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| Iraq |
| Naked Goats and Naughty Veggies |
| 2006-08-08 |
| This is from yesterday's "Morning Edition" JOHN HENDREN reporting: This is how staggeringly pointless the killing in Iraq is getting: shepherds in the rural western Baghdad neighborhood of Gazalea have recently been murdered, according to locals, for failing to diaper their goats. Apparently the sexual tension is so high in regions where Sheikhs take a draconian view of Shariah law, that they feel the sight of naked goats poses an unacceptable temptation. They blame the goats. I've spent nearly a year here, on more than a dozen visits since the early days of the war, and that seemed about as preposterous as Iraq could get until I heard about the grocery store in east Baghdad. The grocer and three others were shot to death and the store was firebombed because he suggestively arranged his vegetables. I didn't believe it at first. Firebombings of liquor stores are common, and I figured there must've been one next door. But an Iraqi colleague explained matter-of-factly that Shiite clerics had recently distributed a flyer directing groceries how to display their food. Standing up a celery stalk near a couple of tomatoes in a way that might - to the profoundly repressed - suggest an aroused male, is now a capital offense. I've seen a lot in Iraq that has surprised me. A family living in the guard shack of an abandoned nuclear plant, suffering from what local doctors described as radiation sickness; the bearded head of a bomber, 500 feet from his still flaming vehicle. Sick stuff. But I've also been inspired: by a soldier who agreed to an interview with a bullet in his leg; by American military surgeons who operated side by side on an Iraqi policeman and an Iraqi insurgent; and Iraqis who've returned to work with us, despite death threats, kidnappings, and slain relatives. Yet over three years of visits, I've never been able to fully appreciate the violent justice there. I've heard of a boy in Najaf whose throat was slit for blinding a neighbor's cow with a rock. I've learned a new oxymoron: religious assassins. And I've watched friends move repeatedly, to stay ahead of attacks by insurgents. And now, Iraqis are dying over goat panties and naughty veggies. |
| Posted by:growler |
| #1 I have always been in favor of an Iraqi democracy, mostly because I believe every bird should have one chance to straighten up and fly right. However, I am also in favor of eliminating Islam in all it's forms. If that includes killing every muslim nutcase, then let it be so. There's not enough time and padded cells to save every soul in the ME. Many will have to change on their own or be cleansed. The lunacy of Islam will become the joke of the future and all of the remaining muzzies will deny their |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-08-08 10:57 |