The phone rang at about 6 a.m. today. It paused my every-night nightmare. The phone screen said “unavailable ID” which meant it’s Baghdad. Terrified of the news I could get from the other end, as usual, I picked up.

It was my aunt. She just felt she needed to talk to me. It was great to hear her laughing. I miss her. In Baghdad, whenever she felt sad or upset, she would call me to feel better. We get along very well, as I do with all my relatives. They know that if they feel sad, they should talk to me!

We joked a lot at the beginning. Then, we turned to reality. She told me the usual, that Baghdad is mourning its people everyday with no ray of hope that the black clouds would uncover my hometown.

This time I felt there is something different in her voice. She wasn’t as relaxed as she used to be when she told me the news. She eventually revealed a deep depression in her voice. She was so pessimistic, understandably!

I calmed her down and asked her to keep her faith in our ability to overcome this hard time and just wait. Maybe we will see the light at the end of the tunnel at some point. I didn’t believe what I was saying, neither she did I think. But at least I got to talk to her and hear the voices of my cousins in the background. That was enough to start the day with. Ten minutes later, we hung up. I laid back in my bed thinking about my future, if there is any.

A few minutes passed, and here is the phone ringing again. This time another aunt. I got suspicious. I thought something was wrong. Why would they call me at the same time? And it is a weekend here. They know that chances are I am sleeping.

“Nothing wrong. I just wanted to talk to you,” she said. “We miss you. It would be much easier time if you were here to joke about it.”

I couldn’t help it but to cry. At that point, I’ve had enough. The nightmare that I get every night and then my family calling me to say they miss me and the sadness I felt in their voices. It was like they felt they wouldn’t make it through the day and wanted to talk to me before they leave.

“Nadya and her family left to Jordan,” she told me, referring to one of my cousins. “She couldn’t take it anymore and had to leave.”

I knew something was wrong. We are a very close family. When one leaves, the whole family feels terrible. Now I get it: they felt sad and wanted to talk to someone about it. Nadya left. That meant four less persons in our gatherings and one less house to gather in. my family is suffering. [But who isn’t in Iraq?]

“I am trying to find a job outside Iraq or in Kurdistan,” she said. “We cannot stay here. it is getting really suicidal.”

Then she asked me about school and my life here. She asked me if I was having fun and I couldn’t say “Yes.” I felt guilty to tell her I am having fun here. it just didn’t feel right.

Yesterday, my sister in law called me. She calls me every other day to see if I am ok. “It is so unbearable here Omar,” she said. It was the first time she said this to me. Usually, she doesn’t say these thing because she knows that these things make me think about going back. But she said it yesterday. I knew it was serious. Four days ago, a man and his wife were killed in their car just one block away from my house. No one knows what the reason was.

“I don’t even go to the outside door anymore,” she said. I thought about my almost two-year-old nice. What is she doing the? How does she act as a child if all she does is sitting in a room?

I couldn’t take more bad news today. I wandered in the streets. I went to another city near the one I live in. I love that one because it is so beautiful. They already installed a huge Christmas tree in one of the corners there. It was beautiful and colorful. I was in the bus when I saw it. I looked at it and remembered our Christmas tree. I decorated it every year. It was a family tradition to have a tree in our guests room and invite all my relatives for New Year’s eve to have fun. They would spend the night in our house and spend the time telling jokes, dancing, being silly and many other stuff. But not anymore.

I was still thinking about the past when I got a message on the phone.

“I love you,” it said in English. I was like: cool, I have a secret lover here!

“my son,” it continued. So, it is my mother. Definitely, which was more important! “How are you in your studying? We miss you.” The message said and ended with a smiley.

“Habibti, I’m ok. I miss you all. I’ll see you soon,” I replied as saying.

Just a few seconds later, the phone rang. It was my Mom.

“The message said ‘I will see you soon’ what did you mean?” she asked in panic.

“Nothing. I just meant time will past very fast and will see you when I finish school in two years,” I said.

“Ok. I thought you were coming home. Don’t,” she insisted. “Don’t ever think of coming back now. It is so bad here. don’t come back please.”

I calmed her down and told her I wasn’t going back before I finished school. Then my father took the phone to talk to me.

“Listen, if we are going to die, you should stay alive,” he told me in his serious, yet fatherly tone. “you always told me you want to carry the name of our family and continue what we started. You should stick to that. I want you to do that and that means you don’t come back now.”

I talked to him and told him that all what I am doing now and all the tough times I am going through was to do what I promised to do, and what the family encouraged me to do. And that I wasn’t going back soon. Unlike my mother, he knew I wasn’t being honest. He felt there was something going in my mind but he didn’t want to talk about it. He knew he would lose the argument!

Good luck Naday. I will see you soon!

Feeh

More than a 100 Iraqi employees disappeared today in Baghdad when men wearing Iraqi police uniforms swarmed a Higher Education ministry building and ordered the employees out!

How would a huge group of people, like this one, disappear? How could they be kidnapped? Where is the government?

All what we hear about now in Iraq is how violence is growing. The country is “on the verge of civil war” we keep hearing. If this is the “verge” of civil war. What does a civil war look like?

When more than 80 men, who, according to witnesses, appeared to be Iraq police, come in 25 police cars and take hostage more than 100 male employees from the Scholarships and Cultural Relations department of the Higher Education ministry_ which is located in Karrada in central Baghdad_ and the 20-minute-long episode was not interrupted by the government’s security forces, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

When all this happened and Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, goes on T.V. and addresses his terrified nation and say “"what is happening is not terrorism,” one might ask: So, what is this? And how do you define terrorism Mr. PM?

It is “the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that,” he continued!

So, Mr. PM knows it is the ethnic and sectarian-motivated militias who are doing this. But, he doesn’t believe it is terrorism. Because, for him and his cabinet, terrorism is only when a car bomb explodes in a Shiite neighborhood and kills people. For them, terrorism is when the insurgents bomb a market in Ramadi and kill more people. For them and their backup, terrorism is when an IED kills an American soldier.

But the kidnapping of 150 Iraqis, and the kidnapping and killing of dozens of hundreds of Iraqis everyday, is merely a “political disagreement” that shouldn't be exaggerated and defined as terrorism.

Moreover, Mr. PM doesn’t try to solve the problem. Although, to say the truth, he has nothing in his hands that could be used to stop what is happening.

What did he mean when he said that kidnapping 150 Iraqis was only the “result of disagreements and conflict” between rivalries? Doest it mean “calm down. It is only disagreement that we will solve?” or it means “I cannot do anything. It is disagreement between the leaders of the ‘New Iraq’?”

And if you know, Mr. PM., that it is militias, why did you delay your genius crackdown on these militias? Although it meant nothing for the average Iraqis. While you lived in your Green Zone giving orders, over nice dinners with your new friends, to disarm militias and arrest their leaders, the very same militias continued killing my people. But at least you could save face by claiming to be working on that issue.

Now, what should the Iraqis do? No one is helping. The Iraqis must endure a horrible life and no one is even close to start helping them. They are left alone. Well, in fact I hope they are left alone. At least by then we could say “the Iraqis have done this to themselves.”

The minister of higher education, Abid Thyab, said he would close universities and institutes in Baghdad until the security situation is improved. [which to me means “until further notice!”

I don’t think the government and the American watchdogs in Iraq will allow the minister to go through with his decision. Because shutting down educational institutes in the capital will give the outside world that Iraq’s game is over. It will just show how bad the situation in Iraq is. And that means the Iraqi government and American administration will have to explain to the world what the next step should be. But, because there is no clear next step, they cannot do it.

No matter how many Iraqis were kidnapped or to be kidnapped, and no matter how many professors were killed in Iraq and will be killed, and no matter how many students were killed or forced by threats to stay home, NO SHUTS DOWN will be permitted. Because that means embarrassment for the Iraqi government and the American administration. What is more important you think?

By the way, not only 150 were taken hostage today, but also the news go on to say that more than 80 people were killed or found dead in and around the capital. But never mind, that’s the usual number. No harms!

It just seems like Iraq fell into a huge hole and keeps going down. I just wish there is a bottom to this hole so the country can at some point stop falling. It is the only way to start a new step. The Iraqis accepted falling into the hall because they thought there is an end to it. But they are still gravitating to the unknown.

This is an opinion piece I was asked to write as an assignment in school here in the U.S.

The piece wasn’t published [it’s a long story that I will talk to you about when the time comes to go public with it. But basically, I am having someone in school, who is responsible for publishing our stories, and now is trying to take anything I write down. I don’t know why, but I talked to people in school and if they don’t fix this, I am going public and will make it a big deal, because it is a big deal!]

Anyway, I thought you might like reading it. [I juts took the byline out. Well, you know why!]

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A few months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, rumors suggested that Iraqis would soon vote “democratically and freely” for the first time in decades. We were confused. The only experience we had in voting was in two referendums to decide whether Saddam Hussein should stay the “only leader and the hero of the Arab nation” in Iraq. That, of course, was more of a joke_ and a day-off_ than a true political experiment.

In the months leading to the January 2005 elections in Iraq, political campaigns flooded our country. Politicians rallied to sell themselves and we, Iraqis, listened carefully, spending hours analyzing their positions. When many risked their lives to vote on Election Day, we were at least informed.

Democracy is exhausting, but twice more, Iraqis have taken it seriously—for the constitutional referendum in October 2005 and the parliamentary elections in mid-December.

And, this is where our two democracies differ sharply. Here, in the full democracy of the United States, where Americans have lost thousands of men and women to violence around the world and the “war on terrorism,” it’s shocking how few citizens make use of freedom of speech and “democracy.”

A few weeks ago, I attended a forum in Tracy, California in which Democrat Jerry McNerney, and the incumbent, Republican Congressman Richard Pombo presented their platforms. During the session, people applauded their candidates, booed each other and showed nothing but stubbornness. No one demonstrated any willingness to listen and to think about the other side. At the end of the session, I failed to understand the point of having the debate-like session.

I understand that the polls suggest the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives, but I find it hard to believe and don’t.

If the forum in Tracy was any indicator, democrats will always vote democrat, and republicans will remain with their party. The only chance for a change remains with the few who are open to voting for the other party and in my judgment, it’s too few to make a difference.

It is true that Americans enjoy freedom of speech and democracy, but do they have the “people’s power” to affect the decision-making process?

When the talk about a possible attack on Iraq was rumored after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration turned a deaf ear to the opposition. For its part, the media worked to prepare the public and gain support.

Because the administration was insistent that it was going to launch its second major military involvement in the Middle East since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Americans had no choice but to read and listen to how the media reasoned the war on Iraq.

I was in Iraq when the last U.S. presidential elections were held and American friends told me then that it was a chance for Americans to correct the mistake and change governments. Did they? No. Instead, they bought, again, the promises of a more secure United States and “significant” number of U.S. troops coming home from Iraq by the end of 2006.

The political debates and discussions we see now, I believe, will change nothing.

People have already made up their minds. They already know who they will support. No matter what mistakes were made by the republicans, very few of their supporters, if any, are going to the polls on November 7 to demonstrate their anger and vote for a democrat.

The nearing midterm election in Nov. 7 is nothing but a “democratic” practice people will enjoy, especially those who just turned 18 _ because it is there first time to toss the paper into the box or press the screen.

Even if the democrats won the mid term elections this year, those hoping for a political change in the United States have to wait until the next presidential elections. It is then when the average American will have another chance to make a difference. Another chance to be a decision maker.

Well, one of the most asked questions I’ve been asked since I moved to the States is “how do you like it here?” And I was trying to take notes all the time whenever I thought “here is something I like/ or I don’t” so I can answer properly.

I love living here. Of course I miss Baghdad, my house, my family, my colleagues back in the office, my beautiful and huge German shepherd dog, my room with all the pictures hanging on the wall, especially my graduation picture with all those who graduated with me that year in 2002, and I also miss my “purple” car [and I put the color in quotation marks because it is really dark blue, but one of my American friends insists that it is purple, which I like!]

Nevertheless, I have things that I hate here. Maybe it’s the cultural differences, or maybe it’s just me. But I do hate some things here.

So, why don’t I share this stuff with you guys!

Ten things I hate about America:

* People don’t understand that democracy doesn’t mean that people should be able to “walk in bikinis in the streets of Tehran-Iran,” because that is culture and you cannot force people to change their culture in the name of “democracy.”
* People believe that they have democracy and accuse the rest of the world of being “undemocratic,” when in fact they have freedom only in the U.S., which is a huge difference!
* People don’t cover their mouths when they yawn.
* They don’t give their seats to elderly or women in buses and underground trains.
* When they hear about people hit or abused in Iraq, they call it torture. But when the American armed forces and the CIA do the same thing, they call it “abuse!”
* Newspapers call those who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis “insurgents.” But when someone plans an attack inside the U.S., even if only planned and was failed, he/she is a “terrorist.”
* They burp loud in public.
* They send their parents to the elderly houses or leave them to live alone when they are old and incapable of taking care of themselves.
* They don’t have or tell jokes.
* A husband and a wife are not one. They are separate entities and children are taught to grow into the same thing.

Now, twelve things I love about America:

* People are nice and helpful.
* I am free to do, eat and wear whatever I want as long as I don’t offend others.
* I can walk freely in the streets as late as I want [I hear about crimes and shootings, but I don’t care]
* People listen to you and always try to advise.
* Transportation inside the cities is really good. It makes my life so much easier.
* People love and cherish their feel of belongingness to their soil and they are proud of their flag. * Education system is great, for those who can afford it.
* They call their political leaders “stupid” and keep reelecting them!
* I don’t hear explosions and don’t wake up on the IED-alarm-clock everyday like I used to in Baghdad.
* There are traffic lights for cars and pedestrians, which most of the people respect!
* Junk food.
* I have many friends here. I wouldn’t survive the change without their support.

Feeh!