Sunday, September 4th, 2005

Good morning…

These days, the satellite channel's screens, the newspapers and magazines are dominated by the photos of the hurricane that hit the southern United States a few days ago, and whose impact continues to displace the residents of the devastated areas to more safer places, with news and scenes of thieves filling the streets, looting the commercial stores, and burning fires in the city, of people queuing in lines in front of the petrol stations, of the police and army trying to help, but there was an evident inefficiency, or slackness, and there was criticism in the American media about the Bush administration, and the misconduct towards this crisis…..

There were news about pulling some Airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan to go back home and join in the rescue operations….
It was seen that most of the people who were besieged by the water, and who remained in the dangerous areas are the black Americans of the state, who form a poor majority who owns no cars, or enough money to leave and find alternative lodgings…

I do not know what to say….

I remembered the days of the war upon us, our sufferings which no one cared about…that was covered up, and ignored with all cruelty and inhumanity….
THIS IS America, that invaded Iraq and destroyed it…that directed the lenses of the cameras on the thieves who looted the country by the encouragement of the occupation forces, and in front of their eyes, but they didn't direct those lenses towards the families that run from their houses looking for safety; safety from the war, the terror, the daily air raids, night and day, the cameras weren't directed towards the lines of Iraqis by the petrol stations every day, under the burning sun, the cold, and the rain, during the war and afterwards, nor at the lines of children and their fathers near the bakery shops in the days of the war, waiting, and risking their lives. They weren't directed at the poor, crushed Iraqis who lost their jobs, or their family's supporter who was killed or put in prison for some reason. They weren't directed at the devastation and ruin caused the by cruel, unjust human hands, who knew no mercy or justice, for that ruin wasn't caused by the hand of GOD THE MIGHTY…

When we usually face a catastrophe of a flood, an earth quake, or a volcano, we say: this is the will of GOD, for we have no power to stop what comes from HIM. We always say: perhaps it is HIS revenge for our sins; perhaps it is a test for the amount of our faith….

But what can we say about wars waged upon us by the hands of foolish people, or evil people??
How do we act towards them?
Shall we surrender to their will, as we do in front of the will of GOD, or shall we stand up to them, stopping them in their tracks??
I see the world inside and outside of America sympathizes, panting to offer help…and I do not know whether it is an honest humanitarian feeling, an adulation to the American government, or hypocrisy, and favor-seeking…
Because most of those who rushed to help, Arabs and non-Arabs, were almost silent about what befell the Iraqis during their days of ordeal, and the war against them, or perhaps they restricted themselves to shy protestations, fearing the anger of their people…
Who rushed to send humanitarian aid to us while we were under the air and land raids? Who donated millions of dollars to relieve us? Are the humans other than us worthy of life and aid, while we aren't?

I see some Arabic countries do this before the western countries, to aid the Katrina hurricane victims… and they were the same who abandoned us in our ordeal….keeping silent, like mutes.
Where were these noble, high humanitarian feelings hiding?
I see they emerged today, hot and strong, to help the residents of New Orleans…..

Why wasn't a part of them shown to the poor Iraqis, while they were under the bombardment of missiles, and hell?
There was no water sneaking into our houses, which shook and fell apart upon us by the missiles and bombs bombardment, aren't those uglier than the flood?
In a flood, you ran with your family to a stadium or a high building, geographically far from the flood level, where you hide and feel secure, until the rescue teams reach you, but in the case of air raids, where do you hide?

Where is the shelter, and security?
Where were the kind-hearted people, with the noble feelings who emerged these days??
The pilots who were in Iraq, carrying out military missions harmful to the civilian residents and families, but today they will go back home to help their families?

Why does this portrait seem so contradicting, laughable, and ridicules?
By GOD, I see the world living in a shameful state of hypocrisy, or seeing with one eye… the sick, biased media, controlled by sick, biased, racial leaderships, poisoned the people's minds, making them feel sorry for a faction of people, and ignore another… a sick, biased, racial media that transferred its diseases to most its audiences… showing up to encourage the initiatives to come and rescue the people of New Orleans… but it is the same media that hid and forbidden showing any initiative to help the Iraqi victims of the unjust, illegitimate war upon them, during the war, and for two years now…

As if the whole world is living in a state of fear of telling the truth, or adulation and hypocrisy towards the powerful unjust …. And here we pay the price when we see the anger of GOD strike us….

As if GOD THE MIGHTY is laughing in His Heaven, saying: WHO IS IT WHO THINKS HIMSELF MIGHTIER THAN I AM?? YOU ARE ALL WEAK MORTALS.........
And only the fool thinks himself strong, and mighty…
GOD feels sad about what befalls his weak worshipers, but laughs at the foolishness of those who play the role of the mighty… always teaching them grave lessons…
But who is the wise one, who looks, thinks, and learns the lesson??

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Translated by May/Baghdad.