A view from the other side

My recent posts have been carried on uruknet, which offers "Information from occupied Iraq." I'm happy to be counted as one of the millions of Americans who oppose this war, although I'm a little worried that my work's appearance on that site has earned me a place on one of Hayden's lists.

The responses to the post "Her face" -- about Abir Hamza, the war's best-known victim -- offer some insight into the way our supposed opponents see things. The first commentator wrote:

In my opinion these guys are not to be shot, not to be receiving the death penalty, they would be getting away with it much too easy, they must be imprisoned the rest of their lifes, and their families should be forced to pay damages to the family of the girl!

Well, I would not blame the families; I would blame the larger culture. People in the Middle East probably do not understand that there are profound cultural differences between various regions of the United States; I was not surprised to discover that Steven Green hails from Texas. If the "blue states" had prevailed in the elections of 2000 and 2004 (and I believe that Bush won only with the aid of vote fraud), this war would not have occurred.

I oppose the death penalty, since trials do not always bring out all the facts -- as may well be the case here.

Another wrote:

Abir was killed as part of U$ “initiate civil war” operation. The US army wants to slaughter people of Iraq while blaming it on the resistance. They have been blowing up Mosque, busses and market places and blaming Sunnis and Shies for all the killings. Their plan was to get Arabs to kill each other and they would carry the slaughter on with or without the participation of the Sunnis and Shies.

Never before the US and Britain moved into Iraq did Sunnis and Shies blow up each other places of worship. Never was anyone afraid to walk on the streets of an unknown neighborhood. Never was anyone kidnapped and tortured for their brand of Islam.

It is US and Britain, and very likely Israel, who are doing the bombings and the killings. It is a purposeful act and this is not their first time doing it either. The US has done the exact thing in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, and many other places.

This is a theory which I hope other writers will explore. The men who violated Abir posed as insurgents. What if some of the other incidents we've been hearing about (including the ghastly report of a dog's head sewn onto a girl's body) have a similar origin?

A woman named Nora wrote:

this " christian god " seems like a very bloodthirsty, child raping, enitity, that will stop at nothing to kill the defenceless. Perhaps they should be shot in the face by the family if any surviving members can be located, and Allah could sort it out. I do not know what it is about christian types that makes them so violent, but we need to find a way to stop this extremist christofacsist behavour. Fortunatly in the end Allah will make them pay a dear price for there deeds.

This view, though understandable, hardly mirrors mine. All monotheists have wretched histories.

The response I liked best was this one:

Nora dear, I would not count on anyone’s God to sort out the bad deeds.

If we think this way about them (the Christians), we can not expect anything better from them. To think that there is something especial about Christens that makes them so violent is the other side of the coin (them thinking we are by nature violent people).

The truth is we are all equally capable of killing but right now they are the invaders.

Our best bet, I believe, is to get our societies to demand justice from their rulers and to resist injustice. Concepts of justice and injustice are totally absent in American social dialog while they are vibrant in places like Iran, and Palestine for example.

We need to transfer power to the people and implement active popular democracy everywhere.

That final sentiment is one that every thinking person should endorse.

People in other countries may not believe what I am about to say, but it is nevertheless true: Justice has always played a massive role in the American conversation. Unfortunately, over the past decade, neocon propagandists and theocrats have swayed a segment of our citizenry with incessant appeals to superstition and the baser emotions. As a result, too many Americans have forgotten their better selves. Perhaps worse, too many Americans remain ignorant of matters beyond our borders; most of my fellow citizens could not find Iraq, Iran or Saudi Arabia on an unmarked map.

And yet -- despite a rotting educational system, and despite exposure to a daily propaganda barrage -- most Americans still care deeply about justice. A majority now considers the war a foolish endeavor.

I'm sure that justice is a key topic of conversation in Iran, especially among the young, but that nation is far from a model popular democracy. The Palestinian government, which is democratic, remains under relentless attack -- and American tax dollars support the attackers. That fact gives the lie to Bush's claim that he wants to see democracy in the Middle East.