The results of Wolfie's latest poll...

wood_s_lot brought this blog to my attention.

Baghdad Burning
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Girl Blog from Iraq... let's talk war, politics and occupation.
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Today's Baghdad Burning...

Setting the Record Straight

I’m going to set the record straight, once and for all.

I don’t hate Americans, contrary to what many people seem to believe. Not because I love Americans, but simply because I don’t hate Americans, like I don’t hate the French, Canadians, Brits, Saudis, Jordanians, Micronesians, etc. It’s that simple. I was brought up, like millions of Iraqis, to have pride in my own culture and nationality. At the same time, like millions of Iraqis, I was also brought up to respect other cultures, nations and religions. Iraqi people are inquisitive, by nature, and accepting of different values- as long as you do not try to impose those values and beliefs upon them.

Although I hate the American military presence in Iraq in its current form, I don’t even hate the American troops… or wait, sometimes I do:

- I hated them all through the bombing. Every single day and night we had to sit in terror of the next bomb, the next plane, the next explosion. I hated them when I saw the expression of terror, and remembrance, on the faces of my family and friends, as we sat in the dark, praying for our lives, the lives of our loved ones and the survival of Iraq.

- I hated them on April 11- a cool, gray day: the day our family friend lost her husband, her son and toddler daughter when a tank hit the family car as they were trying to evacuate the house in Al-A’adhamiya district- an area that saw heavy fighting.

- I hated them on June 3 when our car was pulled over for some strange reason in the middle of Baghdad and we (3 women, a man and a child) were made to get out and stand in a row, while our handbags were rummaged, the men were frisked and the car was thoroughly checked by angry, brisk soldiers. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put into words the humiliation of being searched.
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On the other hand…

- I feel terrible seeing the troops standing in this merciless sun- wearing heavy clothes… looking longingly into the air-conditioned interiors of our cars. After all, in the end this is Baghdad, we’re Iraqi- we’ve seen this heat before.

- I feel bad seeing them stand around, drinking what can only be lukewarm water after hours in the sun- too afraid to accept any proffered ice water from ‘strange Iraqis’.

- I feel pity watching their confused, frightened expressions as some outraged, jobless, father of five shouts at them in a language they can’t even begin to understand.
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It always saddens me to see that the majority of them are so young. Just as it isn’t fair that I have to spend my 24th year suffering this whole situation, it doesn’t seem fair that they have to spend their 19th, 20th, etc. suffering it either. In the end, we have something in common- we’re all the victims of decisions made by the Bush administration.

On the other hand… they’ll be back home, safe, in a month, or two or three or six… and we’ll be here having to cope with the mess of a homeland we have now.
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Why the US Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals
What Osama Might Learn from UN Bombing
by Robert Fisk

It was always the same story. If it wasn't the enemy you were fighting, it was the enemy you knew you'd have to fight in the future.
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Toward Permanent War?
Bush's Tinker-Toy Ideology

The terrible bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad has capped an accelerating series of sabotage actions against Iraqi water mains, oil pipelines, electricity grids--and US soldiers, hapless agents of this mess, who are killed daily. But most sharply, it highlights one fact: the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq announced by President Bush on May 1 was not the culmination of trouble but the beginning of an inevitable march into quagmire. The Bush administration has waded into a military adventure of breathtaking complexity brandishing a tonker-toy ideology of "spreading democracy," on some Napoleonic agenda to reconfigure the entire Middle East. Yet in the real world of Iraqi society and politics, that naiveté has proved disastrous.
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Enough talk already Enough excuses and mumbo-jumbo. Our situation in Iraq is bad. But our situation in Washington is worse.
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This evening we're very pleased to run the first half of our interview with al Qaida expert Peter Bergen. Part two will run Friday afternoon.
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