.still alive and kicking
With all the violence going around I was worries about one Iraqi blogger that had been silent for a long time. Abu Khaleel of Iraqi Letters so I went looking in his comments for any clues to his absence and noticed that the comments in his last post had grown over time to a very large number for this blog. So I started reading. Here's what I found:
Thank you. I am still alive.
In several respects, it was indeed a pleasure and an honor to discuss, listen to and write to some truly decent people whom I have come to know through these pages and who come from more than four continents, including America. Yet, now I feel that most of those people already know. In many cases, they know a lot more than I do about the rest of the world and about America… so what good will any writing do?
As to those other people, they still say they are right and they are on the right track. Just last week, Saddam – after nearly 40 years of devastating the country – was still arguing that he is right!!! It will be the same with these people and their parrots. From my experience on this blog, I now believe it is degrading to debate things with parrots.
It was personally shocking for me to realize that so many people of the most powerful and ‘advanced’ country in the world are driven primarily by the primeval demon of Fear. Many of those driving and manipulating them are themselves driven by demons of arrogance, lust for power and greed. America’s Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves.
May America itself one day be liberated by her own sons and daughters and saved from those demons. At the moment this seems highly unlikely. Meanwhile, may no other country suffer the misfortune of being ‘liberated’ by present-day demon-possessed America.
And tonight, on the eve of the anniversary, I naturally have mixed feelings - but mostly feelings of anger and bitterness!
There have been three phases in Iraq over the past 4 decades: Saddam Rule, US rule and Sectarian Iraqi rule. There have been mixed transition phases between them. We are now embarking on the third phase, engineered by the US administration. Each was worse than the one before.
My own position has also gone through three different phases (also with mixed transition periods): Advocating democracy and reaching out; Doing what I can to avert local conflict; Taking the offensive and doing something about it. The first phase was a total failure. The second was a success. At the moment I spend much of my free time thinking about the next phase.
I no longer believe that the solution of the problems of Iraq lies in America or anywhere else. It lies here in Iraq and always has.
Why do you think so many more people in America are now against this war? Is it because it was wrong or that horrible things have been done in this country by the American administration and the American Army? It is now certain that most of those people have had a change of heart because America lost. Had the administration won, a lot more people would still be supporting this adventure (regardless of wrongdoings and atrocities).
And how has America lost?
It was because of things taking place here on the ground – mostly by Iraqis.
I am not bitter against the rest of the world; most people of the world have been against this thing right from the start. It is just that I think that they are ineffective, and almost useless to us as Iraqis. They could not force change over 12 years of criminal sanctions and they could not force change during 3 years of occupation, bombing, killing, devastation and atrocities. They are also running out of steam!!
It is our battle - particularly now that the Americans are laying the grounds for the next phase where they can take their boys out of harm’s way and leave various Iraqi factions to fight it out with more Iraqi blood. They are already starting to play the ‘good guy’ role acting as mediators between evil parties and entities that they empowered in the first place. They are ‘doing their best’ to induce those people (even force them) to forge a government of ‘national unity’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mark,
But this is what Khalilzad is trying to do! I’m afraid it’s a dead end.
We all live in circles of belonging. The idea is to have these circles open to other circles all the way up to and including the whole of humanity. That is the only chance for people on a global scale. Closed circles can only lead to alienation of others... and strife.
No nation can be built around war-lords and sectarian lines. Look at the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh saga. Look at Northern Island. Look at Yugoslavia. Look at Lebanon. Democracy there did not prevent a civil war.
No Mark, there are other solutions.
Circular,
You get me wrong. One cannot act against one’s nature and do well. [By the way, you obviously know nothing about the AK47. Stick to you boomerang or whatever kiwis use!].
Also, like you say, I am too old for armed conflict. Perhaps I should clarify the point I made… to put your mind, Bruno’s and Cecile’s (who wrote me an anxious note) to rest.
I am sure that people who do not restrict themselves to one channel of information are aware that there is a bewildering spectrum of armed forces in Iraq. I place the covert, non-official, non-governmental people involved in armed conflict in Iraq into four rough categories: Common criminals; Religious fundamentalists; National resistance;
‘Representatives’ of regional countries (all countries in the region have covert operations and ‘representative in Iraq at the moment – all undeclared).
The borderlines between these are rather hazy. Everybody has infiltrated everybody else and people are usually not what they pretend to be.
It is also now also evident that the coalition forces, the ministry of interior and the ministry of defense also have their own fearsome ‘black operations’ and death squads. One has to be rather naïve (and, frankly, blind) not to have known by now. I am talking about the other side.
Hence, my first tentative step of affirmative action really meant taking on some of these who have been causing havoc in the country. I thought I would start with the first group… in the countryside. I can’t do much about the ‘urban’ component!
I had had enough with villains in the area. I had numerous complaints and suspicion regarding some of the unsavory characters who took the opportunity of the breakdown of law and order and, acting under the pretext of national resistance, played havoc in the area. I investigated a number of incidents of kidnapping, hijacking and abduction without getting anywhere. Then one day recently, I had proof and positive identification.
Two young boys, 11 and 12, were kidnapped on their way to school for ransom. They were held in a peasant’s hut for a few days, chained to the floor… but managed to escape. They ran to a nearby house. The villains were quick on their trail. They demanded the man who had received them hand them over. It was resistance business, they said. The man said he knew a number of people involved in the resistance. He called one of their seniors and inquired about the two boys. The man told him that the resistance had nothing to do with that. So the man threatened the pursuers and swore that he would kill them if they did not leave the two kids alone.
He gave those boys a bath, a change of clothes and a meal. Later, he drove them to their family which was less than 10 kilometers away.
Four people were involved.
I got word of the incident after it was over. As was the norm, it would be the offenders’ tribe’s duty to appease the offended tribe. There would have to be a tribal arbitration council. The norm was also to accept financial compensation for the wrong deed.
I said no.
My argument was that accepting financial compensation from criminals would only encourage them to commit more criminal acts. They would simply pay using some of their criminal returns. That would in effect encourage them to commit more crimes. That would not do.
The solution I proposed had two components: The offenders’ tribe had to ‘disown’ them so that in future, they would not be avenged if someone killed them. The second part was for them to be banished from the area for up to 7 years. That would help the area get rid of them and they would not be able to act freely in their new residence. There would not be a tribe to shelter them. These measures are not foreign to Iraqi tribal codes. They are seldom used however and are reserved for what are considered particularly nasty crimes such as rape, multiple murders or murder of close kin.
I wrote a letter addressed to the two tribes concerned to this effect and asked the elders of the offending tribe to sign it. I sent the other to the other tribe to let them know the position I have taken on this issue. I received encouraging signals from both sides.
Less than two weeks later, my farm was raided by the US army. And what a raid!
More than a dozen helicopters deposited more than a hundred soldiers, three colonels and one general. They were looking for explosives… and for me. I was sought as a major ‘terrorist leader’.
They spent 18 hours searching the farm, doing considerable damage in the process. They came at 10 pm on Monday and left at 4pm the following day. For 18 hours they searched and searched and interrogated people living nearby. Soldiers using metal detectors searched and dug holes following alarming beeps only to find old scrap metal, bolts and metallic junk as in most farms.
They surrounded several villages around my farm and questioned people for hours. They had lists with names on them.
I had only one family left at the farm – all others had left. The man of the house and three of his sons, 20, 17 (newly married) and 15 were taken away almost immediately by helicopter to a detention center at the Baghdad airport. He was released the following morning. He was not questioned beyond name, place of birth, tribe and sect! He was hooded throughout. He was released in a suburb of Baghdad close to the airport and made it home before the US soldiers had left the farm. The youngest was released several days later in a similar manner, unquestioned and not ill-treated. The other two are still in detention more than 40 days later!
On the following day, at 6pm, I received a telephone call from someone who said he was an officer in the US base in the area. He informed me that they had received some dangerous information concerning me and that they had searched the farm and asked if I could go and see him to clarify a few points. He declined to give any details saying that the thing was not appropriate for the phone and, no, they had not found anything at the farm. We made an appointment.
To cut a long story short, I met the officer, a captain, a pleasant young man from Vermont. After a few introductory pleasantries, he told me that he knew all he wanted to know about me. He had conducted a thorough investigation with people in the area surrounding my farm and was surprised at what residents, Sunni and Shiite had to say about my secularism and non-partisan stance… to the extent that 3 hours later, he went to his superior, a colonel of his unit and told him that he thought their errand seemed to be “ridiculous”. But he was intrigued. During this meeting he wanted to focus our meeting on discussing possible reasons for the tip that they had received.
Following about an hour of discussion we both reached the conclusion that my move again the criminals was the most likely cause for the tip. What was worrying was that those people must be extremely well connected. Had it been the police of the ING, it may have been understandable… but the US army, from the airport, and with such massive force and within 10 days… well, that was something!
I am now convinced that the good captain was acting on his own initiative in pursuing that investigation and in having that discussion with me. He was evidently powerless in controlling events. Control was exercised higher up. The force was initiated from the base at the Baghdad airport. The poor captain was only involved because his base was in charge of the area.
I was discussing the incident with a friend a few days later. He remarked that whoever started those actions against me and my farm only wanted to send me a stern warning and had no intention to do me harm. I believe he was right.
So, you can see where my first tentative steps towards affirmative action are leading!!! But I cannot be deterred!!
Charles,
You have been barred from this blog and you still owe me an apology. I have deleted (no, obliterated) your comment as well as Circular’s response (sorry Circular). I am not interested in talking to you or in what you have to say.
Bruno,
Thank you. It took me so long to make Circular stop asking questions. Is it your turn now? Anyway, here goes:
Saleh al Mutlaq
I never met the man during Saddam’s years or even heard of him.
My first indirect contact with him came in 2003 after the invasion. A friend of mine was shot after dark close to his home. The man asked his younger brother to take the unconscious injured man in his own car to hospital. By shear coincidence they met someone who knew the injured man. And that’s how we came to know. That was before he was into public politics.I felt that was a brave and decent thing to do.
He was an agriculturalist who taught at the university. A time came when Saddam, in an effort to trim the administration’s swelling numbers and budget, gave people working in the academic or government side of agriculture the option of long-term leasing of government-owned farmland. Mutlaq was one of those who took that option. Apparently he made a big success of it and became extremely rich.
However, many people accuse him of having been employed as a sort of “agent” by Saddam’s wife where he ran some of her agricultural ventures. I am not sure if that was or wasn’t correct.
A friend of mine knew him during his college years at the College of Agriculture of Baghdad University in the 1970’s and he tells me that at that time he was an active Baath party member, a students’ union activist and someone who was known as an yes-man for those in power.
I am sure you must have followed his political position. I must say that I find most of his ‘declared’ positions – particularly those against sectarianism, the new constitution and the fragmentation of Iraq – rather agreeable.
Resistance people seem to look favorably on him, although the more religiously inclined take it against him that he drinks! The Americans, most noticeably Khalilzad, do not seem to have difficulty dealing with him. The SCIRI people simply hate his guts (and you may remember that they vetoed his participation in the Cairo reconciliation conference). In this respect, he may well play a role in the new venture that you expect the US administration to embark on.
I am convinced that there was a concerted and a successful effort to deprive him of votes in the south through fraud. Like Allawi, he was short of ‘foot soldiers’, which made that possible. He was similarly defrauded of quite a number of votes in the western areas by the Sunni Islamic Party and their allies (one of their components was his own National Dialogue Council, before he broke away from them). Nevertheless, his slate managed 11 seats in the present Parliament.
Incidentally, the second name on his slate during those elections was that of a brilliant and active lady who was for some years in charge of the Center of Palestinian Studies at the University of Baghdad; A first-class politician. She was barred from Parliament because, I presume, she was a Baathist!
ALL the political entities in the arena under the spotlight in Iraq are at present funded by outside forces and powers. No exceptions. I don’t know who is funding him.
…
…
Hey, this more laborious than blogging!!!
Iraqi Letters
We all make choices, and we are called to action at one time or another in our lives. My advise, choose wisely.
It is good to find out your still alive and kicking. I await your next post. Be safe.
Thank you. I am still alive.
In several respects, it was indeed a pleasure and an honor to discuss, listen to and write to some truly decent people whom I have come to know through these pages and who come from more than four continents, including America. Yet, now I feel that most of those people already know. In many cases, they know a lot more than I do about the rest of the world and about America… so what good will any writing do?
As to those other people, they still say they are right and they are on the right track. Just last week, Saddam – after nearly 40 years of devastating the country – was still arguing that he is right!!! It will be the same with these people and their parrots. From my experience on this blog, I now believe it is degrading to debate things with parrots.
It was personally shocking for me to realize that so many people of the most powerful and ‘advanced’ country in the world are driven primarily by the primeval demon of Fear. Many of those driving and manipulating them are themselves driven by demons of arrogance, lust for power and greed. America’s Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves.
May America itself one day be liberated by her own sons and daughters and saved from those demons. At the moment this seems highly unlikely. Meanwhile, may no other country suffer the misfortune of being ‘liberated’ by present-day demon-possessed America.
And tonight, on the eve of the anniversary, I naturally have mixed feelings - but mostly feelings of anger and bitterness!
There have been three phases in Iraq over the past 4 decades: Saddam Rule, US rule and Sectarian Iraqi rule. There have been mixed transition phases between them. We are now embarking on the third phase, engineered by the US administration. Each was worse than the one before.
My own position has also gone through three different phases (also with mixed transition periods): Advocating democracy and reaching out; Doing what I can to avert local conflict; Taking the offensive and doing something about it. The first phase was a total failure. The second was a success. At the moment I spend much of my free time thinking about the next phase.
I no longer believe that the solution of the problems of Iraq lies in America or anywhere else. It lies here in Iraq and always has.
Why do you think so many more people in America are now against this war? Is it because it was wrong or that horrible things have been done in this country by the American administration and the American Army? It is now certain that most of those people have had a change of heart because America lost. Had the administration won, a lot more people would still be supporting this adventure (regardless of wrongdoings and atrocities).
And how has America lost?
It was because of things taking place here on the ground – mostly by Iraqis.
I am not bitter against the rest of the world; most people of the world have been against this thing right from the start. It is just that I think that they are ineffective, and almost useless to us as Iraqis. They could not force change over 12 years of criminal sanctions and they could not force change during 3 years of occupation, bombing, killing, devastation and atrocities. They are also running out of steam!!
It is our battle - particularly now that the Americans are laying the grounds for the next phase where they can take their boys out of harm’s way and leave various Iraqi factions to fight it out with more Iraqi blood. They are already starting to play the ‘good guy’ role acting as mediators between evil parties and entities that they empowered in the first place. They are ‘doing their best’ to induce those people (even force them) to forge a government of ‘national unity’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mark,
But this is what Khalilzad is trying to do! I’m afraid it’s a dead end.
We all live in circles of belonging. The idea is to have these circles open to other circles all the way up to and including the whole of humanity. That is the only chance for people on a global scale. Closed circles can only lead to alienation of others... and strife.
No nation can be built around war-lords and sectarian lines. Look at the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh saga. Look at Northern Island. Look at Yugoslavia. Look at Lebanon. Democracy there did not prevent a civil war.
No Mark, there are other solutions.
Circular,
You get me wrong. One cannot act against one’s nature and do well. [By the way, you obviously know nothing about the AK47. Stick to you boomerang or whatever kiwis use!].
Also, like you say, I am too old for armed conflict. Perhaps I should clarify the point I made… to put your mind, Bruno’s and Cecile’s (who wrote me an anxious note) to rest.
I am sure that people who do not restrict themselves to one channel of information are aware that there is a bewildering spectrum of armed forces in Iraq. I place the covert, non-official, non-governmental people involved in armed conflict in Iraq into four rough categories: Common criminals; Religious fundamentalists; National resistance;
‘Representatives’ of regional countries (all countries in the region have covert operations and ‘representative in Iraq at the moment – all undeclared).
The borderlines between these are rather hazy. Everybody has infiltrated everybody else and people are usually not what they pretend to be.
It is also now also evident that the coalition forces, the ministry of interior and the ministry of defense also have their own fearsome ‘black operations’ and death squads. One has to be rather naïve (and, frankly, blind) not to have known by now. I am talking about the other side.
Hence, my first tentative step of affirmative action really meant taking on some of these who have been causing havoc in the country. I thought I would start with the first group… in the countryside. I can’t do much about the ‘urban’ component!
I had had enough with villains in the area. I had numerous complaints and suspicion regarding some of the unsavory characters who took the opportunity of the breakdown of law and order and, acting under the pretext of national resistance, played havoc in the area. I investigated a number of incidents of kidnapping, hijacking and abduction without getting anywhere. Then one day recently, I had proof and positive identification.
Two young boys, 11 and 12, were kidnapped on their way to school for ransom. They were held in a peasant’s hut for a few days, chained to the floor… but managed to escape. They ran to a nearby house. The villains were quick on their trail. They demanded the man who had received them hand them over. It was resistance business, they said. The man said he knew a number of people involved in the resistance. He called one of their seniors and inquired about the two boys. The man told him that the resistance had nothing to do with that. So the man threatened the pursuers and swore that he would kill them if they did not leave the two kids alone.
He gave those boys a bath, a change of clothes and a meal. Later, he drove them to their family which was less than 10 kilometers away.
Four people were involved.
I got word of the incident after it was over. As was the norm, it would be the offenders’ tribe’s duty to appease the offended tribe. There would have to be a tribal arbitration council. The norm was also to accept financial compensation for the wrong deed.
I said no.
My argument was that accepting financial compensation from criminals would only encourage them to commit more criminal acts. They would simply pay using some of their criminal returns. That would in effect encourage them to commit more crimes. That would not do.
The solution I proposed had two components: The offenders’ tribe had to ‘disown’ them so that in future, they would not be avenged if someone killed them. The second part was for them to be banished from the area for up to 7 years. That would help the area get rid of them and they would not be able to act freely in their new residence. There would not be a tribe to shelter them. These measures are not foreign to Iraqi tribal codes. They are seldom used however and are reserved for what are considered particularly nasty crimes such as rape, multiple murders or murder of close kin.
I wrote a letter addressed to the two tribes concerned to this effect and asked the elders of the offending tribe to sign it. I sent the other to the other tribe to let them know the position I have taken on this issue. I received encouraging signals from both sides.
Less than two weeks later, my farm was raided by the US army. And what a raid!
More than a dozen helicopters deposited more than a hundred soldiers, three colonels and one general. They were looking for explosives… and for me. I was sought as a major ‘terrorist leader’.
They spent 18 hours searching the farm, doing considerable damage in the process. They came at 10 pm on Monday and left at 4pm the following day. For 18 hours they searched and searched and interrogated people living nearby. Soldiers using metal detectors searched and dug holes following alarming beeps only to find old scrap metal, bolts and metallic junk as in most farms.
They surrounded several villages around my farm and questioned people for hours. They had lists with names on them.
I had only one family left at the farm – all others had left. The man of the house and three of his sons, 20, 17 (newly married) and 15 were taken away almost immediately by helicopter to a detention center at the Baghdad airport. He was released the following morning. He was not questioned beyond name, place of birth, tribe and sect! He was hooded throughout. He was released in a suburb of Baghdad close to the airport and made it home before the US soldiers had left the farm. The youngest was released several days later in a similar manner, unquestioned and not ill-treated. The other two are still in detention more than 40 days later!
On the following day, at 6pm, I received a telephone call from someone who said he was an officer in the US base in the area. He informed me that they had received some dangerous information concerning me and that they had searched the farm and asked if I could go and see him to clarify a few points. He declined to give any details saying that the thing was not appropriate for the phone and, no, they had not found anything at the farm. We made an appointment.
To cut a long story short, I met the officer, a captain, a pleasant young man from Vermont. After a few introductory pleasantries, he told me that he knew all he wanted to know about me. He had conducted a thorough investigation with people in the area surrounding my farm and was surprised at what residents, Sunni and Shiite had to say about my secularism and non-partisan stance… to the extent that 3 hours later, he went to his superior, a colonel of his unit and told him that he thought their errand seemed to be “ridiculous”. But he was intrigued. During this meeting he wanted to focus our meeting on discussing possible reasons for the tip that they had received.
Following about an hour of discussion we both reached the conclusion that my move again the criminals was the most likely cause for the tip. What was worrying was that those people must be extremely well connected. Had it been the police of the ING, it may have been understandable… but the US army, from the airport, and with such massive force and within 10 days… well, that was something!
I am now convinced that the good captain was acting on his own initiative in pursuing that investigation and in having that discussion with me. He was evidently powerless in controlling events. Control was exercised higher up. The force was initiated from the base at the Baghdad airport. The poor captain was only involved because his base was in charge of the area.
I was discussing the incident with a friend a few days later. He remarked that whoever started those actions against me and my farm only wanted to send me a stern warning and had no intention to do me harm. I believe he was right.
So, you can see where my first tentative steps towards affirmative action are leading!!! But I cannot be deterred!!
Charles,
You have been barred from this blog and you still owe me an apology. I have deleted (no, obliterated) your comment as well as Circular’s response (sorry Circular). I am not interested in talking to you or in what you have to say.
Bruno,
Thank you. It took me so long to make Circular stop asking questions. Is it your turn now? Anyway, here goes:
Saleh al Mutlaq
I never met the man during Saddam’s years or even heard of him.
My first indirect contact with him came in 2003 after the invasion. A friend of mine was shot after dark close to his home. The man asked his younger brother to take the unconscious injured man in his own car to hospital. By shear coincidence they met someone who knew the injured man. And that’s how we came to know. That was before he was into public politics.I felt that was a brave and decent thing to do.
He was an agriculturalist who taught at the university. A time came when Saddam, in an effort to trim the administration’s swelling numbers and budget, gave people working in the academic or government side of agriculture the option of long-term leasing of government-owned farmland. Mutlaq was one of those who took that option. Apparently he made a big success of it and became extremely rich.
However, many people accuse him of having been employed as a sort of “agent” by Saddam’s wife where he ran some of her agricultural ventures. I am not sure if that was or wasn’t correct.
A friend of mine knew him during his college years at the College of Agriculture of Baghdad University in the 1970’s and he tells me that at that time he was an active Baath party member, a students’ union activist and someone who was known as an yes-man for those in power.
I am sure you must have followed his political position. I must say that I find most of his ‘declared’ positions – particularly those against sectarianism, the new constitution and the fragmentation of Iraq – rather agreeable.
Resistance people seem to look favorably on him, although the more religiously inclined take it against him that he drinks! The Americans, most noticeably Khalilzad, do not seem to have difficulty dealing with him. The SCIRI people simply hate his guts (and you may remember that they vetoed his participation in the Cairo reconciliation conference). In this respect, he may well play a role in the new venture that you expect the US administration to embark on.
I am convinced that there was a concerted and a successful effort to deprive him of votes in the south through fraud. Like Allawi, he was short of ‘foot soldiers’, which made that possible. He was similarly defrauded of quite a number of votes in the western areas by the Sunni Islamic Party and their allies (one of their components was his own National Dialogue Council, before he broke away from them). Nevertheless, his slate managed 11 seats in the present Parliament.
Incidentally, the second name on his slate during those elections was that of a brilliant and active lady who was for some years in charge of the Center of Palestinian Studies at the University of Baghdad; A first-class politician. She was barred from Parliament because, I presume, she was a Baathist!
ALL the political entities in the arena under the spotlight in Iraq are at present funded by outside forces and powers. No exceptions. I don’t know who is funding him.
…
…
Hey, this more laborious than blogging!!!
Iraqi Letters
We all make choices, and we are called to action at one time or another in our lives. My advise, choose wisely.
It is good to find out your still alive and kicking. I await your next post. Be safe.
posted by madtom at 12:18 AM
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