Fadel,

Your poetry/post brings tears to my eyes, but temporarily soothes my rage.

Thank you.

Oh Baghdad, Baghdad! If I knew that 21st marauders occupiers, coming from half way around the world, would massacre and destroy you, I would have offered you my blood, in ransom, when it was possible for me to do so! But alas! It’s too late now!

Now, I have only helpless remnants of tears to cry over you and lament the fate that befell you!

And I have a deep seated, unforgiving rancor against those who brought about your recent death and destruction!

When you were founded by Al-Mansur in 762, you were named Madinat-As-Salaam (i.e. The City of Peace!

Now, and in the 21st century, you are a city of war death, despair, hopelessness and yes, walls brought to to courtesy of claimants and braggers of democracy, civilization, and human rights, coming to you from half way around the world!

They call themselves democrats, civilized and enlightened, and I call them the 21st-century Savages, Crusaders and Barbarians!

O Jerusalem! Sorry that in my obsession with the lament of Baghdad’s fate, my lament of your fate has taken backstage! 

O Baghdad! O Jerusalem! Had I known the fate destined for you, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you!

We INVADED a country that had its’ OWN ECONOMY-RELIGION-etc-etc- and our PRESENCE has created a BOMBED OUT RUBBLED DISASTER AREA-this is “bullsh*t” at its’ FINEST!!!!!!!!!

These are eloquent images of American democracy, plus your tax-payer money at work for you, half way around the world!

Don’t worry average American, sooner or later you will earn the interest on your investment! But do you know in what form your investment will be returned to you?!

When part one of the video began, it was my thought that well..I already knew this. These ‘walls’ have been under construction since before the ‘surge’, but were certainly completed with the influx of the ‘surge’. All was well described in print, and film simply verifies how horrific it all is.

And, all the better to slaughter far more ‘insurgents” AKA CIVILIANS from the numerous air strikes that have been routinely conducted as a part of the ‘surge’. Take note of the absence of any American troops on the ground.

The 13 years of sanctions against Iraq that preceded the destruction of their country had already fostered a generation of bitter people who obviously blamed the US as much as they did Saddam for their woes. And yet, THOSE woes were minor compared to the destruction that we’ve created in the past 5.

There is a bitter irony in the scenes from these videos. The children working, (and orphaned) the elderly woman begging on the streets, and all of the murders, the walls and the total destruction of the infrastructure. One needn’t look far to witness the same conditions right here at home, across the country, in countless cities and towns.

Make no mistake in my acknowledgment that things are far, far, far worse for these Iraqis than what we are experiencing here. But then, that too has become relative. The similarities still cannot be denied. THEIR destruction, (at the same hands as our own destruction) is simply much further along.

And the same is the case in Afghanistan. And we’re enroute to do the same to Iran. And we wonder why they hate us?

How many of them are aware that the majority of us have done nothing to prevent their destruction, because we’ve done nothing to prevent our own.

And yes, we could have. THEY couldn’t rid themselves of Saddam, but we could have long ago rid ourselves of the evil that has caused this misery for them, and for ourselves.

That we have not, is the scariest part of all.