A Week in the Death of Iraq

If we leave again, I want to go to a country where we might have a future. I want children, but I promised myself that I wouldn't have any as long as I'm living in Iraq. My children don't deserve to be born in this country. I won't make the mistake my parents made.

Later that day, we go shopping for food. This is the only entertainment we have in our lives, apart from the Internet. It's so hot. I wish I could go out in shorts. But the militias don't allow it. It's too much to ask in Iraq. It's too much to ask to be able to wear a goatee or a gold necklace. It's too much to ask to drive my BMW because I could be killed for it. There's too much that's too much to ask for in Baghdad.

We have fun at the market, but on the way back, a pickup truck drives by with a dead body in the back.

* * *

On Thursday before dawn, an explosion rocks our house. I lie in bed, unable to get back to sleep, until it's time to get up for work.

When I arrive at the clinic, my fellow dentists are sitting on chairs in the yard. That means we are out of diesel. We'll have four hours with nothing to do (because we're required to stay at work even if we can't do any work), so I join them. The talk turns to the situation in Baghdad and the U.S. presence here.

"As soon as the Americans leave Iraq, Iranian jets will be over Baghdad bombarding every neighborhood that is not loyal to them, whether Shiite or Sunni," one of the doctors says. I offer my opinion: "The U.S. should stay, because it's not just Iran or neighboring countries that we have to fear. The Iraqi National Guard and the police are also our enemies now."

In contrast, many uneducated or less educated Iraqis think that the U.S. military is at the root of every problem. They believe that if the Americans leave, there will be peace. I agree, up to a point, that U.S. troops are responsible for some of the trouble we have, but I don't blame them. I blame the Iraqis who let this happen, who enjoy destruction and death -- the sectarian government and the militias. They are the real cause of this tragedy.

We talk about the insurgents and the militias, both Sunni and Shiite, and about sectarian violence, which is skyrocketing. So are civilian casualties and the government's lies, which are supposed to convince the world that it's doing its job, that it's winning victories against terrorism and that the terrorists are fleeing Iraq. Aren't they ashamed of themselves? The only ones fleeing Iraq are good, honest Iraqis.

"What do the insurgents want?" another doctor asks. "What have they achieved after all those explosions and all those people dead?"

They have achieved nothing that a sane person would consider an achievement, I respond. They've made the country impossible to live in; they've terrorized people, killed Americans, made us afraid to leave our homes. They've taken control of neighborhoods after the people who lived there fled for their lives. All of this is an achievement to them, but not to a sane person like you or me. They have been brainwashed by fanatical religious clerics; they have been tempted by the money that flows from Iran and other countries or that they get from kidnapping and crime.

In the end, we all agree: The only losers are honest, patriotic Iraqi people. For them, democracy, liberation and freedom are just myths. All we want is to live a normal life.