Monday, August 20, 2007
A Yazidi funeral ceremony
The Yazidi funeral ceremony is raw and emotionally charged. We were led into the sweaty, intense heart of one ceremony, while filming in the tiny village of Al Jazeera in north western Iraq. We'd come to report on the aftermath of four truck bombs, which have left more than 350 people dead.
The Yazidi men and women gather from sunrise to sunset to whirl in a kind of circle of grief. They repeatedly hit their heads and tear at their hair. We watched men and women screaming at the top of their voices. Photos of their dead loved ones were displayed on the walls of the tent. But I couldn't help noticing that amid all the anger and sorrow, was a visceral beauty. The women were high-cheek boned, fair skinned with light hair. Some of the children looked like they were Swedish, not Iraqi. But their eyes were wild and furious. They were mourning an unimaginable disaster, that has decimated their population. It's because they are different, that they were targeted. They hold little power or wealth. One of the U.S. generals in Iraq, Maj.Gen. Benjamin Mixon, believes the attack was "ethnic cleansing, almost genocide" -- an attempt to wipe the Yazidi and their religion off the face of the earth. The Yazidi believe they are descended from Adam alone, not Eve, and worship seven arch-angels including Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, who is often wrongly associated with Satan. The Yazidi’s enemies claim they are devil-worshippers. It might have been one of the justifications used by the four men who drove truck bombs into the two villages of Qataniyah and Al Jazeera. The U.S. army is sure that Al Qaeda is to blame. The bombs ripped through the simple clay-brick houses, shredding everyone for four city blocks. We walked amid the ruins of the town centre in Qataniyah. It looked like an earthquake zone. The putrid smell of dead bodies was overpowering in the 45C heat. While we filmed, more bodies were being found. I've covered my fair share of natural disasters, but I am appalled and depressed that this kind of destruction and bloodshed could be deliberately planned on this, the softest of soft targets. Watch my report -- From Dan Rivers, CNN International Correspondent, in Iraq. 7 Comments
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Dan:
How do you not get angry? How do you handle such an attack of your physical senses? Please allow yourself to get angry, to feel, and to cry if you need to process the inhumanity you are seeing every day in Iraq. Remember to take care of yourself. Stay safe.
I think the bombing was absolutely barbaric! Killing in the name of religion is no excuse. God will reward the perpetrators with hell since there's no justification whatsoever. The Prophet of Islam has prohibited this, every sincere Muslim knows this.
You've been in Iraq too long if you can make this statement about this footage "The women were high-cheek boned, fair skinned with light hair. Some of the children looked like they were Swedish, not Iraqi". Nice try...we're still not buying it!
Remember this?
Thought you might be interested in this forgotten bit of information.......... It was 1987! At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt.Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration. There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning! He was being drilled by a senator; "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?" Ollie replied, "Yes, I did, Sir." The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?" "No, sir," continued Ollie. "No? And why not?" the senator asked. "Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir." "Threatened? By whom?" the senator questioned. "By a terrorist, sir" Ollie answered. "Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?" "His name is Osama bin Laden, sir" Ollie replied. At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. Why are you so afraid of this man?" the senator asked. "Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of", Ollie answered. "And what do you recommend we do about him?" asked the senator. "Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth." The senator disagreed with this approach, and that was all that was shown of the clip. By the way, that senator was Al Gore! Also: Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners". However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands. The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released. Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center . This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified. It was censored in the US from all later reports. Anybody Remember this? Annonymous
This immediately made me remember something else:
http://www.aina.org/news/20070425181603.htm , the stoning of a young girl by a group of 1000 Yezidi. That was actually something that made me cry. I find it hard to feel sorry for these people. You reap what you sow. |
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