“Let me get my right by my own hands.”

The last time I saw Abu Bakir was at the funeral of Um Bashar after a deadly bombing that killed about 14 people in my neighborhood. Since that time, I haven’t seen him.

As I was talking to A., one of my closest friends in Baghdad on the internet, I could tell how the situation is getting worse day after day. “It’s getting really unendurable,” he told me. I asked him if any new attacks happened in the neighborhood. Sectarian killings reached our neighborhood, he said.

I asked him, who was the first victim? “Abu Bakir,” he said. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say. I felt so angry and horrified despite the fact that I am not even in Baghdad anymore. However, my parents are still there. What if they are attacked? What if they are threatened? My friends are still there too. What if they face the same fate as Abu Bakir’s? Apparently the man wasn’t killed first, he was kidnapped.

Abu Bakir is an old man in his late 50s who works in the ministry of Agriculture in Baghdad. As he was heading to work, he was accompanied by one of his sons. As they were leaving the ministry, a group of armed men blocked off their way and kidnapped Abu Bakir leaving his son shouting and screaming in the street trying to help his father but in vain. No one intervened.

By this time, bad news was coming like rain from the new democratic country. People were dying in dozens, fuel crisis increased, electricity almost vanished in a place where temperature reached 120 F, and death squads and militias move freely in a lawless country where no official force is really in control.

S., my other close friend, emailed me and told me that the neighborhood opposite to mine is controlled by the Mahdi army militiamen who threatened every single Sunni family to leave despite the fact that the neighborhood is mixed and never had problems. A relative of one of his friends had to leave and move temporarily in my neighborhood.

Few days later, I learned that the militiamen set up checkpoints in my neighborhood to “protect the people from any attack,” they claimed. Iraqi army troops who are responsible of controling the area had no other choice but to accept the situation and tell the cleric leading the militiamen that if any problem happens, they’ll be the ones to blame. As if their presence is not a problem by itself.

Abu Bakir’s family searched for every spot they expected to see him in. They thought he was kidnapped not because he is a government employee but because of his sect being a Sunni. One day, they received a phone call from the kidnappers. “We killed your father,” they told his 24 year-old daughter. “His body in Ur neighborhood now,” they continued and immediately hang up. The daughter fainted immediately and his two sons and wife went out in the street like crazy people weeping, screaming and beating over there heads for the loss of their father.

Neighbors took them to Ur neighborhood to search for his dead body. Finally, they found it in a black trash bag in a trash area. It was really hard to identify him, A. said. It appeared he was brutally tortured. Apparently, the kidnappers drove a car over his legs which were notably smashed, A. added.

The three-day funeral was carefully protected by relatives of the victim. People in the neighborhood visited the family to condole. O., the victim’s eldest son hysterically took one of the Ak47s and run to the street. He was followed by dozens of his relatives to stop him. “Leave me,” he shouted. “Let me get my right by my own hands.”

VALLEY OF THE WOLVES IRAQ

Whenever I have a spare time, I take a DVD movie and watch it. Most of the movies I like to watch are the thrill ones and sometimes action. A dear friend of mine in Baghdad sent me a DVD movie he purchased from one of the biggest DVD stores in Baghdad. This time, the movie is not like any other movie people usually watch. The one he sent has to do with the short-time struggle between US forces and Turkey in Northern Iraq and scenes from the reality Iraqis witnessed when the new era started in 2003.

Valley of the Wolves: Iraq is yet a new Turkish action movie which has caused a media/blogging stormlet because of its timely setting (Northern Iraq) and because two "name" U.S. actors (Billy Zane and Gary Busey) play the American villains.

The Turkish film is originally based on a Turkish television series of the same name that has been a hit in Turkey for three seasons. Filmed with a budget of $10 million, Valley of the Wolves is the most expensive film ever made in Turkey.

In one bloody scene which incites emotions, trigger-happy US troops massacre Iraqi Turkoman civilians at a wedding party in the Iraqi oil-rich city of Kirkuk. A secret CIA unit, interrupts the wedding party of Leila (Berguzar Korel, dignified), the adopted daughter of a tolerant local Muslim leader (Ghassan Massoud, ditto), on the grounds that terrorists may be lurking. When one of Sam's trigger-happy operatives shoots a boy, all hell breaks loose and Leila's husband ends up dead. She swears revenge on the CIA agent, even though her adoptive father warns her that's not the way of Islam. A lot of air time is given to the Sheikh who lectures Leila when she says she wants to be a suicide bomber and besides the whole Islam forbids it line, he wisely notes, "they may die, but others will die too."

In another scene, the troops firebomb a mosque which the Turkish fighters used as their last stop before leaving to Turkey during dawn prayer. There are multiple summary executions.

For the first time in the world of cinema, the real-life abuses by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison are played out. A female US soldier was shown ripping off the clothes off of an Iraqi and throwing him on a human pyramid. Even the doctor - played by Gary Busey - is evil, removing human organs from Iraqi prisoners to send to patients in the US, Israel and Britain.


There is also a scene with terrorists videotaping the beheading procession of a Western hostage when the same Sheikh comes in and verbally slaps them into humiliation, releases the hostage, and gives the long samurai blade that was being pointed at the hostage's neck to the hostage and tells him to behead one of the terrorists. The journalist then drops the blade and weeps at the Sheikh's feet.


Finally, I would love to say that the movie is worth watching. It was filmed in a way you don't want to leave your chair in order not to miss the consequence of feelings and events.

BAGHDADTREASURE@GMAIL.COM

Clips from Maliki's intereview on al-Iraqiya state channel:

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Prime Minister was intereviewed by the Iraqi State Channel two days ago. Here are some of the questions and answers with a comment from me at the bottom of each question and answer.

"Q. Since the security plan was announced, the security situation has gotten
worse especially after what happened in Karada where rockets and bombs were
launched at the same time whereas there are always reports that terrorists were
captured, what do you think?

A. The first side of the plan is to
continue in our security operations which will be conducted by Iraqi forces and
the government because the terrorists, those who are Iraqis and those who come
across the borders, know that we are able to bring their activities to an end,
although there have been complications. There are no fears any more that our
security entities are able to protect the country. There are no fears that the
insurgents are going to occupy areas in Baghdad. The other side of the plan is
to stop these cowardly operations which target innocent civilians in the markets
and universities. There should be cooperation between the people and the
security forces. We need intelligence information to help us reach the
terrorists."

Comment: Maliki here seems very confident. He speaks with the same tone he used when he was first announced as a Prime Minister. It's been months now and nothing of what he said was carried out or succeeded.

Maliki, like other Iraqi officials, says that there should be cooperation between the people and the security forces. The question is: do people trust the security forces? There are several neighborhoods in Baghdad get alerted when one Interior ministry vehicle enters. Everyone takes a weapon and get ready to kill the distrusted visitor. I don't blame them. Iraqis do not differentiate between their enemy and their protectors now. Both wear the same uniform and maybe both are one group and run by one specific party! It's a big problem facing Maliki: how is he going to make the people trust the security forces?

"Q. People are suffering from the insurgents and at the same time terrorists are
released which makes these people angry, what do you say?
A. People have
every right to be angry. Some of those who were released are criminals but there
wasn’t enough evidence to convict them. We have a committee consisting of two
members from MOI, two members from MOD, two members from the CF and two members
from human rights organizations. The committee is responsible for reviewing the
detainees files every six months, then every 12 months and then after 18 months
they can decide if those detainees are criminals or not. Six percent of those
who were released went back to committing terrorist acts. This time our
punishment for them is going to be a harsh one and there will be no review for
their files any more. We gave them the opportunity to participate in the life of
the new Iraq but they returned to evil ways. The committee is responsible of
releasing 400 inmates from detention. We are going to change the committee and
the new committee will be in charge of reviewing the detainee’s files."

Comment: "Hang them" is the word on the tongue of Iraqi concerning the ones who are caught in blood hand. No Iraqi believes in this procedure, reviewing the cases of the terrorists and then release these terrorists! What does he mean by saying that the punishment is going to be "harsh?" is he going to use the emergency law and execute the criminals in public to make them a lesson to whoever intends to be the same? I doubt it. However, I am glad he is going to change the committee. It proved its failure. The question is when and how?

"Q. There is political and social support for the reconciliation, what fruits has
it borne for the Iraqis so far?

A. There is a trend forming between
the religious leaders and the prominent tribes to condemn terrorism. We have
connections with high ranking old Baath members to join the political life
because the weapons only are not enough in our war and no is going to benefit
from the blood we lose every day. It is a foolish dream for the old regime to
come back to power and the former Baath party members realize this. There are
people who want to volunteer helping the police and the army to eradicate
terrorism. When we say reconciliation we mean that there are enough numbers of
police and Iraqi Army and the security forces have reach a level of self
sufficiency."

Comment: It's good to hear that the reconciliation plan is moving forward although slowly. As for Baathists, I don't think the plan is going to be done well. You know why? I tell you! There is a jerk in Iraq, a very powerful jerk called Abdul Aziz al-Hakim who appeared in public last week and gave orders to his men to kill Baathists. Now, there will be no space for the Baathists to join Maliki's process because most of them will be either dead or away, living in another country. I wonder if it is a joint plan of Hakim and Maliki! There is no hope we trust them. However, we can hope at least.
Concerning the number of police and army, is it really a matter of numbers? I can make most of Baghdad's young men join the police and army, but the question is are all of them educated? Are they loyal to Iraq? Are they going to study military studies or join a police academy? Or it's a matter of teaching them how to use a pistol in two months and then send them to the streets?

"Q. The Americans yesterday hit Sadr City although they had agreed to the
reconciliation. Why?

A. I heard the explosions in Sadr City with
pain. I ordered them to stop because we are in a reconciliation stage. The
American operation used excessive force when they used airplanes which were too
much to arrest suspected insurgents. We are going to fully compensate the
people, although we cannot replace compensate the loss of life. Sadr City is a
poor area. I immediately contacted the U.S. forces to stop the attacks as
they didn’t have my permission to carry out this operation."

Comment: Here we go! Now my question, infact questions, are: did the Americans ignore the Prime Minister? Really? Maybe! But what if he has agreed with them secretly to raid Sadr City and then appear on TV to condemn. If he has agreed on the assault, I salute him because Sadr City people exceeded the limits and needed to be stopped. And let's be frank, Iraqi security forces are unable to stop the Mahdi Army thugs. On the contrary, they helped them a lot in killing people like what happened in al-Jihad neighborhood.
"Sadr City is a poor area" Jeeeeeeeeezuz! As the Americans say it… every spot on the Mesopotamia is poor now! Oh he is going to compensate the people there as well!! Poor people of Adhamiya! There is no one going to compensate you because you are Sunnis.

"Q. People say that the reconciliation is connected with disarming the militias,
is this operation targeted at Mahdi Army, which the Americans view as a militia,
and after that they come to the reconciliation?

A. There are
numerous rumors that the plan is targeting Sadr City to target Shiites and some
went further and said that the plan is to hit the Sunnis. Both Shiites and
Sunnis are worried and I want to calm them down. The reconciliation plan aimed
at resettling the displaced families in their neighborhoods which after they
received threatening letters from insurgents. The reconciliation plan is a plan
to restore peace although it has a military side which is the integration side
of the plan. It is designed so all Iraqis concentrate on rebuilding their
country and the government will have everything under its control and would be
no need for any militias. When I say militias I also mean the security companies
and all those who use violence to make other parties do what they want. We have
reached some armed groups and we reached an agreement with them to participate
in building the country and when the reconciliation project succeeds there will
be no need to carry weapons."

Comment: Militias, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla…Is he really going to disband the militias? How? Is he going to make a deal with Hakim about Badr? Will they stop killing the Sunnis? Or the Mahdi Army fighters who are in every single house in Sadr City? Someone tell me that something has been achieved since he said that the first day he swore the oath and the first day he announced his reconciliation plan. Is he really going to get rid of the security companies? C'mon! who is going to protect our "friends" from the terrorists in the streets then?

"Q. People have two major problems: the deteriorating security and the poor
services provided by the government in spite of the budget allocated from
ministry of finance?

A. We inherited a damaged Iraq from the old
regime as there were wars and the embargo and its penalties which affected
peoples’ lives more than the government itself. We have a duty to rebuild the
country and we have to start from scratch in a very unhealthy environment.
People deserve better services and as you said that there is a huge budget and
we are able to give more for the services. There is a problem in
accomplishing these projects so people can feel the difference. We need time to
build a power station and I am going to talk to my brothers the ministries to
come on TV and talk to people about the different projects they are working on.
Terrorism is a common threat in all our projects as they always target power
stations and the oil pipelines. I have disbursed money from day one to the
provinces governors and the councils but there are problems with executing these
projects and there are complaints that there aren’t enough contractors."

Comment: Same Cliché we used to hear for the last the three years and nothing has changed.

"Q. Administrative corruption is a common threat for our economy, what are you
doing to stop this?

A. We have two threats in the road to
democracy: security and corruption. Iraq was known for administrative corruption
since the old regime. We are going to end it. According to the constitution, I
am not able to mention names of those who were involved in corruption cases
because it is illegal. However, after the judgments I will be able to release
names of those who were involved in corruption cases. Corruption is there but it
had been weakened. The anti-corruption laws are tough and going to help us get
rid of this illness."

What about the officials who were proved corruptive while they were fleeing the country? Were they brought to justice? If yes, it's a big problem because no Iraqi knows about it and if No, the disaster is bigger!!!

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Back to Life...

I never thought that one day I will restore my real youth smile. I didn't know that there is still hope of living normally even if it is away from my own country. I gave up hoping that my beloved country may be safe and normal again.

My life has changed now. I can breath, walk, laugh, joke, cry, run, have fun, and meet with friends and relatives. I missed these things for years. For the last three years, I was like a robot. Living and working for the sake of work and nothing else. No kind of life was represented in my previous life. Fear was my companion. Wherever I go I feel worried and whatever I do I feel cautious. I thought about each step I walked in Baghdad several times before I took its risk.

Tears, lots of tears bid farewell to Baghdad. When I was leaving, I felt my tears were falling like rain on the shoulders of my mother, father, sister, aunt and friends. We were all crying. My parents were crying of happiness because finally I am going to be safe. But where can I get the feeling of peace from while they are still there in the middle of killings and explosions?

Since I arrived in Amman, I felt that I am still alive. WOW! I am still alive. I don't know how, I don't know why but I am alive and breathing. "Back to life" became my slogan. Yes, I was dead for the last three years. Death does not necessarily mean you die physically.

I have lots of friends and relatives in Amman. However, I didn’t stay with anyone of them. I shared an apartment with a friend of mine whom we both pay for its rent.

Iraqis are everywhere in Amman. Maybe it's funny if I say that there are Jordanians in Amman now! Wherever I turn my face, I see an Iraqi. They invaded Jordan as Zeyad said in his Amman posts. Few months ago, one of my best friends who works in the ministry of displaced and migration said that there are more than a million and a half Iraqis in Amman alone. Add to this the number of millions of other Iraqis who fled to Syria, Egypt, Dubai, and other European countries. Sometimes I don't feel I am a stranger from another country because even most of those who come to the internet café I go to are Iraqis. Each Iraqi I talk to says life became impossible in Iraq under the failure of everything there.

Iraqis here are not the poor ones or the uneducated. Most of them are the educated and well raised young men and women who feel their dreams were being killed slowly in a country run by vulgar people and extremists. Most of those I saw and met were graduates of the best colleges and universities in Iraq who most of them were threatened to death if they continue their progress in rebuilding their destroyed country. If not them, their parents and relatives were threatened to death. Even the Iraqi satellite channels started interviewing Iraqi intellectuals, authors and scientists in Amman or other Arab or foreign countries. None of the good people are left in Iraq. Militias formed of Shiite hateful avenging backwards people and Sunni insurgents are the ones whom Iraq is left for. They took it by force like Saddam.

To carry out my new slogan, I decided to make my new life becomes normal as I wanted it to be. I started doing what I couldn't do for the last three years and sometimes do what I couldn't do under Saddam. Meeting with friends was one of the things I most wanted to have done. By nature, I am social. I love meeting new people and friends. Maybe being a reporter in Baghdad made me lucky in a way in meeting with people more than other Iraqis in my age whose companion is home and work only.

Few days ago, I mentioned that have met with my Iraqi bloggers for the first time. Yesterday, I met them again in one of the greatest picnics I ever had since the picnics I had with my friends at the University before the war. Ten young men and women, all in their twenties, gathered again in hope of making our clean heart and ambitious mind become the common bond. Morbid Smile, Micho, Attawi and her sister, Zeyad, Nabil, 24 Steps, Anarki 13 and his friend and of course I met again in al-Hussein Gardens in Amman. Attawi brought her guitar. However, Nabil played some of the best songs we ever listened to and enjoyed. When Nabil got the guitar, I sang the famous Phoebe [of F.R.I.E.N.D.S] song, "Smelly Cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you?". We all laughed out loud making our young laughs soar high after they were imprisoned inside us for years. Within myself, I said yes, I am still alive. I can sing, laugh and joke now.

On the sidewalk, all of us sat down. Nabil's amazing fingers started playing "Hotel California". We all sang it joyfully and happily while children were running and playing next to us. Iraqi old songs were not far from being remembered. "You and I were young," was one of the most beautiful and romantic song sang by one of the greatest Iraqi female singer, Sita Hagobian. The song took me back to Baghdad and its old days. "On the bank [of the river], we sat together at nights…", reminded me with the Tigris that never felt peace. Our beautiful female friends did not miss anything. They brought Lays Chips, Swiss Roll candies, Iraqis favorite picnic nuts and of course, Pepsi Cola. "The last time I had such a beautiful picnic with friends was with college friends before the war," I told the gang. They said they didn't have the same thing since then as well.

Now that I have restored my life back, I still feel sad for my friends whom I left in Baghdad. They are still dead and have no meaning of life. Sometimes, I feel guilty because I had the chance to get my life back while they didn't. I wish I could take all of them with me and let them breathe again.

Meeting with Baghdadi friends in Amman...

It's been almost one year since I started my blog. During this year, I had friendships with Iraqi and non Iraqi bloggers. Most of my blog friends are Iraqis while others are from different countries.

In Iraq, it's very difficult to meet each other for many reasons. The first reason is danger of movement in the horrible streets of ghostly Baghdad. I wanted to meet with most of them but couldn't due to the continuous bad news that we had to cover day and night and because it was difficult for most of them, especially the female ones, to go out and meet up with "strangers" in a café or a restaurant. However, I managed to meet with two of my Iraqi blog friends: Hassan whom 24 Steps and I invited to our office and Morbid Smile whom I had my GRE test with last March.

Time has come to meet most of them now. However, it didn't happen in my beloved Baghdad. We met in Amman, Jordan where most of us escaped the unendurable horror of violence and danger in Baghdad at least for some time and then go back, or maybe go back to Baghdad afterwards.

The meeting came by accident. I was walking in one of Amman's fancy neighborhoods with some friends when I my eye caught Morbid Smile from a far distance. The street was so crowded and I was talking by cell phone, so I wasn't able to talk to her. Two days later, I sent her an email where she confirmed to me that she was the one I saw. It appeared that she have already met with the "gang" whom I was surprised to know they are in Amman. We finally coordinated with each other through Anarki to meet in one of the nice cafés.

Before I went to the café, I put a picture of each of the bloggers whom I never met before, except for Morbid Smile, in my mind. I was right about each one of them. I drew these pictures from what I read from their blogs and from chatting with some of them on the internet. The pictures I drew in my mind were exactly as I expected.

At about 7 p.m., the gang finally met. Zeyad, Morbid Smile, The Konfused Kollege Kid, Nabil, Attawi, Then Some, Micho , 24 Steps to Liberty , and Attawi's sister all sat in one place away from their beloved country.

The meeting was great. I was so happy to see each one of them. Finally the chance has come for us to get together. Although I was sad that we didn't meet in our country but I was glad to see how these strong and open-minded young men and women are willing to study, work, and live. I saw this in the eyes of each one of them. I am so proud of them and proud of being Iraqis, true Iraqis unlike the ones who are leading and killing civilians there. One day, our mission will be accomplished and we'll go back to our Iraq and rebuild and re-educate the society that is left for vulgar people, thieves and extremists who came from across the borders to kill the will inside the heart of each one of us. They will fail and we will succeed.

Great to meet you guys!