It's Not Even Past

To quote William Faulkner - The past is not dead. It is not even past.

Bush has killed Saddam Hussein. It was pointless, pitiful and petty. Had they done this two years ago, perhaps it would have meant something. Now, it is just a mark of shame on our country and another splash of fuel on the fire of the Iraqi civil war. Riverbend cuts to the chase:

...This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous- like whether your name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things- like the Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the checkpoint.

Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head aches just posing the questions...

Here we come to the end of 2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis. We've all lost some of the compassion and civility that I felt made us special four years ago. I take myself as an example. Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them.

Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.

Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so.

End of Another Year...

Saddam Hussein may be a corpse, but he is most certainly not dead. The same collection of neocons, led by Cheny and Rumsfeld, who built him up to begin with have continued to harvest the foul fruit of their brutal crop. The dictatorship they cultivated as an opposition to the ayatollahs who overthrew their dear buddy, the Shah, became their nemesis. They protected Saddam, thinking to have their own Middle East Pinochet to call upon. Then, he disappointed them, having learned their lessons and believing utterly in their creed of take, take, take. He invaded Kuwait. Ah, lemons meet lemonade as we squelched his imperialist ambitions.

Then Bush the Lesser, C+ Augustus, decided that he needed to use the neocon sandbox again, this time to show he was a bigger, tougher man than his Daddy. He was the perfect avatar of the neocon lust to annihilate, and he set out to kill Saddam. But a funny thing happened. The dictator would not die. He metastasized into Iraq as such.

Iraq is now what Bush claimed Saddam to be, and so does the dictator have his final revenge on his old friends who betrayed him. Iraq, the mess we have created there and the even greater crises to follow, will reach out and harm America as Saddam himself could never do. In the desire to kill the dictator, Bush has guaranteed the butcher will live on long after Bush himself has left office in disgrace.

Anglachel