“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
- Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035-1040
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give them that? Do not hand out death and judgment so easily.”
- Gandalf the Grey in The Fellowship Of The Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
It was August 2, 2002, twelve years to the day after Kuwait’s invasion by Iraq. With my feet firmly planted in a sand berm on the shore of the Arabian Gulf, I stared at Kuwait City awash in the light of the blistering mid-morning sun. Nothing had changed. A few new buildings and parking garages that replaced ones that were damaged in the war. It was very hard to imagine that, little more than a decade ago, this place was a war zone and that where I stood was a treacherous field of mines. I looked down at my feet. Had the liberating soldiers removed every last one of them? What would a prosthesis feel like if I lost the real thing in a freak explosion? Would I die or would my legs have to be amputated? Which is worse? Sufficiently burned by the sweltering heat, I shook myself back to reality and made my way back to the beachfront apartment complex where I was staying with my parents. Why we were back in Kuwait, I do not know. Maybe it was the long-harbored need to return to the place called home, maybe it was because of nothing else to do, maybe this part of the world was at peace again.
Mulling over our strange decision to move back to this hole of heat, I walked up to a huge crowd of people gathered outside the apartment building we had recently moved into. The same was true of all the dwellings around us. If there were a biblical exodus, this is what it would have looked like. Almost everyone was weighed down with bags overflowing with valuables and essentials and appeared to be preparing for a long trip. I found my mother in the midst and ran up to her to ask what was going on. And, where was dad? My mother calmly told me that Kuwait was in trouble yet again. The government had just announced another invasion by the Iraqis and that each man, woman, and child were for themselves to make it out of the country before the bombs dropped and the tanks rolled in all over again. Where was dad? It was explained to me that my father, not wanting to be a hostage a second time, had taken it upon himself to find a reliable and fast vehicle to get us out of the country before the proverbial camel dung hit the fan. With that, my mother quickly walked away from me to console a neighbor who had begun a slow dance of hysteria in fear of the impending disaster.
I took off in pursuit of my father. He would not be far from me at a time when all of us needed to be together. Whatever happened, my family would be as one and nothing would separate us this time. Not Saddam Hussein, not a bomb, not a quest for a Hummer that would take us across the desert into freedom. I ran like I had never before, and I ran and ran and kept running until I found my father bargaining with a car dealer, price-gouging opportunists they are even at dire times like these. They were close to a deal and we were going to get out of this infernal country. Never had I seen my father with such brimstone in his eyes. So determined, so angry, and so full of love and hope for our survival.
And, that’s when it hit me. D. D back home in the United States. I had to get through to him and let him know what was happening. Damned cell phone! The blasted piece of electronic garbage can never get reception when one absolutely needs it to. I ran out of the dealership and into the middle of a huge parking lot where I was bound to get good service. Dialing the fifty-digit number to connect to the United States, I heard D’s voice on the other end. I screamed into the phone, “Iraq is attacking again! Come get me! Do something, do anything! Let the government know *rumble* that American citizens are *big rumble* trapped here! Come get me! Come get me!” D was saying something back to me, but I could not hear it as the rumbling kept getting louder and louder. That is when I looked up, cell phone in hand, and saw a giant tsunami of flame working its way towards me. Taking in a sharp breath, I realized I was exactly where I didn’t want to be: in Kuwait, separated from my family, with a torrent of flame and shrapnel about to envelop me. I thought of my parents, my beautiful nieces, my D. I thought of the 28th birthday I would never live to see. I thought of how ridiculously beautiful the bright reds and oranges of the nearing conflagration looked against the cloudless blue of the summer sky. I thought of …
I woke up crying. Sitting up in bed, not a scream or a blank stare came from me, just tears pouring down my face. All I could get out of the cotton threads that passed for my vocal cords were the words, “They bombed Kuwait again, and they got my mother and father.” How odd it was to say that while realizing the soft warmth of my blue flannel sheets and D lying in bed next to me. How bizarre it was to have him wrap his strong arm around me. How strangely comforting it was to hear him say, “It was just a bad dream. It’s alright. It was just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” Sleep? Perchance to dream? Going back to sleep was the last thing on my mind.
Days. It took days for me to get rid of the feeling of being burned alive without anyone there with me. The loneliness of death. The loneliness of dying in a war. I don’t think anyone is ever so alone. And I would not wish this on any being in the universe. No matter how many nightmares I have been through, I will never wish this on a 15 year-old Iraqi girl, nor will I wish this to come back to haunt her 12 years later. How many young Arabs wake up from these nightmares? How many of them have second and third leases on life? How many of them are as lucky as I am?
When Americans want to “lay the smack on Iraq,” I hope they realize that the Iraqi people pay for it with their lives and their sanity as they have for so many years. They pay the price of the trade embargos, the sanctions, the skirmishes and the wars, while Saddam Hussein lives as a king in a palace, not by one iota of his breath paying for what he did. How is justice served in the laying of the smack? How many smack-layings result in death and nightmares? Death and nightmares. Death and nightmares.
I did not move to America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, for this to continue.
Continue reading →
