Three Years...

Today, marked 3 years of the "whatever you may call it"...

It was what some cheesy smileys called it the "liberation", while the UN resolutions and the global majority call it "occupation", in the same time that you find some people dance around both expressions and call it the "change". Another bunch would like to call it "Pandora Day", in which Pandora's box was opened, thus all the demons were set "free".

Other people tend to call it the "fall", but there is a difference on what exactly fell that day. Some would dramatize it, and call it the Fall of Baghdad, just like this new Egyptian movie called "The Night Baghdad Fell" (Laylat Suqout Baghdad); while some others, including some proud Iraqis say that the ruling regime only fell, and Baghdad never falls.

No matter what do you call it, 9 April 2003 was a dividing day in this country's history.

But really, after those three years, what changed? And what would Iraqis feel?

Before, everything was under the eyes of the state, it was a "daddy knows better" state... You couldn't communicate with the world, have a free e-mail account on Yahoo, Hotmail, or any of that; you couldn't have a chat, you couldn't have cell phones, you couldn't have satellite TV, you couldn't tell someone you don't know that you heard BBC last night.

But now... There is one thing most of the Iraqis agree upon, which is "there is no government"... Or we may correct and say that there are 1001 governments in Iraq, or maybe 26 million! since Iraqis are sometimes considered just like fingerprints, where no Iraqi can fully agree with another Iraqi. There's the President's gov't, Prime Minister's gov't, Majority's gov't, Parties' gov't, smaller parties' gov't, Militias' gov't, Black shirts' gov't, and "insurgents" gov't. I'm sorry if i forgot any gov't, i didn't mean to!

You still can't tell someone you don't know that you heard BBC last night. What if he or his black or white or whatever colored turbaned sheikh or sayyid or imam or whatever thought that BBC is an "infidel" radio, and whoever who listens to it gets infected with infidelian flu, just like the avian flu?!

Some people would argue about "freedoms" that they gained in the past 3 years... That could be very true, but even freedoms need laws, and law inforcement to regulate, otherwise, some people's freedom could be a synonym for chaos.

Yes, 3 years had passed... And that day have brought things that needed to be brought, which were left to evaporate or be very limited; and it also brought things that one would have never thought that they would be ever seen in Iraq.

Today, 3 years after 9 April 2003, as i tour my area, and its main street that stretches for 2 kms, i saw 8 burned cars, some are recent, and some are a bit old. Not far from my home there was a car parked weirdly over a trash square. It stopped there after its driver was shot. There were bullet marks on the car, but i haven't seen the body. My father saw a body of a person lying in the middle of the street about 5 days ago.

Shopkeepers told us that minibuses often come in broad daylight, and shoot hand-tied people dead, leave the body and drive away. Bakeries were bread is made are also targeted, maybe bread is "infidel" as well?!!

Every once in a while you hear women wail and cry, as the news of a dead relative reaches their house, or someone of that family is shot at their doorsteps.

It is all getting tragically ridiculous by the day, like a long running black black comedy, and our PM is still stuck to his chair, 4 months after the elections!Maybe he grew too "wide" to rise out of that chair, or perhaps he is glued to it!

What would return peace and stability to Iraq?!

Nothing... Or?!