madly in love with Iraq

6.11.06

A Mockery of Justice

So what! This is what he deserves. A theatrical court! Again so what isn’t it better than no court at all?

A lot are worried about the injustice the trial reflected.

A simple Iraqi man had the best answer and said on TV, “Those who think of it this way have never been ruled by a dictator and simply have no idea what dictatorship means”.

It is amazing how some people in the media threatened that this verdict would open the doors of hell and would only have drastic ramifications on the already complex situation in Iraq!
I did not know that the doors were still closed! So what has been going on so far? a warm up?

We were flooded by stiff Arab analysts of very low calibre shouting and jumping on quite a few Arabic screens. Manoeuvring and twisting facts, they said all sorts of things but the truth!
I am afraid that there is only one truth and if they don’t want to acknowledge it, tough.
Mussolini and Stalin had supporters and they were cried over as well; what we have here is no difference.

Watching the reaction of some ordinary Arabs and Iraqis was another puzzle.
Their answer to the simple question of whether Saddam deserves death by hanging was by pressing another “Why not try Bush? Or Sharon?” while others “What about the thousands who are getting killed and bombed everyday? Who is going to be put on trial for them?”

As much as these are legitimate questions as much as it shows the confusion of those people on one hand and their inability to be objective on another.

Would trying Bush and Sharon make Saddam less guilty?
There are too many criminals around who deserve the same punishment if not more but isn’t punishing one is better than none?

If the decision was 100% Iraqi that is a credit to the Iraqi jurisdiction and if it was 100% an American one, then isn’t it great that Saddam was tried by his ex-partners and co-criminals? I believe this is an irony of fate.

Hasn’t anyone thought of how important it is to recognise the real cause of our conflict and who was behind it in the first place?
Let us forget about his crimes, who brought the Americans over?
If we don’t learn from the past there would be no future for us.

The western media iwas even worse, “Shia and Kurds are celebrating and Sunnis are lamenting!” How come I don’t meet with those Sunnis?

The British tried to stir up strife between Shia and Sunni from 1917 to 1958 and failed. The Iraqis natural and impulsive unity and love for each other wouldn’t allow it. While after nearly 50 years it took them few months to cause this uproar.

Who do you think is responsible for turning us to a fertile land for this?

One of our big problems is that we are incapable of employing our own tragedies and sufferings into something useful. Look at the Jews; a 60 year old holocaust is still throbbing with life and with it they gain more respect and more empathy. Till this day they still follow war criminals and invest in thousands of organisations and agencies to locate them.
And here we are after only 3 years we don’t want to know about Saddam and everybody wants to undermine this subject.

I am not ignoring the current catastrophe, but we have to start from somewhere to bring people together.

Yesterday I joined some Iraqi friends as we sat watching the events all day.
I heard some of them ridiculing the people celebrating the event on the streets, and calling them thugs, insensitive and ignorant.

When are we going to learn that sharing others pain let alone happiness will hold us together?

Two years ago, a friend who I really used to look up to, told me that he is fed up with hearing about mass graves and he wants a solution to this mess. I wonder if this guy had someone buried in one would have another opinion.

The 5th of November is a bonfire night in here. The skies were filled with fireworks away after midnight.

For a second I thought this was all happening for me. A tribute of some kind to the fall of Saddam; then I realised that we are not allowed to be happy and every single day is breaking us into smaller and smaller fractions.