The Iraqi apocalypse

 

By Salman al-Tikriti

 

Azzaman, May 11, 2006

 

We are advised to stop blaming the former ruler Saddam Hussein whose crazy deeds and crimes exceeded those perpetrated by all of the world’s criminals and despots put together.

 

We are also advised not use the former president as a rack on which we hang all the evils and the wrong doings taking place in our society today.

 

I am not a Sunni or Shiite. I am not a supporter of any sect or denomination. I am merely I Muslim Iraqi. I love peace and the ideologies that respect human beings.

 

And because of the former ruler’s oppression and terror, I had to leave the country for good like many other Iraqis.

 

We left for good and did not wish to return on the back of a tank or through the protection of the military prowess of the world’s only superpower.

 

There is no logic in getting rid of tyranny through cooperation with a foreigner who will later turn into an invader.

 

I am not naïve. The naïve Iraqis are those who were misled into believing that foreign troops would end tyranny.

 

Little they knew that these foreigners would occupy the country and wreak havoc as it is the case now.

 

Our former dictator had vowed that he would prefer to have Iraq burned down rather than surrendering it to a foreign power.

 

Some say the tyrant’s prophecy did not materialize as the country still had some means of life before the coming of the invaders.

 

The dictator did not mean that he would burn the country himself.

 

He said the country would implode once foreign troops arrive because the target was not solely having him or his tyranny removed.

 

Our country is burning now. And the atrocities of the former leader, in one way or another, are being replicated and perhaps on a larger scale.

 

Our tragedy seems to have no end.

 

People are being butchered every day and every hour. Gripped by fear and sorrow, many Iraqis have turned into walking shadows.

 

Amid such scenes of horror and death, there are people who shamelessly have the stamina to contest for power, competing with each other for the control of ministries.