Bureaucracy , Bureaucracy

What happened last week ? Well the usual . Actually I’ m thinking of working out a Form, which I can just fill , since things are getting so regular . I have in mind something like this :-

- □ Yesterday
□ This morning
□ Last night
□ Other
A

□ Bombe
□ Missile
□ Car bomb
□ Other
exploded , causing ( 1- 200 ) deaths (all Iraqis, all civilians).

- □ Yesterday
□ This morning
□ Last night
□ Other
A
□ Relative
□ Friend
□ Neighbor
□ Co worker
□ Other
Was abducted from ( house ,on his /her way back home , in the place of work) . A ransom was demanded , later a ( dead beheaded / disfigured with traces of torture ) body was found in:
□ A dumpster
□ The outskirts of Baghdad
□ A neighborhood at the doorstep of a school/mosque/church/any other public
building
□ The infamous morgue
□ Other

- □ Yesterday
□ This morning
□ Last night
□ Other
A massive military attack was carried out by ( The American Army / Iraqi Ministry of ….. ) against insurgents to the :
- □ North
□ South
□ East
□ West
□ Other
Of Baghdad / Iraq , which resulted in hundreds / thousands of civilian casualties and the destruction of fields /houses/ cars /public buildings , the survivors had to flee and are awaiting compensation for damages.

- Al ……Area in Baghdad is completely under the control of
□ thugs
□ terrorists
□ men in uniform ,who no one will answer for
□ Others
Killing /kidnapping / threatening people to kill them if they won’t leave their homes / planting bombs to their hearts content . However , No one came to the rescue . After days/weeks/months the Americana carried out the routine checking and left the people to face their fate . Soon all of Baghdad will be under the control of “whoever” totally, including the Temple of Solomon ;I mean the Green Zone before they notice /choose to notice.

- An unprecedented rise in the prices of :
□ Gas
□ Oil
□ Petrol
□ Other bear necessities

- The Iraqi
□ Prime Minister
□ Minister
□ Other officials
Undertakes drastic measurements to solve the everlasting security problem . He also accused his predecessor of being incompetent , a separatist and a discriminator on ethnic basis .

- same as the previous item but the
□ Prime Minister
□ Minister
□ Other official
Are different instead of a Shi'i there is a Sunni or instead of a Kurd an Arab .

- The famous celebrated terrorist
□ Abu ….
□ Ben ….
□ Others
Appears on an Arabic channel declaring war on the infidels everywhere except in his own country / threatening to behead a western hostage . These appearances are now monthly / annual / semi annual , or whenever any one needs a push up or out.

- A new wave of assassination sweeps Iraq this time the victims are
□ Police/Army recruits
□ Doctors
□ Professors
□ Business men /merchants
□ Journalists
□ Barbers
□ Newspaper boys/old men
□ Any useful being for the country’s future
□ Others

- The prominent Shi'i / Sunni clergymen announces his support to this /that party causing street commotion and looting .

- The electricity was off the last 24 hours for:
□ Four hours
□ Six hours
□ 24 hours
□ More
God on the other hand refuses to reduce the heat a few degrees, in spite of all prays and supplications. Explaining, that he has a universal plan not to be disrupted .


After I finish the final form , cause I‘ve not yet . I'll leave space for afew items that could be added, cause it is not totally static over here , for instance women recently are being shot widely and attacked ,when walking without a scarf or driving a car , schools are being threatened to close or else bombed , missiles are destroying everything but the targeted green zone as usual , you know stuff like that . while, any special events like using unconventional weapons on villages or a towns , a wedding / funeral / kids birthdays being hit killing all guests.. can be attached as an appendix to the Form . So, as I said after I finish I would just have to fix the date above and place a tick in the square in front of the appropriate choice, copy here, paste there, then that’s it ; a post is born .

But, for the time being I’ll do it the usual way.
So, last week there were seven deadly explosions in one day, which left Baghdad staggering. They came as soon as the new prime minister held the reins of … well actually I don’t know which reins he is holding, I thought it was the Americans who are in charge. Any way seven the number was . And so on . The Ministers are squabbling over ministries , that will keep them busy till the next prime minister is due . .
Our newspaper boy reappeared, but refuses to share with us why he disappeared in the first place .
Thursday morning old Abu S…. came in as pale as a ghost saying, that he just saw a dead body in the street :
- What a boy he was, what a young boy , hardly twenty … oh Allah what have we come to ….
As he was making coffee I listened to his monologue before his creator , it went on for fifteen minutes :-
- …. why God , for what are you punishing us , this did not happen even in the time of Al Hussain “peace upon his sacred soul” , the unbelievers even then speared the lives of women and children .
He paused removing the pot from the stove then continued :-
- … even in the time of Jesus Christ “peace upon his sacred soul” the Jews speared the life of Jesus’s mother and his disciples “peace upon their sacred souls”, Oh Allah I beg you to dissipate these clouds of death from our sky . Why did I live to see all this? Why ? . The criminals are all in Jordan and London ( why London I don’t know and it was no time to ask) drinking Arak = (A lethal Iraqi alcoholic beverage , stronger than gin and vodka , where would they get Arak from in London I don’t know and it was no time to ask too ), while me and you -he looked at me handing me my coffee - poor, honest Iraqis are sitting here tricking Izraeel (the angel of death in Islam) to stay alive .
Now that really made me feel sorry for myself .

When the rest of the staff arrived he told them too , what he saw and experienced that morning.
We went home early .The news were not encouraging there too , at home I was told , that the local grocer told them, that all the shops received a death letter, warning the shop keepers that they will be shot like dogs if they dare to open their shops next week.
Abu A … our grocer said he will try to secretly sell his clients the doses of cucumber and tomato and celery .
I imagined him with his protruding belly in his white dishdasha ( national Iraqi dress) and white worn out cap, folding a couple of kilos of groceries wrapped in a newspaper under his arm, wearing dark sun glasses . With anxious customers meeting him in a designated spot , serving them one by one after sun set:
- Abu A…. give me the usual .
- the dough first mate !
- But Abu A… I need it for my salad .
- the dough , I said
- Here take it
Abu A… takes four cucumbers and shoves them in to the basket looking around him fiercely ,
- quick … next …Oh , what do you want Um Ahmmed , here you go a kilo of potatoes , what you don’t like them ?
- My husband wont eat that, they are rotten .
- Well, Um Ahmmed, his majesty Abu Ahmmed your husband can go himself then to the outskirts to get his potatoes for 10 times the price. I am the only dealer here. Next !.
- Ok , ok I’ll take them here you are, calm down will you !.
- Wait… did you hear anything, scram all of you , tomorrow if we are still alive at the same place the same time . My brother got busted yesterday selling Maggi soup… things are risky .. Then Abu A…. folds his goods and disappears in the dark of the night .
I shook my head and quit the night mare appreciating the salad on the table .
What next can happen in new Iraq.