunisia...and all of that will be done in well calculated stages.

I also find it "interesting" that US foreign policy (forget the rhetoric) has clearly demonstrated the path it is to persevere in, namely :

- In Iraq -- the propping up of Iranian proxies under the guise of some democratically elected government.

- In Lebanon --the abandonment of the Saudi camp as represented by Hariri, in favor of some Hezbollah (Iran)take over.

- In Tunisia, a seemingly benevolent (alongside the Sarkozy French government) of a laissez faire approach to Tunisian domestic issues in the aftermath of Ben Ali's departure

- and now in Egypt, a similar stance vis à vis the "old dictator" and in favor of the opposition as mainly represented by the Muslim Brotherhood (always in bed with Iran) and Al-Baradei (the Iraq invasion facilitator and who incidentally has cordial relationships with the Islamic republic).

In one of my older posts, I spoke of a long American Iranian film. I believe that film is not about to end. I am expecting similar reproductions in Yemen and Libya, with the final scene in Saudi Arabia.

However, the axis of Evil -- Iraq, Syria, Iran -- shall remain relatively stable in the forthcoming future...I thought I'd mention that, just in case you need to divert your investments in Democracy.

A Controversial Language.

2011-01-30T04:20:00.004+02:00

Took time off to think, I urge you to do the same...

I thought about being an Arab. What does it mean, what is an Arab, is there such a thing called an Arab, are there many Arabs or one type of an Arab, what is the common thread, the common denominator, is it an invented Identity, an acquired Identity or has it always been there, here? What is it composed of, what defines it ?

All these questions raced through my mind, all day long...

These were difficult questions. The difficulty laid in that I was, on some subconscious level, trying to find an answer within some "racial" parameter. Totally unsatisfactory, I may add.

Being an Arab is not about belonging to a race per se. Being an Arab is belonging to a LANGUAGE - the proverbial Mother Tongue. MOTHER tongue.

Language is the medium by which you express yourself in words, acquired words, learned words, but not only...Language shapes the perception and cognition of the world that surrounds you. When you start talking in Arabic, you feel and act in Arabic.

It is not just a question of an Arabic culture as some anthropologists like us to believe. Feeling and thinking in Arabic mean that there is a world view specific to the language, and that Reality can be fully only understood through that linguistic medium.

It is a well known fact that there are different world views - different concepts, inherited concepts, if you wish, by which one can interpret experience. I am simplifying to the maximum here.

There is the Semite and non Semite. Semite is not associated with Jewishness here. Jews are a tiny dead part of a Semitic culture/language.

I may not know what an Arab is, but I know what a Semite is - through the language.

A Sudanese, or a Mauritanian is not a Semite as such, but his language makes him so. Through that medium he acquires, incorporates the concepts associated with the language - Arabic.

When you INCORPORATE a language, you also incorporate everything else that comes with it...

I did not say when you SPEAK a language. I said when you incorporate a language.

So if being an Arab is not a race as such, but a Language, what are the implications of such an assertion ?

Let's get back to basics.

Take the EU as some example for comparison : A French can't understand an Italian, can't understand an Englishman, can't understand a Portuguese, can't understand a Russian, can't understand a Spaniard, can't understand...They have no common Language. They created a common language to understand one another - their common language is that of being a European i.e of belonging to the European race (whatever this racial profiling means). That is their language...or strive to have it as their common language.

An original Arabic speaker does not have this problem of creating, engineering a common language. It is already there. It is here. It is Arabic.

I go to Tunis, to Egypt, to Sudan, to Mauritania, to Morocco, to Algeria, to Libya, to Jordan, to Lebanon, to Syria, to Iraq, to the UAE, to Saudi Arabia, to Palestine...and I speak Arabic. They understand me and I understand them. I need no translator, no interpreter, no dictionary...

The language binds us. The language becomes our "race". And the language works on us, feeding us...so we share the same concepts, the same cognition, the same perception...we understand each one another.

Understand one another. Do not underestimate that.

We understand each other because we have the same references provided, offered by the language - the ARABIC language.

The Arabic Language (with a big L) is our Unifier.

The Language of the Koran, the word of Allah, God, is in Arabic.

Why did He chose this language, some language associated with a Bedouin desert, to reveal Himself ? Has anyone asked that pertinent question ?

After all, there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in the Arab World...the original text could have been in Indonesian for instance. But it was not. It was/is in Arabic.

All the Arab haters, when they want to learn Arabic, they turn to the Holy text as their prime reference. God takes you back to Him...always, even in Arabic.

When non Arabs embrace Islam, like the Iranians, the Kurds, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Indonesians, the Malays, the Turks, the Africans...and others...their ritual prayers are in Arabic, even though they may not understand the exact meaning. They are forced to say it in Arabic. Why is that do you think ? What is the message here ?

The message to me is clear and not open to controversy.

God spoke and speaks, daily, in Arabic.

Protesting...

2011-01-26T01:55:00.007+02:00

I've kept fairly silent on the latest wave of protests and "revolutions" that have suddenly gripped the Arab world. And that deliberately so.

I am in a waiting period, observing not only the impulsive reactions but more importantly WHO will fill the political power vacuum.

Before you jump and bite my head off, calling me all kinds of names, let me say that even though the masses - peoples grievances are valid, the political plot is not, not benign and far from it.

I am calling it a plot for several reasons.

First of all the timing. Have the Arab masses from Tunis, to Algeria, to Yemen, to Jordan, to Egypt (including the Palestinian leaks and their political implications) suddenly woke up to the fact that they are living under "corrupt dictatorships"? All at the same time ? Strange.

Secondly, I am wondering why this timing coincides with a full Hezbollah Iranian take over of Lebanon.

Thirdly, I am concerned, what are the alternatives presented, what is the agenda, is there one, what is the plan, and if people are clamoring for democracy as some leftist activists are claiming, who will institutionalize the democratic process ?

So far I have seen no real indicators for more open democratic societies in the making. Leaving aside my own allergy to the word "democracy" and its consequences as in Iraq, so far I have seen nothing but an "Islamist" alternative presenting itself as some savior.

Not that I have anything against Islam, quite the contrary. However, I am very wary of these Islamic parties. I am wary of the Tunisian Islamists who try to re-assure us they are not Khomeinis, I am very wary of Hamas and its close ties to Iran, I am very wary of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who is in bed with Iran, and needless to say I am excessively concerned regarding the Lebanese situation and the Iranian Hezbollah take over.

Some claim this wave of protests is a demand for Freedom (another dreaded word in my dictionary as per the Iraqi lesson), this is inaccurate.

At the grass root level, be it in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan the demands were mainly economic in nature and have to do with rising costs of living, inflation, low salaries, lack of social security, unemployment...i.e an economic insecurity that can be inscribed in the general global economic crisis. Basically, they are protests for Bread.

There is no doubt that Arab governments have contributed through their own corruption, to this state of affairs. One cannot deny that. However, I don't think at the grass root level, the main demands were demands for more democracy and doing away with autocracy. More like doing away with kleptomania, yes.

That is not to say that Arab people don't have aspirations for "democracy", but it is to say that radical changes that are to take place or are taking place cannot be divorced from the grander geopolitical context, in the aftermath and with particular reference to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

My fourth point is another observation that is sticking out like a sore thumb. My question is how come there are no protests in "democratic" Iraq where over 50% of the population is unemployed and how come all is quiet on the Syrian front ? Don't they have inflation in Syria ?

Of course, both Iraq and Syria are totally in the Iranian camp today. The countries where protests are taking place are in the so-called pro-Israel, pro-US satellites.

Need I remind that US occupied Iraq is run by Iran and its Shiite parties and militias ?!

In this sea of political instability who holds the cards ? Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia (abdicated in Lebanon) or Iran ?

The answer is of course Iran and to a much lesser extent Turkey who in my opinion got on a tad too late on the "anti-Zionist" bandwagon, due to well known reasons : a) its past aspirations to join the EU which it gave up by now and b) to NATO's presence on its soil.

The other thing that is missing from the big picture is Israel. I would have assumed that Israel would be terribly worried by now, now that the Palestinian papers are out, now that all those pro-Israel US lackeys are being shaken by democracy. I see no Israeli worry and that worries me.

Iran is already praising the "revolutions" in the Arab world and that worries me even more, for I have seen what the Iranian "revolution" has done to Iraq in collaboration with the Americans.

The expected, immediate results are obvious to me, Iran has consolidated its regional position/influence even more.

On another note but very much related, and still on the subject of "democracy".

When the Shah regime fell, I heard the same excitement - namely that the Tyrant is gone and that the winds of change, of freedom were sweeping Iran...I let the Iranians respond to that today.

The same thing when Saddam Hussein's regime fell thanks to American Imperialism and to Zionism, people applauded the end of "Tyranny". I let the Iraqis tell you all about real Tyranny today, a tyranny of an Iranian American flavor.

I realize it is too soon to pronounce myself on Tunisia and Egypt and even on the Palestinian Authority's fate in the West bank, but...

As for Lebanon, check mate.

Unbearable.

2011-01-24T19:28:00.002+02:00

This has truly become unbearable, and it's been going on for over 4 years with no respite.

Some readers, whether here or on Twitter, people I don't know and have no contact with, are always ready to pounce like a bunch of wild hyenas at the slightest word, sentence, I utter.

The last in line are a couple of females, who sent me emails calling me dirty, filthy, messy, etc...

In the not so distant past, it was males who would compose mails with death and rape threats, or just plain insults or a mix of both.

On Twitter, it's the same story.

I write addressing no one person in particular. Yet, I have been the recipient of the most vile forms of harassment and it is not stopping. I wonder if any other blogger has gone through the same crap I go through daily.

Short of closing everything down, which is probably what these scum are really hoping for, I don't know what to do anymore.

I block email addresses, cancel, delete to no avail.

Fucking psychotic men and women, online psychopaths, trolls and severely deranged people must be stopped.

I have enough on my plate as is. This can't continue anymore.

Twitterstan.

2011-01-23T15:40:00.003+02:00

Glad to announce that I was able to retrieve my old username back that was hijacked a few weeks ago, thanks to the help of a friend who cared enough about the issue and did not wish to see my name Layla Anwar and that of Iraq associated with some cheap American porn site. One cannot get used to American cheapness.

So this is a public Thank You note to this person.

You may now follow me on Twitter - if you wish - for this is where I also print some of my thoughts, in a condensed form.

My username on Twitter is laylaanwar. And please don't harass me with friends request on Facebook, I don't use it.

See you in Twitterstan, maybe.

A Psychotic Occupation...

2011-01-14T16:11:00.026+02:00

Being a "typical" woman, I guess I'd qualify my current state as "emotional".

For the past 48 hours, I have been unable to stop the replay of that conversation...maybe it was the tone and manner in which the news were delivered to me, it could have been an expression, a look in the eyes, a pause after a sentence...or maybe just the story...a story in a context, a peculiar context...

I write and I wonder will anyone understand me ? How to put in sentences the expression, the look in the eyes, the silent pause full of unspoken words ?

She's part of my family, of my bloodline, of my genetic pool, of my ancestral lineage, we grew up together, we played, fought, celebrated, dreamed, sang and danced together...

Where is she now, in which world, in which parallel universe ? She believed in the imaginary realm of fairies, angels, jinns and invisible spirits, so did I...I was lucky, she was not.

They called her to their palaces and fortresses. Will I ever be able to reach her again, like in the good old days, when dreams, fantasies and imaginations were benevolent ? When it was safe to be, knowing your psyche will find the grounds again, that familiar place where you can fall back onto, that secure garden where it was okay to wander and vagabond...

- Layla I need to talk to you, sit down...
- Allahoma ij'alu khair, I said (may God bring good news)
- your uncle just called, asking me to call your aunt...
- is that some chain of command ? protecting myself sardonically..
- it's about S. She's very unwell.
- how unwell ?
- your aunt said that she lost much weight lately, she stopped eating, she lives on a glass of water a day, and...
- and what ?!
- she sees masked men barging in the night, killing her and the rest of the family...it's been happening in their neighborhood, where people are slaugthered in the middle of the night in their homes...she stopped sleeping. When your aunt asks her to come and eat, she says she was already fed by Zahra (who passed away 20 years ago), she says that Zahra will protect her from the armed men in black masks. When they wanted to take her to a doctor, she said she was already examined, AbdelRahman (who passed away 15 years ago) already took her in a cart because there is no fuel. Your aunt says she wants to die, that she can't take it anymore, that she can't see her child suffer that way...she added that she's wearing 4 layers of clothes, because the nights are bitterly chilly and there are water cuts, electricity cuts, fuel cuts while they are filling their pockets...she says she's a prisoner in her home, she fears daily what will happen to them, a car bomb, a militia, a corrupt police force, a silencer gun, a kidnapping, an abduction, a disappearance...

A disappearance...that word stuck to my head. Is that not what S.did ? She disappeared from the reality of the Occupation, in her own way, by her own methods, where no American soldier, no security contractor, no Shiite party, no militia, no masked man, can ever find her again.

The call for the Sunset prayers just made it through, in time...a few rays of a cold sun, fell on the kitchen table...a silence hovered between us, punctuated with swallowed tears, tears gushing on the inside, flooding our being, a being shattered with years of brutality and violence, with untold stories of grief, separation, loss...with lost, missing faces buried in our memories like coffins, with sounds of guns, bombs, mortars mixed with melodies from the past, with destruction, loss of identity, loss of anchors, loss of references, loss of a vision for the future, an unknown future that promises more of the same...

The silence was pregnant with all of that...the faces composed, hardened with the secret thought --- we need to keep it together, we must keep it together, we have no option but to keep it together....because we have no familiar grounds to fall back onto, because we have no garden to give us space for dreaming, because our alternatives are either psychosis or death.

The call from the minaret with Allah Akbar was timely.

Your Decadence.

2011-01-09T12:22:00.006+02:00

I amused myself googling my own name Layla Anwar. After all why not, since names get stolen, might as well know where they end up.

I fell on this link . I clicked on it, and what do I find being marketed under my name - 2 naked porn prostitutes dressed as Santa being done over by Papa Santa. Their heads covered in red garments and their breasts and genitals exposed to the world. Their bodies contorted so their orifices are made visible, so that the god that rules what's between your thighs can have his final say. That god that pulls at your strings like paper dolls, like puppets and controls your inner being. That pagan god around which a billion dollar industry is generated just to cater for your 3 seconds masturbatory orgasm, giving you illusions of potency, strength, virility and femininity.

I looked at this picture for a while, and for me it summarized everything about your decadence.

Santa is celebrated in the Western tradition as some emblem symbol of abundance, when even though you are an adult, you still believe deep down that maybe this Santa, this Christmas, will deliver your secret desires.

Your secret desires are usually quite banal. They revolve around sex and money, the two overwhelming forces that drive your psyche. For you they represent the essence of Life.

Freud understood that, this is how he was able to market himself, and you turned him into an icon, so you can persevere in your godlessness.

It is of no coincidence that my name is associated with the above. Was not Iraq the secret object of your unbridled lust for both ?

Did you not also "fuck" us in the name of that same Santa of "abundance and prosperity", where our heads were covered in sand bags and torn veils and our lower bodies exposed to your Freedom thrusts ? All in the name of that same ethos that rules you like a tyrannical master, and has enslaved your minds to the point of rendering you irremediably blind ? I think so.

Your are doomed, you have doomed yourselves with your own hands. No Santa will save you. Mark my words.

HIJACKED

2011-01-08T19:35:00.001+02:00

Someone stole my USERNAME on Twitter laylaanwar

This person not only hijacked my name but is selling it on Twitter and Facebook. The only follower this new laylaanwar has on Twitter is a PORN site.

Moreover it has provided an email address where you can actually trade in my name.

So you fucking bastards sons of bitches, it was not enough for you to rip Iraq apart, pillage it and steal its resources, you also have to use my name to trade in and make a few dollars.

You are cheap motherfuckers, but then that's nothing new. Munch your fucking dollar bills when you are 10 feet underground. Awlad al Sharmoota

My new username on Twitter is @sommeria, until Twitter actually gets off its ass and does something about name stealing and trading.

The Culture of the Occupation.3

2011-01-07T13:33:00.002+02:00

Am on a roll, might as well get to the bottom of it...I can always crash later.

In my post no.2, I spoke of agendas, cleansing, i.e erasing...

This is totally normal. You can't impose a new culture if you don't erase the previous one.

To erase a previous one, you need to obliterate anything that held it together. That seems so evident to me. Like common sense. No ?

Was it secularism that held it together ? Destroy that. Was it a person, an intelligentsia ?Cleanse that. Was it a multi diverse culture ? Reduce it to quantifiable entities. Was it a state apparatus and a leadership ? Dismantle it. Was it a sense of belonging to a history ? Erase it and re-write the curriculum (this is actually happening in school curriculums).

What are we to conclude from 8 years of the most hideous, brutal, savage destruction ?

Was it because of Saddam Hussein ? Was it because of WMDs ? Was it because of Al-Qaeda that never existed in Iraq before the Americans occupied us ?

Surely any remotely intelligent person can answer these questions...it is so obvious.

What was the aim of 13 years of embargo and the occupation ? Come on show me your IQ's and don't you dare mention the word oil. Take into account all what I've said before.

Today there are over 13 officially acknowledged intelligence services belonging to foreign countries. Thirteen is an underestimate, some say up to 20 spying agencies in Iraq, armed to the teeth.

During Saddam Hussein's era, there was zero agency...except for the dirty Western NGO's who came for "humanitarian" reasons...to alleviate the "suffering of Iraqis". And the so called UN inspectors who were for the most part working for the CIA. FACT.

Why am I telling you all of this ?

Because am trying to show you in summary form, how to invade and occupy a country...

It's like a thousand daggers fell upon us in 2003...no one can understand that, except an Iraqi.

In parallel, a whole media warfare was waged...Wikileaks did a good job exposing some of it, the embedded journalism concept played a crucial role in how the occupation was sold to the herd...because herd you are.

The weapons, the artillery, the deaths are a natural outcome of this war that started first in your minds.

Am not done yet...this will be continued.

The Culture of the Occupation.2

2011-01-07T11:59:00.001+02:00

Am picking up where I left off...

I am writing this for myself...not for the reader. I have come to learn that the so-called reader does not effect any difference whatsoever. Hence whether s/he understands or not, does not make the slightest difference...

Against this background of "deprivation" , came an occupation with an agenda. The agenda of sect, ethnicities, religion etc...

The grounds were prepared in the early 90's. Iran with its so called Islamic Revolution had already one foot in Iraq, capitalizing on the Shiite population.

Iran was only able to fully impose itself as a cultural ideology (forget politics for the moment) in 2003 after the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Before that date, it had some influence through its Shiite clerics in Najaf and Kerbala, but that influence was limited.

The American invasion and occupation of Iraq paved the way for the erasure of the Iraqi identity coupled with the strong Iranian hallmark that accompanied this occupation.

People, laypersons refuse to acknowledge that aspect of the occupation, yet we Iraqis are so aware of it, hence our total bewilderment when we are disbelieved in our own experience of what the American occupation is all about.

Political Shiism, and its parties made headways in Iraq, (forget the North for the moment where Israelis were arming and training the Kurds).

During the years 2004 to 2009, and till this day, an ethnic cleansing has been taking place...

A cultural and ethnic cleansing of anything Iraqi.

It started in waves, batches of cleansing...first there was the ex Iraqi army officers, then the Scientists, then the Academics, then the teachers, then the Doctors and nurses, then the Sunnis then the other minorities and now the time has come for the Christians of Iraq...

These are waves of cultural and ethnic cleansing...coupled with the burning and destruction of the Iraqi national heritage such as libraries, archives, antiquities, history...

Am trying to simplify it as much as I can...am trying to simplify the unthinkable in a few lines....

The American occupation encouraged the ethnic and cultural cleansing of Iraq and of its so called minorities. It did so by using Shiite parties and militias and did its own share in enhancing, exacerbating the sectarian divide that flared up post 2003, thanks to Iranian hands.

An eagle's view shows that the aim was to erase any Arab identity to this country..and turn it into a purely Shiite theocracy affiliated to Iran and some sort of Kurdish (Israeli) free zone in the North.

I ask anyone, whomsoever reads this, to keep these details in mind. I will not repeat the American agenda no more. I have been doing that for over 5 years now. And am getting frankly tired of the repetition to thick obstinate brains...even a brick wall would have understood by now.

I need a break...will resume later.

Iraqi Women

2011-01-07T07:48:00.000+02:00

I feel very sad for Iraqi women...I feel very sad for myself.

I see them struggling day in, day out, with no support...I see them aged by a 100 years...I see them still trying to figure out what happened to them...

I feel sad for Iraqi women...for what they had to endure, what they endure today, I feel sad for their silence, their losses and the indifference that surrounds them...

I feel sadness and pride at the same time...

I know how tenacious we are.

The Culture of the Occupation. 1

2011-01-05T12:09:00.012+02:00

I was not sure how to title this post, for it is a fairly complex subject that needs to take into account several factors. I will start easy and simple and see where that will take me...

Echoes I hear from Baghdad and I will refer mainly to Baghdad as the center - the eye of the storm, so to speak, and from my observation of Iraqi refugee youth outside of Iraq, either those whose have already emigrated - been placed in another country or are still caught in a limbo, in some psychological no man's land, unable to move back or move forward...

The age group I shall focus on is the 15-25 years old or so. Bear in mind this is not an in depth sociological study nor is it meant to be. It is more like a mix of observations, experience and listening to people.

But before I do, I need to rewind back in time a little, first to the sanctions years then to the 2003 U.S occupation.

These young men and women were born during the sanction years or just a little before. The bulk of their growing up life experience in Iraq was marked by the first Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions years that lasted 13 years, in other words years perceived as years of "deprivation".

If you have not lived the sanctions you would not know what am talking about. The only image that comes to mind, a close enough picture - is one huge prison with transparent windows, where you are allowed to watch the outside the world but never participate in it.

The sanctions years were crucial in preparing the whole psychological atmosphere for what was to come later - the brutal destruction of Iraqi culture and society.

Yet despite these draconian sanctions that left the majority of Iraqis in a state of total helplessness, the societal fabric even though pulled at the seams, had not cracked open yet, nor did it disintegrate like in the subsequent post 2003 years.

It remained a deeply secular society in its intra sect /intra ethnic dealings. Religion played a role ,sure, but remained confined to the personal and overall cultural realm. After all, Iraq is an Arab country and Islamic contributions to the world came forth from the Abbassid period, where Baghdad was one of the most important centers of learning and contributions to world civilization. But Religion, never NEVER occupied the center stage as it has done post 2003.

A parenthesis here - Every time I attempt to write an overall picture of the Iraq of before and after, I need to take a break, a choking feeling grips me in my throat and the rage rises again, like some lava from a volcano unwilling to die down.

That is why, when I hear shits of Westerners talk of the Iraq of before and after, in particular the garbage Americans the so called experts who made a fortune dissecting us like insects, in occupied Iraq, I honestly want to go for their jugular, literally... These are opportunistic bastards who came late on the scene and are still aiming for a best seller. They sicken me, my contempt for them sickens me...

That is why I refuse, categorically to read ANYTHING, any analysis of the War on Iraq by an American - apart from an occasional article that never fails to make me cringe with disgust.

Teachers in Disguise...

2011-01-03T04:31:00.002+02:00

I've had a few but great teachers...but one teacher that never abdicated is Iraq.

She has been my biggest teacher and to Her am indebted for ever...Through her I learned so much, through her pain, her suffering, her sacrifices, her steadfastness, her dignity, even through her treachery...I learned.

She is my Master. She gives sweet and sour fruits...she made me taste the honey and the bitter arsenic...

She promised the Gods to sacrifice herself for Truth, so it can be revealed to the end of Times...

She never failed in Her promise.

Democracies in 2011.

2011-01-01T04:57:00.009+02:00

Seriously, what does Democracy mean ?

What does it REALLY mean ? Freedom of Speech and Majority Rule ?

Someone define that fucking word to me. Because after 7 years of liberation, I still don't get it.

What does democracy mean ?

The grocer next door is selling toilet paper called Freedom and Democracy. Bought a roll in hard currency....he said to me - only dollars will do.

I found the paper too hard on my ass...

Went back to him, complaining, said to him - this paper is too hard on my soft skin. He told me the price was worth paying...

He had memorized the Madeleine Albright democrat cunt a few years prior...who stated when over half a million soft skins of Iraqi babes went blank with death, that American democratic cunt said - she said - the price was worth it

What does your fucking word - your fucking democracy - mean ? apart from some sore ass caught in some freedom dungeon...apart from a mass grave for children.

Goodbye 2010

2010-12-31T12:31:00.013+02:00

I am looking forward to a new year and have prepared a few rituals to close the door on 2010.

All this is very symbolic, but a necessary rite of passage...

I have no resolutions to mention, I believe in transformation, not resolutions...I believe in metamorphosis not lists of - I must, I should...This, on a purely personal level.

Insofar as Iraq is concerned, I am not optimistic. The American/Iranian destruction has been too deeply structurally ravaging - generations of Iraqis will be paying the price of your evilness for decades to come.

I might be closing the door on 2010, but one thing I will never let go of, is my deep contempt and loathing for the United States of America.

I see you as midgets, the midgets of history and no amount of new year resolutions will change that, not in 2011, not in 2020....and no amount of rituals, magic or prayers will lift that cruel but sweet and well deserved karma you will be collectively facing. Of that am sure.

The Dead, the Missing, the Maimed, the Amputated, the Wounded, the Traumatized, the Deformed, the Widows, the Orphans, the Exiled of Iraq wish you a Happy 2011.

The Final Chapter...

2010-12-30T04:22:00.003+02:00

I just spent a whole hour giving birth to a poem
so called poem
a few lines
wrenched from my guts
with the forceps of a Condi Rice
propelled from my womb
with phosphorus labor pangs

My connection to the outside world
died on me
I lost my poem
my few lines
from a final chapter
from a long lost
forgotten book...

My connection died on me
like others died on me
slumping like pieces of wood
in my arms
charcoal brown
a withered dried leaf
in Autumn
blue, a Summer sky
pastel pale
budding flowers in Spring
white as a snow flake
a full moon
in a crispy cold
Winter night.

My connection died on me
this is not the first time
me who wanted
to write heroic epics
made of magical numbers and codes
made of lost dwellings
and secret rites
of an ancient people.

I lost my lines
the lines of a final chapter
from a never ending story...
This is my final chapter
a few sentences
from a poem betting
on connections...

This is my final chapter
from a long love story
a romance
with ghosts
where lovers
meet in graves,
erect tomb stones
in each other's names...

This is my final chapter
a graffiti of Freedom
sprayed on brick walls
dividing you
dividing me,
dividing me.

Plastered on my words
drowning my voice
cheap posters
images
of chadors and unshaven men
with yellowed teeth
yellowed like the book
am holding in my hand
the long lost book...

This is my final chapter
my final cry
my final tear.

This is my final chapter
my Love
time has come
to bury
you.

Baghdad's Bloody Xmas Leaks...

2010-12-25T19:21:00.004+02:00

Merry Christmas? Happy Holidays? Season's Greetings? What Christmas, what Holidays, what Greetings?!

Another Christmas has gone by and the American Santa has delivered us nothing but body bags and blood containers...

Now that Arab Sunnis have been ethnically cleansed and exiled in thousands, it is the Iraqi Christians turn.

For the Festivities, they closed down their Churches, ripped the decoration, packed their suitcases and forced themselves into a permanent exile.

Around this time of the year, between the 24 and 31st of December, the corrupt criminal Jingle Bell boys installed by the US Santa are sure to deliver you some goodies...

No wonder this time of the year is the most painful one for me. Excruciatingly so.

Moreover a friend in Baghdad, I'll call him/her A.sent me the following :

I don't know where to start...there is no day that goes by without news of assassinations and killings. The use of the Silencer gun is their preferred method. Just a few days ago, there was another murder a few streets from where we live. The guy was found dumped on the road! Again, a few days ago there was another killing with the Silencer in the Yarmuk area, the body had no ID.

The Silencer has become quite popular. These are deaths I have heard about through friends and some death are so near by... and every other day a member of my family comes home and tells me another person has been killed. Killings are taking place in broad day light even in busy areas... for instance, a couple of people were walking by and all of a sudden some guy just falls over shot with a silencer gun. Some people are saying it reminds them of 05 06 07 when they woke up and found people dead on the streets. Sometimes there are 2 or 3 assassinations a day...many of them we dont know much about because its only word of mouth, things dont get out much here.

Just got today there were HEAPS of Silencer killings today... In Mansour apparently the treasurer of Malikis party was killed and director general of ministry of electricity...those are the known people, the others are unknown. Some say they wonder how they've even managed to dodge all the killings that are going on, its getting worse day by day. Needless to add, there are also daily explosions.

Freedom of speech is as you know very rare, I don't know if I can survive living here any longer, you're not allowed an opinion and you're not allowed to be outspoken in any way. On 5th of December in the Afternoon a journalist was killed in the Mansour area...in broad daylight. People were saying that he was more or less outspoken (probably spoke out against the government). Oh and he was also killed with the Silencer gun.

Christians families are moving out of Baghdad to the North on their way out of the country.
One family I heard of, came back from the North to pack the remaining of their belongings, they were slaughtered outside their house.

People are feeling particularly unsafe this month and all are trying to avoid going out. There is a weird feeling going around, a great feeling of uncertainty. And the rise in assassinations with silencer guns is quite frightening...

Oh and before the electricity goes out, did you know that the government is planning on closing all clubs, even family clubs!

end of message.

That shit radio is playing yet another Christmas song...something in me is dying, it's already dead...

I haven't really celebrated anything since 2003.

And nothing since December 2006.

American Blues...

2010-12-18T04:16:00.005+02:00

Truth be told, I tremendously dislike you...at times I vehemently hate you.

Iraq apart...aside, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and the rest aside,

I find you petty, stupid, dumb, uncultured and uncivilized...

I hate your fucking chewing gum, your lifestyle, your ideals, and your ideas...I happen to believe you have no ideas. To have an idea presupposes you are capable of independent thought...which, alas, is not the case.

I also tremendously dislike your left, your anti war politically correct crowd. I find them opportunistic, shallow, parrot like, and anyone can buy them with a buck ($) or two.

I don't respect America. Truth be told.

I don't respect America or Americans...

In my hearts of hearts, despite your technology, your death industry, very potent I must add..
Despite your trying so hard to "alternatively" cultivate yourselves here and there...

I find you quite provincial.

Not only do I find you provincial...in your mind frame, in your ways of being, I also find you terrible naive in an devilish sort of way...

Your lies disturb me, tremendously so. No matter how much you are told the truth, you will stick to any lie that is convenient for you...

Since you are a people who can't see beyond their navels, in other words, totally myopic - regardless of how much you've been around - you are a people that does not interest me the least bit.

You are boring, you are predictable, you are basically full of bullshit.

You have fully become the stereotype you struggle against.

Struggle is a big word...

No American has truly struggled in anything, nor on any front...You are fucking drama queens...inventing enemies and fronts to give you a raison d'être...

Your men are boring, your women are even more so, and your nasal shit of an accent is an affront to anything called "harmony of the senses".

Nothing in you impresses me. Nor your left, nor your right, nor your so called intellectuals...nor God forbid, your academics.

For me, your're like American idol- the show. You like to think you're a cause célèbre, but you're totally perdue. LOST.

Besides, no one outside your borders gives a fuck about you as a "people". Sorry but that's the honest truth.

Yeah, that's the way it is.

I wonder why ?!

Iraqi Blues...

2010-12-18T02:56:00.000+02:00

A Open Letter to the Iraqis.

You must know, it is not you who keeps me going, it is Iraq.
It is the collective memory, the collective consciousness that keeps me going...not you.

You are a sham of a people.
It hurts me to say so publicly but that is the truth.

I am not an idiot. I understand people and where they come from...I know the pain and I know the apprehension, the fear, the shut up keep quiet...
This is not to minimize the wounds
nor to bury the scars
this is a plea for a Revolt
not even a plea
just a statement, an open letter...

I am so disappointed in you
all of you
specially those of you on the outside
I am no idiot
I know you're still alive
I know you're struggling
and I know how opportunistic you have become...

It shames me
I want to hide in shame
cover myself in blankets
of forgetfulness...

This is not what I learned
this is not what I saw
before
before...

I am not sure anymore
if there's a before
if there's an after

All I know is
lives gone in vain
sacrificed for you
And you
you
where are you ?

I see no point fighting
in the cemeteries
of Conscience

Green cards, titles, Members of Parliament
special passes and body guards.

You jumped on a bandwagon
that takes you nowhere
you are dead
already dead...

I must call it an open letter to the Dead
I stand a better chance
to be heard.

Iraq Will Not Go On The Back Burner.

2010-12-16T07:16:00.007+02:00

Yeah you read me right, Iraq will not go on the back burner.

What the fuck is this ?! I am everywhere...I read, I observe, I hear.. All of you should be repeating IRAQ day in, day out...yes Iraq, a WHOLE country gone because of your silence...a WHOLE nation, a WHOLE people...

What the fuck is this ?! Someone slap me, someone pinch me...I can't believe the Silence.

I repeat -- a US military armada greater than the size of the one used during World War II invaded this country, a country the size of California and that during the 21st century-- the age of Human rights, the age of the Global Village, the age of Democracy. And you are still silent?

During World War 2, the civilian cost was roughly 45%. During Vietnam it was 70% and during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq it is at 90%.

And you are still silent ? I can't fucking believe it!

What are you trying to tell me here ? Are you trying to tell me that this a fait accompli and I should accept it ? If this is so -- then, accept the Israeli Jewish Zionist occupation of Palestine.

I am disgusted with you lot, I am disgusted and my disgust knows no nationality, no boundaries, no frontiers...

I am also disgusted with the fucking Iraqis...

I can't believe it. Not over my dead body, Iraq will never go on the back burner.

Broken Bottle Blues...

2010-12-15T19:48:00.041+02:00

Refer to my previous post first.

Some wrote to me wanting "clarifications" regarding the video I referred to in my previous "rant".

First, I have already translated this video into English and it was published on Uruknet some weeks ago.

So here we go again.

Video is of Jaysh Al-Mahdi army of Muqtada Al-Sadr (who wants a ban on bottles of alcoholic drinks) torturing by sodomizing a detainee with a broken bottle. In beginning of video which I forced myself to watch over 3 times for the sake of Truth

-the torturer says: are you going to talk or do you want the bottle again.
-the man pleads with him, more like shrieks like a regressed infant about to rejoin the womb again.
- the man gets sodomized again and you can hear his screams
- the man dies
- the aide says he's dead.
- the torturer asks again - is he dead for sure, bring the electrical cables
- another voice says throw water on him to wake him up
- another man says - no he's dead for sure.
- the man is dead from sodomy by a broken bottle in the New Iraq.

I want this video circulated widely with the brief translation that I have just given you now. And I want it shoved in the Western, Muslim and Arab faces of the pro-Iran - antiwar, liberal, progressive, left accomplices in the death of this detainee. One death out of thousands in the new Iraq of Freedom and Democracy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and vomit my guts out.

Drilling Blues...

2010-12-14T06:32:00.007+02:00

My life seems to be made out of Blues...postnasal blues, drilling blues, woman's blues, Iraqi blues...

Is it the blues or is it an obsession ?

Maybe am obsessed...am totally obsessed, possessed more like it...maybe it's the "aura" of the "anti American" "fiery nationalistic cleric" Muqtada Al-Sadr that has taken hold of me. Maybe I can't shake off those Muqtada Blues...

It's not that I have anything against fat bastards with rotting teeth...as long as I am not asked to kiss them, or be forced to kiss them...in the context of the Shiastan blues.

In present day Iraq, if you can't afford to kiss, you are drilled...okay you were drilled, now you're just playfully poked, jabbed with manual screw drivers or you're just sodomized to death like in this video courtesy of the Jaysh Al-Mahdi now re-baptized as some cultural and charity organization who plays poker politics and vies the Ministries of "Education, Culture, Trade, Finance, Health"...to the great pleasure of the antiwar and leftists crapolas on Iran's payroll.

You see in the new Iraq all is permissible - trafficking of children, sexual slavery as in Muta'a temporary marriages for 10$ till contract do us part, having your ass grilled on barbecues as a form of torture (cannibalism coming soon), sodomy till death do us part, abductions, kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, day light killings, stealing, theft, corruption...all of that is permissible...really. You're really fine if you engage in any or all of the above activities/hobbies. But...

But please...you need to respect the local "conservative" "Islamic" "culture" of the country, you need to respect morals and have a modicum of decency...hence, sorry you're not allowed to consume any alcoholic drink...that would be most "haram". You will be surely trespassing against the laws of God and the Vilayat al Faqih from Qum - Iran. That will make the Ayatollahs and the Mullahs most displeased...

You shall not be blessed no more in the new Iraq with 2.8 ethanol running in your veins.

Listen, as long as we can sodomize you till death, you're fine..but please don't drink and don't drink and smoke and don't drink and drive...OK?

Ah, never mind me ! Just got a bad case of the drilling blues...

Post Nasal Blues ...

2010-12-09T05:23:00.004+02:00

I get a weird form of Sinusitis...the doc calls it postnasal drip. So when the cold or "kewl" season arrives, I take all my precautions...

I'm an obsessive Arab. I wash everything. But I can't wash away those nasal blues...

The other day, I overheard that postnasal drip. I was kind of stuck, could not run for the nearest exit, as I usually do, in such unfortunate circumstances.

That squeaky, mousy, nasal shit was being drilled in my ears...like some long whine, a never ending whine...

I have sensitive ears...I do, really.

And these drawn out words were doing me in...

I felt the panic rise in me...breath deep woman. In, out...inhale, exhale...

This is what happens to me every time I hear an American accent...something in me snaps and flips.

I shared that with a friend ...who assured me I was not insane. He told me -- you just have the American postnasal blues and it keeps dripping...

Yeah, Iraq again !

2010-12-06T02:35:00.001+02:00

I am really sorry to bother you...I know you have more important things. Health insurance, tax cuts, BP spill and another flotilla to Gaza.

Yeah it's Iraq again. And will always be.

I will not let this GENOCIDE go by. I will not allow the Holocaust of Freedom and Democracy vanquish me...so it's Iraq again on the agenda. I put it on the agenda, top priority, top of the list.

Iraq, a country the size of California, where by the words of a General of the US.army, (Odierno), has witnessed the BIGGEST, LARGEST movement of military equipment -- the US armada --since WORLD WAR II.

In other words, since World War II there has not been anything similar...for a country the size of California.

World War II ? Do any of you read history at all ? Do you know how many allies there were during World War II ? And during World War II, military technology was not as "advanced".

Iraq, the size of California, a "third world" country, broken by over 10 years of sanctions, and all this military might to defeat the "enemy". And you expect me to let it go just like that and concentrate on your tax cuts, health insurance, spills and flotillas ?

Oh boy, you don't really know what a true Iraqi is.

Fact of the matter is I will NEVER let it go. Not until some Justice is done. Like it or not - that's the way it is and that's the way it shall be...

No one talks of Iraq anymore...hardly ever. Re-read what I just wrote above.

Fuck it, I will not let those bastards drive us into the shadows of cemeteries. I claim life by claiming words.

Yet I feel so powerless...an old keyboard, hundreds of articles, hundreds of testimonies and a lonely voice. Where are the Iraqis ?

Did they all become ghosts of this Occupation ? Is there anyone at home ?

At times I want to give up...this is not something I can do alone...I am not superwoman, ignorance surrounds me like a thick wall of silence...I try to keep that tiny flame alive in me...in the darkness. Its death means mine.

No, I will not let them erase it.

Facing my old keyboard and typing these words, incoherent at times, is my only sanity...

No I will not let them erase it.

It's Iraq again.

Blow it Away...To a suicide Bomber.

2010-12-04T02:44:00.005+02:00

I understand the need to blow up, explode...I see where you, the poor you is coming from...I understand what you've been through, how they managed to capitalize on your pain...

Most likely, you're still young, a starter, wanting to do it well...wanting to gain favors, you who have lost it all.

See that body laying there in pieces...it's yours.

Next to it lies tens of other bodies...dispersed like flowers in a field...a field, a garden, you've always wanted to visit.

I went to the butcher this afternoon

He's in the habit of selling dead meat

He's a kind man...he's doing his best.

I went to the vegetable stalls,

He's 40 something, has 5 kids, and is God fearing

maybe he does cheat a little every now and then

but his crime is nothing compared to yours...

Looking Back...

2010-12-03T15:19:00.004+02:00

I have to rush out but I really need to write down those impressions before heading for the door...

I went through my usual Friday morning ritual; buy the daily paper, and go for a coffee. I always try to find a secluded corner - I hate noise, and am not too friendly with crowds. I found a nice spot by the window. I like being by the window, makes me feel part of the outside world yet this transparent glass acts like some barrier, frontier, border, separation...a necessary distance.

Ten minutes later, 2 elderly couples walked in, they must have been in their mid to late 70's. Am not really good at guessing ages - anything beyond 40 is difficult for me to figure out.

At first, I felt an annoyance stir up in me, after all I went to great length to find that exact spot and now it's being invaded by two couples. But they looked jovial and happy, the ladies were elegantly dressed and the husbands looked caring. A refreshing breeze from the usual stale energy and the deep frowning lines engraved like some national trademark, some stamp of national recognition...

My slight irritation eased off as I observed these two couples reminiscing with joy at some past stories. They talked of a certain wedding where the bride tripped, a cousin's birthday party, a vacation they took together...and they found it all very amusing, laughing their heads off...

They were looking back in time...

I noticed that about the elderly, whenever they converse together or when you actually take time to talk to them and listen, they will almost always refer to the past...to some reservoir of memories and souvenirs that they have kept like a photo album in their minds...

Could it be that when one reaches old age, the future is no longer relevant ? Could it be that when you are in your 70's, 80's and death is sure to knock on your door, leading you to the Unknown -- the past becomes your anchor, your raison d'être to continue your remaining days with a little joy ?

From my observations, I feel this is very much the case.

Of course, as in situations like this one, my mind always takes me back to Iraq...and I wondered what will the elderly of Iraq fall back onto ? What kind of memories and souvenirs ?

I noticed the glass window separating me from the outside world growing denser, more opaque, misty, as if covered with a fog, a cloud of smoke and exhaling breaths...

The place was slowly filling up, it was time for me to find another spot.

Iraqi Wajd...

2010-12-01T05:00:00.001+02:00

Wajd in Arabic can mean trance, ecstasy, passion, rapture...

Halet Wajd means a state of trance, ecstasy, passion, rapture.

Iraq despite and in spite of it all -- still inspires me with all the above.

Youtube : Nasser Shamaa, Iraqi Artist, composer and Oud virtuoso. uploaded by saeed885

Crucified Fragments...

2010-11-28T19:19:00.002+02:00

Iraq's mosaic, social fabric has disintegrated - that's it. I do not want to hear any bastard talk of national reconciliation no more. There is no national reconciliation because there is no national project and there is no national culture because there is no Nation-State and no Nation left.

This is the stark Truth. A destroyed, disintegrated, torn, fragmented, crucified country. Crucified at the altar of American democracy and freedom, crucified at the altar of Iranian political Shi'ism, crucified in the offices of big business contracts, crucified in an oil field. Crucified and abandoned. Will it ever resurrect ? I don't think so - I have lost faith. God has abandoned us. And I want to shout - Oh Lord why have you forsaken us ?!

Yesterday - 265 Iraqi Christians families have fled from Baghdad and Mosul to Erbil. They were carrying a blanket, a pillow and a few belongings. They are roaming the streets of Erbil to find a place to sleep. One said - we can't even find a tent.

A Christian committee has been set up and they declared the following : We are Iraqis, we will not follow the Western agenda that is urging us to leave our country - into exile. This is our land. We demand autonomous self rule in the plains of Nineveh.

Is there more to say ?

Open Chapters in Dungeons...

2010-11-27T06:44:00.049+02:00

I am starting to sound like some old woman - you know, the one who keeps repeating the same story and everyone around nods their head in politeness and once she turns her back, they raise their eyebrows as if to say --- yeah it's her again, she's at it again !

Well yes, am at it again. Why shouldn't I ? What has changed for me to change that "broken record"?

How many of you can live a "normal" life not knowing what has happened to the people you care for ?!

I still don't know where O. is and if he's still alive. It's a big mystery. Why can't anyone tell us ? What is this Freedom where you simply disappear and no one knows anything about your whereabouts ? Is he dead, is he alive, where is he, what happened, if dead where is his body, in which mass grave, who saw him last, in which prison, was he badly tortured, how did he die, did he die, can we keep hope, can we still wait some more, can anyone tell us anything ? these are questions I live with daily...

I still want to know what happened to O. I need closure, I need to close a chapter, a story, I need to add it to the list of victims of Freedom and Democracy...I need to know. This not knowing is driving us crazy...it sounds rather expedient, matter of fact, kind of - let's get on with it...we have no options...we must get on with it. But we still need to close chapters. Excuse me if that bothers you, if that's too much of a demanding exigent request, but yes, we're willing to face death, as long as we can close chapters...or maybe that's too much to ask? Maybe we're not allowed that basic thing...maybe we're supposed to stay in a limbo forever...suspended in between life and death like some purgatory for unknown sins...or maybe the sin of his name - O. for Omar.

I finally managed to get news from K. We now know in which dungeon he's been taken to again, again, and fucking again. K. was detained by the Americans, then transferred to the Shia forces - in both instances he was badly tortured, but when I met him last time, after his first release, he told me that the Shia forces were worse than the Americans. He was electrocuted in his private parts and his wrist went paralyzed from hanging from a hook. He's over 65 years old.

When he was released the first time, after much bribes and extortion money, he kept sleeping in different locations so that his Mukhber - the spy who receives a commission from the government - does not arrest him again.

Two months ago, K.was arrested again, and we did not know his whereabouts...finally we received news via a janitor. He's been tortured again, electrocuted again in his private parts and again they are demanding extortion money to release him - 50'000 dollars.

Again there are no charges against him - his only crime - he's a Sunni Arab.

That means that Sunni Arabs will always be preys for this sectarian Shia government. No matter how much money we're willing to secure for his release, they will always find another excuse to arrest, and torture one of us.

Their message is clear - they want us all out of the country...they are telling us you don't belong here..they are telling us -- we will keep on making your life hell...

K's family refuses to leave. They say -- this is our country. K. will probably not survive this second round of torture/punishment for being a Sunni Arab. Still, the family is obstinate.

They said to me - We are here to stay.

Like open chapters in secret dungeons...

Further reading to confirm the above -- since most of you are lazy ignorant cynics who can't be bothered to read and are gullible enough to only believe your own press - so read that : Iraqi's Sunnis view Justice system as cudgel.

Iraq : An American-Iranian Ecological Disaster.

2010-11-26T21:01:00.010+02:00

I wanted to go for a long walk, and breath some fresh air, but I changed my mind. I have stored yesterday's information in my mind and scribbled a few facts on a piece of paper and I do not wish to lose any of the data. This is urgent. Dead urgent, like everything else in Iraq.

I have written before maybe not a great length, about the ecological disaster that has befallen Iraq following the American occupation in 2003. A multifaceted environmental crisis which has already produced some bitter fruits.

There is of course the million of years life span contamination of Iraqi soil and water with Depleted Uranium, and I suppose by now, the reader is familiar with the effects of D.U on Iraqi people and their health system, with the soaring birth defects, and cancer rates among children not sparing women, men nor the elderly. A quick search on Falluja and Basra will be a good reminder.

Besides D.U there is also the destruction of arable land. The Americans proceeded to burn entire agricultural fields, orchards and palm trees. By way of example, in the past Iraq had 350 different kinds of dates and used to export dates to the whole world, today it imports dates.

The destruction of arable land was also exacerbated with the drought situation in Iraq. The diminishing levels of water from the two major rivers due to Iran, Syria and Turkey basically diverting the water flow to their countries, through the construction of illegal dams -- despite signed protocols and agreements between Iraq and these countries. The drought had become so severe that Iraq had to beg Turkey for some water last year. Iran on the other hand has been let off the hook for obvious reasons - it has a government in Baghdad.

But there are more aspects to the nefarious Iranian role in Iraq besides having a government in central Baghdad and stealing water...Iran dumps its radioactive nuclear waste in the Anbar province and of course no one talks about the cancer rates in the Anbar, and it also dumps daily an efflux in cubic meters of polluted industrial sewage water through three huge pipes from the Khuzestan province into Shatt Al-Arab in Basra.

Shat Al-Arab is the main source of water for the whole southern area of Iraq. The dumping of industrial toxic waste and sewage into that strait meant a higher salinity of the waters and in the space of a few weeks due to the contamination and salinity of the water 17km of Basra's agricultural lands are no longer of use. They basically dried up with the industrial toxic salts. If this trends continue, all of Basra's arable land will die. The ratio is roughly 40 cubic meters of dumped industrial poison a day causes 3km of arable (Arab) land to vanish. So far Iran has dumped between 40'000 to 65'000 TDS (total dissolved solids) of toxic waste.

Independent Iraqi environmental experts are already talking of an another ecological disaster in the South, the extinction of flora and fauna, the end of biodiversity in that area, and most important the irremediable contamination of water that is used for drinking and agriculture.

Despite the fact that both Iran and Iraq are signatories to various Environmental agreements including the RAMSAR agreement of 1971 and the Rio agreement of 1992 plus other bilateral protocols (that includes Syria and Turkey by the way), it seems that none of these agreements have been respected. Iraqi environmentalist are urging to take Iran to the international court of Justice to stop this disaster from engulfing the whole Iraqi provinces.

Iran of course could process its industrial waste in a different manner instead of dumping it into Shatt Al-Arab, polluting, contaminating and contributing to the death of the Iraqi south, but Iran considers Iraq its garbage dump. The sectarian Shia government in Baghdad ensures it does.

And there is much more to the Iraqi ecological disaster...but I will content myself with the above for today.

Discourses in the Aftermath...

2010-11-24T19:46:00.006+02:00

Someone remarked the other day - "Tweeting/reading/blogging about Iraq is simply super depressing. And am just an outside observer! "

Yes so true. It is super depressing.

Going daily through material related to post liberated Iraq leaves me hopeless, enraged, traumatized, gasping in horror at the extent of the hideous, heinous, grotesque acts that have been committed and are still committed in the name of Freedom.

Daily I go through not less than 50 articles, in Arabic and in English...I watch out for a sentence, a line, a word that will reveal the bigger picture...hidden underneath layers of politically correct garbage reporting and journalism.

I am still to finish my reflections on the Wikileaks war logs - and am exhausted, am mentally exhausted of being one of the few that sees the whole bloody picture staring me, glaring me in the eye, in my waking days and in my sleep, while others are still trying to sweep it under the thick carpet of silence, breaking the already shattered Truth into tinier shards of piercing glass, tucking it in between the lines of discourses, twisting the spiked broken glass, and sticking it somewhere in a text, in an article, in an interview with the dexterity of a devilish magician.

I watch out for words, syntax construction, omissions...and through these I see in no time where the author is coming from and what his/her political agenda is.

This is how discourses are constructed and maintained through their subliminal messages and omissions.

Some are quite sophisticated, others less so, but once you get the knack of it, it is so easy to spot them, read between the lines and figure out the manipulations, the deliberate use and twisting of words with the aim of burying the Truth even further.

The task of reconstructing that Truth is monumental because insofar as Iraq is concerned, there has not been at any time in History, such a cover up.

The reader needs to understand that this occultation of the Truth is done on many levels.
From the camouflage of real data - figures, to the concealment of gross human rights violations - arbitrary executions and the most sadistic forms of torture and rape, to the secrecy of daily killings that go unreported. And it does not stop there.

It does not step there because you also have the "aftermath of the Liberation". The thousands untold stories of the after effect of Liberation : stories of ethnic cleansing, stories of cultural cleansing, stories of rape, stories of post torture trauma and lives that will never become whole again, stories of disease from toxic contamination, stories of sex trade and trafficking, stories of lost lives in exile, stories of daily violence and disappearance, stories of loss of references and anchors, stories of displacement, stories of destitution and poverty, stories of usurpation, profiteering, exploitation, extortion embezzlement, corruption, theft...and it does not stop here either...

So daily, I try to retrace that Truth, through the hundreds of untold stories...because that picture must remain whole in my mind. And am vigilant, very vigilant...on my guards, on the look out for that word, that sentence, that discourse that tries to obliterate that Truth.

I will use two cases here to illustrate my point, by way of example. By no means exhaustive examples...just a sample of the kind of discourses that are maintained from both political poles - Right and Left. And hopefully their mendacity will be revealed.

Let me start with an article by Christopher Hitchens. I can't go through all of it, I suggest you read it. In that article C.Hitchens is hoping that Tariq Aziz's death penalty be lifted. What a noble thing to do! And in that same article Hitchens goes on to praise the humanism of Jalal Talabani (noting that his party is a member of the Socialist International), he mentions en passant the "extermination of the Kurds", and in the same vein gives an overview of the "terrifying regime" of Saddam Hussein, the beastly declarations of Tariq Aziz on Iran and his atrocious crimes against Shias, links Baathism to Terrorism only to conclude that Jalal Talabani - the social democratic humane and brave puppet of the American occupation must be given the full sympathy he merits by the West.

What has started as an appeal to lift the death sentence against a Tariq Aziz, an ailing sick man imprisoned by the American occupation ends as a bolstering of that same occupation and a praise for its puppets.

Not one word is mentioned about the daily executions and bestial torture that goes on in Iraq's dungeons by Americans, Iranians and their Shia and Kurdish supporters in the "Democratic Humane" Iraq.

The above example is rather blatant, well to me it is. Let me give you a more difficult one to decrypt and decode.

The other day I was zapping and landed on CNN, a TV station I never watch as a rule of thumb. But this time around I did. I saw Nir Rosen being interviewed about his latest book on Iraq. I had in the past read Nir Rosen's articles and they left me unimpressed. Nir Rosen is supposedly an anti war writer. If one can qualify him that way that is. He visited Iraq a couple of times, pretending to be an Iraqi, he looks kind of Arab (his Iranian and Israeli origins did help) and was even a short guest of Muqtada Al-Sadr boys, under their protection so to speak.

So in that interview he was being asked questions about Iraq and how he saw the Future of this bleeding country - in the Aftermath...

On the surface, his replies to the CNN questions sounded good. He mentioned ethnic cleansing, he said that there is no democracy, he mentioned torture...but then he said a few other things that gave him away. He said that the structure of a "representative government" in Iraq has been established, and that it will take time for this government to conduct Iraqi affairs according to the laid structure. Then when talking about ethnic cleansing and current Shia sectarianism - he said en passant, now that the Sunnis have been defeated...

I was watching this with my mom. We both grabbed our slippers ready to shoot them at the TV screen. The only thing that prevented us is that we can't afford a new TV. Even my mom who never heard of Nir Rosen, never read his articles, does not know where he's from, is unaware of his "leftist anti war" stands, saw the twisting and the plot of the discourse.

So what Nir Rosen is basically telling the world is the following : The American occupation of Iraq did lay the foundation for a representative government. OK, there's ethnic cleansing of Arab Sunnis, but they were defeated. Re-read these sentences, they are textual.

A more representative government in Iraq implies that the previous one was not. It implies that Shias and Kurds were disfranchised in their political representation. Exactly what the neocons and the theorists for the Occupation of Iraq have been harping on for the past 20 years.

Now the second sentence - yes there was ethnic cleansing but the Arab Sunnis were defeated. That means that the Sunnis engaged in a war with the Shias and were defeated. They're out of the equation. So again Nir Rosen is reiterating what has been shoved down our throats for the past 7 years, namely that Saddam Hussein and his government was an Arab Sunni government, but that in the aftermath of the invasion (because Nir Rosen there is no Aftermath of the Occupation - we are still occupied - unless you consider Iraq to be sovereign now) the Sunnis engaged in a war against the Shias hence were defeated through ethnic cleansing.

Is this not the same discourse we've been hearing all those years ?! Namely Iraqis killing each other in a civil war, because the Sunni insurgents bombed the Samarra shrine, and that Shias and Kurds have been so oppressed and now finally the Arab Sunnis who are really insurgents read terrorists, are finally defeated. And after all, yes there's no true democracy in Iraq, but there are the structures for a representative government in occupied Baghdad.

I called on Nir Rosen with the crafty crap he spewed on CNN - he said that I confused explanations, descriptions and justifications. Basically he was telling me I understand nothing about my own country and what happened to it -- because only the likes of Nir Rosen (travelling incognito to Baghdad a couple of times under the protection of the Mahdi Army) and the likes of C.Hitchens understand really what is taking place in Iraq.

And before I wrap up - Did you notice the most obvious ? Not yet ? Well please do next time you read anything on current Iraq - notably : despite the fact that article after article mentions the extensive torture, executions, and killings in Iraq's prisons, be it in the North, South or central Baghdad, (UNHCR figures: 1 in 5 Iraqis have been tortured since 2003) not once did I read from the Right or the Left that Iraq today is a terrifying oppressive Dictatorship and that Maliki is a brutal Tyrant.

Ladies and Gents, the occultation of the Truth through such discourses is the occultation of Iraq and her people.

And this was EXACTLY the American Iranian and Israeli goal.

Iraqi Christians - Who is behind their Massacre & Exodus ?

2010-11-17T20:56:00.011+02:00

I said it on Twitter and will repeat it again here - You can't divorce the death sentence issued against Tariq Aziz - an Iraqi Christian and FM under Saddam Hussein and the latest spate of violence and murder committed against Iraqi Christians.

In Baghdad - the blame is laid on Al-Qaeda. In the following article, you will see for yourselves who Al-Qaeda Iraq is. Iraqi Christians in Baghdad also point the finger to Jaysh Al-Mahdi of Muqtada Al-Sadr. (article here)

In the North, in Mosul in particular there's a massive exodus of Iraqi Christians, either outside the country or to the outskirts of the Nineveh province. Hundreds of Iraqi Christians have closed down their businesses and are living in rented Churches, in dire conditions.

Information that I've been receiving lay the blame on the Iraqi forces (loyal to Maliki and the Shiite parties) and the Kurdish militia called the Peshmergas.

Below is an email I just received regarding the massacre of Iraqi Christians in Baghdad. Read it till the end.

AL-MALIKI AND IRAN WERE BEHIND IT

Ibrahim Ebeid , Iraq Palestine Committee

November 14, 2010

Iraq, known in history as the Cradle of Civilization, never knew terrorism. Security, progress and pursuit of happiness were enjoyed by all its citizens and residents until the Cradle of Civilization was invaded and occupied by the dual occupiers of the odd couple, the United States and Iran. Their intent was to weaken Iraq, rip it apart, and to destroy it. They would not be content until they eradicated Iraq’s Arab identity and stole its wealth as spoils of war.

The chief terrorists, Maliki, his Dawa Party, the Badr Brigades, the Supreme Islamic Council of Hakim and others were trained and financed by Iran and installed as “rulers in the “Green Zone” by the United States. They and their sectarian militias are behind the mass murder that is occurring in Iraq on a daily basis.

The attack on the Lady of Salvation Church was designed and executed by Maliki and Iran. A reputable source, Munathamat Al-Rasd wal Maloomat Al-Wataniah, an Iraqi monitoring intelligence organization, informed The Iraq Palestine Committee with the following information:

Murtaza Kashmiri , a high ranking commander in the Iranian Itlaat planned and supervised the criminal attack on the church in Baghdad with the approval and blessing of Maliki’s office headed by Sadeq Al-Rikabi a close confidant of Maliki.

Al-Rikabi is a long time Itlaat agent who was recruited in 1986, his code name Abou Jaafar al Iraqi. He took part with Dawa Party in bombing and blowing up the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut on December 15, 1981.

Seven people were recruited to commit the crime; two of them knew about the plot between Itlaat and Maliki, while the others only knew that they were going to participate in a “jihadi” mission. All of them were salafis, fundamentalists, close to al Qaeda operating in Chechnya. Only the leaders of the group, Ahmed al-Shishani and Sibghatullah, fought in Afghanistan and Iraq with al Qaeda, which is financed by Iran.

The terrorists were instructed to attack a church. They were given a cell phone number to contact, supposedly belongs to the Ministry of the Interior and were told to speak classical Arabic demanding the release of prisoners in Egypt. The phone number was that of Baghdadia Television, belonging to Awn al-Khoshlook. For this agreement, al-Baghdadia was paid $150,000. The coordinator was Abdul Hameed al-Saleh who received $30,000 sent to his account in Damascus where he lives with his cousins.

One of the terrorist was instructed to blow himself up to make the operation a genuine terrorist act .The rest of the terrorists would have stayed three days in the church to conduct negotiations. But the order from Itlaat to al-Maliki was to eliminate all the terrorists immediately so none of the terrorists was allowed to exit alive.

I, Ibrahim Ebeid, a Christian Arab, lived and worked in Baghdad for a few years in the 1970s and visited Iraq before and after. I never witnessed or experienced any discrimination of any kind or heard of any indiscriminate killing under the Ba’ath. All religions were treated equally. Saddam Hussein helped finance the building of churches, as well as maintaining and renovating them. Christians were part of the fabric of Iraq, They held high jobs; they served in the Armed forces; they were pilots, engineers, doctors, and educators, who participated in building Iraq until the Americans and the Persians invaded the nation. They spread terrorism and destruction. Not only Christians are under attack, all Iraqis are. Bombs fall on civilians while mosques and other places of worship are being blown up. Terror is all over, conducted by the militias and gangs of the sectarian government and parties that the US and Iran support.

Mr. Obama is not serious about ending the war in Iraq. He continues to support the sectarian terrorist regime of Maliki and others who were created by Iran. More than 50,000 US troops and 100,000 mercenaries are still terrorizing the people of Iraq. The war has not ended.

If Mr. Obama is concerned about the state of Iraq and wants the Iraqi people to enjoy democracy, security and prosperity, he should recognize that the Iraqi National Resistance is the one entity that is capable of achieving these goals, not the agents in the Green Zone.

Further Reading :

Ethnic Cleansing Driving Christians out of Iraq

Video Iraqi Christian Refugees continue to arrive in Turkey

4 Christians killed in Mosul as Exodus continues

Iraq - War Logs Reflections.3

2010-11-17T02:23:00.031+02:00

I have finally managed to write my third in the series. This one is not directly related to the Wikileaks revelations but rather will provide the reader with the background framework without which the Wikileaks documents do not make any sense.

In my two other posts I used metaphors to illustrate certain points, and I mentioned that at times the use of the logical rational mind is also needed to complete a picture and make sense of it.

This post will rely solely, most likely on the use of the rational mind and the logic of deductive thinking.

Remember what I said about Oral History and its transmission ? That too relied on deductive thinking on the part of the receiver - and I hope you shall use yours.

Iraq - a hard nut to crack.

Iraq was a hard nut to crack - granted. Saddam Hussein and his regime held onto it tighthly and at times with an iron fist. In retrospect that proved not such a bad thing after all. As the Koran says - it may be that you detest something but it holds goodness for you.

Much had to be manoeuvered to have that "nut" finally crack open. Imagine a fortress, one cannnot subdue a fortress overnight, it requires long preparations. And a long preparation did take place.

The sanction years were a preparation for 2003, the year of invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is most important to keep in mind as some see the sanction years totally separated from what befell us later. Not so.

The Embargo was an essential instrument for the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq. Not only did the sanctions fragilize an already vulnerable society that had just come out of a 8 years long war with a fanatic entity called Iran, but those sanctions years also helped plant the seeds of divide and rule, the seeds of sectarianism in which Iran played a major leading role.

In the aftermath of Gulf War I - Desert Storm, both Iran and Israel capitalized on the fragility of the Iraqi apparatus and started their ground work of Ethno-Sectarian divide that was to be finally completed by the US invasion.

It is fair to say that without Iran's predominant role, the invasion and occupation of Iraq would have not been able to last that long for we are a tenuous resilient people, I know it to be so. Iran with its militias and parties played an incremental role in not only maintaining the US occupation of Iraq but also in furthering the destruction and the tearing apart of the Iraqi societal fabric.

Many Iraqis I know, are still bewildered by the fact that the Outside world, all of it, still does not believe them when they tell people that these sectarian ethnic divides were foreign to us before 2003. I still don't understand why the outside world refuses to believe that fact. We can't all be lying about our own country.

Of course there were two categories of people who for the most part lived either in the West or in Iran mainly the Kurds and the Iraqi Shias bred by Iran's Khomeini's revolution who in cohort with Western and Israeli intelligence worked very hard to prepare the ideological framework for the partition of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines. The Left, in general, (and that includes the antiwar movement) both Western and Arab also played an important role in backing the Zionist US agenda for Iraq by parroting the same discourse. This discourse has not died yet and is still used to maintain and perpetuate both the American and Iranian presence in Central and Southern Iraq and the Israeli presence in its North (via the Kurds).

The American plan for Iraq could not have been executed without the ideological and logistic help of the above groups.

And as in any plan, there must be victims. The firs victim of this genocide is of course the Iraqi people, the second victim within that grander genocide are the Arab Sunnis and other minority groups in Iraq like the Christians, the Sabaeans, the Yezidis, the Armenians, etc...

It was impossible for the US plan to take hold in Iraq without the destruction of the Iraqi Mosaic, a multi religious, ethnic mosaic. Hence the ideological splitting of Iraq into three distinct categories Shias, Sunnis and Kurds (who are majority Sunnis) was an absolute must.

The "brains" behind this ethnic sectarian plan of confessional, communal divide were non others than the Zionists who rule the White House during, before and after Bush's reign. Their names have been repeated often and I shall repeat them again tonight. Wolfowitz, Perle (ex adviser for Netanyahu) Feith and the rest...

R.Perle in an interview on al Jazeera English on Riz Khan's program was one of the first advocates for Kurdish and Shia rights in Iraq as separate entities from the rest of Iraqi society. This interview is still available online, google it. This idea was later on advocated by J.Biden current VP for Obama.

Oddly enough or maybe not so odd, Chomsky, the Left Guru was another advocate of the same. Hence one can understand the abysmal stand of the Left on the war on Iraq and its ideological contribution to the American agenda.

Again in the aftermath of Gulf War 1, A.Sharon (who am told has risen from the grave) was hell bent on regime change in Iraq over and above the fact that Israel (and Iran) have been supplying Iraqi Kurds with training and arms and that since the 70's. Israel did attempt to negotiate with Iraq via third parties a Peace deal in the late 80's which Iraq flatly turned down (unlike Syria). The Israelis understood that Iraq and its regime led by Saddam Hussein was not going to give in like Egypt and Jordan did. Iraq had to go.

For it's part Khomeinist Iran, despite a peace truce never ceased its old ambitions to conquer Iraq - an ambition stemming more from a populist ideology made of a mish mash of Persian empire national aspirations and political Shia Revivalism that fitted beautifully well in the American plan for the invasion and partition of Iraq. It is no coincidence that the Iraqi National Opposition in the 90's led by Ahmad Chalabi to the White House (under Clinton) was mainly constituted of "Iraqis" exiled in Iran. And it is most disconcerting that the great majority of people totally fail to understand the crux of this Persian ideology, for it has cost us our lives.

In the above paragraphs I gave you a brief background layout against which the American invasion and occupation took place.

One can see clearly that Iran's and Israel's regional interests found their window of opportunity in the American invasion of Iraq. Israel had already planted its Zionist seeds in so-called Kurdistan and Iran in the South and in the Holy Shiite centers of Iraq. It was a matter of time before they could make their full move and each grab a share of the ancient coveted pie - Iraq.

Historically it made sense for both Israel and Iran, who saw Iraq - Mesopotamia as some mythical center to which they lay claims. Ideologically, it was also imperative for both to destroy the last bastion of Arabism. Israel used the Kurds and enhanced their so called hatred of Arabs in the form of Kurdish chauvinistic nationalism and Iran used Shii'sm and portrayed it as some Persian made cult that is devoid of Arabs and cloaked it in Islamic garb. (note: Persia only became Shiite in the 15th century).

to be continued...

Short of Words...(for now)

2010-11-10T05:20:00.002+02:00

It feels as if I have not posted in ages...

Am too taken by some sectarian Shia shit who's harassing me - deliberate evil on his part for no reason...for no objective reason except, maybe because I am a non Shiite Iraqi. Well yeah I don't like shit nor the smell of it...that's a good enough reason I suppose.

Anyways...seen too much so far. Fucking Mercy where are you ?

Guess I've got to go through another episode of the Sunni Witch Hunt...keep the motions going until the awaited Mahdi lands...somewhere in Mesopotamia.

Do nudge me when he does...got a chalice filled with fresh blood to offer him.

In the meantime...until...I am going to listen to songs.

I like this one, understand nothing of the words...but no matter. I understand it all.

Nasrallah, Tariq Aziz - What's the Link ?

2010-10-30T14:41:00.001+02:00

This is a rushed post, I need to jot down my thoughts before they rush out...

Nasrallah - he's no Sayyed for me, threatens grave and dire consequences if there's a follow through in the Hariri Tribunal - meaning he's threatening a civil war in Lebanon based on sect.
That was foreseen when the Hezb of the Charlatans kept all the characteristics of an armed militia, and joined the Lebanese political process. Does that remind you of anyone else ?

Yep it sure does - it reminds me of the Iran backed, funded, trained militias and death squads who murdered Iraqis with impunity and joined the Iraqi political process as Shiite parties.

Why Nasrallah's threats - typical of a neighborhood's thug. And why now ? Did the latest Wikileaks revelations show anything that bothers Iran by any chance ?

And in the same vein, why the latest announcement for the lynching of Tariq Aziz, charged with "deliberate crimes and murder against humanity" - murder against whom exactly ? Against those same parties and their militias today ruling Iraq in the name of a US democracy.

If someone kills a member of my family- I would DEMAND to know the identity of the murderer. Hassan Nasrallah the Charlatan and his thugs of the Hezb of charlatans are petrified.

I say go ahead with the tribunal, turn it into a mini Wikileaks and expose the culprits.

As for Tariq Aziz, I will not plead in the name of Humanity, because I know there's no Humanity left - I've been a witness to the lack of humanity for many decades now.

But I will demand and PRESS strongly for his release in the name of Justice, a stringent, strict, true Justice.

Iraq - War Logs Reflections.2

2010-10-27T02:39:00.002+03:00

It is important that I continue with my thoughts, I do not wish to lose any of the insights am getting, the many levels of Truth I am grasping...I am hungry but food can wait, I am sleepy but sleep can wait, I need fresh air but breathing can wait...I am not just doing this for the reader, I am also doing it for me. An ex boyfriend once told me I should have become a detective - he said sniffing the Truth is in your blood. I think he's right.

I love story telling and the use of metaphors, symbols and allegories in the narrative, because through these, the Essence of things is revealed. Rational analysis is important too, but in dire circumstances when the unthinkable is experienced, analysis means paralysis - you go round and round in circles, because what's lying in your guts, beneath the logical rational mind is not being addressed...so how can I possibly waste a moment like this one ?

And what prompts me so, except Love ? It's really very simple isn't it ?

For me the release from Wikileaks is like tearing a few pages from the secret diary of a mean, nasty, brutal, serial killer...stealing those pages and publishing them. If you like metaphors Wikileaks can be considered as the rebellious teenager who finally nails his brutal father (or mother) and exposes him for what he truly is.

The father figure in question, the "founding father" of brutality, carnage, mayhem and endless suffering is none but America. This particular daddy fed you illusions during all your growing up years - he made you believe in Ideals that he constantly fell short of. Basically this Daddy lied to you. In his spare time, while you were sleeping, he did nasty things - he raped, tortured and killed people in the dark. Of course, like any addicted criminal he denied it. But also during those periods when you were/are asleep, he noted down furtively what he did. He had to keep a record, because Daddy is after all an authority and he's well organized and meticulous about keeping his records up to date.

And here comes Wiki, the cadet of the family (and a few of his sibliings), the forgotten boy, mischievous, bored with this hypocritical authority, out of place in this great family, maybe received a few thrashings himself...his rebelliousness takes a different form as he grows up...he realizes what has been irking him all along -- the injustice of it all. So he decided in his own mischievous way to do something about it - Shake the stifling order of things, the stifling lie that kills.

In my previous post, I said I will deal with some of the material leaked regarding Ethnic cleansing, the mini wars that went on underneath the greater War, - the U.S Occupation of Iraq, and the role of Iran in all of this.

Again using metaphor, Iran is Daddy's secret mistress. They fight sometimes, but when necessary they kiss and make up. This mistress is ambitious, she has big plans, because she believes in something very big. So she plays along sometimes with the other concubines of the American harem, and sometimes she wrecks havoc when she feels things are not going her way. She is no poor, dependent muta'a concubine, she has resources, she has some power and she has many clients and personal body guards who are willing to stick their necks out for her.

The above would have been a fine thing if she played that in her own quarters, or in Daddy's quarters, while you were sleeping, but she didn't. She played cat and mouse in my own home - in Iraq.

You see I heard them fornicating in the stillness of the night. He groaned and she was exalted with cries...drowning all the other noise coming from other secret places, from other chambers, from dungeons hidden way beneath the surface, I heard her and heard him, saw them together and I also heard the suffocated strangulated voices in the obscurity.

to be continued...

Iraq - War Logs Reflections.1

2010-10-23T17:54:00.005+03:00

This may be one post or a series of posts - I don't know yet. I shall leak my own thoughts as I see fit...

Yesterday's Wikileaks release of classified US Army documents were an important turning point for me personally and for me as an Iraqi. But not only for me, I know of other Iraqis who sighed with a little, a LITTLE relief.

I caught one on Twitter who wrote - I love you Wikileak, maybe now I can sleep with a little peace.

I uttered out of the blue - in some sort of automatic writing - We demand to know from America and Iran why you killed, tortured, raped and exiled us.

As an Iraqi, I felt that I was slowly waking up from a long nightmare. I held on to that feeling and I hardly slept at all ...something was churning inside of me. I needed to get to the bottom of it.

It was not the familiar rage, nor the all too familiar sadness, there was something more...hence this post.

I spent many hours reading the actual War Logs on Wikileaks Website. Names have been erased, but I read through nonetheless...knowing fully that this leak is only one infinite small part of what actually happened and is happening...

But I went through them nonetheless, not all of them, but picked and chose haphazardly...

In the old days, when writing was not made available to people, History wrote itself orally...by transmission - they called it Oral Historiography. The War logs are if you like a sort of Oral transmission of events as they took place...

And in the old days, from this Oral transmission of Historical events, people could draw a picture of what happened. Same for the War logs. Even though names were erased but there are indicators of locations, timings, places and from them one can draw a picture, a fuller picture...

But why did I need to do all of that ? After all the leaks just CONFIRMED what I've been writing on this blog for years. Why did I need this public confirmation from a higher authority after 7 years of carnage, of torture, of rapes, of exile ?

Why did this other Iraqi fellow say - now I can sleep with a little more peace ? Surely the classified documents did not reveal more than what he/she already knew.

I "slept" over these questions - and then I understood...

Do you remember at any time of your life when you were a witness to something horrendous, and when you reported it, no one believed you. Even those closest to you, or whom you thought were closest to you, did not believe you. You kept repeating what you saw, and no one believed you.
Yet you still held on to that truth you witnessed. Others ridiculed you, called you names, silenced you, threatened to kill you, called you a liar, accused you of imagining things, accused you of having your own agenda...and with the ridicule, came the minimization, the twisting, the guilt provoking like in - come on it was not that bad or it was not like that, you are nothing but a little hateful liar making trouble...and sometimes the pressure would be so great, you'd start wondering that maybe after all you did conjure up things...that maybe you did not see right, that maybe it was an illusion of your mind...in short --when you came with the truth, they did everything to make you doubt yourself and doubt the truth. Sometimes you'd fall into some autistic silence and sometimes you'd overcompensate with more defiance...but still you felt terribly all alone.

But you held on...you gripped to that thing....and still terribly alone, you realized in that process, in that process of being stubborn and obstinate in not letting go, in holding on - the extent of the cover up. The COVER-UP.

And through digging through the cover-up, you realize something even more important; the networks, the alliances, the other wars that are going on underneath this cover up. Then you understand - the thicker the cover up, the thicker the lie, the thicker the minimization, the thicker the omissions, the more grave and dangerous the Truth is. The Truth of what happened and... is happening.

And at some point comes a "parental" figure, an authority, a benevolent one, a big brother and says - I got some story to tell - and then in some cryptic form, repeats your truth, reveals it... You still have to read between the lines, but you say to yourself -- finally am not alone anymore. Finally, what I saw was not my imagination, it was/is the Truth.

So you breath a little relief and feel that maybe your nightmare is about to end and that you could sleep with a little Peace.

This is what happened yesterday to Iraqis who felt so alone with their Truth - they sighed a little relief and hoped to sleep with a little peace, hoping like I did, that maybe, just maybe they will be woken up from their solitary nightmare...

In the next post I will deal with the actual war logs, and some important information regarding ethnic cleansing, and Iran's role and other mini wars going on inside the bigger War - the Occupation and Destruction of Iraq. Insha'Allah.

The End of History.

2010-10-18T03:17:00.009+03:00

The Universe, the Cosmos, Awareness, Consciousness, Love, Hate, Friendship, Life...the triumph of Love over Death....All is made of many levels...so is History.

There is the Beginning and there is the End. There is the beginning of Civilization and there is the end of Civilization...and there are the gray areas in between, the pangs of Death and Rebirth.

History's many levels are made of beginnings and ends...and those gray areas.
Some beginnings illuminate the world and some of its endings darken it into total Obscurity.

So how do we define History ? Most probably by its contribution to Civilization - by its insertion in the Civilization process...

Civil-ization process.

Civil, civic, civility, civilization....

If I take the above as some preliminary definition of what History is, then Fukuyama is correct. This is the end of History - but not for the same reasons.

I don't know about you, but for me, History resides in tangibles...eternal tangibles, that withstand time, time and its erosion...maybe History resides in Archeology.

I never really liked that word - Archeology, because it implies something archaic, something past, gone...yet so present, so vibrant, so alive, so here...

In that sense, archeology defies or tries to defy Time and its passage...by carrying a stamp --called "eternal".

In this context, this is how I define History -- something that remains despite the passage of Time - something that aspires to Eternity...

Of course, there is also the other level -- who did what, where, and when. Yet, still, the stones speak for themselves...the pillars echo the story without the need for a touristic guide.

There is always something majestic about "ancient" sites - they call them in French "la magie des lieux" - the magic of places.

Ask anyone about the magic of places and you can be sure they will point to something ancient...Pompeii, Acropolis, Pyramids, etc...

Maybe the end of History is the end of Magic...in a world too sure of itself...yet too anxious about its own survival to bother discovering the magic...a new world too engrossed in itself...yet so petrified.

Yet, you will see thousands flock to the magic of these sites...they will cross oceans to witness the past...and derive a sense of continuity...

You see, we all need roots...despite all this homogeneity imposed upon us, the homogeneity of the New World Order, of the end of History.

You see, we all need to belong to something, someone, some place...however universal we may profess ourselves to be...

So what happens when a somebody has no roots ? What happens when a somebody is cut off from History - like a sail boat with no anchor ?

Two options present themselves here: either this person tries to connect through knowledge, learning or the flip side - destroys, making sure he annihilates what he believes he can never have, can never possess.

Such is the history of America.

Let me ask you something -- for History's sake. What has America and its Americans contributed to History and its civilization process ?

I do not consider skyscrapers, hamburgers and mass graves of Natives to be a contribution to Civilization. Nor do I consider highways, Coca Cola, and Mickey Mouse as eternal symbols of a quest for magic...

So what have these rectums of History produced ? What have they positively contributed to the movement of History - apart from its end ? Yalla, give it to me. Give me one thing that I can insert in those annals, one thing I can record....one thing I can note .... the record of some criminal who is beyond hope, a recidiviste - i.e someone who does it again and again...

I believe in cycles...and History is part of that cycle. Simply put -- what goes up goes down...

I really don't know why this is so...but it is so, inevitably so.

So what will Americans leave behind once their Empire crumbles? Because crumble it will...it will...no one, absolutely no one can resist the Movement...

What will they leave behind ?

Nature's site belong to God, to Allah...these don't count as contributions. These did not involve human sweat and pain...they did not involve contemplation, art, architecture, theorizing space, myth, legends, epics and poetry...

So what did the Americans leave behind ? I said -- what did they leave behind -- notice, I did not say what will they leave behind. For I consider the matter closed, ended.

What ? A Madame Tussauds look alike - a wax museum...of the greatest nation on earth - an Orlando or a Guantanamo ? Or maybe an Abu Ghraib or a Baghram ?

I chuckle...I chuckle as I see the hee haa, hillbilly, Rodeo, Buffalo Kid, Malboro Man, Lonesome Cowboy riding into the Sunset...towards his finality, towards his End...It's inevitable...inevitable.

Did you ever watch Americans flocking to the Magic, like moths to a burning lamp ? It's a comic tragic sight in itself. History chokes every time they sightsee her. Poor thing is propelled into violent coughs...she feels strangulated by the destroyers of History...they leave her gasping for air...

Here she is, choking, a rope around her neck...every time this gum chewing, hamburger and freedom fries farting, this nasally obstructed lot, cattle visits her...

She wants to chew them in turn and spit them out...like a fire dragon. But she patiently waits to see them swallowed in her belly like a Jonas in the belly of a whale who never makes it out...never makes it out to any shore...

History is patient, she sits and waits...because she knows, she possesses the wisdom...the wisdom of the cycle of Life..She knows this Jonas's end is inscribed. End of Story. End of His Story.

Let's leave aside for a while, the barbarians with no history and no roots...let's leave aside this gum chewing ruminating regurgitating wild cows, for a while...

Imagine a Pompeii, a Pisa Tower, an Acropolis, a Delphi (that's Italy and Greece, just so you don't need to rush to your maps to figure it out) imagine for one minute only...

An American military base right there, air jets shaking and cracking the grounds, some asshole writing some graffiti like "Bob fucked Lucy Ann" (please change your names, they're so fucking corny) or "Joe Blow did it here"...Imagine for a single moment, close your eyes and see it...
A Pompeii, a Pisa, an Acropolis, a Delphi...riddled with mortars, with tanks...Imagine for a moment someone climbing the pillars of the temple of Zeus and etching his Yankee name...imagine just that, nothing else....

I am not asking you to imagine the rest...am not asking to imagine the burning of Churches, the destruction of homes, the exile, the rape and torture, the massacre of young and old...no.

I am just asking you to imagine that little corner...

What do you think will happen ?

I tell you what will happen. Every Italian, every Greek will come out, armed with anything...
an ax, a hammer, a log, a rod, a knife, a gun...anything...absolutely anything...to stop the termination of History...of his/her history, story.

Can you imagine that for one minute ? Just an archeological site where History has presumably died...

So what about Iraq's history ?

Hatra, Ur, Sumer, Babel, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon....

Hanging...

Hanging, dangling...lynched

At the Gates of Ishtar,

Gilgamesh silenced,

Enheduanna's head rolling on a red carpet

of Blood...

The Myth exposed, the Legend died, the Epic ended,

so has History.

Video : Khaled Kaki - Iraqi Composer, musician, artist/painter.

Secrets...

2010-10-11T03:27:00.002+03:00

I carry many secrets inside of me...I am no partisan of letting your hair down in public.

Not that I care so much about reputation, whatever I do or say, I am absolved...yes, you see I take the words of your Lord so literally...I figure I have paid well in advance...so it's not my reputation that is at stake...but I do care for the people I love...I am very protective of them.

I don't want to use their sufferings as feed for a blog post, and am always very cautious to protect their anonymity...not only out of fear, but out of respect...respect for their pain.

Pain too requires respect, just in case you did not know.

So am a bit of a prude, I allude to things, write around a subject...of course inside am dying for the Truth to be grasped, like some spring flower you pluck to smell its full fragrance...

Yet, still, Respect prevents me from divulging too much.

Yet, the secrets I harbor, the intimate details of what happened, leave me so sleeplessly raw.

Maybe this does not make sense to the Oprah generation -- a generation of exhibitionist talk shows and cheap voyeurism....but for me, it's all the essence of Love.

The Clash of Ignorance - Islam Hijacked.

2010-10-08T01:50:00.005+03:00

There is no clash of civilization or culture ---there is a clash of ignorance. This is the age of Ignorance, this is the Jahiliya.

Many like to believe that the Jahiliya is a period that is bygone. Not so, the Jahiliya is ever present - every where. It is present in the West and it is present in the East. So are the idols that characterize this period.

There is Belief - you inherit that stuff from your family, environment, school, society and there is Faith.

Faith is not Belief. Faith is something that one works on, cultivates, infused with much Grace. Grace is not tied to any race, sect, culture or civilization...Grace is above and beyond...like Rain, it falls on everyone...

It is with this in mind, that I want to approach the subject of Islam and the Other. And it is with this in mind that I want to tackle the West and Islam.

I am not sure I want to use the current terminology that one often comes across in today's literature on this topic - words like -- tolerance, acceptance have been overused and have lost their meaning...

We are definitely at a crossroad - we Muslims and non Muslims alike. I feel this with urgency. I fear also that this snowball will become an avalanche that no one will be able to stop - an avalanche that will swallow all of us, not just the Muslims. And it is also with this in mind that I am attempting to broach the subject.

What is being sown today shall be reaped tomorrow - this is a universal law, a law that knows no borders, no passports and no nationalities...of that I am sure. And from what has been taking place in the last decade or so, or let's say the acceleration of an already existing process, in the last 10 years -- I can already tell you that the fruits of this harvest are going to be very bitter. Unless the tide is turned....

There is a war being waged on Islam and Muslims. Whichever way you care to look at it, and by whichever theory you want to causally ascribe to it --it is here and can no longer be ignored.

This in turn feeds on the ghetto spirit that Muslims find themselves in and gives birth to more extremism. It is a vicious circle...a very dangerous one.

This is not about Niqabs, Veils, Burqas, Cartoons, Minarets or Koran burnings -- this is about directly ATTACKING a Belief system and a Faith -- simply because it looks and feels different, thus enhancing, exacerbating and radicalizing the very elements that the West deems to be not secular enough for its taste.

This is the bind and this is the lethal bind that the West finds itself in.

The Question to ask - is why is this group of people - the Muslims - that have been particularly targeted ? Why not the Jews or Hindus or the Buddhists for example ?

Each one will conveniently point to 9/11 as the starting point of this witch hunt. This is where I disagree.

9/11 whoever the culprits were - was not the starting point. It was yet another peak point, from which after much massacres took place - notably in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan (and it will not stop at these countries.)

The West in fact has never been at ease (short of a better word) with Islam as a concept. This is not something new. However the events of 9/11 gave the perfect alibi for it to engage in an all out war. I repeat an all out war - meaning a war on many fronts - physical, geographic, political, economic, cultural and ideological...

Some will argue that this is not necessarily true - pointing to the following : The West's support for Bosnia, Kosovo and the Afghans during their fight against the Russians. And there is truth in that. However this is not the full picture. Their support for these Muslims was only done with the aim of enhancing the West's hegemony. Hegemony in the largest sense of the word and not merely reduced to economic interests.

Another factor that cannot be overlooked besides the West being ill at ease with Islam ever since this latter's inception - is the silent war that is taking place between two poles of "Islam" - Saudi Arabia and Iran.

This war is political, geographic but also ideological and precedes both the establishment of Saudi Arabia or Iran as nation states. This "war" started in Iraq many centuries ago. It was a war of Khilafa - i.e of Governance between two clans/sects (political sects) of who will monopolize and rule the Ummah.

This war has not died...it was latent and flared up again in the 20th century with the advent of Khomeinism - the political ideology of Shia revivalism and started in the late 70's. This period also coincided with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of Salafist/Jihadist ideology. The counterpart if you wish, to Shiite Revivalism.

This is also the period where from a purely sociological observation - I started noticing more and more people "reverting" to a "pure" Islam (whether of Sunni or Shia ) - falling back on a belief system from which people hoped to extract Faith.

In parallel, the Western concept of Globalization which really means political, economic, cultural, ideological Homogeneity (Uniformity of Identity) greatly fed this "reverting" process/attachment and refusal of Muslims to accept this new movement (Globalization) which they perceive to be threatening not only to their belief system but also to their Faith. And with good reason - because Globalization has absolutely nothing sacred or holistic about it.

In other words this impetus towards Globalization accompanied with the historic "discomfort" that the West has nourished vis à vis Islam produced a backlash or as some people would like to call it -Fundamentalism- now called Terrorism. As I read today, someone said - Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. In other words all fundamentalists are Muslims and are therefore terrorists.

In the "fight" to RETAIN the semblance of a belief system and of a Faith -- dogma was necessary. The Muslim law/jurisprudence was no longer a contextual law i.e a law issued in a specific historical context but became a dogma - taking on all the allures of a unequivocal Truth over which both the State and the Clergy have absolute authority. This in itself is very contradictory to the Spirit and even Law of Islam since in Islam no one, absolutely no one holds absolute power over the Truth. This is the essence of Shirk - ie of associating someone/something to the Divine. Futhermore, in Islam there is NO Clergy, except maybe in Shi'ism. Traditionally the Ulemas or the men of Learning are not considered a Clergy as such (as in the Christian sense) and therefore their powers (derived of learning Fiqh -religious studies) was always limited and Ulemas were easily replaced should they issue a Fatwa that was not too pleasing to the ruler...and by the same token some Ulemas worked for the Ruler and issued Fatwas that ensured his rule. Which is to say that even the Muslim religious body historically speaking had nothing of permanence to it - neither the Koranic interpretations. Since the Ulemas could be removed so did their particular interpretation of the Text.

This is very important to note because it means that the Text can be/ is open to be interpreted differently...depending on context - context being historical, political, economic, ideological, cultural...

This in itself already negates the whole conceptual idea of an Islamic "Fundamentalism." and also by correlation negates the whole notion of Islamic "Moderates".

What does that mean ? It means that the same terminology should be used as when addressing the various groups in Judaism for instance --- as in Orthodox, Liberal/ Reformist.

Do you see the nuance ? I see it very clearly. For the discourse that is held towards Islam is not the same discourse that is held toward Judaism for instance. There are no fundamentalists and moderates in Israel, there are orthodox and liberals.

It is assumed that an Islamic moderate belongs to an Islam that is essentially Fundamentalist but by addressing his "reason" he can remain a moderate and hopefully stay that way- this is the inherent message. An orthodox or a Liberal Jew belongs to Judaism full stop.

And it is of no coincidence,that Muslims, in particular in the West, find themselves in either an apologetic or defensive position. They try to explain, describe, justify, communicate, that they are not fundamentalists, that even though their attire (which like the Orthodox Jew) may look traditional/conservative/religious, they are not inherently terrorists...and whilst doing all these justification of trying to prove their good intentions, their inherent moderateness they get stuck even deeper in that ghetto that has been laid out for them --like a prefab house -- all ready to be inhabited...

I will stop here for tonight. It is vast subject, this is a blog post, by no means exhaustive or conclusive...hopefully it will provide some food for thought and am happy to debate it on Twitter.