Monday, August 16, 2004

Scorpions, Al Arabiya and humidity.

The last 10 days I spent in the village near Basra was kind of a refreshment away from the noise and mess of the cities.
The area is totally isolated from the conflicts of the out world as if it has immunity to the effects of currents events.

The folks there are not much concerned about what’s happening in Najaf and some other cities although sometimes they show sympathy to the poor people of Najaf and contempt to what Muqtada and his militia men are doing and every now and then I could hear some one call him a (za’ toot) which is Iraqi slang meaning (ignorant kid) while his followers are mainly described as (thieves and junkies) but the anti-Muqtada sentiment reached a peak in the area when some of his men attacked the government offices in Al-Qurna which is the nearest large town to the village; four civilians were killed that day when the a Danish patrol entered the town and tried to stop the thugs from causing further damage but Muqtada’s men started to shoot at the patrol in the town’s crowded main street killing four people and injuring nine at least before they fled the town. People told me that these thugs came from Amara and they were not from the locals.

The hot humid weather and the slow rhythm of life made me even gain some weight as I spend only 4 hours a day in the clinic while the rest of my time is spent on cooking, watching TV, having snacks and lots of sleeping.
Frankly speaking, my greatest worries there are about scorpions as I found another one in my bedroom last week (AYS has details about the first one we found and killed earlier).

I spent hours everyday following the developments of the situation, and the coverage of the Arab channels was disgusting but still I had to depend on them to get updates and reports as I had no other choice.

There was a great deal of bias in the way the Arab channels handled the events, for example when a government official gives an interview the host would flood him with questions asking him for proofs and evidence for each sentence he says while they accept the statements of Muqtada’s aides without the slightest skepticism. One example that you probably missed and it clarifies my point was in an interview with Ahmed Shaibani (one of Sadr aides) on Al-Arabiya channel.

Shaibani claimed that Iyad Allawi said in a meeting with the government members that he will piss on the dome of the shrine.
Do you believe this!? And the host didn’t bother to ask Shaibani for any details to support his disgusting claim (like date, place, occasion or motives for Allawi to say such words).

Of course no one will believe this harsh lie but this interview exposes the evil will of some media sources to create distrust between the people and the interim government. It seems also that Al-Arabiya didn’t learn from the lesson of closing Al-jazeera’s office. As a matter of fact, Al-jazeera itself is cheating and sometimes broadcasting reports from inside Iraq.

Whenever Muqtada or his assistants appear on TV I feel like I’m going to puke (lately I started to take anti emetic pills before I watch the news!) But sometimes it’s funny to hear him speak because he has some slang terms that he started to use very often in interviews and these are from the kind that is only used among close friends and are totally unacceptable in a formal conversation such as (Habibi) which means (darling, honey or in some cases buddy).

This observation may look silly but it’s really not because it indicates that this man doesn’t have the slightest margin of manners let alone brains! And I believe that who calls Muqtada a “cleric” is totally mistaken and is unnecessarily offending the clerics; I’m not fond of them anyway (not forgetting that some of them are wise and respectable men) but at least in general they talk and behave in a much better way than this idiot.

In another occasion Muqtada said that Iyad Allawi is just another longstanding brutal dictator and that Iraq is now under a dictatorship that is much worse than Saddam’s regime. Here I had to agree with him because this government has been ruling Iraq for seven whole weeks and if Iraqis are going to remain silent it will probably rule for a whole year! Besides Allawi is so firm in demanding that Sadr disarms his militia while Saddam didn’t talk to rebellion She’at in this harsh manner, he silently killed Muqtada’s father, his two brothers and exterminated hundreds of thousands of She’at; many of them were killed INSIDE the Shrine of Imam Ali. What a chronic dictatorship Allawi’s government is!

The other funny thing was his appearance on TV a few days ago with his hand bandaged.
Come on Muqty! I’m sure you can do better than this.
I recall that we used to do this trick when we were young teenagers to attract girls’ attention “Look I got injured while I was kicking some a**es” but I can’t figure out why is Muqtada using it now.

Perhaps we should consider convincing him to see a neurologist (when he’s in jail of course); maybe this will help us understand better the etiology of his sickness and what the hell is going on in his CNS, plus we can try some new drugs on him instead of the poor guinea pigs.



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