Hi,
Fitnah, is one of these words that I find difficult to translate succinctly; perhaps there is an English synonym unknown to me.
Fitnah is sawing discord that results in conflict and violent antagonism. But in Arabic the word has much stronger connotation. There is a verse in the holy
Koran that contains the following expression: “
Fitnah is worse than murder”. What is happening in the land of the two rivers right now is one of the worst
Fitnahs in our long eventful history. We have known in the past, persecution, intimidation and murder; but that was always organized and perpetrated by the state and its repressive organs. We have never seen though, neighbor turning against neighbor and friend upon his erstwhile friend, even kin against kin; not in our recent history at any rate. The
Cancer is spreading and the
Plague is raging. The atrocities committed are of unimaginable horror. Gangs are out hunting for prey everyday; anybody of the wrong sect they come across is doomed. They are not content with murder, but the most bestial tortures are inflicted on the poor innocent victim before the killing. Not to mention the eviction of families from their homes under threats of extermination, threats which are made good in case of refusal to comply. The plans of the accursed Zarqawi, rotting now in his grave, and his accomplices have proven more serious than many might have thought. The attack on the holy shrines in Samara was a masterstroke planned on the highest level by the “
Elders of ToraPora” as the opening move of a serious escalation of the sectarian war that they have been seeking desperately, hoping to finally force the other side to react and thereby ignite the tit for tat acts that could deteriorate eventually into full sectarian civil war. The most important goal of the enemy is to force the general
Sunni population to rebellion and total negation of the new order. They have been maddened by the lack of reaction on the part of
Shiaas despite all the killings and atrocities perpetrated for more than three years, and it was more important for them to precipitate these reactions than any other consideration. They desperately sought that
Sunnis be killed more than just wreaking more vengeance on the
Shiaas. This time the religious leadership of
Sistani and the
Margiiyah could no longer restrain the people. And unfortunately, retaliation started to take place. And as usual, it is always the weak and the innocent who suffer most from both sides.
The vision of the enemy is to engulf the country in a quagmire of medieval bestiality that would completely abort all efforts of reconciliation and utterly thwart and bring down the elected government; and encouraged by noises coming out of the U.S. they hope to disgust and confuse the Americans out of Iraq with the help of the antiwar camp in the West, and some foolish councilors in America who think they know better when in fact, they understand nothing. With this main obstacle of the U.S. military removed, they can then unleash their full offensive and bring in all the "
Jihadis" from all over the world and together with the
Saddamists and local aroused
Sunni tribesmen, they imagine they can overrun the country and massacre everybody and establish their Taliban style Emirate or perhaps Caliphate or whatever their sick minds are hallucinating. It must be said, however, that these people, despite all their exceptional capacity for mischief and brutality remain the irrational and stupid
Morlocks that they really are. When it comes to calculating the consequences beyond the immediate desire for vengeance and destruction they cannot see much beyond their noses. This same trait characterized all the actions of deposed
Saddam, and you all know where his policies brought us. They cannot see, for instance, that the days when they could subjugate the
Shiaas and the
Kurds as before are gone forever. Perhaps they might overrun
Baghdad and its surrounds temporarily, but they will not be able to go much further south. As for the
Kurds, they should remember that even at the height of
Saddam’s power and even with the use of chemical weapons it was not possible to subdue this people. I am not related in any way to the
Kurds, but I must tell you my opinion about them: this race of people is quite a decent one, considering the tough neighborhood where they were destined to inhabit. This opinion does not come from just some political bias but is based on my own personal experience. For those of you interested in history, the
Kurds are the descendants of the ancient
Parthians, sometime also called the
Medians, a people classified as Arian or Indo-European by anthropologists. Once they had a large kingdom which is said to have been one of the most tolerant and benign in the ancient world. Archeologists have found relics of this empire. They wore very long, pointed and rather comical caps on their heads. They are tough mountain people renowned for their fortitude and constancy in friendship with those who chose to be their allies.
In the present complex befogged situation there are so many urgent questions to address that I find it hard where to start. What is clear, however is that the U.S. in particular and the West in general are facing serious challenges on several fronts, and these challenges are proving more serious than they expected and bargained for. This calls for reexamination and rethinking some previous ideas and notions and devising new approaches and methods to deal with situations that are quite different from previously conceived scenarios. The crucial questions concern the course of action that has to be taken now. What would be the best way to counterattack, conceding that the initiative seems to be in the other’s hands? The answers to these questions require much careful consideration. To start with we must ask ourselves quite bluntly: is there a way out that will ensure a satisfactory outcome from our point of view? Well to cut a long story short, I would like to begin with a conclusion contrary to good writing practice. I believe that despite all the mistakes that were made there is still a way to succeed. This way is both technical on the one side and political and economic on the other. But this has to be the subject of future posts.
As a footnote I would like to draw your attention to
this . I have some inside information regarding the situation in the Anbar, where there is a real split amongst the
Dulaim Tribes into anti-terrorist and pro-terrorist camps. That might be a subject for an interesting future post.
For the time being I bid you farewell and God Bless.
