Very interesting interview on Iraq

Leila Fadel interviewd by Bill Moyers

Just back from being under fire in Sadr City this week, award-winning journalist Leila Fadel, Baghdad Bureau Chief for McClatchy, gives viewers on-the-ground analysis of the latest events and close-up look at the state of the war.

The blog by McClatchy reporters and staff is called "Inside Iraq"

From the blog:

"He told them how he killed a young man in Al Anbar province west of Iraq.
This killer along with his gang stopped cars and buses on the highway passing through Al Anbar to Jordan and Syria. He said he took aside one of the men to kill.

He was begging the killer not to kill him, his tears were not in fear of death, were not to beg to spare his life, it was for the sake of the woman he loved.

"Please let me marry her then kill me" the killer recalled him saying.

In his conversations with other prisoners, including my cousin who told me this story, the killer recalled his victim as saying his Juliet's family refused their marriage for ten years and then his family called him in Syria to tell him that her family agreed at last. He was coming back to get
married to the woman of his dreams, and she was waiting for him.

The killer told the men surrounding him that the young man begged him not to kill him, and he promised he would come back after ten days - but what love can this killer understand? He shot him in the head and killed him on the spot.

In the killer's nightmares, the young man says to him, "I begged you … Please let me marry her then kill me, I promised you to come back, Why?"

He told the men surrounding him that he had killed many but he doesn’t remember or regret any of them but killing this man. The killer was sentenced to death.

One of the inmates who was waiting for his imminent release thought it worthwhile to go and to find that woman and tell her: Your man begged for his life to marry you -- not for fear of death itself -- and he didn’t let you down. He was murdered in the middle of nowhere.
So, he asked the killer to give him the name of the victim.

The killer replied he didn’t know, he asked from what tribe? The killer didn’t know, he asked from what sect? The killer didn’t know, he asked him from what province? The killer didn’t know.

Then he asked him, then why you killed him? The killer said he cannot remember, whether it was the victim's haircut or the way he was dressed or the music pouring from his car.

I hope and wish that one day someone will tell the woman he loved how he died; someone will tell her that those killers who kill every day do not distinguish between people, their color or their belief.

Someone to tell her that those killers are addicted to killing and one way or another they are punished.

Someone to tell her that your man didn’t fear death; his fear was to die without marrying you. "