From the People of Iraq to the People of America

When I was born I found myself living under the attack of the dictator, breathing fear, lying as a precaution. I learned to walk along walls, to never expose myself in the middle of the road and be accused of blocking His Excellency, the president’s, way. That is how, for three decades, I was cheering: “We will sacrifice our souls and our blood for you, Saddam,” although I never felt that my soul and my blood were safe from him. And that is how I was being tossed and turned by the president’s orders and his humiliating, arbitrary decisions while he was calling me [one of the] “Great people of Iraq!”

And there, beyond the sea, was the United States, praising people’s freedom, calling for democracy, human rights, respect for human dignity and putting a human being at the highest value.

From beyond the sea America heard about the Iraqi people’s efforts and the dictatorship of the president, and it awoke to protect the dignity and freedom of all Iraqis. Armies gathered and crossed the oceans and the seas, bringing with them dignity, freedom, democracy and [the vision of a] free and respectful life. The idol fell, the regime collapsed and the signs of freedom became visible to the Iraqis through the men nominated by the U.S. to lead a new Iraq. They came from various countries to sprinkle freedom over the streets of Iraq and establish democracy, freedom of opinion, conscience and belief.

I was optimistic about how people wanted to forget mass graves and the tools that smashed skull bones during investigations. The governments established by the U.S. were received with flowers and prayers. However, I haven’t tasted any of those promises. Freedom in Iraq turned into live bullets and bombs, piercing bodies with nails and drills and keeping our eyes low. The new democracy became the highest of freedoms, fueling fights, sectarian conflicts and clashes over identity and beliefs.

Nationalism and love for the country became crimes for which we have been held accountable by a new governmental regime, brought by the United States. My country’s wealth and goods have been looted from East to West. Our children were suffering hunger and thirst, and when I started demanding services, I was repressed by the regime’s apparatus: the army and the police. I was thrown into prisons and detention centers without a court order. [We have been experiencing] violations of our honor, humiliation and the burning and destruction of places and houses of worship for mere differences of opinion, as happened in Rifai and Nasiriyah, where the government resorted to burning the offices of Said (Mahmood al-Hassani) al-Sarkhi. A mosque belonging to the followers of his authority was destroyed; the followers were tortured, thrown into prisons and detention centers after being repressed with sticks and live bullets as they were performing their religious rituals. Neither we nor our children are safe from the oppression of the new government.

Today our government carries on internal disputes; each of them threatens the other with the country’s partition if the other side continues its policy, humiliating the people and pushing them into violent civil wars. And I — the Iraqi people — am a victim of this government’s contempt.

American people, propagators of freedom, we call for you to talk to your government and demand that it implement what it promised as far as freedom and democracy for the Iraqis are concerned. We don’t want to replace one injustice with a bigger injustice. We still breathe fear, caution and fright.