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A Modern-Day Fairy Tale River Bend Blog, September 12, 2003 Someone asked me why I didn’t write anything yesterday mentioning September 11. I’ll be perfectly honest- I had forgotten about it until around 2 pm. I woke up to no electricity, washed up and went into the kitchen to help out with breakfast. I found my mother struggling with the gas cylinder, trying to roll it around on the ground in front of the stove. The cylinder was almost empty and the bright blue flames were orange at the tips, threatening to go out any minute. I stood nervously in the doorway of the kitchen- gas cylinders make me very nervous. After the war, when there wasn’t enough cooking gas to go around, people who sell the gas began mixing kerosene with the cooking gas which resulted in some horrific explosions. Every time we change cylinders, I have a crazy urge to run out of the kitchen and wait to see if it explodes. My
mother looked at me helplessly as the flames began dying away. “E.
will have to go see if they’re selling cooking gas at the station.” And that was the beginning of a series of difficulties: almost no water, relatives who dropped by for a lunch that couldn’t be cooked and a wasp’s nest that was terrorizing anyone who ventured into the garden. By 2 pm, the electricity was back on and I was sitting in front of the tv watching one of the Arabic stations. Suddenly, they showed American troops standing solemnly in a 9/11 Memorial Service being held in… Tikrit (where Saddam was born)!! I sat watching, confused. I assume it was done in that specific place so some oblivious person can, five years down the line, hold it up as testimony to the world that this whole war was, indeed, about terror and Osama bin Laden and 9/11 and WMD. It was done in that particular place so that someone, a week from now, can write to me and say, “Of course there was a link between Osama and Saddam and that’s why we attacked you. The proof is this: the 9/11 Memorial Service was held in Tikrit.” This famous ‘missing link’ between Iraq and the war on terror is like, how I imagine, a fairy might look- small, flighty, almost transparent and… nonexistent. Shortly after 9/11, this fairy was caught by the Pentagon and stashed in a cage for all the world to see. Almost like the Emperor’s new clothes, anyone who could not see this enigmatic creature was accused of being an Enemy of Freedom, a Saddam sympathizer or- horror of horrors!- unpatriotic. They were promptly indicted and burned at the metaphorical stake. So most people chose to see the fairy. Some people, in fact, really thought they *could* see it. Everyone certainly tried. Unfortunately, the fairy soon began growing smaller and paler under the burning scrutiny of millions of curious eyes. So what did they decide to do? Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest made a critical decision: the fairy must be protected by a great wall. Plans were drawn up, the toughest bricks were selected and contractors from Fox News, CNN and others were assigned. And with every fresh news story, a brick was laid, until the wall was so high and strong, it became a fortress… and everyone forgot what lay behind it… which was the alleged fairy… who may, or may not have, existed. But it no longer mattered anymore, anyway- the wall itself was there… And the fairy? The fairy dug an escape tunnel to Iran… or perhaps Syria… or maybe North Korea. Time will tell- she will be caught again.
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