‘Due To an Emergency, Your Call Cannot Be Completed’ : Iraqi-Americans: Enduring a complicated brew of feelings.

I ran into an old roommate and friend of mine the other day, and the inevitable topic eventually came up. “What does your family, as Iraqi-Americans, think about what’s happening in the Gulf?” said my friend, who is Jewish. Somewhat embarrassed by any connection to Saddam Hussein, I told him that we all have nothing but contempt for Saddam. I did add that we have mixed feelings about the idea of an Arab country standing up to America. After all, the West has abused the Arab people for well over a century.

After he left, it occurred to me that I had given a euphemistic, political response to a very provocative question.

What can we think when we look at those horrible pictures coming from Baghdad? The place where my father was born and raised. The home of my uncles and aunts and cousins. My family goes back for countless generations there. So much of me, of who I am and the way I think, comes from Baghdad. What can I and my family possibly think when watching U.S. and allied forces blow the hell out of it?

I’m not trying persuade anyone that America is a terrible, evil force in the world. On the contrary, as a native-born American, I have mostly praise for this wonderful democracy. Granted, my patriotism is not rooted in emotional visions of the American flag waving amid the glare of missiles and bombs. My patriotism has more to do with an outright awe of the Bill of Rights as a guardian of freedom and a defense against tyranny, as well as high regard for the compassion and open-mindedness of most of my fellow Americans, but that’s getting away from the topic at hand.

I saw some network coverage of a Jewish family calling Tel Aviv to make sure their relatives were all right after one of Saddam’s missile attacks. If I were in their shoes, I’d be mad and upset, too. It’s just that in all the news reports on this crisis, I’ve heard nothing about the fact that no one outside Iraq knows anything about his or her relatives in Iraq. This is what they hear on the phone:

“Due to an emergency situation in the country you are calling, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call again later.”

Later. A friend of mine tries to call her mother every night and gets that same stupid message. “Don’t bother,” I tell her. She tries anyway. I try to make her feel better with the standard line about allied forces hitting only military targets. She tells me that her mother lives next to Saddam Airport. Oh. The TV reports plainly showed the area around the airport literally glowing from the allied attacks.

And that big Doura oil refinery fire in Baghdad? I remember sitting on my cousin’s porch last December--talking, laughing and drinking Pepsi ( Bibsy because there is no “p” in the Arabic alphabet) under the intermittent flares of burning exhaust from that refinery. Are my uncles, aunts and cousins alive? Are they cold and starving in a bomb shelter? Did they flee the city?

As much as any other group, the Iraqi people are victims in this war. They didn’t elect Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal dictator who has done more to harm the Iraqi people than he will ever do to Kuwaitis, Saudis, Israelis or Americans.

Before Aug. 2, the U.S. government’s response to Saddam’s horrible oppression of Iraqis was to offer him arms and technology and loans amounting to billions of dollars.

So, helpless and feeling guilty, we wonder about our relatives and friends. We also wonder what they are thinking about us, in America, right now.