I insist you view the photograph and read the caption.
"The World: Elegies From an Iraqi Notebook" by ALISSA J. RUBIN
Diyala Province was already one of the most violent areas in Iraq, and a no-go area for American journalists, when The New York Times hired an Iraqi correspondent in the last year to help with coverage there.
Almost equally divided between Sunnis and Shiites, Diyala, which is to the north and east of Baghdad, is torn by sectarian strife and under assault from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni-Arab group whose leadership has ties to foreign extremists. Despite a major offensive by American troops, the area remains under siege, although some districts have improved.
Our correspondent grew up in Diyala when intermarriage between the sects was common, and his family is a mixture of Sunni and Shiite. Several members of his family were murdered in sectarian killings in the last two years, and the rest have fled . Thirty years old and college educated, he missed his home province and decided to return there, agreeing also to work for The Times on the condition that his name never be published.
Mixed in with his daily reports of Diyala’s violence have been occasional portraits of life there. Although sometimes incomplete, they are stark reminders of the difficulties Iraqis face every day. I have worked with him and a translator to complete the writing of the stories. He calls these “Tragic Tales From Diyala.” ALISSA J. RUBIN
Death’s Gate
In Al Hadid, in the west of Diyala, there is a village that smells of death, and many residents of the area call it “Death’s Gate.” Near the village there was a fake checkpoint run by the Islamic State of Iraq, according to the gunmen who manned it. On this day they stopped a family traveling in three cars from Baghdad.
Among the men and women in the cars was a newly married couple. The groom was named Muhammad, a young man who had dreamed for several years of marrying his lover and had happily wed her two days earlier.
The gunmen made the men get out of their cars and separated them from their beloved women and forced them into another car. The women began to shout and they begged the criminals to let their men go free. “Everything is over now, Muhammad will not be back,” cried the bride as she recalled the few hours she had spent beside her husband and watched the cars of the gunmen pull away.
A few hours later news arrived of the death of Muhammad and his two cousins, whom the gunmen had taken with them. They were murdered brutally as if the gunmen were trying to deliver the message that the word “happiness” does not exist in the dictionary of the Islamic State of Iraq.
This is a true story; it was told to me by Muhammad’s family and the bodies were found late at night.
[But this is PROGRESS in Iraq, according to my shit leader.
Oh, the heartbreak for people who LIVED TOGETHER and INTERMARRIED PEACEFULLY until WE GOT THERE!
Hmmmmmm!!!]
An Insurgent Woman
Um Selma, 27, was from a large, poor family. She married a soldier when she was 17 and they had a son. Her husband was killed in the 1998 Desert Fox operation, a bombing campaign by the United States and Britain. Then her son died before he reached 18 months.
[Haven't we put these people -- who NEVER DID ANYTHING TO US -- through enough?
My heart is breaking, Fatima! Can you see my tears? Will you collect them?]
She went to work in factories and as a day laborer because her father was ill and the income was needed to support her family. After the American invasion and the ouster of Saddam Hussein, she had a love affair with a married man and lost her good reputation.
She was an outcast in her neighborhood, alone without children or a husband. When armed groups and religious fanatics came to dominate her district she began to cover herself completely in a long, black abaya and a full veil. She was trying to regain some of the respect she had lost.
Women play an important role in armed organizations. Their presence is vital because they are considered neutral and people avoid killing them. She became a teacher of other women and formed a cell. She distributed brochures with instructions from the insurgents for their cells and for the local people. She also distributed CDs that they made of their operations. When there were raids by Iraqi security forces, her cell was responsible for safely ferrying important messages and documents.
Um Selma was captured by the American troops, but local people demonstrated and the Americans set her free. Then a few months ago I heard from people in Ghorf Al Sakar that she had married a leader of one of the local armed groups, Abu Ahmed.
By then the local people in Ghorf Al Sakar had enough of the armed groups. When she was detained a second time on May 23, because she had documents and insurgent CDs, the local people did not condemn her detention. Still, the Americans released her and she disappeared from Ghorf Al Sakar.
[So you can't trust any of those Muslims.
The women will slit your throat and blow you up, too!
I DON'T BELIEVE IT!]
Romeo and Juliet
What happens to souls that love even when it means they risk their lives? Most love stories in literature make exaggerations. But this one is true. I am distantly related to both the man and woman, and relatives on both sides told me their story, but I talked for an especially long time to Ammar’s sister.
[Oh, no, I don't know if I want to continue!]
During the 1980s, with the start of water irrigation in the Khan Bani Saad area of Diyala, famous for its date palms, many Shiite families from the south of Iraq moved north to tend the orchards.
Ammar was from one of these families that came north when he was still nursing in his mother’s arms. His family is a descendant of Imam Ali, a founder of the Shiite branch of Islam, so although they were poor, they had a noble lineage. Despite that, Ammar grew up without knowing the differences between Sunni and Shiite, and he played with boys of both sects.
[See? This sectarianism shit is a BIG FUCKING LIE!!
It is NOT THEM killing each other!
It is WESTERN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES that are CARRYING OUT the "TERROR" ATTACKS!
None of this "sectarianism" was happening BEFORE we showed up!!!!]
Then one day when he was still quite young, he met Sana, a young Sunni woman, in the orchard that lay between his family’s house and hers. They loved each other, and although usually young people are introduced to their future spouse by their parents, Ammar and Sana vowed to marry. They told no one of their love, but met often in the orchard. She rejected any man who proposed to her, and Ammar had no eyes for other girls.
[A Sunni and a Shiite gonna marry, huh?
Yeah, but they've wanted to kill each other for thousands of years!
I am SO SICK of the fucking Zionist's SHIT-SPEWING, SHIT-STINKING LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
He went to college and got a B.A. in engineering, then did his military service and was prepared to propose to Sana when this latest war broke out. Everything changed so quickly: the occupation forces arrived, people began to speak of Sunni and Shiite and democracy.
[So Bush's occupation DESTROYED LOVE!!!!
Why am I NOT SURPRISED?
Everything that desecrater does is EVIL!!!!!!!]
For Ammar’s family there was a feeling of freedom after the ousting of Saddam. They had many sons executed by Saddam’s men during the Iraq-Iran war on the accusation that they were members of the outlawed Shiite Dawa Party. Now they held official positions in the government.
Many of the men in Sana’s family were now fugitives or in jail because in the previous regime they were Baathists or were in the security services.
But despite these differences, love between Ammar and Sana remained strong. They tried to see each other when they could in the orchards where they had first met.
In the meanwhile religious extremism was getting worse in this area. It took over all the men in Sana’s family. The Shiite families in the village, like Ammar’s, began to receive threatening letters. One day, Ammar’s cousin was killed by one of Sana’s relatives and this was a bad omen. Ammar and Sana were forbidden from nearing the orchards that were the border between the two families.
One day, Sana came secretly to Ammar to tell him that his family had to leave because the extremists in the area had given commands to kill them. His family quickly moved to Baghdad, but Ammar hated to leave his beloved. They decided to keep in touch by mobile phone and their love became even stronger.
Then, Sana’s brother found her phone hidden in the orchard. He forced Sana to marry an extremist. When she could she would find a way to communicate with Ammar, and because she hated religious extremism, she would tell him what the gunmen were planning to do next.
Then one day, she was shot. No one knows who killed her. When Ammar heard that her corpse was in the morgue in Baquba, he decided he wanted one last look at his sweetheart.
That same day he set out from Baghdad.
Ammar was never heard from again. The rumors among the people were that he disappeared at a fake checkpoint.
[Tears just rolling down the face. You are going to need a bucket, Fatima!
Good Lord, what have we done? What the hell hath AmeriKa wrought?
GOD DAMN YOU, George W. Bush! GOD DAMN YOU to HELL!!!!]
The Free Zone
The place we call the free zone is located to the northwest of Baquba, the capital of Diyala. It is secure because there is a military barracks just a few meters away, so the groups of armed men do not come there. It is called the free zone because it is safe and because you have choices. You can go either to Baghdad or to Baquba.
Safe crossroads have become rare in Diyala. But this is a place where people of different sects do not kill each other, where they exchange news of the dangers in each direction, where Sunni merchants from Baquba trade with Shiite merchants from Baghdad.
[Yeah, they aren't killing each other and getting along.
The only people on the planet who are fooled by "Al-CIA-Duh" and "sectarianism" is the STOO-PID FUCKING AMERIKAN PEOPLE!
Sick of the fucking LIES!!!]
There is no sign, but everyone knows the place. You recognize it because there are many trucks and cars and minibuses lined up on the side of the road. And as you approach you can hear the drivers call out:
“Do you want Baquba?” “Do you want Baghdad?”
There are different prices for each and the amount depends on the security situation that day.
Mohammed Qasim, who drives from the Shorja market in Baghdad to bring foodstuffs to Diyala, now comes only as far as the free zone and no farther:
“I have lost many of my colleagues in Baquba city, so the drivers and the Baquba merchants have agreed to meet in this place to load the stuff from Baghdad onto another truck to take it into Baquba."
Others who are afraid to go to Baghdad now will come only this far.
Khalid Tahssine, a Sunni truck driver: “There are many fake checkpoints where many of my friends have disappeared. I prefer to stay nearer to Baquba because my sect gives me some protection.”
[Sure the fake checkpoints aren't BLACKWATER check points?!]
The free zone is a place where people can breathe deeply."
[I am ashamed at what AmeriKa has done in Iraq, and I want George W. Bush BURN in HELL for this LYING ATROCITY!!!]
