Iraq at a glance

Hi friends..
Look at this man.. I admire him so much, he’s blind and poor, but he insists on getting his living, he’s taking this guy shown in the photo to help him in his job, he’s selling hummus ( made from chickpeas).. He refuses to beg inspite of his poverty and you can see many of those who refuse to ask people...

A horrible explosion in our neighborhood about 500 meters away from our house, at 5:00PM, all the windows have been shaken due to this severe sound, we got very terrified, stayed calm for few seconds waiting for another possible explosion, my sisters surely began to cry.... God.. It was so scary..
The American airplanes reached here about 20 minutes later..
Our neighbors and I went upstairs to see what happened.. All the people were on the housetops .. We saw the smoke of this explosion, but we couldn’t see exactly the place.. neighbors said that it might be a house.. I don’t know.. I wanted to go there, but my mother shouted ‘NO’ ‘NO..stay here’.. My father also refused..they said that another explosion might occur, so I gave up!

My brother took this photo in one of Baghdad streets.. This man was wearing a suit written on it ‘Long live the great leader Saddam’!!
This man is insane, the people said he’s complaining from a psychiatric disorder.. Others said he was in the prison and he got it due to the torture acts..
I remember many other insane people who were tortured in Saddam’s prison, one of them was always roaming in the streets carrying the old currency that bears Saddam’s photo pointing at it and crying ‘ Is this man who scares you? Is he? You coward people..’!
Another one used to hike at noon putting on his torn clothes and shout ‘ Saddam is the small Allah.. Yahya AlBa’ath’ ( viva the Ba’ath)..!
It was funny but very sad at the same time..just imagine what types of torture they endured...
In fact.. When I remember those people and many other stories about the prisons.. I feel like what few soldiers did in Abu Ghraib is nothing compared to the past decades...
Hope nothing like this or that will be committed in the new Iraq..

It’s too hot, the temperature is increasing day by day, June is coming, just ask the American soldiers who were here last year about the weather in Summer.. It’s really intolerable..
The electric power is unstable, now we have only 8 hours of electricity daily.. And the people are asking about their fate this Summer!
The Minister of Electricity showed on the TV saying that in the coming 10 days people will witness a very noticeable change in the power and Baghdad will have 18 hour of electricity.. It’s good.. It’s very good.. BUT.. We heard many announcements by the superiors about this but nothing changed..
We were saying that some sabotage acts affect the efficiency of the power, but always the superiors were saying that they repaired the defects and everything were being returned to it’s normal function..
The people lost the trust in anyone says: ‘ the power will be improved’..
The Minster has been told to import many generators to solve the problem until the big power stations been built, but he refused.. I don’t know why! It’s told that the Minister ‘ does not want temporary solutions’! And also I don’t know why he doesn’t!
The officials in the power institutes say that many people have been purchasing electrical equipments such as air conditioners and many other things.. So what is the solutions? Had they better not to buy anything in order to go with the power.. It’s not a logical solution..the people were forbidden for decades from such ‘ inventions’! Now their salaries are very good and they can buy anything they want, they get so happy every-time they receive the salary..
On the other hand, those terrorists are targeting the contractors and the foreign officials who are working here in Iraq cause they are ‘helping America’! And they are helping in destroying Iraq ( which is the main task for those terrorists).. Many companies are afraid of coming here because of the security situation and afraid of being kidnaped and beheaded..
They have all the right to withdraw their officials, they came here to rebuild and they are killed, so why they stay here? They prefer to go back home, they have their wives, kids and friends who care about them..

And we are the victims.. Terrorists are destroying Iraqis directly and indirectly by attacking those who are helping us..

I do trust in the coalition and the coming new government, I hope everything will be all right in the future..

Yesterday, my brother saw the American soldiers passed through a man whose car was trapped in a hole and the man was looking left and right and bewildered, the American soldiers stopped there and got down their vehicles and started to lift the car helping the poor Iraqi who was alone, my brother stopped beside them immediately, took the camera and said: ‘ can I take a photo’ they said: ‘ OK’ then my brother clicked the camera’s button..click..click click.. What’s up? Nothing happened ! He opened the camera....... NO BATTERIES!! ..GOD.. He said ‘ I looked like an idiot’! ‘I forgot the batteries at home..’..!!
However.. Imagine that..
‘It was so wonderful’ my brother said.

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There’s a silly tradition in Iraq during the celebrations, especially wedding parties,which is firing in the sky to express the happiness and joy in such occasions.. Every time there’s a wedding party in a place, there are some casualties or dangerous accidents in another, it seems like there’s no other way to express their happiness other than firing.. fill the sky with shots, then the sky rains the ‘happy’ bullets to kill the people..
I don’t know why they don’t scatter flowers gently during the happy days..
However, I can imagine what happened yesterday in that wedding party ( if it was )and specially in that place where there are plenty of bullets! ( those areas are very well known in weapons smuggling)..
The aircraft passed through that place, faced the heavy fire, thought it was an attack.. Then bombed the place..
OR.. Those people were foreign fighters in houses, attacked the coalition forces, and the aircraft bombed them...
I’m waiting for the electric power to see what Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt says..

Today, my brother in law and I went to the passports office to get an interim travel document, cause he wants to travel to Syria for some work, so I decided to get a document for me , who knows, probably I might travel oneday.
I was shocked by the new behavior of the officials and the new procedures there, I thought that I were in another country!
There was an organized queues of about 200 man and woman, the boss got out of the building and took the application forms from the elderly people who were standing there checked them and said: ‘ that’s it, come here at 1:00 PM’ ! We were surprised by the polite behavior of the boss! Not only that, he said: ‘ anyone has a problem in getting the document or any obstacle just tell me’ !!
We were used to hear: ‘ HEY..READ THE NOTICE WELL BEFORE ASKING US ANYTHING’ and ‘ BE SURE OF YOUR APPLICATION FORM, OTHERWISE WE WON’T TAKE IT, DON’T BOTHER US’.. And in addition to the bribes, unexplained demands, the disgusting loop between the passports office and military offices with their insults and disrespect....and and and.. If I write about what was going on to an Iraqi who wanted a passport I’ll write a book about different stories, tragedies and those doctors who were imprisoned because they dared to try to get out from Iraq !
..
Today, everything is easily obtained and no one is banned from going abroad like what was happening under the ex-regime.. When Iraqis were getting out, they were thinking thousands times before coming back again..
Nothing like that now..
....
Nearly more than 200 application form were applied in 20 minutes only, which is something impossible in Iraq ! Or was impossible.. The officials said ‘ come back at 1:00 PM to get your documents’, we went back home, very happy with the new dealings, we played ‘Empire Earth’! Drank coffee and then we were there at 12:50PM, then after 10 minutes an official started to deliver the travel documents and we got them!! ..Wonderful ..
Believe me.. You might see this as something absurd ‘ getting a passport’ but it was something hard.. Very hard to get..
....

There is one problem here, which is: this document is ‘interim’ and a ‘document’, so most of the countries don’t accept it, we can travel I think to Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Iran only..
We are waiting for the new government to get the traditional passport in the same way!

Why some of our people are ungrateful? Forget all of the causes that led to the war on Iraq and whether it was the right thing or not, and that USA wants to help Iraqis ..or whatever, let’s concentrate on the result: the coalition made a great decision to get rid of the ex-regime, captured them, freed Iraqis and may do the same work to other regimes if they won’t change their policy and get on well... so when we ask some of the Iraqis, educated or not, their opinion about America, they’ll reply: ‘ I don’t like America, and they came here to accomplish a plan’.. What’s the plan?! You can hear hundreds of different plans from those people ! I wonder why do they think like that and forget what America’s been doing for us? Why the United States is always suspiciously dealt with? especially in Arab’s world... Is it because of the regimes? Religion? History and Society? Media\press?
Let’s begin with the regimes, Arabs used to be under a regime for tens of years! So people grow old with them and the president is a part of their life, they used to see\hear him, and do whatever he sees ‘right’ without a discussion, this will affect all parts of life especially the education, for example, since 1985 till now I see\hear\read things against America, Iran, Kuwait, Jews and I used to be ‘Anti’! And I didn’t know what was going on, but I had to be against those cause our parents are against them and the parents do what the government wants, so all of the people are against them and we learned to hate..hate and hate.. We don’t know what’s the meaning of love and respect, think and understand others, cause we can’t or we couldn’t dare to..it took me a long time to get rid of all of what we read and heard, and step by step I’ve started to respect America, Israel and all those who were ‘our enemies’, forget all those thoughts that have been planted in our minds, until I reached a point of Anti-Arabs’ thoughts! It’s difficult for Arabs to think like me cause they have to get rid of some limits and restrictions: like what I mentioned above and RELIGION.. Now let’s talk BRIEFLY about religion:
Islam is the main cause of many conflicts in the world, it’s somehow difficult to find a Muslim with peaceful thoughts, cause they used to read Quran and explain it as they like, and since this book contains many good and bad orders, so you can find nice Muslims who turns a blind eye for some bad things in Islam but can’t say that or afraid of Allah! and evil ones who like the bad part of it, here we have the ‘extremists’ who like the fight, war, distributing Islam and such silly things which we used to hear for thousands of years ago...
And when Quran is ‘far from suspicion’ and no one dares to discuss about it, so they used to shut up and do what their clerics say, and here the chance plays a big role, cause we have different types of clerics: 1- bad guys..2-bad guys..3- good guys and may be turned to bad ones !!!
Enough for this point and let’s talk about history:
‘ we are Arabs and we have a great history and a great civilization we did enormous things, we are a united nation we share different points, language, religion, ..etc, we were the first who..........were were were’, this is the main problem, Arabs have been reading their history and be proud of it for thousands of years and never look for the future and what they shall do, or look at the West and learn from them, because they have a great history and that’s enough! they ‘were the best’ and they don’t know that they are the worst now!
The media: which is also delivered to the public under a strict supervision of the governments, the biased news, hostile opinions and the continuous brain wash, so this point is related to the first one..
Those four points, I think, making this large gap between Arabs and the West, and of course there are other things that cause a kind of dissatisfaction with anything comes from the West..
What are your viewpoints?

Abdilsattar AlBahadli.. One of Muqtada’s thugs in Basra, he’s the manager of AlSadr office there, on Friday, he urged his thieves that he’ll pay 250000 ID for anyone who can capture a soldier and if the soldier is a female, he can take her as a bondwoman! (I.e. they have all the lawful rights to do anything with her, and she must work as a house maid, they can sell her for others, have sex with her..anything..anything!!) All of that ( according to AlBahadli) is admissible in Islam, the announcer on the TV said “.... all the men who were listening to him were astonished and didn’t pay attention to his call”..
They didn’t, but Al-Mahdi militia of course did ! Murders leading idiots and thieves, what should we expect?
How can we describe Muqtada and his followers? Murders? Thugs? Thieves? Robbers? Kidnappers?..I think all the above are fit..
The coalition and the GC must put an end to M.Al-Sadr and arrest him with his ‘representatives’ right now, he’s so dangerous, it’s silly to negotiate with a murder and wrong to postpone this issue, it must be finished before June 30. M.Al-Sadr is the real threat now, he’ll spoil Iraq in the future..it’s extremely necessary to get rid of him..
It’s told that many of his ‘representatives’ in other provinces were agents for Saddam, they exploited the trust of those who were attending to pray behind them in Mosques, so the people were going to AlBahadli or Alkhaza’li and other ‘religious leaders’ to talk with them in politics, religion..and such things, then when the ‘honest leaders’ find something ‘suspicious’ in those people, at once they pick a pen and write a report to be signed by Ba’thists, then those naive people were being arrested and executed..
........

I read on Al-Iraqia channel that Al-Najaf people arranged a demonstration against the chaos that Muqtada’s followers commit, then M.followers replied by firing at them! I’m waiting for the electric power to watch what happened exactly..

Those crazy murders are roaming in the cities so freely, come on, kill Muqtada and his thugs immediately..

Hi friends,
I came home yesterday, drank cold Bavaria beer and slept early, and now I’m fine!
I’m sorry if I wrote something crazy when I was in Basra, sometimes a person feels so depressed and disgusted because of some people, thoughts, news..etc.. you know , such things under certain circumstances make you go mad!
Unfortunately, I saw and heard many of such bad and boring things here and there in the past days, and I felt like all the people are the same..
I’m sorry again..

##.. A new Iraqi satellite channel named ' Al-Sharqiya' ( the Eastern) started yesterday, I heard that UAE supports this channel, I watched some dramatic videoclips for Iraqi actors about the situation in Iraq, they were clearly upset and bored.. I heard nothing but complaints on this channel.. I'm afraid that they'll concentrate on the bad things only..
However, let's wait for their news and reports..

## On my way to Basra, I saw the vehicles that have been bombed in Amara, they were more than 4 ( I think ), many idiots were in, on, around, beneath, above the vehicles !! stealing everything even the engine, the passengers said : " yes.. Good you heros..!!", ..I'm so angry..sad.. ashamed.... I wanted to kill those men.. those people don't deserve the life, where were the tanks and Humvees?.. I prefer killing them all.. come on bomb them.. I don't care, bomb the whole country and make the population decrease to 5 millions only, if you can pick 5 million good man and woman and bomb the rest, it's OK..
how disgusting..

## I heard that the detainees in Abu Ghraib are a mixture of criminals, insurgents and suspects!! all of them are in the same place.. are they fools to put them together?
The suspects must be in another place to investigate with..right?..

## It's sooo hot here, some power outages+ mosquitoes+ intolerable temperature+ depression+ silly opinions from some officials make me about to kill myself !!
Hey Omar.. don't forget the beer or anything you can fetch.. remember.. I'll never open the door for you if you forget..

“ When the parents and relatives of those prisoners who have been abused buy RPGs and launch at the ‘occupation’ troops for revenge, Americans will call them ‘insurgents’.. Come on you Pro-American, what will you say in this situation?..I’m sure it will happen and they’ll show them their reaction..”
In fact, I felt so embarrassed when my friend..N.. Said that.
Those soldiers were so mean, coward and idiots when they did that..
( I read this and this)..
I explained how George W Bush dealt with that and how those soldiers brought to justice, but N replied : “ OK.. I liked the idea that they might be fired, but you didn’t answer my question..”
I said : “ Come on N this is an army, you can’t fetch hundreds of thousands of angels, surely there would be few dump and heedless soldiers”..

N replied: “ and Iraqis should ask the soldiers ‘ hey you ..are you heedless’!! Come on AYS ..Iraqis will hate all the troops because of that, it’s so disgusting to hear what they did”..

“ At least everything happens will be known now and nothing hidden, even the officers been punished and no one is above the law, you couldn’t see or hear that before..”

And we finished our short debate cause N has some work to do so he left me, he was so angry and disappointed.

What do you think about this subject? And I want to ask : Are there some lessons given to the soldiers about the behavior and how they should deal with the prisoners cause this is very important for the army’s reputation so their country?