Civil society depends ultimately on the ability of the government to protect
the safety and security of its people. If someone commits murder, we look
to the government officials to find the culprit, arrest and try the suspect, and
punish the guilty. When people lose confidence in the government’s ability
or willingness to protect them, they have little alternative but to turn to
self-defense and neighborhood militias.
For Iraqis who suffer the loss of a family member, a dreaded ritual ensues.
Everyone knows there is no point in reporting a missing person to the police —
no action will be taken. The first stop is always the morgue. The lucky ones
find a body straight away. For others, the morning walk past the coffins has
to be repeated. Their search can last for days.
As a former trauma specialist in a hospital casualty department, Dr Baker
Siddique, 29, thought he was inured to scenes of carnage. But nothing he had
witnessed prepared him for a visit to a pathologist friend working at the
mortuary.
“I saw a street packed with people and coffins standing up vertically,” he
said. “There wasn’t enough room to lie them horizontally.”
His voice faltered and his eyes filled with tears as he recounted the agony
of a woman in black who discovered the bodies of her four sons that day.
“I have never heard screams of pain like that,” he said. The woman
collapsed on the floor, throwing dirt over her head — a gesture of grief and
helplessness that has become tragically commonplace in Iraq.
As the doctor talked to his friend, a police pickup truck pulled up with a
dozen or more bodies piled in the back. “I could not believe that the dead
were brought in such a way,” Siddique said. “They were one on top of the other
like animal carcasses.”
When the police found that no porters were available to help, they threw
the bodies off the truck. It was then that Siddique noticed the corpses of two
boys aged about 12 lying in the pile on the ground.
“Each had a piece of knotted green cloth tied around his neck and I could
see they’d been strangled,” the doctor said. He also noticed round holes that
were slightly inflamed in several parts of their body, a sign that they had
been tortured with electric drills before being killed. “Even their eyes had
been drilled and only hollow sockets remained,” he said.
America, under the leadership of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, have helped
create this nightmare. Our failure to create a safe, secure society is
producing a bloodbath. Imagine that armed men come into your home tomorrow
on Father’s Day. They grab your father and your brother. They
disappear for two days until you discover their savaged bodies with their eyes
gouged out at the local morgue. You cannot file a police report because
you do not trust them (they are staffed with your religious enemies). No
autopsy will be performed and no one will ever be arrested. And George
Bush touts this as a society worth living in. I encourage George and Laura
and their daughters to move there immediately. If things are so peachy
guys, lead by example.
The Clueless Decider continues to insist we have turned a corner in
Iraq. But instead of a broad boulevard we are facing a deadend. We
are in the alley of death and the only way out is to turn and walk
away.
……………………………………………………..
Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder
of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm
that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by
terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously
with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s
Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized
expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk
management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety
of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio,
ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News,
and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for
publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York
Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and
aviation security around the world. Further bio
details.
