Det er påske og i Irak føres irakere til slaktebenken, fordi de tilhører feil gruppe, eller fordi noen har bestemt at de vil svekke samfunnet hvis feks. leger eller lærere blir drept.

Det kan høres blasfemisk ut, men går man tettere på er det offer-metaforen som føles riktig. Ingen fortjener en slik skjebne.

Volden kommer fra fire kanter: Det er arven etter Saddam Hussein, som møter Al Qaidas nihilisme. Undergruppert i sunnier som til å begynne med ville ta igjen for alt de hadde mistet, og nå er redd for å bli utslettet. Og shiaer som endelig fikk makten, og var fornøyd med det, inntil Al Qaida fikk fremprovosert «dyret» i dem også.

Hvor dette vil ende er det umulig å spå: man kan bare konstatere at denne volden metastaserer, og nå finnes i Afghanistan og Pakistan. Algerie var et foregangsland. Her ble noen av metodene først anvendt.

Hamdiyah al-Dulaimi het en kvinne av sunni-slekt. Hun hadde tre sønner som var hennes stolthet. De hadde koner og barn.

One day last spring, a dozen men in black uniforms knocked down her door with machine guns. They screamed «Filthy Sunnis!» and they handcuffed her sons: Haqqi, 39, Qais, 37, Ali, 31.

«Why? What did my boys do?» the mother cried. She got no answers. The dozen gunmen dragged their new prisoners across the floor, pummeling heads with their rifle butts.

Al-Dulaimi dropped to her knees, clinging to the ankles of a kidnapper. She begged, kissing his shoes. Then she bargained: «At least leave me one. Take the other two. Leave me one.»

They beat her head with their gun stocks until she passed out. Then they took her sons.

The next day, their corpses were on the sidewalk. Haqqi’s body was headless. The bodies of Qais and Ali had been mutilated; some parts were missing.

Like so many others, their grieving mother fled — to
Syria, in her case.

She left behind deprivation and corruption, mayhem and madness; a city that is hemorrhaging many of its best and brightest, while many of those left behind are brutalized and traumatized.

Mange fagutdannede har reist: lærere, akademikere, leger. Disse gruppene har vært spesielt utvalgt av jihadistene for å kappe hodet av samfunnet, ødelegge tilliten til at det fungerer.

Dr. Haidr al-Maliki, a specialist in child psychology, is a guarded but compassionate man. For him, leaving Iraq is not an honorable option. «If I leave and all the other doctors leave, all the hospitals would be closed,» he said. «We have to take care of our people. Death can come in any country.»

It has already come calling for al-Maliki, but the visit was unsuccessful. A 16-year-old, «fine looking boy» walked into his clinic in 2005 and asked, «Are you Dr. Haidr?»

«Yes,» said al-Maliki. With that, the teenager produced a pistol and opened fire. The doctor dove under his desk; he was shot twice, in the hand and shoulder.

He said the attack was part of an insurgent campaign against doctors. Six others were attacked in the city, and four died.

The doctor never returned to his clinic. Instead, he now works out of a hospital in central Baghdad. The flashbacks he suffers from the shooting are horrible, he says, but sometimes they help him empathize with his young patients, who are more traumatized than their parents. They have no coping mechanisms, and no way to process what is happening around them.

Scenen er som tatt ut av en film: en ung gutt som spør etter legen, og når han møter ham, trekker han frem en pistol. Det er nok slike som al-Maliki Al Qaida er mest oppsatt på å drepe: de som gir folk håp og er dyktige. Det er de som holder samfunnet oppe.

Hvordan ville et samfunn se ut hvor disse kreftene vant frem? Tankene går i retning av Røde Khmer.

På et visst tidspunkt blir metoden det viktiste: drepingen. Hvordan gjøre det mest mulig effektivt, hvordan overliste motstanden. Derfor barn som «cover» og bruk av klorinbomber.

Verst er det for barna.

There is the 16-year-old girl who was abducted in February outside her school in a Sunni neighborhood. She was beaten and kept in a room for nine days with about 20 other kidnapped girls. She was forced to sleep next to the corpse of another victim, a girl who was killed when her parents couldn’t pay.

The parents of al-Maliki’s patient paid $20,000 — the going rate in ransom negotiations — for her safe return. She is seriously damaged — terrified of darkness and the nightmares that come with sleep; hostile and aggressive when she is awake.

There are the sister and brother haunted by the recurring images of gunmen who invaded their house, tied up their parents, and beat them before their eyes. The children cannot function at school and now remain at home. Their fear has made it impossible for them to concentrate.

There is little al-Maliki can do except listen and offer words of calm comfort.

Daily life in Baghdad often traumatic