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=> Fahrenheit 9/11...

Fahrenheit 9/11...
Posted by Tiglath (Guest) davidchibo@hotmail.com - Saturday, September 18 2004, 7:50:19 (CEST)
from 203.173.6.71 - 203-173-6-71.dyn.iinet.net.au Australia - Windows XP - Internet Explorer
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Baghdad Burning



.. I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls
can mend...

Wednesday, September 15, 2004


Fahrenheit 9/11...
August was a hellish month. The heat was incredible. No one remembers
Baghdad ever being quite this hot- I think we broke a new record somewhere
in mid-August.

The last few days, Baghdad has been echoing with explosions. We woke up to
several loud blasts a few days ago. The sound has become all too common.
It's like the heat, the flies, the carcasses of buildings, the broken
streets and the haphazard walls coming up out of nowhere all over the city.
it has become a part of life. We were sleeping on the roof around three days
ago, but I had stumbled back indoors at around 5 am when the electricity
returned and was asleep under the cool air of an air-conditioner when the
first explosions rang out.

I tried futilely to cling to the last fragments of a fading dream and go
back to sleep when several more explosions followed. Upon getting
downstairs, I found E. flipping through the news channels, trying to find
out what was going on. "They aren't nearly fast enough," he shook his head
with disgust. "We're not going to know what's happening until noon."

But the news began coming in much sooner. There were clashes between armed
Iraqis and the Americans on Haifa Street- a burned out hummer, some
celebrating crowds, missiles from helicopters, a journalist dead, dozens of
Iraqis wounded, and several others dead. The road leading to the airport has
seen some action these last few days- more attacks on troops and also some
attacks on Iraqi guard. The people in the areas surrounding the airport
claim that no one got any sleep the whole night.

The areas outside of Baghdad aren't much better off. The south is still
seeing clashes between the Sadir militia and troops. Areas to the north of
Baghdad are being bombed and attacked daily. Ramadi was very recently under
attack and they say that they aren't allowing the wounded out of the city.
Tel Affar in the north of the country is under siege and Falloojeh is still
being bombed.

Everyone is simply tired in Baghdad. We've become one of those places you
read about in the news and shake your head thinking, "What's this world
coming to?" Kidnappings. Bombings. Armed militias. Extremists. Drugs. Gangs.
Robberies. You name it, and we can probably tell you several interesting
stories.

So how did I spend my 9/11? I watched Michael Moore
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/ 's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. I've had bootleg
CD version since early August. (Grave apologies to Michael Moore- but
there's no other way we can see it here.) The copy has been sitting in a
drawer with a bunch of other CDs. One of my cousins brought it over one day
and said that while it was brilliant, it was also quite depressing and
distressing all at once. I had been avoiding it because, quite frankly, I
cannot stand to see Bush for five minutes straight- I wasn't sure how I'd
cope with almost two hours.

Three days ago, I took it out while the house was relatively quiet- no
cousins, no cousins' children, parents busy watching something or another,
and E. asleep in front of the air conditioner for the next three hours.

The CD was surprisingly clear. I had expected some fuzziness and bad sound
quality- it was fine. Someone had made the copy inside a movie theater. I
could tell because in the background, there was a ringing mobile phone a
couple of times and some annoying person in the front kept getting up to
adjust his seat.

I was caught up in the film from the first moment, until the very last.
There were moments, while watching, when I could barely breathe. I wasn't
surprised with anything- there was nothing that shocked me- all of the stuff
about the Bush family and their Saudi friends was old news. It was the other
stuff that had an impact- seeing the reactions of Americans to the war,
seeing the troops in Iraq being interviewed, seeing that American mother
before and after she lost her son in Iraq.

Ah, that mother. How she made me angry in the beginning. I couldn't stand to
see her on screen- convincing the world that joining the army was the ideal
thing to do- perfectly happy that her daughter and son were 'serving'
America- nay, serving, in fact, the world by joining up. I hated her even
more as they showed the Iraqi victims- the burning buildings, the
explosions, the corpses- the dead and the dying. I wanted to hate her
throughout the whole film because she embodied the arrogance and ignorance
of the people who supported the war.

I can't explain the feelings I had towards her. I pitied her because,
apparently, she knew very little about what she was sending her kids into. I
was angry with her because she really didn't want to know what she was
sending her children to do. In the end, all of those feelings crumbled away
as she read the last letter from her deceased son. I began feeling a
sympathy I really didn't want to feel, and as she was walking in the streets
of Washington, looking at the protestors and crying, it struck me that the
Americans around her would never understand her anguish. The irony of the
situation is that the one place in the world she would ever find empathy was
Iraq. We understand. We know what it's like to lose family and friends to
war- to know that their final moments weren't peaceful ones. that they
probably died thirsty and in pain. that they weren't surrounded by loved
ones while taking their final breath.

When she asked why her son had been taken and that he had been a good
person. why did this have to happen to him? I kept wondering if she ever
gave a second thought to the Iraqi victims and whether it ever occurred to
her that Iraqi parents perhaps have the same thoughts as the try to dig
their children out from under the rubble of fallen homes in Falloojeh, or as
they attempt to stop the blood flowing out of a gaping hole in the chest of
a child in Karbala.

The flashes of the bombing of Iraq and the victims were more painful than I
thought they would be. We lived through it, but seeing it on a screen is
still a torment. I thought that this last year and a half had somehow made
me a little bit tougher when it came to seeing Iraq being torn apart by
bombs and watching foreign troops destroy the country- but the wound is
still as raw as ever. Watching those scenes was like poking at a gash with
sharp stick- it hurt.

All in all, the film was. what is the right word for it? Great? Amazing?
Fantastic? No. It made me furious, it made me sad and I cried more than I'd
like to admit. but it was brilliant. The words he used to narrate were
simple and to the point. I wish everyone could see the film. I know I'll be
getting dozens of emails from enraged Americans telling me that so-and-so
statement was exaggerated, etc. But it really doesn't matter to me. What
matters is the underlying message of the film- things aren't better for
Americans now than they were in 2001, and they certainly aren't better for
Iraqis.

Three years ago, Iraq wasn't a threat to America. Today it is. Since March
2003, over 1000 Americans have died inside of Iraq... and the number is
rising. In twenty years time, upon looking back, how do Americans think
Iraqis are going to remember this occupation?

I constantly wonder, three years after 9/11, do Americans feel safer? When
it first happened, there was a sort of collective shock in Iraq. In 2002,
there was a sort of pity and understanding- we've been through the same.
Americans could hardly believe what had happened, but the American
government brings this sort of grief upon nations annually. suddenly the war
wasn't thousands of kilometers away, it was home.

How do we feel about it this year? A little bit tired.

We have 9/11's on a monthly basis. Each and every Iraqi person who dies with
a bullet, a missile, a grenade, under torture, accidentally- they all have
families and friends and people who care. The number of Iraqis dead since
March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in
the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts
as their worlds came down around them, too. I've attended more wakes and
funerals this last year, than I've attended my whole life. The process of
mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and
automatic.

September 11. he sat there, reading the paper. As he reached out for the cup
in front of him for a sip of tea, he could vaguely hear the sound of an
airplane overhead. It was a bright, fresh day and there was much he had to
do. but the world suddenly went black- a colossal explosion and then crushed
bones under the weight of concrete and iron. screams rose up around him.
men, women and children. shards of glass sought out tender, unprotected skin
he thought of his family and tried to rise, but something inside of him
was broken. there was a rising heat and the pungent smell of burning flesh
mingled sickeningly with the smoke and the dust. and suddenly it was
blackness.

9/11/01? New York? World Trade Center?

No.

9/11/04. Falloojeh. An Iraqi home.



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