... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend,
where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
In places like Tel Afar and Qaim, dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded and conveniently labeled 'insurgents' so that people in the US and UK can sleep better at night. Residents of Tel Afar who left the town returned to their homes to find many of them only rubble and to find family and friends dead or wounded. I read one report that said all civilians were evacuated before the military operation. That isn’t true. Many residents didn’t have cars or transport to leave the city and were forced to stay behind. Some weren’t allowed out of it.
Now, as the US troops attack a little village on the Syrian border, we hear reports that the civilians are heading towards Syria. Not Arab fighters, nor insurgents - ordinary men, women and children who feel that the Iraqi government cannot shelter them or give them refuge from the onslaught of occupation forces.
What is more disturbing is the fact that most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics. The Association of Muslim Scholars is encouraging people to vote against it, and SCIRI and Da'awa are declaring a vote for the constitution every Muslim's duty. It's hardly shocking that Sistani is now approving it and encouraging his followers to vote for it. (If I were an Iranian cleric living in south Iraq, I'd vote for it too!)
It is utterly frustrating to talk to someone about the referendum- whether they are Sunni or Shia or Kurd- and know that even before they’ve read the constitution properly, they’ve decided what they are going to vote.
Women's rights aren’t a primary concern for anyone, anymore. People actually laugh when someone brings up the topic. "Let's keep Iraq united first…" is often the response when I comment about the prospect of Iranian-style Sharia.
Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death.
