Monday, May 24, 2004
Literally. Here's an updated and more complete story of the sevin Iraqi men who had had their hands cut off by Saddam Husein and were brought to the US for new ones. The previous entry is here. I don't think these guys have any doubts as to whether Iraq is better or worse now than it was then.
For Seven Iraqis, A Vital Part of Life Is Restored (washingtonpost.com)
"Do not be sad," Joudi wrote to Um Fuqaan that night. "Hopefully Allah will replace my hand with an even better one. . . . God will reward you for standing next to your husband and being my right hand."
Thanks to a Fairfax-based film producer, a half-dozen health care providers and businesses in Houston, and a legendary "white knight in blue spectacles," Joudi's promise to his wife came true last Monday.
Doctors and prosthetists moved by the plight of Joudi and six other Iraqi merchants whose right hands were amputated at Abu Ghraib finished fitting each of the men with $50,000 "bionic" hands. Black tattoos of crosses that had been carved into the men's foreheads to label them criminals were removed by a Houston plastic surgeon a few weeks earlier. All the services and products were donated.
As resentment of Americans in Iraq seems to swell each day, these seven Iraqis are unabashed in their gratitude, not just for their new hands, but for the U.S. role in ending what they call the "reign of horror" that claimed the lives of as many as 2.5 million of their countrymen.
"Tell the American people what all Iraqis want to tell to them," Salah Zinad said. "Tell them: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
The other six Iraqis were equally effusive, their appreciation undimmed by the current prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, and other occupation worries back home.
"We have freedom in Iraq. Now we say anything we want," Zinad said. "Under Saddam we whispered."
In recent interviews, the seven Iraqis were unflagging in their confidence about Iraq's future and the U.S. role in it.
Zinad on the prisoner abuse: "Some American soldiers are a problem. Not all Americans. These Americans who did this will be punished. Under Saddam, such abuses were rewarded and praised. Iraqis understand the difference."
Qasim Kadhim on Americans who think the invasion of Iraq was a mistake: "I think those people have made a mistake, because under Allah, all people are brothers. We must help each other if we have a problem. . . . How do we do it if nobody helps us?"[...]
Worth reading the entire story.
Here's the story of some video that ought to be shown:
Their odyssey began almost exactly a year ago, with an overheard conversation in a Baghdad cafe.
Don North, a former correspondent for both ABC and NBC who is currently a freelance producer, was in Baghdad last June helping set up the U.S.-sponsored Iraq Media Network when he received a videotape from one of the Iraqi journalists working for him. It showed doctors amputating the hands of nine Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 1995.
"I'd seen a lot of videotape, but this was truly gruesome and shocking," North said. In Baghdad, the owner of a small video production shop had been asked to make 10 copies of the tape by secret police in 1995. He clandestinely made an extra to keep as evidence of the atrocities. That was the copy that found its way to North.
Al Fadhly said that, after a year in hellish prisons and five months in Abu Ghraib, he was almost relieved when he heard he and the eight other merchants were going to be freed after having their hands amputated.
"We were the lucky ones," Al Fadhly said. "Others stayed in prison much longer. Thirty thousand in Abu Ghraib went to the hangman's noose."...
That video, and more like it, as much as exists, ought to be gotten out. For the life of me I don't know why someone hasn't gone to the places in Baghdad where this stuff is supposed to be available, purchased whatever tapes they can get their hands on, digitized them and uploaded them to the internet - just throw it on usenet if necessary, although it seems like a perfect job for a group like MEMRI. The internet will take care of the rest. These events are the context in which not just our invasion of Iraq took place, but it is a major image of the milieu in which the politics of the Middle East operates. If they press can obsessively look for the next bit of Abu Ghraib porn to peddle, they can get ahold of some of this, too.
Exactly.