FREEDOME OF MIND

Far and Away


When I left Baghdad, 4 years ago, I didn't take anything with me, except a suitcase full of memories. Memories I knew I was going to need. Memories that can feed my soul when its hungry, memories that can make me laugh when I am blue, memories that can make me cry, memories that can give me hope, hope that I will once again, no matter how long it takes, go back to where these memories were planted, take their seeds, and plant new ones.
Memories of early childhood, of which nothing is left, except of a mental picture of me holding a football and a hat over my curly blond hair, memories of the first school, the first friends, memories of the first football game, memories of how innocent I was, of how innocent the world was. Memories of the first steps into teenage hood, new friends, new life, accomplishments in school that did not satisfy my parents so I just gave up, a long hair that wont straighten up, growing up, getting close to the lord, watching people speak in strange tongues after a long period of prayer, dressing as a Muppet to cheer up orphans, growing up again. College, new friends, new life again, memories of a long lost love, that tormented both of us more than it made us happy, lies, deceit, breaking up, letting her go, oh those cherry lips and almond eyes still haunt me, oh what would I give to just get a glimpse at those eyes, just to get that look that says “ I know you, I know all of you”, memories of exams, my buddy walking in his sleep, staying up all night just chatting like there was no tomorrow, going to the exam without studying anything and laughing about it, good friends, true friends, memories of the dreams we had for our future, how settled everything was, memories of how each and every one of us didn't know what he was going to do, but it made no difference because we all got each other, an accident, then a trip, the most amazing trip in the history on mankind, of which I have the pictures to prove, the only pictures I have, courtesy of a true friend. Memories of staying behind, meeting new people, believing that it doesn't matter anymore because the end is near, trying convince people that it's not about the man, its about the country, then ….. The END.
The end of what we once knew, and the start of something that I can not understand no matter how hard I tried. I can not understand how the victim becomes a criminal, the criminal gets rewarded, and how they turned it all into politics. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to tell you that our prime minister has never had sex in his life. He said that Sabrin, the women who his militias raped, did not suffer any injuries, scratched, or wounds in the vaginal area. Those of you who had sex would know that sexual intercourse itself, though forced, does not cause wounds in the vaginal area, except if the victim was a virgin, a claim Sabrin never made.
She is a criminal, they say, she is wanted for several crimes. Why did you let her go then? A prostitute? Does being a prostitute justify getting raped? I don't know about you but that is not a good reason for me, unless you don't think of a prostitute as a humane being.
A criminal, a whore, wanted for many charges. The wolves ate the lamb, and the Shepherd brushed their teeth. Shepherd? Give me a feakin break.
They raped the whole country, what's one more woman? One more child? One more innocent? One more innocence? Our innocence?
Raped? You are not alone Sabrin, they raped all of us. They raped us of our future, our present, our past. They raped the memories we left behind. They raped the humane being inside of me, they want me to become a beast, but I can't. I just can't do it. I just can't forget the humane being, I just can't leave all my memories behind, I just can't leave my innocence behind, I just can't forget my curly blond hair, I just can't be a beast. I just can't.
I just want to be humane; I just want to live as a humane. I just want to see others as humans. I can't bear these inhumane crimes, I just can't understand rape, I can't understand killing, I can't understand how someone could defend the rapists and the murders. I don't understand how they didn't even bother looking into it.
Maybe I should lock myself in my room, and open my empty suitcase that is full of memories. Memories of men, memories of men with honor, Memories of a time when honor meant the world to men. Memories of times when we were brothers, I still remember my brothers, I still love my brothers. But they forgot about me.

posted by LORD @ 2:39 PM 6 comments

I, Iraq

My memory is not that good nowadays, some friends suggested that I go visit a doctor to check my brain out. I don’t know if am going to the see the doctor or not, I still haven’t decided yet, but I would be much surprised if it turned out that I still have a brain at all, I think –and that’s only me, a crazy person talking- that humane beings consumes their brain during their lifetime on George W. Bush's not-so-green-due- to global-warming world. I am not a scientist, but if you have seen what we have seen since we were little children, I think you might understand what I'm talking about, and I wouldn't be a gibber jabber of a crazy man to you.
The first thing that comes to my mind is something happened 16 years ago, any of you remember Al-Amiryah shelter? More than 200 people died, their only fault is they were afraid of American bombs. Funny thing, I was watching a movie, a documentary of some kind, called the secret. The main theme is according to the law of attraction, what you think most happens to you. For example, if you are afraid of meeting bad people and you spend a lot of time thinking about, you are bound, by the law of attraction, to unconsciously attract these people to you. These people is Amriyah shelter were so afraid of shelter missiles and f-16 fighter bombers that they attracted these missiles to their shelter. Or maybe that’s only one way to put, another was is to say that the Americans thought the Iraqi high command were hiding in that shelter, or maybe you can say that they received some faulty inelegance information (surprise, surprise), or another way is to say that the weren't sure if the information were true or not so they bombed the place anyway. A friend of mine said some funny things the other day," one bullet in your head is enough to kill you, the second one is just to make sure".
They talked a lot about mass graves, crimes against humanity he said. I wish you would give that another thought Mr. President. But it not your fault anyway, not because you are stupid and you say only when they tell you to say, well… you are stupid, anyway, that’s not the point, the point is they didn't tell what really happened there. During the chaotic retreat from Kuwait, your fighters and helicopters killed everything with tow legs they could find walking on the ground. People found the bodies and buried them in mass graves. But then again, that's only one way to put it. The other way is to say that I am crazy Baathist, which I don’t mind at all. After all, I am crazy. Are you going to hang George bush senior for this? Crazy, crazy, crazy, just plain insane.
I am not good with faces or with people anyway. I don’t remember faces and names very well. The funny thing is that I remember many people I do not know, or even have see in my whole life. I remember more than 500,000 people, most of the children less than one year old, who died due the embargo. Don’t tell me its Saddam's fault, because my crazy diminished brain can't accept that. It can not accept that after all that, Mrs. Albright says it wasn't worth it. So the death of 500,000 people wasn't, after all, worth it. And all for what? For non-existent WMDs. Maybe that can't be held against them, because the only knew afterwards. You could say that 13 years is a lot of time, and you could say that the Iraqis kept telling you that they didn't have it, but still you can't hold that against America. The moral of this story is "Kill Now, Ask Questions Later".
Or "Kill people now; think why you killed them later. And if, after a long time, this reason didn't work out for you, just think of something else".
I am biased. I admit that. Because I always talk about America, and what America did to us, and how brutal her crimes were. But I never say anything about me, and how stupid I am, how ignorant and retarded I am, and how futile and idiotic my discussions are, how I don’t know how to debate in a civilized way. I never say that, do I?
God damn me and all the people who are like me. Have you watched me on TV? Yeah, don’t be surprised, I was on TV, I am on TV all the time. I was dead serious, but for some reason, people laugh at me all the time.
I am a member of the Iraqi parliament, and I am the head of it too. I can't agree on laws that matter to my people, but I can agree on laws that matter to me, like my salary and benefits. Sometimes, I say that terrorism comes from Syria. Some other times I say terrorism comes from Iran. Actually it depends on who I am at the particular moment. I leave the parliament on the when they don’t give my money, but I stay when people die every other day. Sometimes I need people to tell not to kill my brothers. What kind of crap is that anyway? Fatwas or religious orders from holy men to tell me that I cant kill my brother, and I if I did, I would go to hell. I don’t even have the common sense to realize that killing anybody is wrong, let alone killing my brother. The only thing that matters to me, the only things that is most important to me is ME, and only ME. When I go to my shaman to ask him about things that matter to me, it turns out that things that matter to me most is Anal sex and marrying more than one women to satisfy me. I debate with my peers over the validity of some kind of marriage that allows me to take as many women as I please without any obligations or consequences. And you say I don’t know how to Debate, HUH, in your face. I rage, demolish, destroy, kill, insult, boycott, threat, and demand explanations over some insulting cartoons, but I do nothing when they are destroying one of my holiest sights. I guess it is no longer my holiest sight; I have replaced it with my penis. I degrade and demean my women; I cover them with cloth from head to toe lest anybody sees them and realize what I had done to them. I kill them if the go against my will, I kill them If I even suspected that they went against my will. I am the Supreme Being; I am gods shadow on earth. My word is that last word, and no other word shall be said after mine. I twist religion to my benefit, when it's OK for me, I fight. When it isn't I don’t. And who says when its OK and when it isn't? Who the hell do you think? Me!!!
I can't get along with my brother when it comes to my country; it's my country, not his. But I can get along with him fine, when it comes to a football (or soccer) match. We laugh together if we win, we cry together if we lose. But when the math ends, when the referee blows his whistle, him and I go back to killing each other.
I need people to teach me everything I know, or every thing I should know, I can't just go and learn it my self. I am too tired to do it. The only thing I could of is what's for lunch today and which one my wives is going to satisfy me tonight.
I call other people monkeys and pigs, just because they don’t believe in what I believe, for I will prevail. I waged wars, I conquer lands, states, continents, but when other people do it, I call them invaders. But my god said I could, their god just doesn't matter.
When I learned democracy, my greatest achievement was a lynching. Yes, I finally learned democracy and humane rights, I finally learned how all people are equal under the law, and my first implication was a lynching. I finally formed a government; I finally elected my representatives, I am finally free from tyranny. And the first thing I do is an act of tyranny and revenge. I am so obsessed with revenge; it is the only thing I know how to do. I don’t know to build, I don’t know how to teach, I don’t know how to serve my kinsmen, I don’t know how to let go, I don’t how read, I don’t know how to do anything, I only know that I should get even with anybody, even with myself.
I kill myself and ask people why are they killing me, I see the wrong in them, but I don’t see the wrong in me. I am a hypocrite.
I.... I... I... I don’t who "I" is. This person is a stranger to me; my own mother doesn't recognize me anymore. My own mother doesn't know me anymore. I am killing my mother, my brother is killing my mother, the stranger is killing my mother, I am killing the stranger, I am killing my brother, my brother is killing me.
Silly me, stupid me, please forgive me.
I apologize if I offended anyone. I have a good excuse anyway, I am losing my mind, remember? I have lost most of my brain, and the rest is just trying to control my bodily functions. I have lost my mind; seriously, I think I am a country. I am torn, hurt, killed, raped, wounded, bleeding, empty, and lost country. This is the craziest thing i have ever said to the day. I am Iraq. I, Iraq.

posted by LORD @ 12:34 PM 1 comments

Najjaf: The Rules Of Engagment

You see … what I don’t really understand… I mean if someone wants to lie, like if one of your parents catches you with a dirty mag, you better come up with something original to cover your butt, the " it's not mine, I'm holding it for a friend" excuse is really obsolete, nobody believes it anymore.
So what I don’t really understand is why America doesn’t hire someone from Hollywood to write stories for the news. Have any of you listened to what they all say about what happened in Najjaf? The Iraqi government spokesperson said they were Shiite but not Shiite, they were highly trained, they had heavy arms and ammunition, the troops found Afghanis with them, they have pictures of the leader with Osama Bin Laden, and the baathists had a hand in all this. What a load of CRAP.
I don’t really understand why when someone lies, especially the Iraqi government, they do it so bad that anybody, I mean anybody, even an imbecile can figure it out.
Now Al-Qaeda id working with the Shiite? And Osama Bin Laden dined and wined with the leader of a Shiite leader? What about what they were filling our heads with all those years about how sunny Muslims hate Shiites, and about all the bombings and cars and mortars and terrorist attacks are the doings of Al-Qaeda against Shiite Iraqis? Highly trained my foot, they didn’t last a day for god's sake. By the way, someone might argue that they stood up against the Iraqi forces, and forced to call for supports from the Americans, but that, in opinion, doesn’t mean that these people were highly trained, it simply means that the Iraqi army is a bunch of cowards, or under-trained and under equipped to say the least.
Seriously people, heavy arms!!! They said that Al-Qaeda people smuggled heavy arms to Najjaf, how in god's name did they do that? Can someone explain?
It’s a heavy load of crap, and they want to feed us this crap, but you know what, I am not eating this. I am not buying your shit anymore.
Remember David Koresh? The ATF and FBI burned the whole church to the ground and said his followers did it, sharpshooters hunted everyone who tried to flee that inferno, even 12-year old children.
Fret not my fellow Iraqis, we not have our own David Koresh. All we have to do now is wait for the documentary "Najjaf: The Rules of Engagement" to see what really went on.

posted by LORD @ 3:10 PM 0 comments