WE SHALL OVERCOME

IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE THE MERCIFUL

Hi Friends,

God knows that it does not please me leaving you for such a long time. Next to prayer and communion with the Lord, this cybernetic communication with friends far away in distance but near to the heart has become a necessity and highly therapeutic in these most trying times. Thoughts and feelings swarm and trouble the mind and heart and cry out for release and expression, and there are so many things that one does not know where to start.

But you know, there is this thing about knowing what is right or wrong. I don’t know if you experience the same kind of sensation. For me this feeling seems to come from the guts, I mean almost from the stomach. For example, I think it was in June of 2003 just over one month after the liberation, when three decisions were declared by the CPA under the then recent directorship of Mr. Bremmer. These decisions were about the surrender of illegal arms, and the dissolution of the Ministries of Defense and Interior. I was sitting in the Kitchen of my house and heard the proclamations on the radio, with the noise of our small electricity generator in the background. I remember that I experienced this cold sinking feeling that I am talking about. Not that these decisions were unjustified in principle, but that their practical implementation seemed fraught with problems. To start with, the conception that the populace were going to queue up politely with their weapons and hand them over the counter was so unrealistic that any Iraqi would have told you that the chances of that happening was almost nil. Nor did the Coalition forces have any effective means of enforcing that decree. Our Imam Ali (PBU), who was a very wise man once said: “ If you wish to be obeyed, make sure that your orders can be obeyed” (bad translation). Once an order is allowed to be ignored, the authority of the Ruler is compromised, and the emboldening of the unruly will start. The Army and security forces were actually disbanded and everyone had gone home. There was no need for the official decree; besides there were so many opposition officers who could have reorganized the armed forces and purged them of undesirables. Most would have come back then, and on the terms of the new order and were actually begging for that, whereas now they are being begged to come back and almost on their own terms. All these thoughts flashed through my mind almost at once, and a cold hand gripped my heart. It was a foreboding, fear of jeopardizing the great enterprise. Other mistakes followed.

But we don’t want to dwell on that. For there is another feeling that comes also from the guts: that the thing is right, that the liberation is real, and necessary and preordained by Providence. Salvation is to come through pain and tremendous suffering, like that of Jesus (PBU). And now we shall go through hell for it and gladly. There is no turning back. If the terrorist, obsessed by the devil is willing to explode himself to kill the innocent; we, filled with the light of Love and the Love of light are even more capable of sacrifice. It is at these extreme times that one can begin to understand the true meaning of such profound messages as that of Salvation through suffering. Yes, we shall bear our cross, like Jesus, for the salvation of generations to come.

Come rain, come tempest, descend fog and darkness, We Shall Overcome. The Devil is going to be defeated again, as usual, by the very evil of his machinations.

And the enemy is desperate, he is striking left and right, beheading, slaughtering, murdering; blind with the rage of the wounded dying beast. And we have seen them, Egyptians, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, our “Brothers”, running amok in our streets, murdering our men, women and children, and for what? What are they trying to achieve? And the whole lot of lying hypocrites, shedding crocodile tears about the “Iraqi People”, it is they who should get out and shut up. That is the invasion and occupation that we want to be rid of.

But We Shall Overcome; have no doubt about that. This, more than anything else, I know with every fiber of my being. And praise be to Allah, and thank you America.

Salaam