A Nation in Blood and Ink

[FreedomAngel82]

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/weekinreview/14filkins.html?
ei=5094&en=23f7b327069f94bf&hp=&ex=1123992000&partner=homepage&pagewan
ted=print


<August 14, 2005
A Nation in Blood and Ink
By DEXTER FILKINS

Out on the streets, meanwhile, a new bit of Arabic slang has slipped
into the chatter of ordinary Iraqis: "allas," a word that denotes an
Iraqi who leads a group of killers to their victim, usually for a
price. The allas typically points out the Shiites living in
predominantly Sunni neighborhoods for the gunmen who are hunting
them. He usually wears a mask.

"The allas is from the neighborhood, and he had a mask on," said
Haider Mohammed, a Shiite, whose relative was murdered recently by a
group of Sunni gunmen. "He pointed out my uncle, and they killed him."

The uncle, Hussein Khalil, was found in a garbage dump 100 yards from
the spot where his Daewoo sedan had been run off the road. Two
bullets had entered the back of Mr. Khalil's skull and exited through
his face.

Around the same time, someone found some leaflets, drawn up by a
group called the Liberation Army. "We are cleansing the area of dirty
Shia," the leaflet declared.

The rise of the allas (pronounced ah-LAS) stands as a grim reminder
of how little can be reasonably expected from the Iraqi constitution,
no matter how beautiful its language or humane its intent.

In 28 months of war and occupation here, Iraq has always contained
two parallel worlds: the world of the Green Zone and the constitution
and the rule of law; and the anarchical, unpredictable world outside.

Never have the two worlds seemed so far apart.

From the beginning, the hope here has been that the Iraq outside the
Green Zone would grow to resemble the safe and tidy world inside it;
that the success of democracy would begin to drain away the anger
that pushes the insurgency forward. This may have been what Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice was referring to when, in an interview
published in Time magazine this month, she said that the insurgency
was losing steam and that rather quiet political progress was
transforming the country.

But in this third summer of war, the American project in Iraq has
never seemed so wilted and sapped of life. It's not just the
guerrillas, who are churning away at their relentless pace, attacking
American forces about 65 times a day. It is most everything else, too.>