‘The Thing That Really Gets Me’: an Iraqi responds to Uncle Usama

An Iraqi democrat, Husayn Uthman, has begun blogging here

His blog is titled Democracy in Iraq. “I have given it this title because I am a supporter of democracy in Iraq, and I am writing in a time of great excitement and importance in the history of Iraq, one where a new Iraq is being built with a functioning democracy leading it into the future”.

On December 28 Husayn Uthman responded to Usama Bin Laden’s call to boycott the Iraqi elections.

Return of Uncle Usama

Uncle Usama has appeared on television again, just like last time, he is concerned about elections. This time he is telling us Iraqis not to vote. This is nothing more than desperation on his part. Whatever support he may have had has slowly eroded. People are realizing that there is no real benefit to supporting or even working with Usama and his minions. I mean what will the end be if a person was to align themselves with Usama? Death, living in a cave, living in a Saudi state, or God knows what else.

I think that this news is really not that big, people in Iraq are shrugging this off, its not really on our minds. All we take from this video is that Usama will definately stick his fingers into our elections in some way. I assume there will be bombings or some attacks like the ones that have already happened on election workers during the election. But we will not waver. Only by going forward with this plan of building a new Iraq will we be able to squelch Usama and his supporters. He knows that in the next few months his support base will be eroded further here in Iraq, and he is afraid. This is why he made this tape.

There was also an assasination attempt here against a major Shia leader. He is very popular, and he was not hurt, but I would bet that this attack was carried out by someone affiliated with Usama in order to scare people away from elections, scare leaders from running, and to scare Shias in general. The thing that really gets me about Usama and his ilk, these Wahhabis or whatever you want to call them is that they always talk about Muslim brotherhood and the like for their own causes, but they have no problems attacking and killing other Muslims who do not agree with them. They even say some Muslims are not Muslims, like they do with Shias. It stinks of hypocracy and the use of religion for jealous means.

I am not even a religious person, but these people who use religion for their own goals really irk me. Such rhetoric is especially dangerous nowadays in Iraq as it is being used in attempts to polarize Shias and Sunnis. The one ironic thing is that in my childhood, I remember Shia and Sunni were rarely heard words. But Saddam began making differentiation during the Iran Iraq War, and later when the Shias started rebelling. Al-Qaeda and the Wahhabis are only continuing Saddam's program in an effort to fracture Iraqis. We always read about how imperial forces used the tactic of divide and conquer in different lands, well Saddam and the terrorists are doing something similar in Iraq, but its more like divide and destroy.

I hope Iraqis see through this, and we do not fall into the trap of secterianism. More importantly, we must keep religion a private matter, in a nation like Iraq where there is a diversity of religion it is only in the best interest of all. I should end this by saying that I am from a Sunni family, but I hold no real allegiance to Sunnis, or to Shias, only to my nation which I desire to be strong, unified, and free. (AJ)