"Never had I fathomed, not even in my remotest imagination, that a day will come when God's houses will be attacked and destroyed. The way they are today, in Iraq...Never.
This Red Line is now crossed...Crossed, transgressed, trespassed into blasphemy." Layla Anwar "A Red Line" from An Arab Woman’s Blues
Here's something you won't read in the mainstream news: The real disposition of the war changed more than two years ago when it became apparent that the Iraqi resistance would not simply throw down their weapons and give up. That's when the assassination of teachers and intellectuals went into high-gear. That's when archeological sites, museums, and anything else connected to Iraqi cultural and historical identity-began to come under relentless and withering attack. The attacks on holy sites and mosques have persisted to this day. There is a conscious effort to destroy all the religious symbols and monuments which bind the people together in the shared experience of a common faith. The same sinister forces which are inciting the sectarian violence are trying to remove all sense of kinship, brotherhood, nationalism and spirituality. Their objective is to "wipe the slate clean" and rebuild the entire society according to their neoliberal model. If that is not genocide; then what is? Here is the story of one victim of the US occupation. It is a story of great personal loss and suffering. It's really the tale about all of Iraq; a nation that never threatened the United States, but which has been crushed by evil, ambitious men who care nothing about the death and suffering they have produced. The story is called "My Shrine" and it is by poet and author Layla Anwar... We have destroyed Iraq and left the people with nothing. The American people need to know this.....
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