Two Sides to Every Story: Say Hello to the Other Side

In recent weeks, I've found myself more and more drawn to reading more of the "inside" stories regarding things like 9/11 and the Iraq War. I've tried to stay away from doing this amount of reading to a greater extent for purposes of keeping up morale, but after being inspired (by what I can't remember at the moment) to re-visit a book called "The War on Freedom" about the 9/11 tragedy and the little-known facts behind the tragedy, I find myself compelled to no longer turn a partial deaf ear to the travesties that have been created and/or nurtured by the current Administration - quite frankly, the most corrupt, dishonest, and reprehensible one ever to run this country - bar none.

We all hear that there's two sides to every story and we all it's true. As of right now, I'm going to dedicate much of this blog to helping spread the side of the story we're not getting from the mass media.

To start, I'm going to post this excerpt from a blog site called "Baghdad Burning", which is maintained by an Iraqi living in Baghdad during these most troubled times. This excerpt is from November 25, 2005. The year's worth entries from this blog have actually been published as a book going by the same title.

In war, you think the unthinkable. You imagine the unimaginable. When you can’t get to sleep at night, your mind wanders to cover various possibilities. Trying to guess and determine the future of a war-torn nation is nearly impossible, so your mind focuses on the more tangible- friends… Near and distant relations. I think that during these last two and a half years, every single Iraqi inside of Iraq has considered the possibility of losing one or more people in the family.

I try to imagine losing the people I love most in the world- whether it’s the possibility of having them buried under the rubble… or the possibility of having them brutally murdered by extremists… or blown to bits by a car bomb… or abducted for ransom… or brutally shot at a checkpoint. All disturbing possibilities.I try to imagine what would happen to me, personally, should this occur. How long would it take for the need for revenge to settle in? How long would it take to be recruited by someone who looks for people who have nothing to lose? People who lost it all to one blow.

What I think the world doesn’t understand is that people don’t become suicide bombers because- like the world is told- they get seventy or however many virgins in paradise. People become suicide bombers because it is a vengeful end to a life no longer worth living- a life probably violently stripped of its humanity by a local terrorist- or a foreign soldier.I hate suicide bombers. I hate the way my heart beats chaotically every time I pass by a suspicious-looking car- and every car looks suspicious these days.

I hate the way Sunni mosques and Shia mosques are being targeted right and left. I hate seeing the bodies pile up in hospitals, teeth clenched in pain, wailing men and women…But I completely understand how people get there.One victim was holding his daughter. "The gunmen told the girl to move then shot the father," said a relative.

Would anyone be surprised if the abovementioned daughter grew up with a hate so vicious and a need for revenge so large, it dominated everything else in her life? Or three days ago when American and Iraqi troops fired at a family traveling from one city to another, killing five members of the family."They are all children. They are not terrorists," shouted one relative. "Look at the children," he said as a morgue official carried a small dead child into a refrigeration room.

Who needs Al-Qaeda to recruit 'terrorists' when you have Da’awa, SCIRI and an American occupation?

This is reality in Baghdad, Ladies and Gentlemen. More to come.