Cast of Characters:



Karen
Enkidu (AKA Slim)
Beowolf (AKA Wolfie)
Blaze (AKA Blaze)

Monday, January 08, 2007

1 A conversation with an Iraqi

I have known "Jassim"* online for a little over 3 years now. He was jailed under Saddam's regime as a political dissident and was scheduled for execution when the Americans (and allies) marched in. Since the occupation, he has been trying to work with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to try to make Iraq a better place. In previous conversations, he's spoken about the corruption in the region and that a lot of the aide money isn't making it to the people for whom it was intended.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from a conversation today, in which I asked him about the fallout from Saddam's execution:

Karen: and what are you doing now, Jassim? Are you working for an NGO?
Jassim: kind of Karen
Jassim: it keep being more impossible day by day
Jassim: I'm implementing now an evaluation mission on a British organization working here in Iraq
Jassim: finished data collecting and anlayzing and now preparing final reports
Karen: may I ask you what you think of the execution of Saddam?
Jassim: huuummm
Jassim: it was justice made
Jassim: I do not believe that much in capital punishment but in Saddam's case it was justice
Jassim: he killed millions
Jassim: so I'm thinking in this case as removing Saddam from effecting on developing our society not as a punishment
Jassim: no punishment would amend millions of his victims
Jassim: but I'm also sad because this case exposed how much we are hated in world now being Iraqis
Jassim: many people arround world now considering Saddam as a hero while Iraqis as killers
Karen: here, the news media says that there is more civil war in Iraq because people are upset by his death
Jassim: no
Jassim: this is not true
Jassim: it is right that a civil war would happen but not for this reason
Karen: they cited an increase in sectarian violence after the execution
Jassim: unfortunatly Iraqis now have differant views about every thing including Saddam death
Jassim: practically civil war is real from some time ago
Jassim: yes this is right but it is not a main reason
Karen: what is the main reason?
Jassim: buesniss
Jassim: buisness
Jassim: all this about just buisness
Jassim: the sacterian, resisiting occupation and other reasons on media is just a crap
Jassim: I know you may surprise from what I say but this what I believe here
Jassim: I'm not believing that things would go better, actually I believe it would go worst may be so soon

*No, "Jassim" isn't his real name, but I would hate to have him get in trouble because the wrong people were to read this blog entry (not that that many people are likely to read this...but still).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd be interested to know what he means by "business".

Like, who gets the power? Who gets to run things?

It's hard to undertand what he means by that.

Teresa

Karen said...

That was my question too. However, just as I asked, there was a power outage, and we weren't able to chat after that. I'll try to remember to ask him the next time that I see him online.