Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman – 2009-05-27 21:52:22

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news2009-05-24kurd.htm

BAGHDAD (May 24, 2009) — Iraqis killed, maimed, turned into refugees, and made homeless as a direct or indirect result of the 2003-US invasion are in millions. Who will do justice to them?

The victims of the past six years, it seems, have turned into meaningless numbers about which nobody cares. They have apparently turned into erased lines in Iraq’s book of darkness, or graves with erased epitaphs in the desert of death.

Iraqi lives are as valuable as those of US marines whose numbers, names and graves are very well marked and commemorated. In one way or another, their families and beloved ones are being taken care of.

That is unfortunately not the case with Iraqis who, directly or indirectly, have become the victims of these marauding marines.

History will one day tell us that no country occupied by a foreign super power ever suffered as Iraq at the hands of the United States.

Iraq’s victims are of different categories and levels. There are those whose bodies were torn apart by US helicopter gunships. There are those who were killed in cold blood by US Marines. And there are those who have been killed due to the sectarian and factional strife – an indirect outcome of US invasion.

The number of Iraqis killed is in hundreds of thousands. The figure could be more than one million. Rarely has any of the killers been punished. Justice is far from being administered.

Iraqis who lost their lives, whether those buried properly, or those whose bodies were left to rotten, or devoured by stray dogs, cannot be resurrected.

If justice cannot be done to the dead victims, we still have room to look after the living victims – the families, the children, the mothers, the orphans, the wives, the refugees, the homeless, the internally displaced, etc.

Justice can be done by caring about these victims. And that is what the government should do.

But what we are seeing now is that justice is being done on sectarian and factional considerations. This sets a dangerous precedent with grave consequences for the future of Iraq.

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