It continues.....

Millions of pilgrims walk to Karbala to visit the shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas.

These people want to give their condolences to their martyred Imams. Nothing can stop them - in spite of all the challenges that could face them. The terrorists use all methods, mortars, grenades, explosive belts, EIDs, car bombs, and they even used poisoned food (last year) but the holy pilgrimage continues. They are ready to give their lives as a price for this sacred aim.

This determination is not new to these people…… no, if we read the history we will find this determination existent in all historical periods. In the Abbasid age, nearly 1200 years ago, the Khalifa (the ruler) put a condition on the pilgrims, trying to stop them, to pay gold to allow them to visit the shrines; the people where working the whole the year to collect the price for pilgrimage. When the Khalifa saw this determination to visit the shrines, he decided that his condition should be to cut the hand of the pilgrim; but they sacrificed their hands with pleasure to visit the shrine of their Imams. Saddam’s regime attempted to prevent this visit by cutting the roads or arresting the pilgrims and sometimes killing them, but the trip continued.

This visit is getting bigger year by year. Nothing will stop or weaken this Islamic rite. I wish the day will come when other people understand this fact. Yesterday the Takfiris tried to stop or terrify those visitors by open random fire, throwing grenades, and finally suicide bomber killing more than 30 pilgrims ……….. But the trip continues and the numbers of visitors grow. This struggle will continue as long as the good and evil exist on the earth……

Another Phone Call

It will sound silly, not worth it but it made me happy, smiling and above all thinking how many simple things can mean a lot.

For the first time in more than three years I can call Fallujah from a land line in Baghdad.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah

The service was restored two days ago and the cables were fixed.

I believe it is another step towards square one. It is not progress; it is crawling to have what we had before 2003, though we had many good things that we didn’t have before 2003 and of course many other bad things that we didn’t have before 2003.

I will now dream another good thing will happen, before I type in the violence report which makes my dreams go in vain as we start counting the days' victims.

LOGIC

I always believe that logic has no place in Iraq because things move in a very random way in this country but also I have to accept that there is an exception for each role.

When the Americans decided in away or another to depend on the local residents to defend their neighborhood, they knew for sure that they had made a very difficult decision because they were 100% sure that some of residents if not the majority are members insurgents groups and they have their own ideologies which might not agree or meet with the American ideology in any way. Yet, the US army decided to take the initiative and try to use the insurgents.

Of course, there are some positive points in using those people, they know the tactics of the insurgents, some of them know where the insurgents live or meet and others know other important issues like funding or the way the insurgents move or act. All these positive points encouraged the Americans to form what is known the awakening councils or the support councils or any other names I might not have an idea about. The most important aim for the US army was to settle security in Iraq and especially in Baghdad.

Well, I can’t see any logic in the American initiative of using the insurgents to fight Qaida. First because these areas are mixed and we all know about the sectarian tension and violence, the insurgents who join these awakening council may uses their authorities for personal purposes and second depending on the insurgents to fight the insurgents (Qiada or any other groups) doesn’t mean defeating the enemy because for sure some members of the enemy would sneak inside the American formed awakening councils.

I believe the Americans tried to follow the steps of the awakening council in Anbar which was created by the sheikhs of Anbar province tribes. The mistake of the Americans was not studying the psychological side of Anbar experience. People of Anbar are almost from one main tribe and they all suffered from Qaida. When they decided to fight Qaida, they gathered their efforts to work as one real team because they wanted to end their suffering. They formed their awakening council and they succeeded because they had an exact goal. There is no way to compare between the awakening council of Anbar and any other awakening council whether its formed by Iraqis or American. Anbar awakening council is the real copy while the others are imitations.

Since almost one weak, the awakening council in one of Baghdad ’s neighborhood and in Diyala province suspended their cooperation with the government. They both accuse the official security forces (police and army) of attacking these councils. The awakening council in Amiriyah neighborhood west Baghdad says that a joint force of the Iraqi and the US armies arrested some of its members. The supporters of the awakening council in Diyala demonstrate for the last four days demanding to depose the police chief of Diyala accusing him with the sectarian violence.

These two examples are the best evidence of the failure of the American experience which (the failure) is very logical result for an illogical initiative. Those councils now demonstrate against the American supported Iraqi government. As I said, those people don’t have a case to fight for and this is a very strong weak point in the infrastructure of such awakening council.

I wish the American army find a good solution for this crisis. I’m afraid the US army decides to form new awakening councils within the current awakening councils who support the Iraqi government. In fact, In fact, I’m afraid that the whole issue would end with forming an awakening government

Ghazaliyah At Last

My daily work keeps me always busy to the extent that I gave up almost my social life. I didn’t pay visits to most of my friends and even my relatives. Having one day off a week doesn’t allow me to do much. I almost spend the day with my son. Yesterday was my day off and it was different.

For the first time since 2005, I visited my sister who lives in Ghazaliyah neighborhood, one of the most dangerous areas in Baghdad. For those who have no idea about Ghazaliyah, I want to give a simple idea. Ghazaliyah is one of the neighborhoods of the western side of Baghdad.

It’s a mixed one; I mean it was a mixed neighborhood before the outbreak of the sectarian violence. Now, Ghazaliyah is divided into Shiite Ghazaliyah and Sunni Ghazaliyah. My sister used to live in her house in the Sunni Ghazaliyah. Her husband built their house less than three years ago and he was so happy to have his house. Few hours ago, he received a threat letter ordering him to leave his house or he would loose his wife and five kids. He had no choice but to leave the house and to live in the Shiite part of Ghazaliyah in an old house.

Yesterday and after a very long discussion with the family, I decide to go to visit her. I went there and I saw the area where my sister lives. It was sad to see all these blast walls which separate the two sides of the streets. I didn’t reach the BORDERLINE between the two parts of the ONE NEIGHBRHOOD and I could know to what extent our country is separated. The taxi driver said that he doesn’t even think to reach the borderline because he is afraid that he might been kidnapped. There were many check points in a very short distance which reflect the unstable security situation. I asked my sister about their original house and she told me that she doesn’t have any idea about it and they might loose it. I didn’t know what to tell her because I almost lost hope that things would get better in this divided country.

May ALLAH be with the poors.

Basra

Last month I made a visit to Basra to see my relatives and to attend a wedding party for a cousin. I really long to go there once in a period due to the four years I spent at Basra University and before that the long years I used to spend in my holidays during my childhood with my cousins who live there.

I love Basra city, which lies in the far south of Iraq and in the north of the Arab gulf. So it has the sea and harbors which we don't have in all over the country in addition to its people who are well known for their generosity and hospitality. I am still in touch with my colleagues and friends there even after finishing my study besides my relatives who still there having some visits to see them just like this one or some phone calls in case I wouldn't .

But the very thing made me write this blog in this visit is the negligence that the governorate still suffers in all fields though that the Iraqi budget largely depends on Basra oil and ports. More than 75 % of the budget comes from Basra. I don't understand how do the government deal with the budget and on what bases do they depend to distribute the federal budget among the provinces and ministries. I was surprised to see the governorate, after the sufferings it had with its people whether during Saddam's regime or for the last four years in the new democratic Iraq, in the same conditions or may be worse than before.

The strange thing is that all Iraqi ports lie in Basra which means that all imported stuff from Asia and some European countries and exported oil to them should be through the Arab gulf and Basra! If Basra depends only on taxes which come from harbors, it should have skyscrapers everywhere. On contrary, the road from the main Harbor of Umm Qasr, which is one of five commercial ports besides the two other ports for oil in Basra, to Basra city is unsafe for driving as the pavement is not good and bumpy due to the careless it has .This is a simple thing, while hospitals, factories and infrastructures are neglected or broken in this city. If people want to be appointed as governmental employees, they have to join either police or army .As if the government and the whole country is police and army and even these things not to be easy to get without bribes! We don't have any kind of investments or indicators refer to any improvement in the infrastructure, society or the standard of living.

The other disaster is Shatt AlArab, which is a river of about 200 km long formed by meeting the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates, which flows in the Arab gulf. There is no cleaning for its water nor its banks for the last four years. Also oil smugglers started using Shatt AlArab water having oil products taken out of the country by small ships waiting for bigger ones on the deep sea .The result is our oil sold illegally and cheaply leaving huge spots of oil on water during the delivery. So oil is sold in the area and polluted water is here, too.

I went to Umm Filous harbor (about 30 km south of Basra), which is used to be a commercial one, but it becomes the harbor of oil smugglers, to see what is going on. I saw two small ships (they call them launches) side by with a big ship has some sailors whose faces tell that they are from Eastern Asia .When I asked my companion about the matter, who is from Basra city, he said" We have smugglers from Iran, Thailand, Malaysia, UAE , India and everywhere who deal with counterparts in Iraq with million dollars per day! I asked "Do the government know of this matter? The answer shocked me. "Most of the Iraqi smugglers are related to main parties in the government sharing the profits with them "he said. My question is now for the government, if the government can't control a small piece in the far south of Basra, how it can rule the whole country?

Silence is Important

The 55 years old taxi driver start his talking with a strange sentence. He said “the only winner in this country is the bachelor”. After a while, we started talking about the old days and I asked him like twenty questions about the life during the sixties and the seventies. After tens minutes of the heated discussion, I could reach the main point.

The man lost hi son who was kidnapped in one of the western neighborhoods of Baghdad more than a year ago. The kidnappers called him through his son phone saying “are you Shiite or Sunni?” the man replied “Im only Muslim and I never thought about this matter” then the kidnapper told him “don’t you care about your son’s life? You have to answer me”. The man said “why should I care? He is now your prisoner. If you want to kill him, you will hold the responsibility and if you release him, it would be your responsibility. Allah will ask you for everything you do”

Tow days later, the man got the body of his son Mustafa from the morgue. After few days, he received an apology letter from the killers saying that they killed his son by mistake. the man was about to cry when he said “what would I do with the apology? would it give me back my son?”. Of course, no investigation was done by the police because any investigation is mostly useless in Iraq.

This conversation took place only three days ago. The reason behind writing it is the big coming military operation in Mosul city that should start any moment. Just like the simple Iraqi people, I hope that the government could really clean Nineveh province from all the insurgents to help the city to get back it lovely name, the province of the two springs and to punish all those who killed the innocent Iraqis. The hopes are great but reality is something different.

I’m not going to talk about the military abilities or any other thing. I just want to raise one point. I know for sure that surprise is one of the most important factors of victory in any battle because the other side wouldn’t have the time to think or to act properly. This is a fact that everybody knows. So, why our government has been talking about the final battle with Qaida in Nineveh province for the last two weeks?