Appointment in Samarra

[The Blue Flower]

APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA
A merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market.
The servant returned, trembling and frightened. The
servant told the merchant, "I was jostled in the market,
turned around, and saw Death.

"Death made a threatening gesture, and I fled in terror.
May I please borrow your horse? I can leave Baghdad
and ride to Samarra, where Death will not find me."

The master lent his horse to the servant, who rode away,
to Samarra.

Later the merchant went to the market, and saw Death in
the crowd. "Why did you threaten my servant?" He asked.

Death replied,"I did not threaten your servant. It was
merely that I was surprised to see him here in Baghdad,
for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=568511

Civilians bear brunt as Samarra 'pacified'
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
04 October 2004
Iraqi government and US forces declared yesterday that they had "pacified" the rebel stronghold of Samarra, and stated that other "no-go" enclaves such as Fallujah would be recaptured before national elections due in January.

The Americans insisted that the estimated 125 people killed in the storming of the city were all insurgents. Doctors and local people reported women, children and the elderly among the dead, and that bodies were still being brought into hospitals.


Local people in Samarra claimed that many of the 1,000 insurgents the Americans were targeting had escaped before the attack, and civilians had borne the brunt of the casualties. Of 70 bodies brought into Samarra General Hospital, 23 were children and 18 women, said Abdul-Nasser Hamed Yassin, a hospital administrator. There were also 23 women among the 160 wounded.

Families trying to bury the dead found the road to the cemetery had been blocked by American soldiers. One man, Abu Qa'qa, claimed he had seen dogs picking at corpses in the street. Abdel Latif Hadi, 45, said: "The people who were hurt most are normal people who have nothing to do with anything." Another resident, Mohammed Ali Amin, said: "There were American snipers on rooftops who were shooting people trying to get to their homes. Even at the hospital the Americans arrested injured boys of 15 saying they were insurgents."

CNN television was told by one man that his sister-in-law and her six daughters were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an US air strike. Aid organisations said there was acute concern about continuing lack of water and electricity in Samarra and the difficulties faced by people attempting to seek medical treatment. More than 500 families had fled the city.

Major-General John Batiste, the commander in charge of the 5,000 US and Iraqi troops used in the assault, said: "This has been a successful operation ... Operations will continue for a few days before we are satisfied that we've killed or captured as many of the enemy that we can."

[brook]

1. Thank you for this.

The book by O'Hara...which I read in high school 50+ years ago has been haunting me for days now. :cry:

[KlatooBNikto]

2. John O'Hara started out by chronicling the social mores of the

upper crust in the East, but in a rare departure for him he wrote APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA which turned out to be a classic.For him the Appointment.... was also a short novella instead of the lengthy novels like Butterfield 8,From the Terrace and others. To me Appointment's power comes from the spare prose, shorn of any adornments, as it builds momentum with singleminded focus until it reaches its shattering climax.

The parable like quality of that story may be reenacted as our fools, thinking they are invincible or immortal, may well be courting disaster without knowing it.Or if they do know
that a sorry fate awaits them,think they can outwit their Karma.

[brook]

3. I often wonder...

if "our fools" have even heard of Karma?

I once rented an apt. in NYC because the phone # was Butterfield 8-4000. I was very much a 'child of my times'-haunting Greenwich Village dressed in black and reading Hemingway, Fitzgerald and O'Hara. Even 'On the Terrace' resonated with me. The social divide, then, as now, disturbed me.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks, chaplin --