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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (485579)	11/3/2003 5:37:37 AM
From: average joe	Respond to of 769670

Iraqis practise their own form of voodoo Baghdad - Persecuted under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's fortune tellers and exorcists eke out an existence on the street, helping Iraqis find stolen cars, locate kidnapped relatives, conceive babies and chase away demons. Off a dingy alleyway, Ali Ibn Sina receives customers in a small decrepit room, where light trickles in through windows covered in filth. "I blindfold the client and use a science based on physics, yoga and psychology. I have them walk through a series of events: from the scene of the crime to the place where the the culprit hides the stolen item, car or other object." 'When I throw it the spirits will scream and run away' Sina, 52, has been at his trade a long time. "Ibn Sina (named after a famous 10th century Arab doctor) enjoys a large clientèle. Five consultations per week will solve a theft or kidnapping," said Shiel Sobi an exorcist and informal doctor who shares offices with Sina. Sitting in the lotus position behind a low table, he brandishes a flask of a yellow liquid which tells him where to hunt the wicked spirits. If a house is haunted, he will recite a verse of the Koran on a piece of paper and throw the potion of saffron water, rose water, and myrrh at the wall. "When I throw it the spirits will scream and run away," he said. Business has boomed since Saddam fell as more and people claim they are being haunted by demons or jinns. When a person is exorcised, the possessed individual shakes and Sina chants the Koran for seven days. Fellow witch doctor, Abu Mustapha, 50, says his list of clients has jumped since the war, with people seeking his help on crimes from robberies to kidnapping. "For the ghosts, I open a page of the Koran by chance. If I fall on the prophet's name, the case is solved. If I fall on Yusef, the person is a prisoner and if I turn to Ayub he is sick," he said. Most Iraqis come to see them to seek solutions for sterility or a long bachelorhood. The cures are as varied as they are eccentric. Abu Mustapha reads Koranic passages to spinsters. The result:they marry in seven weeks. Abu Jafar, 27, asks his wife, unable to conceive, to drink a herbal potion, mixing herbs honey and lamb fat. The success rate is 90 percent. Ibn Sina asks questions to a mummified bird, two days later the female client is pregnant. An impotent man must drink a glass of milk with a piece of Koranic verse. The Koran plays a starring role in the mystical process. "Magic is present in the Koran. The prophet said 'understand the magic but do not practise it', says Sheikh Hazem Al-Aaraji, a Shiite prayer leader in Baghdad. He counsels people to read the Koran, that way they will be immune to wicked spirits. Even US soldiers are not free from being possessed by an evil spirit. "But if the soldier has faith, he will be immune," Aaraji said. - Sapa-AFP iol.co.za

To: JDN who wrote (485579)	11/3/2003 10:42:44 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

You may be right that the vast majority of Iraqis don't want us to leave yet, but then again, you may be wrong. The Iraqis are very adept at telling those in power what they think they want to hear. The ones that are voting with their lives and are not getting a wage, are voting against us and many of those that say they want us to stay for a short while are sitting by and watching it happen at best, and cheering for the home team at worst. It's not just their opinion that counts, it's the depth of their convictions. When I see the civilian population mourning the loss of international and U.S. lives, and celebrating the loss of lives of the guerrilla insurgents, that's when I'll feel that the "real" Iraqi sentiment is on the side of our occupation. Let's see them put their lives on the line to support what we're doing there before we say they are on "our" side.