On Our Watch
AP:
In 2003, when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, a woman named Hamdiyah al-Dulaimi had three handsome sons. They were good men with wives and families, the shining accomplishments of her life.Multiply that thousands of times over.
In hindsight, it was a much better life than she realized at the time. Most certainly better than it is now, four years after the fall of Baghdad.
On April 9, 2003, the people of the city cheered invading U.S. soldiers in the city square. Leaders of the coalition troops promised liberty, freedom and life without tyranny.
But Baghdad still has none of those things. And al-Dulaimi has no sons.
One day last spring, a dozen men in black uniforms knocked down her door. They screamed "Filthy Sunnis!" and handcuffed her sons, Haqqi, 39, Qais, 37, and Ali, 31.
"Why? What did my boys do?" the mother cried as the gunmen dragged their new prisoners across the floor.
Al-Dulaimi dropped to her knees, clinging to the ankles of a kidnapper. She begged, kissing his shoes. "At least leave me one. Take the other two. Leave me one."
They beat her unconscious with their gun stocks and took her sons.
The next day, her sons' corpses were on the sidewalk. Haqqi's body was headless. The bodies of Qais and Ali had been mutilated; some parts were missing.
Like so many others, their grieving mother fled -- to Syria, in her case.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Saturday, April 07, 2007
11 Comments:
It is sad on this poignant day of Good Friday, when we learn of Peace and Harmony, and Forgiveness, to read such a post.
It is reality and I am happy that CR has posted it; ladies and gents, we must wake-up from this slumber and realize that America's name and all that it stands for and represents is being tarnished by a group of men and men intent on canabalizing our very soul.
They represent a clear and present danger, to reference an oft repeated cliche, to the American way of life. Yes we were attached on 9-11; yes, our way of life was threatened, yes, we must avenge. But to present subterfuge to the American people and invade a nation that had virtually noting to do relative to 9/11 is a crime indeed.
Perhaps it is late here, at that is why i resort to tried and tired cliches: "the revolution will not be televised." indeed, it is not; and the revolution is not taking place in Iraq; rather, it is occurring behind closed doors in this the imperial Presidency. We must wake up and take our nation and our democracy back. Let us vote, let us show the World that representative democracy works; let us show the world that American citizens still have a soul.
Maybe someday Barbara Bush will be kissing the ankles of those taking her sons away.
Thank you for posting this horrific story, CR. Like you said, multiply this time 1000, tho I'd say more like 10 or 20 thousand.
Of all the sad and disheartening aspects regarding the way we as a country have reacted to this immoral war, nothing enrages me more than hearing war supporters constantly complain that the media only shows the bad news in Iraq and underplays the good news.
If we Americans were forced to watch on television just half an hour a day - hell, half an hour a month - real scenes of the horror we have unleashed on this hapless nation, this war would have been shut down long ago. Of course the war perpetrators are well aware of this, and thus their massive efforts to sheild us from the truth and lie to us incessantly.
to all the people who said we are liberating the Iraqis, we are.
We are liberating their souls from their earthly possessions.
go USA!
Salavtion for Iraqis won't come from Americans. They have to find it themselves. All we can do is leave
freedom is untidy
I guess that shows how we are winning the hearts and minds of the Middle East.
Hail Saddam, Keeper of the Peace!
OK, I'm kidding, but commenters here seem to be blaming Bush personally for what is obviously an inherent problem with Iraq. I myself note the posting's title, "On Our Watch", and am furious with Bush for not committing enough troops to stop these atrocities while keeping enough troops there for America to take the blame for everything that goes wrong.
Does anyone wonder why the majority of Iraqis think it's OK to kill the Americans in their country? To put it another way, turn the tables around. If Iraqis had invaded America, and my sons were killed like that, I would quietly and methodically arrange to wreak as much havoc on those responsible as I possibly could, until I was dead.
Wouldn't you?
anonymous wrote: ...commenters here seem to be blaming Bush personally for what is obviously an inherent problem with Iraq.
Anonymous, you idiot. Who the hell do you think started this war? This is George Bush's war. This is a Republican war. Any idiot could have predicted what would have happened if we took Saddam out. Bush and the Republicans are at fault for the whole mess.
"Does anyone wonder why the majority of Iraqis think it's OK to kill the Americans in their country?" But Sunnis aren't the majority in Iraq. (Plenty of Shi'ites also want America out the country, but only so they can hammer the Sunnis even harder.)
It's not as if an American pullout would stop the Shi'ite death squads. Atrocities like this are happening because Shi'ites have fifty years of scores to settle. Violence would have been inevitable even if the Ba'athist regime had collapsed of its own accord. Bush's main sin is that he spent years denying that sectarianism was even a problem. Now he's paralyzed, unable to commit enough troops to try to fix the problem but unwilling to admit failure. So as TCR has often pointed out, Bush is instead kicking the problem down the road to the next administration.
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