Even with access to 35 Arabic language TV channels, not to mention American cable news shows, the most vivid images Jawad Al-Mamori sees of Iraq are not on the screen. They are in his mind.
Pointing at the television images of American troops trudging toward Baghdad, the Iraqi refugee cannot contain his frustration that cameras can't show Saddam Hussein's grim tactics.
``They cannot see behind the picture,'' said Al-Mamori, 36, who now lives in Santa Clara. ``We were there.''
Out of view of all the cameras, he said, are Saddam Hussein's henchmen, wandering through cities, forcing many to pick up arms and fight Americans and their allies.
``If they go home, they'll kill their families,'' he said.
He knows this too well. His father, Kadhim, who was forced to fight in the Iran-Iraq war, was killed in 1985 by Saddam's enforcers when he left the front lines to take care of his nine children. Kadhim's portrait now hangs in Jawad's living room, just to the left of the television.
Watching the war on TV has unleashed decades of repressed hope for Al-Mamori, who fled to a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia as American troops retreated at the end of the last gulf war. Like many of the 2,000 local Iraqi refugees, he is adamantly opposed to Saddam. And like many here, he still has family back home: His mother and seven younger siblings remain in the southern Iraqi town of As-Samawah.
Having witnessed the destruction of the last war, Al-Mamori is sad to see his country under siege again. But Saddam, he said, has left few options.
``He's made Iraq like a big jail,'' said Al-Mamori, now an American citizen.
With phone lines rendered useless back home, Al-Mamori's only contact with his family is imagined through phone calls with fellow refugees and the lenses of CNN, Al-Jazeera and a slew of Arabic language channels, including Iraqi national television. With three remote controls and two satellite dishes, Al-Mamori watches the 52-inch TV for at least eight hours a day.
As Al-Mamori watches the screen, images of global protest appear on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic world's 24-hour news channel. A mob of Sudanese men burns an American flag. In Yemen, a cleric delivers a fatwa, a religious decree, ordering Muslims to not help the United States in any way. In Lebanon, student protesters throw rocks at United Nations officials, who respond by blasting the students with water hoses.
``They don't understand what Saddam is doing to his people,'' said Al-Mamori, who also disagrees with American and European war protesters. ``Only Iraqi people know what's going on inside Iraq. You cannot take him out without war.''
Otherwise, he said, Saddam would rule until his sons take over, perpetuating a cycle that has left Iraqis poor, malnourished and without basic medicines. Al-Mamori says United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after the last gulf war have hurt Iraqis, not Saddam.
``Saddam lives like a king,'' he said.
Reminders of Al-Mamori's journey into exile surround him. His daughters Noor, 10, and Amnah, 8, were born in the Saudi Arabian refugee camp where he met his wife, Muna, 35. After spending four years in the camp, the family moved to the Bay Area, where they had another daughter and a son.
A cashier at a Campbell gas station, Al-Mamori also keeps close ties with fellow Iraqi refugees as the vice president of the Iraqi Community Association, which has a center in Sunnyvale.
Al-Mamori's children don't know much about the war, but they know enough.
Six-year-old Tuka said she dreams of her grandmother, who is in Iraq, actually being at their home. When Tuka awakes, she tries to imagine that it's real. Amnah says she thinks of everyone in Iraq, the American troops and the Iraqis.
``I don't even know them, but I feel sad,'' she said. ``I don't want nobody to die. I just want peace.''
But Al-Mamori's hopes hinge on whether the troops take Baghdad.
``The head of the snake is Baghdad,'' he said. ``You cut it off and the rest dies.''
Al-Mamori remembers when the former President Bush called upon Iraqis to revolt against their leader, vowing to support them in their fight. But when the troops retreated, Saddam brutally crushed his opposition.
``In 1991, Saddam had just Baghdad and a few other cities,'' he said. ``From just this, he took all of Iraq back.''
Al-Mamori says Saddam killed thousands of Iraqis out of reprisal. The legend of Saddam's vengeance still keeps many Iraqi-Americans from speaking against his regime publicly, Al-Mamori said.
``When Saddam is in power,'' Al-Mamori says, ``even here I don't feel peace.''
*Iraqi Man takes on War Protester will brilliant logic.*
* Iraqi woman tells how Saddam operates *
Thank you for the post.
Why would Liberals, and the UN be so against this action in Iraq? Maybe Ted Turner can let AOL-Time Warner take over the U.N. and the world will eventually be rid of two ineffective organizations whose time has passed.