Mind-Blowing Personal Tale of the Horrors of Baghdad

I got to work this morning, poured myself some coffee, and a colleague read me an unbelievable story from the front page of today's LA Times. I just shook my head in resignation, but the others listening really seemed to have no idea that Iraq had gotten as bad as all this. People are shot in the streets, and nobody will dare to help them lest they be shot themselves. This is heartbreaking and definitive proof that the militias rule the country. Needless to say, the author, a reporter in the Baghdad bureau of the Times, COULDN'T EVEN REVEAL HIS NAME IN THE BYLINE for fear of reprisal.

On a recent Sunday, I was buying groceries in my beloved Amariya neighborhood in western Baghdad when I heard the sound of an AK-47 for about three seconds. It was close but not very close, so I continued shopping.

As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead.

The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened.

I was still looking at the wounded man and blaming myself for not stopping to help. Other shoppers peered at him from a distance, sorrowful and compassionate, but did nothing.

I went on to another grocery store, staying for about five minutes while shopping for tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. During that time, the man managed to sit up and wave to passing cars. No one stopped. Then, a white Volkswagen pulled up. A passenger stepped out with a gun, walked steadily to the wounded man and shot him three times. The car took off down a side road and vanished.

No one did anything. No one lifted a finger. The only reaction came from a woman in the grocery store. In a low voice, she said, "My God, bless his soul."

You need to read the whole thing.

By the way, the writer is a Christian. His church underwent a series of attacks over the past year, as violence started picking up in Baghdad starting in about late 2005. Previously a man with a sense of national pride, he is now determined to leave the country. The violence is getting worse, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Considering that General Abizaid is calling for possible increases in forces through next year, it's clear that those in the corridors of power know this too, they just aren't saying it out loud. The goal of those who implement the noxious, insane policy of "stay the course" are clearly just trying to keep the band-aid on until they can hand it over to some other sucker of an Administration.

But the policy questions must be set aside when you read this story of this individual, who is literally broken by his experience in the war zone. It's the loss of HUMANITY in Iraq that ultimately signals its downfall. When nobody will bother to help a dying man, when people avert their eyes to the pools of blood drying on the streets every day, that's despair. That's fear. I don't see how that kind of repression could be any different under a dictator than it is now. The people of Baghdad simply have a new kind of fear.