Yes, the Iraqis, leadership and people lost their sense of humanity!

I have to agree with the Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Malki when he got upset and chided members of congress especially Senator Hillary Clinton when they spoke of Iraq as ‘domain” or farm that belongs to the US. That is not new. Too many US lawmakers, those in the administration and in “think tanks” do think of the world as a “domain” a farm, a hacienda, and a ranch.

However Mr. Al-Malki’s tenure as leader in Iraq has not been very promising with the death toll approaching record high and with his government paralyzed by self-inflicting wounds from sectarian violence. Never did I ever expect to see Iraq so deep in hate and self hate like I see it now.

While the visit of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner may signal an opening to Iraq, his assessments is not far from the truth. Not so sure of what I read in the press in statements attributed to Mr. Kouchner when he said that Iraqis have been dying in the thousands for hundreds if not thousands of years, and that Iraqis are used to killing each other throughout history.

This story if true reminds me of a documentary I saw long time ago about the Vietnam War, when General William Westmoreland was our troop commander in Vietnam. As I recall from the interview, General Westmoreland said that the Vietnamese do not value human life and they can die by the thousands and no one care. Of course at the time, the US military just first introduced the “body count” where on the evening news the commanders from Vietnam announces the number of Viet Cong dead. Of course the daily numbers where in the hundreds if not the thousands. As we know, the US in Vietnam for the wrong reasons, like in Iraq has to scramble out and run with Embassy staff and Vietnamese allies dying to catch the last chopper out of Saigon.

Of course as a member of the US Army at the time, I was offended by the words of General Westmoreland when he implied that the Vietnamese do not value human lives. However this time, I did not feel offended by the attributed statement of Bernard Kouchner about the Iraqis used to dying by the thousands and no one care.

One has to ask the question, why so many dead, now and when Saddam ruled Iraq? One has to wonder what is wrong with the Iraqis, Sunnis and Muslims? Why do the leadership accept that so many die on a daily basis? It is simply sickening and it indicates physiological and mental misfits among Iraqi leaders for failing to stop the mayhem and sectarian killings. There is something wrong not only with the leadership but with the very people and persons who carry out the daily killings of so many innocent people. It is so difficult to understand let alone accept that such things can take place in Iraq, among people who call themselves Muslims. What an insult to Islam and Muslims?

How can any one accept that suicide bombers on a daily basis kill 50, or 100 or 200 or 400 hundred innocent people? Or that 40 or 75 Iraqis found with their throats slashed and heads cut? Or that 40 students found dead with bullet wounds to the back of the head? Yes there is something fundamentally wrong with the Iraqis, all of the Iraqis. Somehow they have lost their sense of humanity and they have lost it not now but long time ago. They were silent when Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds. And they were silent when Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Shiites and were silent when Saddam and his Ba’athist party killed so many people.

The surprising thing was the absence of so many of the Sunnis and Shiites organizations that are the source of and the promoters of the mayhem and sectarian killings now. All where silent when Saddam was killing the “others” by the thousands and hundreds of thousands and now they are silent when the “others” are killed on a daily basis.

Yes, the Iraqi leadership both Sunnis and Shiites is a disgrace to the human race and are a disgrace to Muslims and to Arabs. The leadership and the people have no sense of shame and have no sense of humanity. Never in my life did I expect to admit that, yes, there are people or nations that do not give a damn about human lives, that are willing to accept such large deaths of their own citizens as normal. One has to see the Iraqi leadership on television and press conferences talking as is thousands are not dying because of their failures every day. What a shame?