Feelings are universal (2)

Additional thoughts to a previous post (Feelings are universal) are down here. Maybe they would be helpful in perceiving some of the events happening in Iraq.

What happened in Abu Graib prison is another image of brutality and seizing the opportunity to behave meanly which is the same of Saddam's era. It was expected (at least for me). Since August 2003 I'm trying my best to avoid any American person here. In that month a horrible incident happened to my brother in law. He is an electrical engineer, works in the maintenance department at the University of Baghdad. He is a man of self-respect, in the same age of mine. Their department is working hard to rehabilitate colleges of the university.

One day on his way back home in his car, an Iraqi police patrol stopped him and checked his car. He told me that he had noticed the cars, which had been checked, were all the same of his car. So he concluded that something wrong had been done using such a car. But the most significant thing he had noticed was the way of the Iraqi police behavior. He described it as a revolutionary change. They behaved in a very polite way. After that he stopped to buy bread. As he was parking his car, three American armored vehicles appeared suddenly and surrounded his car. Till this point nothing is wrong. But the way of the American soldiers' behavior was something unbelievable. They didn't ask him any kind of questions, and prevented him from saying a word. They dragged him from the car in a very savage way causing his shirt to be completely torn. Two guns were pointed to his head, a soldier kept on kicking his legs to lay him on the ground, another tried to break the trunk of the car, others turned the inside of the car upside down. After all this humiliation they said nothing but (sorry). He recounted the event with very deep pain and sorrow. It caused him high blood pressure.

Such incident happens daily. One may become a detainee without knowing why. Anybody may pass false information about another to the Americans. American soldiers are ready to damage (not knock) doors, destroy furniture, terrify families, and detain persons.

I can understand that the American soldiers are frightened and this makes them unable to discriminate between people. To avoid being humiliated for no reason, it's better to stay at home as much as possible. I can't bear humiliation, by some frightened or psychopathic soldiers, which may cause me to retaliate in a way that leads me to death. Such behaviors make neutral people to turn against the Americans.

Thanks to God that I have not met any American soldier who might detain me for no reason (like what happened to my brother in law). And I pray to God that it would not happen in the future. At Saddam's period one might be detained for using a satellite receiver, which is a trivial matter, but still there were some trivial regulations. I know many young men who had been detained just for standing outside their houses, in the street. It is impossible for some people to stay at a crowded home while there is no power, with all the heat and boredom.

Yesterday, for the second time, my brother was about to be crushed with his car by an American army huge truck. The soldier who was driving the truck hit another car pushing it aside without giving its driver any chance to get away of the truck path, causing lot of damage to the car. My brother was the one supposed to be hit but he managed to find himself an empty small area, in one of the busiest streets in Baghdad, rammed his car into it.

Two months ago, my same brother was in a traffic jam when he noticed in the car mirror a bunch of Humvee cars. So he managed to step aside near the sidewalk to avoid annoyance usually caused by the Americans when they pass through streets. What astonished him is that the Humvees' drivers chose to force their cars through a very narrow space beside his car scratching his car and breaking the radio aerial. My brother says that the soldiers in the Humvee looked at him in the same way of Saddam's henchman and bodyguards.

I have no explanation or justification for the behavior neither of the Americans nor of the Iraqis who retaliate unconsciously. I'd like to read your comments about it.