DAMASCUS - Veteran United States journalist Thomas Friedman wrote about a
legend in his bestselling book, From Beirut to Jerusalem. The story
tells of a Bedouin who took great care of a turkey at his tent, stuffing it
daily with food.
One day, somebody stole his turkey. Furious, the Bedouin gathered his sons and
said, "Boys we are in great danger now - terrible danger. My turkey's been
stolen; go find it!" The boys asked why he would need his turkey but the father
snapped,
"Never mind, never mind; go find my turkey." A few days later, they showed up
at his tent, having forgotten to search for the turkey, saying, "Father, your
camel has been stolen." The father firmly replied, "Find my turkey." A few
weeks later, they showed up again, saying, "Father, your horse has been
stolen." The old man repeated the same line, "Find my turkey." Then somebody
raped his daughter. The angry father told his children, "It is all because of
the turkey! When they saw they could take my turkey; we lost everything."
August 19 was Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's turkey day.
Rather than "finding his turkey" and arresting those who had struck at
government buildings in the Green Zone - killing 100 people - Maliki began
searching for a political scapegoat to protect his own neck, fearing that the
attacks would cost him his job at the parliamentary elections scheduled for
January.
Rather than ordering a manhunt to bring the real criminals to justice, Maliki
only encouraged them to strike again by looking in the opposite direction -
showing the terrorists that he is vulnerable, weak; "unable to restore his
turkey". Seeing that they had struck once - and gotten away with it - the
terrorists struck yet again on October 25, this time killing about 150 people
and injuring more than 500.
The aftershocks of the latest attacks are still reverberating throughout
Baghdad. Apparently, among the victims were 25 children who were at a daycare
center near the targeted Ministry of Justice. Corpses are still being collected
from neighboring buildings, including the Ministry of Social Affairs, which was
badly damaged by the attack.
The deputy governor of Baghdad was wounded in the twin bombings, and so was
Muna al-Douri, a parliamentarian, whose two bodyguards were killed. According
to the Iraqi daily al-Zaman, men and women buried below the massive chunks of
concrete are still alive, desperately calling their families on their cellular
phones - unable to speak yet painfully groaning, to show them that they have
not yet died.
Families of the victims are frantic with the state-run rescue operations,
accusing them of being slow and ineffective. While most Western media are
concentrating on the death toll (which varies between 132 and 155 people), few
have been talking about the 500 injured or the 200 missing because of the
blasts over the past four days.
What's amazing are the uniform statements being heard from top officials in
Baghdad, blaming al-Qaeda and former Ba'athists. Not a single official is
taking responsibility for the attacks or admitting that the only reason they
happened, less than three months after the six bombings on August 19, is
because the Iraqi system is disunited, weak and corrupt.
Salah Abdul Razzaq, the governor of Baghdad, is blaming the security services
for being unable to intercept the two trucks that were loaded with TNT and
driven to the heart of the capital early on the morning of October 25, one a
water truck, the other a refrigerated food truck.
Ordinary Iraqis - unable to digest what has happened - are blaming the
services, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, the police and
Maliki. What is equally amazing is all the talk heard in the upper echelons of
power in Baghdad concerning whether these attacks would affect the approval
ratings of the prime minister ahead of the polls.
Politicians - certainly not Maliki - don't seem to feel guilty that this has
happened, and to date the government has produced no list of those who have
been confirmed dead in the blasts; just the numbers of those killed, injured or
missing.
Maliki, a former ally of the George W Bush White House, has begun his long
march into history and it now seems certain he will be defeated in the
elections. But then again, this is not the first time massive bombings have
taken place in Iraq. This has been an ongoing scene pulled right out of a
horror movie - with varying degrees of barbarism - since Maliki came to power
in 2006.
From 2006 to 2007, hundreds of people fell victim at night to the death squads
roaming the streets of Baghdad, their bodies collected every morning by the
police. Many bodies ended up in vegetable fridges, awaiting family members to
come and identify them since their features would often have been disfigured by
the criminals. At one point, according to the London-based al-Hayat newspaper,
young men were getting their home addresses tattooed on their arms so that if
they were killed in such a grotesque manner the authorities would know where to
return their bodies for burial.
Maliki survived these bad times, convincing Iraqis that better security was
just around the corner. Relatively, this did happen. He is trying to pull off
the same act today, promising to bring the perpetrators to justice. What is
different, however, is that his own people tend not to believe him anymore -
and nor do the terrorists.
The criminals who pulled off the explosions of August 19 and October 25 have
every reason to believe that they can carry out another massive operation - in
November, December or January - and get away with it.
It can now be expected that pressure will grow on Maliki to resign, to be
replaced by someone who can send shivers down the spines of the terrorists.
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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