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Excuses, Excuses...

River | 22.06.2004 11:54 | Repression | World

Excuses, Excuses...
I have had neither the time, nor the inclination, to blog lately. The weather is, quite literally, hellish. The heat begins very early in the morning with a blazing sun that seems unfairly close to our part of the earth. You'd think, after the sun has set, that the weather would be drastically cooler. This is not the case in Baghdad. After the sun has set, the hot sidewalks and streets emanate waves of heat for several hours, as if sighing in relief.

The electricity has been particularly bad these last two weeks in many areas. For every four hours of no electricity, we get two hours of electricity. And while we should be taking advantage of these two hours to do such things as wash clothes, get the water pump going and blog, we find ourselves sitting around in front of the air conditioner for a couple of hours of bliss, procrastinating and making empty promises to no one in particular.

School is out for most of the kids- both in grade school and in college. Everyone is just generally sitting around at home. It’s a huge relief for parents and teachers alike. There was a time when, according to many frazzled parents, sending one’s kids to school was the highlight of the day… now it has come to mean more anxiety and worry. While having them virtually trapped inside of the house is something of a trial on everyone involved, it is also a relief.

The new government isn’t very different from the old Governing Council. Some of the selfsame Puppets, in fact. It’s amusing to watch our Karazai- Ghazi Ajeel Al-Yawer- trying to establish himself. It’s a bit of a predicament for many an Iraqi, and possibly foreigners too. Here he is- your typical Arab- the dark skin, dark hair and traditional ‘dishdasha’ wearing an ‘iggall’ on his head and playing the role of tribal sheikh quite well.

Beyond these minor details, however, he remains an ex-member of the Governing Council and was actually selected by the Puppets, supposedly over the American preference- Adnan Al-Pachichi (who is adamantly claiming he is *not* the American preference at this point). That whole charade is laughable. It has been quite clear from the very start that the Puppets do not breathe unless Bremer asks them, very explicitly, to inhale and exhale. The last time I checked, Puppets do not suddenly come to life and grow a conscience unless a fairy godmother and Jiminy the Cricket are involved.

He is, purportedly, one of the heads of one of the largest tribes in the region- Al-Shummar. This tribe extends over parts of Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. They are largely Sunni but have several Shi’a clans. During and after the war, they were largely responsible for the northern and western borders. They are landowners, farmers, and- occasionally- smugglers of everything from sheep, to people, to arms…

Now, Yawer is our Karazai. He sits exuding all the outward signs of the stereotypical Arab (almost down to the camel) and yet, he seems to support Bremer et al. in almost every decision. Sure, he gives an interview now and then and says he doesn’t agree with this decision or that one, but the first major meeting he attends, he calls for NATO forces inside of the country- as if Americans, Italians, Brits and the rest aren’t already enough. There are also rumors that he is married to a certain lady who is a personal friend and adamant supporter of none other than Ahmad Chalabi... I'm still looking into that.

His image, admittedly, bothers me. I’m getting visions of corrupt Gulf emirs, oil wells, and shady business dealings.

Iyad Allawi is completely America and Britain’s boy. He has been on the CIA’s payroll for quite some time now and I don’t think anyone was particularly surprised when he was made Prime Minister. The cabinet of ministers is an interesting concoction of exiled Iraqis, Kurdish Iraqis who were in the northern region and a few Iraqis who were actually living inside of Iraq. Of the 37 members of the new government, 11 were actually living inside of Iraq. Of those 11, one or two are known to be quite competent. The rest are either unknown or generally infamous.

Several of the new government actually have more than one nationality. Now don’t get me wrong- I hold nothing against people with dual or triple or whatever number of nationalities. I do, however, have something against people with dual nationality being a part of government. It makes one wonder how many Americans would actually agree to having a senator or minister with, say, a French or German passport along with the American one.

While I don’t have any definite numbers, I can assure the world that we have *at least* 20 million Iraqis, both inside and outside of Iraq, who have only a single nationality. I can even go further to assure the world that the majority of those Iraqis with a single nationality actually have lived inside of Iraq for most of their lives. However bizarre the statistics may seem, I do believe that out of those millions of Iraqis, 37 competent ones could have been found. True, they might not have CIA alliances, bank accounts in Switzerland, armed militias or multimillion dollar companies in Saudi Arabia… but many of them actually have a sense of national pride and an anxiety for their country and for the future of their children and their children’s children inside of said country.

My favorite minister, by far, is the Defense Minister, Sha’alan Hazim. According to American newspaper Al-Sabah, Mr. Sha’lan Hazim “received a Masters degree in business administration from the UK before returning to Iraq to run a Kuwaiti bank. After being forced to leave Iraq by the former regime, Mr.Sha’alan became the head of a real-estate company in London until he returned to Iraq last June and has since worked as the governor of Qadisiya”.

Now this is highly amusing. I must have missed something. If anyone has any information about just *how* Mr. Sha’alan Hazim qualifies as a Defense Minister, please do send it along. At a point when we need secure borders and a strong army, our new Defense Minister was given the job because he… what? Played with toy soldiers as a child? Read Tolstoy’s War and Peace six times? Was regional champion of the game Commandos?

Beyond the unsure political situation, I have spent the last few days helping a relative sort things out to leave abroad. It is a depressing situation. My mother's cousin is renting out his house, selling his car and heading out to Amman with his three kids where, he hopes, he will be able to find work. He is a university professor who has had enough of the current situation. He claims that he's tired of worrying about his family and the varying political and security crises every minute of the day. It's a common story these days. It feels like anyone who can, is trying to find a way out before June 30. Last summer, people who hadn't been inside of Iraq for years were clamoring to visit the dear homeland that had been 'liberated' (after which they would clamor to leave the dear homeland). This summer, it is the other way around.

The Syrian and Jordanian borders are packed. A friend who was returned at the Jordanian border said that they were only allowing 20 cars to pass per day... people were being made to wait on the borders for days at a time and risked being rejected at the border guard's whim. People are simply tired of waiting for normality and security. It was difficult enough during the year... this summer promises to be a particularly long one

 http://www.globalecho.org/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

River
- Homepage: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

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