Journal Entry

BREAKING NEWS: HYPOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just received this news, and it has absolutely enraged me. Note: The majority of this article, entry, whatever you wish to call it, shall be speculation, as I have very slight documentation on the subject. I encourage and would strongly appreciate anyone stepping forward with whatever they believe to be the firm, solid truth.

24 heures, 20 septembre 2005, p 3: IRAK: Des chars britanniques ont abattu les murs de la prison centrale de Bassorah, dans le sud de l’Irak, pour libérer deux Britanniques, présentés comme des agents secrets écroués pour avoir tiré sur des policiers irakiens. Cette opération a entrainé l’évasion de 150 prisonniers irakiens (AP).

From this very brief (I can’t say article) passage in yesterday’s 24 heures and some few minutes of limited conversation with my mother, I have amassed in my mind a multitude of horrific images that can not wait to be written down. This is why I am not doing my homework, which should be top priority right now, as I have a French vocabulary test tomorrow. On that very pretext of “homework” (well, that and soccer practice…) has it been that for the past few days I have neglected to watch the news (and to perform those yoga stretches which I so solemnly swore to myself to do, when I discovered them on TV at 6:30 A.M. every morning). But, this information is terribly arbitrary and insignificant now, as I am currently performing the action that is necessary if democracy and freedom are to carry on. It is now, by my computer’s clock, 6:43 PM, Eastern Time, and it is the 21st of September, 2005 AD.

I am practically lost for words to describe my emotions right now as I senselessly pound this keyboard as fast as I can (which isn’t really fast at all—oh, how I wish I had done some more of that Mavis Beacon!) with trembling fingers and a swirling head. I have to get this down. It is my duty, and I must!

I neglected to keep the article in which I first saw that ugly thing. At the time, I didn’t consider this neglect; it was a newsworthy item: both shocking and depressing, as is the custom, or perhaps necessity, with such things. I figured it would probably be all over the place and everybody would be talking about the disgrace, and the Bush Empire would come crumbling down. Not so. I have a vague memory of what the year was, but if I strain my mind I can vaguely recall that it was perhaps Spring, an it was perhaps two years ago. That would make it 2003. No, sorry, 2004. No… it must have been earlier than that, before that devastating second election… Ah well, memory has failed, and the documentation, for all I know, is non-existent. All this makes the analogy I was going to (and now will) make all the more shocking: We are living in 1984. (Perhaps literally as well, as the estimate of the birth date of Christ is way off what it should have been.)

This letter must be getting awfully convoluted and confusing. The only excuse I have is that I can not help it in the condition that I am now in. I slightly regret not doing this on paper, in my diary, for instance, where I am far less likely to alter it in any way later on. I plan on making good copies, final drafts, etc., of this, but the original must remain intact… Why? Because the emotion in it is just far too much to be thrown away. This being said, this is far too important to be kept in something so private and personal as a journal or diary, as it must be announced to the world.

What I have to say is, in my opinion, of a significance far more compromising than the prisoner abuse scandal, than the WMD’s, than any of that. What I have to say is horrific, incomprehensible, absolutely beyond humane law, barbaric, atrocious, YOU NAME IT!

What I have to say is this: WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? Someone, PLEASE, answer me!!! How could anyone be so evil? Every time I hear or read something of this nature, I think nothing can surpass its vileness. Again and again I am mistaken. Again and again, Satan never ceases to astound me. Again and again, it’s the same dirty gunk all over the place. WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO?

But most importantly: what does it all mean? This is something we can never be sure of, but I intend to go as far as I possibly can for the truth. That luscious oasis that awaits me after many long days’ journey through treachery, hypocrisy, outright LIES: truth.

To restate after this longwinded detour: British tanks ran through the central prison of Basra, in the south of Iraq, to liberate two Britons, presented as secret agents arrested for having fired on Iraqi police. This operation has resulted in the escape of 150 Iraqi prisoners. This is the result of my poor translation of the above French text. Mind you, this passage would have hardly succeeded in holding my attention for more than a minute if I had merely stumbled upon it. As it happened, we (that is, my eleven-year-old brother, my mother, and I) were watching the six-o’clock BBC World News on PBS, when something vague about a burning tank came on. My mother lowered the volume on the TV set to tell us what I shall call the “BREAKING NEWS”, because it shatters my heart and all my previous (mis?)conceptions about reality. (Technically, it is not breaking news at all, because in the information age, yesterday’s news is old news).

That news which she gave us was her own little version of what I have above stated in two languages, accompanied by some explanations and perceptions of her own. My perceptions, I will attempt to convey here, if my wandering mind will allow me to do so. (Alas, nearly an hour has gone by, and I have not even begun to lay out the meat of what I have to say. Perhaps a short break shall do the trick?...)

It is now 7:36 PM, Eastern Time, by my computer’s clock, although my radio clock disagrees with a seven minute delay. But time is relative, and therefore irrelevant. I have taken a small pause, but I am as full of emotion as ever. My mind is in a state of tortured throbbing. Why this is so difficult for me, I do not know. Today was a day full of thinking and philosophizing, and perhaps I am tired, but something inside me is urging me to go on. Obviously, though, I am speechless! I am also beginning to feel that all this meandering is going to leave my reader in a tangled, thorny mess, so I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause him.

But to return to my point, that is to say, that George Orwell’s prediction is, (if it has not arrived,) knocking on our doorstep. WE MUST ASSERT OUR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE RIGHTS TO THE FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS. A catastrophe is looming overhead, and we are the unsuspecting sheep under the watchful eye of an ever present “Big Brother”. Who is this “Big Brother”? I am sure that this comment is inviting outrage and curses from some of our more conservative friends down south, but I am determined to put it down: GEORGE W. BUSH. Of course, this post has been occupied by several hundred, perhaps several thousand others, but this is the current “Leader of the Free World”, if you will. Simply put: “His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.” Big Brother is held up by several of his close, wealthy friends, his father’s money, et cetera, et cetera. These friends of his make a lot of terrible decisions, and he usually goes along with them, as there is usually something in it for him and some of the companies he owns. In short, they WALK ALL OVER US. We, the people, have to make a stand for ourselves. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Now, then, I must go into the reasons why this particular item of news has so acutely upset me, as that is the reason for my wanting to write all this. Whether I will get into it, I do not know, but with God’s superior aid, I will try my best.

Let us get into the heart of the matter. Imagine this: two Iraqi insurgents randomly shooting at passing civilians. You are Iraqi police. You arrest the two men. You take them to prison. You interrogate them; they say they are British. You are informed by British government/military that what they say is true, and ordered to release them. You refuse (who the hell wouldn’t, right? After all, they were disrupting the peace.) In response, British military drive a tank through the prison wall, scattering 150 potential menaces into the population, in order to retrieve two. (As I said, this may be a distortion of the facts, but, while I wait for the facts, this is all I have to work with.)

To describe this all, “Outrageous” is an understatement. First of all, if British and American troops are in Iraq to protect its civilians (which they are not—something I have known since before the war, but also something which, I assume, the vast majority of people fails to grasp, as they have shown little or no response to it) why would they unleash 150 drooling hounds upon that very population? Normally, two Britons in the hands of the Iraqis would mean little or nothing. (let us remember the hostage crisis in Iran several years ago… I don’t recall America exerting any direct physical force upon the Iranian government for that. More recently, we have heard the pleas of several hostages taken by Al Qaieda or the Taliban. None of their countries did anything for them!) So why is this case any different? Well, certainly, if you were governing a country, you wouldn’t be too pleased if a couple of your subordinates, a few rungs down the ladder of our hierarchical society, were caught red handed in the act of shooting innocent civilians, or keepers of the peace, would you? Of course, not! (And with good reason, as this would result in scandal, and here I’ll refer back to those incriminating photos of American soldiers inflicting psychological abuse upon Iraqi prisoners.) Enough said! But I must go on. You’d want the affair covered, wouldn’t you? You’d have to hide any strand of evidence of such a thing, wouldn’t you? You would have to deny that any orders were given for such an execution, convince the British (secret agents?) that they were inherently evil and that they committed a brash act contrary to regulation… anything to keep them from spilling the beans!

That is to say, this act was plotted at a higher level than that of the minds of these two “Iraqi insurgents”. Something very fishy is going on. Strictly hypothetically, this is perhaps something going on at a very vast range and on a very high scale. Imagine hundreds of bearded British and Americans, dressed as Iraqis, for the sole purpose of causing havoc and instability. WAR. To go back to what Orwell predicted, the world needs it. Big Brother needs it, to remain in power. Yes, American troops are in Iraq in order to train the Iraqi police forces, in order to maintain order… This is what they want you to believe, when in reality, it is quite the other way around.

I am quite tired now—my computer tells me it is 8:40 PM, Eastern Time, and I have not yet begun to do my homework. I impatiently await further information, in order to complete my story. (I am afraid of delving too far into the imaginative, wild side of my brain, which is likely to come up with all sorts of horrendous fiction in its efforts to conciliate itself.) In the meantime, I take with a grain of salt all information handed to me. I try to use my God-given sense to try to make sense of what is going on around me. I attempt to pry open every heavily safeguarded, secret book that I stumble upon. I screw up my face and stare hard at every puzzle that arises before me. I strive—for the truth.