War

For the Wallaces breakfast today was not the usual affair, it was going to be the last meal for the father Timothy with his family before he reports to duty, he is Colonel in the US army, and his brigade was being sent to Iraq, to provide extra security during the upcoming Iraqi elections, he had already fought during the Iraq war, but was then sent home as part of the rotation of the forces, the other members of his family were his wife Jenny and his 10 year old sun Jim. There was a pleasant atmosphere during breakfast, but at the same time a bit sad, the mission in north of Iraq will last for six month, at least that is what they were officially told, but it was not unlikely for such missions to be extended indefinitely, somehow the subject of the war arose during the discussion, and he felt the need to explain why the war was justified, specially to his son, Tim was a big supporter of the war, he argued that his mission is helping bring democracy to a country who lived under oppressive dictatorship for almost 25 years, that now that Saddam Hussein and his regime were removed from power, the Iraqi people are free to embrace democracy.

After dropping her son at school, Jenny drove on to her work, on the way she reflected back on that breakfast discussion, unlike her husband she was not such a big supporter of the war, the carnage of the war shocked her, news of more civilian deaths made her feel indignated, but she felt that it was not the time to start a argument over that, not when it was going to be the last time she would see her husband for a while. Jenny worked was a researcher in Arabic studies in the university of Florida, her current project was translating the works of a rather anonymous Arabic poet, Ahmad ibn Zayad, he was from what is considers to be modern day Syria, he lived in the 7th century during the rule of Umar ibn al-Khattab, at that time poetry was the main form literature in the Arabic world, the Koran, the holy book of Islam, being the exception. She started working on translating a new poem today, ibn Zayad wrote his poem as he was about to go on Jihad, he was to join the armies of Khalid ibn al-Walid, considered one of the greatest general in history, on a mission to spread Islam to what is considered today north Iraq, in this poem he bids farewell to his son and wife, and explains to them his motives for joining the Jihad, that through Jihad, Islam was brought to their lives, that before that they did not know about the one God, did not know good from bad, and that it is his duty now to bring Islam to other people, people who's ruler worship statues of stones that he calls gods, people who are afraid to adapt Islam in fear of reprisal from their ruler, and that by defeating and removing this infidel king, those people will be free to adapt Islam.

After Jenny finished a draft translating the poem, she reflected for a while : "arguably democracy is an improvement over Islam", she thought, "but did the human race really progress that much in the last millennium, or maybe it is always going to be men's nature to adapt some kind of religion, and go on holly wars in the name of that religion".