The Thieves of Baghdad

"I spent Saturday night with my parents and three of my father’s siblings, along with their children in a nice suburb of London. It was the biggest gathering of close relatives since last summer, when my cousin’s (mom’s side) wife declared that America brought Al Qaeda to Iraq, and warned me with great sternness that it is blasphemous to defend infidels. There are some religious people in my extended family. Some of them are religious and educated at the same time. My uncles – my father’s brothers - and my aunt’s children are religious, yet quite educated and successful. Many of them are doctors and dentists. For as long as I can remember, one of my cousins, Majeed, a pediatrician who is closer to my dad’s age than mine, possessed a great intensity and unique emotional flare, much like my father. They both have a great sense of humor. They even look alike. In my first post I wrote about Majeed’s brother, who was murdered by Saddam’s regime in 1980. Until last year I had not spent much time with Majeed, and I was surprised last summer to see him married with children – three of them, aged 16 to 19! Majeed is married to Eman, an engineer and niece of Jiddu, whom I wrote about in October 2007. It was good to spend more time with Majeed and his wonderful family this weekend. After a long night of eating delicious food and catching up, we had to spend the night there because it was so late.

The next morning, after Eman served us breakfast, she told us her story, which I will summarize here. Eman, like so many Iraqis, escaped Iraq long before 2003. The current conflict in Iraq may have eclipsed what happened to Iraqis during Saddam’s long reign of terror and intimidation, and certainly the media’s coverage of Iraq in the last five years has been much greater than all the media's coverage of Saddam’s atrocities. This is why I believe it is important to document these crimes, to remind people of what took place in Iraq before 2003."
Iraq Mojo