Heavy Reckoning in Qaim, by Lisa Walsh Thomas

Opinion, June 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info

Heavy Reckoning in Qaim

By Lisa Walsh Thomas

6/28/03

"If the cause be not good, the king himself hath a
heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms
and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join
together at the latter day, and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon ..."
- (King Henry V, Shakespeare)

IF THE CAUSE BE NOT GOOD. Shrouded in mystery and the
usual secrecy that brands the Bush Administration, the
June attack on a shepherd's house in Qaim, Iraq, a few
miles from the Syrian border, appears to have had a
malleable, amoebic cause, if any. What matters from a
human standpoint is that after U.S. missiles slammed
into the house where people slept, a young woman named
Hakima Khalil and her infant daughter lay dead.

The deaths of Hakima Khalil and her infant daughter,
Maha, may be looked at as fuzzy numbers added to the
unknown thousands of Iraqi civilians killed since the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began. OR, the young woman
and her child may be stacked somewhere under the
heading of "heavy reckoning." Other family members
escaped death by sleeping on cots outside to avoid the
desert heat.

As of June 25, no one, to the best of my knowledge,
can give a reason why Hakima and Maha had to die.
There were missiles, then helicopters, some kind of
skirmish with guards at the Syrian border, a convoy of
people still unidentified, and the destruction of four
more houses. According to first accounts, the U.S.
believed the sons of Saddam to be in the convoy.
Within hours, that rumor was amended to a statement
that high level Iraqis had been the target. According
to the Washington Post on June 24, the trucks, all
bombed, seem to have been filled with smugglers.

Qaim, five miles from the Syrian border, is an area
where sheep are often smuggled into Syria, where they
fetch a better price.

Was the mightiest military on earth seeking sheep
smugglers when the two-hour blitz on Qaim began? Or
were Hakima and Maha, along with their home and their
neighbors' homes and the sheep that provided
livelihood for the villagers, simply collateral damage
from an attack on a convoy that MIGHT have included
high level Baathists? U.S. officials originally
assessed the attack as being on high level Iraqi
officials, then backed away from that explanation.
When pressed, Captain Aaron Barreda of the 3rd Armored
Cavalry Regiment is quoted as saying, "The bottom line
is it's an ongoing operation." (according to Anthony
Shadid of the Washington Post Foreign Service)

An ongoing operation to what purpose? Are we not
asking the question loudly enough? Was it a part of
this "ongoing operation" to bomb the villagers' houses
in the process of killing a four-vehicle convoy that
MIGHT have held an unarmed, fleeing high level member
of the now defunct Iraqi government?

Apparently, not even the villagers know the identity
of all those killed (possibly murdered; we aren't told
if they were armed or not) in the four trucks. Word at
the beginning was that DNA testing would be performed,
suggesting that perhaps someone as noteworthy as Uday
and Qusay Hussein might have been the victims. Now,
the story about high level officials has quickly begun
to die.

The account from the villagers varies. Most say the
actual attack lasted about two hours but that
helicopters continued to circle the village all night.
Several villagers escaped death by running out of
their houses before they were bombed. Two people who
escaped the targeted convoy were identified by
villagers as local smugglers. One victim was
identified as Jumaa Abu Zaatir, a smuggler from the
Abu Eissa tribe. There is no evidence, as far as I
know, to indicate that Jumaa Abu Zaatir was a man
posing danger to either the U.S. or the people of
Iraq, though he is as dead now as if he posed a threat
to the entire Mideast. His crime was smuggling a few
sheep over the border.

Was the targeting of Jumaa Abu Zaatir of appropriate
significance to cause the death of a young woman and
her child. Is a local smuggler eligible for Rumsfeld's
next deck of playing cards?

As the story evolved from that told by witnesses, the
focus began to shift to Syrian border guards wounded
by the U.S. and then either taken into custody or
taken in for medical treatment, depending on which
news source is read.

One resident, Asfug Arrak, age 29, claims that U.S.
helicopters continued to circle overhead for two full
days after the attack and the killings. What was LEFT
in this desert village to warrant such careful
observation? Does the mystery even HAVE an answer?

Now, the bizarre tragedy has twisted itself into a
tale of a border skirmish between the U.S. and Syrian
border guards. Little is heard of the village houses
and sheep demolished, the men killed in the convoy, or
-- as if they are the least of the attack -- Hakima
and Maha.

Today, June 25, Syria has officially protested to
Washington over what the U.S. admits to be a military
strike near the border (Inal Ersan, Reuters).
Apparently, several Syrian border guards were wounded,
though it is still not clear on which side of the
border the damaging strikes were made. If the U.S.
fired upon the guards within Syrian territory, is it
simply a case of further international law being
ignored? Law from which the U.S. is exempt? Does it
matter anymore?

According to the Syrian Arab New Agency (SANA), Syria
is demanding the return of its five soldiers seized
after the U.S. special forces attacked the convoy of
vehicles again being said to carry "aides of toppled
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."

What we know is that the U.S. continues to hold five
Syrian patrol guards as they treat three of them for
wounds sustained in the attack. What we know is that
Syria wants their men returned.

It's hard to make a cohesive story of these scattered
facts, given the great discrepancy between U.S. focus
and the villagers' focus. Who WAS killed in the
convoy? Will this uncertainty lead us to raise the
level of debate on pre-emptive strike theories? When
there is a possibility that a black-hatted guy MAY be
in the marketplace does the marketplace become fair
game for a cluster bomb?

Eventually these questions will have to be answered.
Somewhere, someone wants to know whether there were
dangerous terrorists in the convoy or whether they
were, as claimed by the villagers, sheep smugglers.

Is the U.S. military to be recorded as failing to
capture Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, Mullah
Omar, and the sons of Saddam while succeeding with
overkill in getting sheep smugglers?

Lying sprawled among these questions are the bodies of
a young woman and her child. One American soldier gets
killed by a sniper's bullet and it causes a stir of
sorrow and anger. It makes the news. Two young people
lie dead in the desert, and their names are not duly
noted.

Hakima Khalil and Maha
Hakima Khalil and Maha
Hakima Khalil and Maha

Will George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld remember their
names this time next week? Do they even know their
names tonight? Will these two names scratch their way
across a conscience, across a blunder of an attack
that probably caught sheep smugglers instead of
terrorists?

Hakima was twenty years old; Maha was one year old;
May they be remembered as human beings who enjoyed a
total of twenty-one years on earth, Insha Allah. A
heavy reckoning, "if the cause be not good."

--------------------------------------------
Lisa Walsh Thomas is a lifelong writer and human
rights activist. Her second book, "The Girl with
Yellow Flowers in Her Hair," is now available through
Pitchfork Publishing at
http://www.pitchforkpublishing.com. Lisa can be
reached at: saavedra1979@yahoo.com
--------------------------------------------

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).