Little Saints 2

by Layla Anwar

"It took 3 days for the image of little St Rita to fade in my mind. Little St Rita, deformed and blind, lost in a hospital-toilet, bumping into broken chairs and beds without sheets, with her name around her neck like a dog collar... Three days, and I'm wondering just how long the following image will take.

"Yet I know the little saints will never leave my mind, will forever remain a torch of truth, burning bright with the flames of Truth...

"Some brave American boys - killers, rapists, and torturers, stinking of greed and hatred - crossed the oceans and bombed a lone mudbrick house standing in a field on the outskirts of Baquba. Sunni insurgents, they said.

"Then they encircled it, taking away a mother and father, never to be seen again.

"The house collapsed, all except one room. After a while, when things had calmed down, a distant neighbour passed by the field and entered the house. He didn't know why. He just assumed everyone was already dead.

"He still recounts with tears what he saw. In that one, small room, he saw four children, abandoned, emaciated. Three boys and a 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 neighbour could take all the chidren in. Diyala province had witnessed many massacres and refugees, and the poverty there is staggering. The neighbours decided to repair the one remaining room, collectively provide food and water, and take turns guarding the children until a 'solution' could be found.

"Some time passed and an elderly man arrived, claiming to be a distant relative of the family. No one could ascertain the truth of the claim since the children themselves did not know the man. But he looked to be of 'good faith' so the people gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"More time passed, and one day the neighbour who had found the children decided to pay a visit. The children and the elderly man had disappeared. No one knew where.

"More time elapsed, and the neighbour spotted the elderly man and the 3 boys. He asked what had happened to the 4-year old girl. I'll call her X, little St X.

"The oldest boy, the 11-year old, smiling happily, said, Uncle married her off, not knowing what this meant.

"It turned out that this 'uncle', the so-called distant relative, sold little St X to a matron who runs an overseas brothel. She buys little Iraqi saints and, after a period of 'training', sells them 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 into my mind, in between my futile attempts at feigning sleep, through the cracks of a bedroom immersed in darkness. I fight it off by imagining myself singing sweet lullabies to a sleeping girl, or reading her a bedtime story about a beautiful princess safely tucked in bed in shiny, marble castle. But it stays, persists, a torch burning with your Truth...

"NB: A reminder: official Iraqi government figures confirm the number of little orphaned saints at 5 million since 2003, and the number of little street saints in Baghdad alone at 500,000. The little saints of the 'new' Iraq." (arabwomanblues.blogspot.com, 30/5/11)

Little Saints 1

by Layla Anwar

"They are only little, and no statues have ever been carved or erected in their names. They will forever remain anonymous, except to me.

"I haven't seen their faces, but I've heard their stories. Every saint has a story. No, wait. I have seen their faces. I've seen your filth and your ugliness reflected in theirs. And isn't that what saints are made of? Aren't they made of human filth and greed? Aren't saints the ones who take it all in, absorb all of you, and rescue you from your own garbage? Because, make no mistake, you are garbage. Aren't they the ones who witness the unthinkable, as though undergoing the training to redeem you later, you vermin?

"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 examples of your 'Democracy, Freedom & Liberty'. (How I have come to hate these words! They have become mirrors in which I see your lies written in the blood of anonymous corpses. Alive or dead, we have reached a point were the difference has become so blurred that it hardly matters anymore - 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 turned swords, daggers, knives - slashing, beheading tiny, anonymous faces with no names. The slaying of saints, little saints.

"She was found abandoned in a Baghdad street. Her name is Rita, like St Rita, the saint who answers your prayers. She was left in the street with her name written on a piece of cardboard attached to her neck like a once loved dog. A 3-year old dog, a puppy, a girl... blind. Rita is blind. Totally blind. In your politically correct jargon, you bastards call it visually impaired, because you're so fucking sensitive, aren't you? Yes, Rita's blind, and she is 3. But that's not all. She has a severely deformed face, a cleft lip that goes all the way up to her nose. Split in the middle, a mirror reflection of how you've split us in the middle in every way. A small mirror of your own deformities, your deformed souls.

"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 didn't know what to do with her, the little St Rita. She was just left there in the corridor of the hospital, a hospital that looks and feels like a public toilet because your whores stole the money, the money for the little saints...

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

"I can't go on. Your filth is making me dizzy, its vapours filling my nostrils. The little saints are poking me. They want to play. Let me take little St Rita's hand and go smell the flowers..." (arabwomanblues.blogspot.com, 27/5/11)

.....

And speaking of malodorous vapours: "In Iraq we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. There, the Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence for a democratic process, even as they have taken full responsibility for their own security. Like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. As they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner." (From Obama's 19 May policy speech on the Middle East)

Silenced Night

"America is not out to enslave the Iraqi people. It is not on a crusade against Islam. It is doing what it has always done: standing up for liberty and the rights of humankind to live unencumbered by the chains of beastly humanity. We are now at war. May it be sure but swift. May God protect our troops and bring them safely home. And may Iraq awake some morning soon to something it has not seen in generations: a new dawn of freedom." (New York Daily News, 20/3/03)

"A friend in Baghdad sent me the following: 'I don't know where to start. Not a day goes by without hearing about murders and assassinations. The silencer gun seems to be the preferred method. Just a few days ago, there was another murder just a few streets away from where we live. A guy was found dumped on the road! Again, a few days ago, another was murdered by silencer in the Yarmuk area. The body had no ID.

"I heard about these killings from friends, and every other day, it seems, a member of my family comes home and tells me someone has been killed. Murder takes place in broad daylight, even in busy areas. For instance, people are just going about their business when all of a sudden one of them drops, felled by a silencer gun. Some people are saying it reminds them of '05-'07 when they'd awake to find bodies in the street. Sometimes there are 2 or 3 assassinations a day, and many we don't even know about because we learn everything these days only by word of mouth.

"I heard that today there were HEAPS of silencer killings. In Mansour, the treasurer of Maliki's party and the director-general of the Electricity Ministry were assassinated. At least we know who they are. The rest are unknown. It's getting worse by the day. Some are saying it's a miracle they manage to avoid being murdered themselves. And, of course, there are the daily explosions.

"Freedom of speech is practically non-existent here. You don't dare express an opinion or speak out in any way. On December 5 a journalist was murdered in Mansour in broad daylight - probably by silencer gun. People were saying he was more or less outspoken, probably a critic of the government.

"Christian families are moving out of Baghdad and heading north before leaving Iraq altogether. One family I heard about returned to retrieve the remainder of their belongings. They were slaughtered outside their house." (Baghdad's bloody Xmas leaks..., Layla Anwar, arabwomanblues.blogspot.com, 25/12/10)

Iraq Again

"I'm really sorry to bother you. I know you have more important things to deal with. Health insurance, tax cuts, a BP oil spill, another Gaza flotilla.

"Yeah, it's Iraq again. And will always be.

"I will not let this GENOCIDE go by. I will not let the Holocaust of Freedom & 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, in the words of US general Odierno, has witnessed the LARGEST movement of military equipment - the US armada - since WORLD WAR II.

"IOW the world has seen nothing like it for a country the size of California.

"World War II? Do any of you out there read history? Do you know how many nations were involved back then? Back then, when military technology was nowhere near as 'advanced' as it is today.

"Iraq, a country the size of California, a 'third world nation', broken by over 10 years of sanctions - and all this military might to defeat 'the enemy'? And you expect me to just let it go so you can concentrate on your health insurance, tax cuts, and Gaza flotilla?

"Oh boy, you've never met a true Iraqi.

"The fact of the matter is I will never let it go. Not until Justice is done. Like it or not - that's the way it is and that's how it shall be.

"No one talks of Iraq anymore. Or hardly ever. Read again what I've written 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 lone voice. Where are the Iraqis?

"Are they all ghosts of this Occupation? Is there anyone at home?

"At times I feel like giving up. This isn't something I can do alone. I'm not Superwoman. Ignorance surrounds me like a thick wall of silence. I try to keep that tiny flame alive in me, in the darkness. If it dies, so do I.

"No, I will not let them erase it.

"Facing my old keyboard and typing these words, at times incoherent, is my only sanity.

"No, I will not let them erase it.

"It's Iraq again."

Layla Anwar, Yeah, Iraq again! 6/12/10

Mission Accomplished

"For 20 years I have watched as my country, the land of my father and mother, my ancestors, disintegrated before my very eyes, 20 fucking years! Twenty years of people at first wilting, like flowers robbed of light, unable to turn their faces to the sun, then fading away into the shadows, bombed, massacred, ground into nothingness, the same nothingness that inhabits you every day of your lives, the same nothingness that makes you rush to your shrink, the same nothingness that you feed with your junk, the same nothingness of the pit you live in, and that I vomit up from the pit of my stomach.

"So you 'sacrificed' for us, 'liberated' us from 'tyranny'? 'Lived up to your responsibilities'? As in Falluja, Haditha, Mahmoudiya, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Ramadi? 'Kill the motherfuckers!' you shouted, while your wives masturbated to your love letters or shed a few tears waving that infamous flag of yours, the flag of a degenerate, decaying land that has nothing to offer but carnage and mayhem. You 'liberated' us from 'dictatorship' - with a Hiroshima and a Nagasaki to the power of 5. You 'liberated' us until there was no more room left in the morgues, and seven and a half years later we're still searching for our dead. You 'liberated' us until our streets turned into rivers of blood and our mosques became torture chambers where those 'hajjis' (as you call them) had their eyes torn out and their flesh drilled. You 'liberated' us so that we could be abducted, raped and murdered for a thousand dollars or for wearing lipstick. You 'liberated' us so that our bodies could float down the Tigris and Euphrates, mutilated, unrecognisable. You 'liberated' us all right, stuffing us into prison cells, showering us with your piss and excrement or handing us over to your mercenaries, pimps and whores in turbans, while you screwed the prostitutes specially delivered to you in your Green Fortress, while we lived in the walled ghettos that you constructed for us."

(Edited extract from Layla Anwar's Vomiting perfidy, arabwomanblues.blogspot.com, 2/9/10)

What's Not To Hate?

"Results of a population-based epidemiological study [of the residents of Fallujah, Iraq] organized by Malak Hamdan and Chris Busby are published on 3 July 2010 in the International Journal of Environmental & Public Health based in Basle, Switzerland. They show increases in cancer, leukemia and infant mortality and peturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshoma and Nagasaki in 1945." (Genetic damage & health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima, brusselstribunal.org, 2/7/10)

"There was a program early evening in not-so Great Britain on the new 'debate' around the 'legality' or 'illegality' of the war ON Iraq. Only now, seven years on, is there such a debate. Oh my, are the English having a sudden coup de coeur for Iraq or what?! Or are they just going through the usual mea culpa in an attempt to atone for their crimes? You know, trying to look good in public - stiff upper lip, plum in ass and what have you. You lot really make me laugh, but when I see you pontificate, my contempt for you grows even stronger, spreading through my being like the roots of an old tree that refuses to bend. What is it exactly you wankers are debating? What? After what? You really have no shame whatever. You're a total disgrace. A total failure. A totally immoral, amoral people. So you want a good conscience after seven years of murder and mayhem when we saw and experienced the unthinkable? When the worst violations of human rights were perpetrated by you (and the dumb fuck Americans)? What are you debating, you scum, you perverts of history? The English turd said, Now we need to let go of the past and concentrate on helping Iraqis reconstruct their country. The pervert did not say, ... helping the Iraqis reconstruct what we destroyed. He did not say, ... helping the Iraqis get rid of the criminal Iranian puppets we installed for them. He did not say, ... helping the Iraqis clean Iraq of millions of years of contamination and toxicity. He did not say, ... paying for the horrendous damage we inflicted on an innocent country and an innocent people. No, none of that was said. Help us reconstruct what, you filthy, once-a-month bather piece of shit? What is there left to reconstruct? Why don't you and the American shits tell it like it is? Why don't you say, We wanted to invent a new Iraq, but we failed? Why don't you say, We'd really like to leave it in chaos because this is what we really want, only this will break the Iraqi spirit? General Maude couldn't manage it in the 20s, but you thought you'd give it a jolly good shot today, didn't you? The legality of the war, eh? After you made Blair a viceroy of peace? After you twice voted for him? After you massacred Iraq? After you tortured and sodomised our people? After you used the most lethal weapons on us in Gulf War I and II, leaving Iraqi mothers to give birth to babies with two fucking heads? Now you're debating? As if the reasons for the war were justifiable or not? There is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING justifiable about your actions. NOTHING. And trust me, even if it takes another 20, 50 or 100 years, we will sue your filthy, putrid English arses... and you will pay... you will pay. I've heard that Iraqis take great pleasure in pissing on General Maude's grave - we're not done with you yet." (More English Filth, Layla Anwar, arabwomanblues.blogspot.com, 27/7/10)

"Fifteen months ago a Sky News investigation revealed growing numbers of children born with defects in Fallujah. Concerns were that the rise in deformities may have been linked to the use of chemical weapons by US forces. We recently returned to find out the current situation and what has happened to some of the children we featured. In May last year, we were told the story of a 3-year-old girl called Fatima Ahmed who was born with two heads. When we filmed her she seemed like a listless bundle - she lay there barely able to breathe and unable to move. Even now, and having seen the pictures many times since, I still feel shocked and saddened when I look at her. But the prognosis for Fatima never looked good and, as feared, she never made it to her fourth birthday. Her mother Shukriya told us about the night her daughter died. Wiping away her tears, Shukriya said she had put her daughter to bed as normal one night but woke with the dreadful sense that something was wrong. She told us she felt it was her daughter's moment to die, but of course that does not make the pain any easier. Fatima's father had taken his little girl's hand but it was cold. 'She is gone', he had said to his distraught wife." (The truth of Iraq's city of deformed babies, Lisa Holland, news.sky.com, 1/9/09)

Neocononsense

"If we cannot muster the resolve to defeat this evil [terrorism] in Iraq, America will have lost its moral purpose in the world, and we will endanger our citizens, because if we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here.../The missions I described are only the opening salvos in what is going to be a sustained effort. Yet, the Iraqi people are going to see positive changes. I want to share with you how two Iraqi bloggers - they have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here... (laughter)... 'Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer moving about in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed. We hope the governments in Baghdad and America do not lose their resolve'." GW Bush, 28/3/07)

The two Iraqi bloggers quoted approvingly by Bush in his speech are Omar Fadhil Al-Nidawi and his brother Mohammed. Omar is a dentist and his brother a doctor. Their blog is called Iraq the Model. If you sample some of their neocononsensical tripe, you can see why they turn the Bushies on.

Here's Omar, for example, on the greatness of Bush-n-Blair and why they just had to have their way with Iraq. I'm quoting verbatim: "[S]pare me the nonsense of (occupation) and (resistance) and the (chaos) that the USA had thrown the world into, only for some individual economic and political gains. As for saying that bush and Blair went to the war to increase their popularity, I must say that it's the most absurd assumption. In fact these great and brave men actually risked not only their chance of being re-elected, but also their entire political career [especially in the case of Mr Blair (one of the most brilliant and brave politicians the UK have ever had)].../ [A]ny Muslim and some non-Muslim, know that these fundamentalists have declared war on the whole infidel world (people like me included). Bin-laden and his likes may make some kind of deals with (infidel) governments to help them in attacking their greatest enemies; Israel and USA.* But their convictions had, and will never change. Their ultimate dream is to conquer the whole world, and in case that proves to be impossible then at least destroy their enemies, meaning destroying the whole-civilized world. They believe; that their obligation to Allah/God is to fight and kill any non-Muslim who lays a foot in Muslim land (that extends in their beliefs from china to Spain). And the only way that could save those non Muslims, is to change their religion into Muslims or pay a certain tax (jizea) and if (theoretically) their dream comes true, then its not the end as their ultimate goal is to spread Islam through the whole world, even (or maybe favorably) if by force, or at least make the rest of the world pay the jizea... Now their domination of the world seems to be a very ridiculous idea and doesn't have the slightest chance, but destroying the world seems not as impossible as we all hope it is. After all it takes a few hundred (martyrs) and a mad dictator-armed with a few tiny nuclear bombs or a single virus to-unite. Such unity seems to be very possible if not now then in the future and that hard technology is getting cheaper and easier every day. Please just tell me what kind of a barrier those (peaceful) governments are working on, and then the whole strategy of the peaceful governments that I was hallucinating about would prove more solid than I think it is. I think this should be enough to state that war on terrorism, eliminating the danger of WMDs and establishing democracies in the M.E. were important reasons for the war." (Just a concerned man, 17/12/03)

[*See Cheney admits no link between Saddam, 9/11, news.antiwar.com, 1/6/09]

Unsurprisingly, Omar and Iraq the Model get star billing over at neocon think tank The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) which counts R James Woolsey (Fmr CIA Director), Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol (Ed Weekly Standard), and Senator Joseph Lieberman among its Leadership Council, and Charles Krauthammer and Richard Perle among its Board of Advisers: "Omar Fadhil Al-Nidawi, a summer associate at the FDD, is a Baghdad-trained dentist and a graduate student of international affairs at Columbia University in New York City. He is the co-author of the blog Iraq the Model, a two time winner of the Weblog Awards. Until late 2007 Omar was writing on the war in Iraq from Baghdad, Basrah, and other locations in Iraq. Now based in the US, he continues to write about Iraq, the war on terror, and issues in the Middle East. Omar's work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, and he is a member of the Opinion Journal Federation. In March 2007, PC World magazine chose Omar and his brother and co-blogger Mohammed among 'the 50 most important people on the web'." Jeezus!

At long last Omar's found his way onto The Australian's opinion/propaganda page for June 2 under the heading Iraq was a just war. He tells us that the war in Iraq is coming to an end and asks, "Was it worth it?"* "If we examine the question from an American, British or Australian perspective, then it would be difficult to present an answer that could convince all critics. For the coalition members this was a war of opportunity, not a war of necessity. Going to war or not was never an issue that could affect the existence of a coalition member, nor was winning or losing." Now hang on: didn't this top-50 blogger say back in 2003 that Bin-Laden was maybe dealing with a certain "infidel government" and didn't he conclude that the Iraq war was fought to stop The West being overrun with suitcase-carrying dirty bombers armed by a certain "mad dictator"? If so, might that not have been a war of necessity?

[* See Gates: 'I don't know' if Iraq war worth it, Jonathan Karl, abcnews.go.com, 19/9/07]

Moving right along then: "For Iraq and its people however, this war was the beginning of a struggle for rebirth... Life is better today than it was before 2003.* That is even though we were on the receiving end of this war in all its phases, from initial invasion through the bloody sectarian violence and terror that paralysed the country for years. Despite the high price in blood, today is brighter than yesterday." "We" - you, Omar?! - "were on the receiving end of this war"? Really? Not quite as much as the estimated 1,320,110 Iraqi deaths so far (JustForeignPolicy.org) or the estimated 303, 454 Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey (UNHCR, 9/08). Not to mention the thousands of American dead (4,309) and wounded (31,327). "In all its phases"? According to the FDD, you've been in the US since late 2007.

[See my 18/12/08 post Life Under Saddam...]

"We have hope," says Omar. There are signs of "progress toward liberty, prosperity and the rule of law." And here are his signs: 1) The trade minister was arrested for corruption*; 2) The prime minister sued an Iraqi online journal accusing him of nepotism and abuse of authority but dropped the case after "severe criticism from free press advocates;" 3) The Iraqi stockmarket is booming.

[*Iraqi blogger Layla Anwar has a different explanation. See Meanwhile in the 'new' Iraq, arabwomanblues.blogspot.com 4/6/09]

And Iraqi women? How are they faring in the reborn Iraq? "'Iraqi women have seen their rights eroded in all areas of life while the world observes from afar', warns the special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes & Consequences, Ms Yakin Ertuerk... 'The ongoing conflict, high levels of insecurity, widespread impunity, collapsing economic conditions and rising social conservatism are impacting directly on the daily lives of Iraqi women and placing them under increased vulnerability to all forms of violence within and outside their homes', says Ms Ertuerk." (Violence against Iraqi women continues unabated, IRIN, electroniciraq.net, 1/12/08)

But, hey, you've got to feel sorry for Omar, the "security policy specialist" - yes, that is how he's described in the bio at the foot of his article for The Australian. After all, in the Benighted States of America, he gets to mix with such swell guys as the American blogger who interviewed him on May 3, 2005 and asked him this - no joke! - question: "Is dentistry a lucrative profession in Iraq? When you're introduced as a dentist to friends and strangers, do women, particularly Moms with unmarried daughters, see dinar signs in their eyes when they learn of your profession and want you to meet their 35-year old unmarried daughter Fatima? Unfortunately, Fatima usually has a unibrow and a bushier mustache than you do." (Iraqi Bloggers Central: The In T View: Iraq the Model's Omar - Blogging's Modest Superstar )

He might even get to swap views on his reborn homeland with other Americans who share his interest in Iraq. Americans like Johnathan Regis, for example, who thought so highly of Layla Anwar and her blog that he emailed her directly to share his 'thoughts'.

Johnathan's quoted in Layla Anwar's post, A sample of the 'brave & free': "This is the West, this is America, this is Great Britain, this is Democracy... this is really what it's all about, in microcosm... A small sample of the kind of animals the Iraqis and Afghans are experiencing on a daily basis. To: Layla Anwar Fm: Johnathan Regis - upgitit@live.com Date: 3rd June 09/ 7.46 am. Subject: something to say to you Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I am an American soldier who has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want you to know that I have killed many muslims and even raped a few of the pathetic women I came across. It's ok, I shot them straight in the head when I was done with them. You know, we might not ultimately be successful in Afghanistan, but we sure will kill a lot of you bastards. Oh, by the way, if I ever see you I'll skull-fuck you until your eyes bleed then choke you out and go to town on your smelly pussy. You will not wake up. See you soon." (3/6/09)

Can't see Layla Anwar popping up in The Australian any time soon.

Lest We Forget...Iraq

"Did you know that...? Of course not. You don't want to know. So let's take some baby steps through your Occupation, shall we? OK, this is how it started... Iraq pre-2003: Mixed neighborhoods. Intermarriages. No sectarian strife. Iraq post-2003: Segregated neighborhoods. Divorce. Sectarian strife. Walled ghettos... And lost homes.

"OK, since you seem to be a bunch of infantile retards with zero capacity for comprehension, let me take you again through the baby steps: you have a home, a house, an apartment, a studio, a plot of land, a hut, a tent - call it what you like. You may leave it for X reason, but we were forced to.

"Whilst away, you run out of the means to survive. You want to return. You return. You take out your key. You put it in the door. You can't unlock it! You think you must be dreaming. You check the number, the street. Yes, this is it. You knock on the door. A strange face opens it. You say, Is this my home? But this is my home! And the strange face tells you, Go to hell, you have no home here.

"So being a citizen who believes in the rule of law, you go to the 'Authorities'. They mock you or else offer you $300 as compensation. You shake your head in disbelief and say, This cannot be. So you decide to seek out a lawyer.

"You're told, Be careful whom you choose as a lawyer, because most of the honest ones have left the country, and you may end up with some charlatan, sectarian son-of-a-bitch who'll take all your money and deliver f***k-all. But you try anyway, knowing by now that your chances are nil - because there's no rule of law in a lawless, occupied country.

"Do you get it now or should I draw a picture for you? What's up? You still don't get it, even though I took you through it with baby steps? OK, since you're so damn thick, I'll put it another way, through questions: What do you think those 5 million Iraqi refugees have been doing in neighboring countries since 2003? Do you think they're on a holiday, sightseeing?

"Oh! I see you're still shaking that stupid bloody head of yours... You still don't get it, do you? It's all too much for you, isn't it?

"Maybe you're new Messiah, the 'chosen one', Obama, can explain it to you, or maybe Gordon Brown, the greasy, once-a-week-bath Brit. Or maybe your Zionist lobby. I'm sure they know all about it, but will, of course, pretend to know nothing. See, this is how dumb you are!

"God, I sound like a teacher of juvenile delinquents - must have missed my vocation. To be honest, I've never really been into juveniles. The teenage mentality bores the shit out of me. And I seem to be surrounded by them at the age of 40++. These teenage sociopaths are, for the most part, Americans and English. They exhibit what is called arrested development. And since their countries suffer from arrested development, they're into inflicting it on the rest of us. In fact, not only do they arrest our development, they destroy whatever natural development we had.

"Let's go through those baby steps again, my little 'darlings'.

"In Baghdad, the city I know best, there was no predominantly Sunni, Shiite or Christian neighborhood. This is a myth propagated by your disgusting media. There is one exception, though - Ath-Thawra, rebaptized Sadr City. This dump of convicts, thieves and outlaws was 'predominantly' Shiite. One day I will teach you the history of Sadr City, but not today. Today I want to walk baby steps with you. Yalla, clever ones. There you go, have a lollipop while I walk you through post-2003 Baghdad:-

"Let's forget about the Green Zone for a while... I know, I know, you love your little amusements there. Uncle Sam, Auntie, Mom and Pop, have some lovely American goodies stored there just for you, but I want to walk you through the Red Zone for a change. Don't be afraid. Come on now, I thought you were brave and loved Rambo films. Auntie Layla will hold your 'dear' little hands, fear not.

"Look at this neighborhood, for instance. It's called Arassat Al-Hindiya. See the beautiful houses on the river bank? Let me tell you who inhabits them today. Since your Mom and Pop 'liberated' us, these houses were taken over by the Supreme Council of Shits from Iran, the Hakim/Badr group, the Da'wa of Maliki and the rural/tribal shepherds from the Barzani/Talabani group. Here's how they did it: they occupy it in your absence. Then, when you return to claim it, depending on who you are, they might say, It is ours, or they might offer you some money for it. If you are short of money, having been in exile for so long, you might be inclined to accept. But if you don't, and insist that it's your house, they will give you one of their yellowish, sectarian Shiite/chauvanistic Kurdish smiles, and say, You have no choice.

"Or take another 'cool' neighborhood, for example: Yarmouk, or Jadriya. Same story. Or Mansour, or Karrada - the same.

"Now if you live in a slightly more modest area like Dora, Haifa, Falastin or Sleikh, then there you have no choice at all. If those who took over your house are armed, you can kiss it goodbye. They won't move - unless they're willing to settle for big money. And if you don't have big money, you're screwed.

"But there are more variations:

"You leave your home, and you ask someone to look after it. That someone loses his home during your never-ending 'liberation', so he moves into yours. Then he's short of money or his relatives lose their homes. So he rents out some rooms or brings in more people to live with him. You return and want your house back. What do you do with the 3 or 4 families living there? Where will they go? Again, you're screwed.

"Or take another example. Your have a house, land or property of some sort, and your father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, cousin, uncle, aunt, whatever, is kidnapped and tortured by the death squads you put in place, and they ask for a ransom. So you sell your house, land, property, hut, tent, whatever, to pay the kidnappers for their release. If you don't have the money, you borrow. Then you have to pay it back. And if you wan't to go back to it? You can't. You're up to your neck in debt and you've got nothing to go back to. Again, you're screwed.

"Another example: You live in a small house on a plot of land on the outskirts of Baghdad. You leave because they threatened to kill, rape or torture you. The minute you're gone, they come and live on your land. The area becomes all Shiite. You know you'll never be able to go back to that land. So what do you do? You suggest that those who took it buy it from you - but since they took it by force, why should they buy it? So you let it go, pack your bags and apply to emigrate to some God-forsaken brothel country in the West.

"This is what has happened, and what is happening to our homes since you decided to 'liberate' us. Do you understand now? Fat chance. You'll never understand.

"But, hey, you understand when an earthquake or hurricane destroys a house, don't you? You blame that on a natural disaster. But guess what, arseholes? You're a disaster, albeit man-made, for us - a disaster of a people and a disaster of a nation. (You too, filthy Brits.)

"I pray to God that every time you put your key in your door and turn it, the door will remain forever shut in your faces. Only then will you remember us and think of 'home sweet home'." (Home, Sweet Home*, Layla Anwar, 10/11/08, http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/)

[*I've taken the liberty of editing Layla's original post a little.]

What Iraqis Really Think 5 Years On

On the 5th anniversary of Iraq's destruction, The Australian's editorialist, from the air-conditioned comfort of his perch at News Ltd, shamelessly stands by his obscene 5 year campaign of whitewashing that appalling, ongoing crime against humanity:-

"Five years after Iraq was liberated [& occupied] from the despotic rule of Saddam Hussein, the justification for the US intervention [invasion] remains as strong as it ever was...There is little doubt that the world [Iraq?] is a better place without Saddam in power...But after 5 years, the situation looks much better [really?] than it did after 3...The Iraqi people have paid [& are still paying] a heavy price to reach this point...Had Saddam remained in power...the long-term suffering [leave us with that & you take the short-term thanks] of the Iraqi people could have been much greater...etc, etc." (22/3/08)

I can do no better than counterpoint this loathsome platitudinising with the following searing lament from Iraqi blogger Layla Anwar (http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/) It is taken from her post of March 20, Under the Former 'Dictatorship':-

"Under the former dictatorship, we were alive, now we are all corpses. Under the former dictatorship and during and in spite of 13 years of the most inhumane sanctions we had no ghettoes, we did not know each other's sect, we had mixed neighborhoods, we could go out without being riddled with bullets from an Iranian militia or from one of your army patrols, we had no checkpoints, we had no car bombs, we had no al-Qa'ida psychopaths, we had no sectarian Shia sadists in turbans and black uniforms, we did not have to dress like a ninja, we were not raped, we did not have acid thrown in our faces, we were free to worship in a church or a mosque, we had jobs, we had homes, our children were fed, our hospitals functioned despite your tyrannical sanctions (today 90% of Iraqi hospitals are in dire need of qualified staff), our roads were not destroyed, our bridges assured safe passage, we did not have women and children begging and sleeping in the streets, we did not have refugees (4.5 million) stranded at borders or rotting in tents, we had electricity and water and we did not find worms floating in it either...

"Our rivers were not dumping grounds for cadavers and our parks were not turned into cemetaries. Our children were not sold or trafficked. Our academics (over 450 killed), doctors (500 murdered) and professionals (in the 100s) did not flee or get killed. Our universities still managed to produce graduates and our schools were not attacked by mortars. Our women could drive, work, marry and divorce as they pleased...

"Under the former dictatorship our trees were still producing fruit, not razed to the ground. Under the former dictatorship music was still allowed, so were films. Under the former dictatorship we had no drugs, no poppy fields, no drug addicts and no drug peddlers and traffickers. Under the former dictatorship we had no pedophile rings, no professional killers, no professional drillers and no professional rapists...

"Under the former dictatorship we had no over 100,000 detainees with no trial, no children sodomized in prisons and no women gang-raped in exchange for freeing their loved ones...

"Under the former dictatorship our artists, poets, writers, singers, journalists (223 killed since 2003) were not abducted, kidnapped or assassinated...

"Under the former dictatorship we were not rejects. We still earned the respect of others. Under the former dictatorship we had no mass corruption, no public thieves, no fraud...

"Under the former dictatorship we had no Israelis, no Iranians and no Americans...And sell-out, treacherous Iraqis with foreign political agendas were silenced for the greater good.

"Under the former dictatorship we had no 2 million widows, 5 million orphans, 4 million wounded, an X number of disappeared. We had no mass graves of a million plus murdered by Democracy.

"Under the former dictatorship we were not considered the second most corrupt country in the world and the FIRST most dangerous country on earth...

"Under the former dictatorship we had a country called Iraq. Under the former dictatorship we had a Life. Under the former dictatorship we were Free."