These are the days of crazy weather, very colorful. We had rainy-clouds-grey two days ago, sunny-bright-yellow the day after and desert-sand-red the day after that. But it is warmer generally and the nights are beautiful with a bright moon when you can see it thru the clouds or sand. The moon started waning now and getting closer to that scary “dark of the moon” phase. Most people think if anything is going to happen this month it will start during the darkest nights. We’ll see.
In Baghdad and other cities in Iraq people are busy welcoming the Hajis back from their trip. Cars with green and white flags drive the new Hajis around the city and their houses have the same flags on them. The people who went to Mecca in coaches take quite some time to get back to Baghdad. The funny thing is that even the people who traveled in airplanes are only arriving now. Some of them slept for three nights in airports until they got their chartered flights, and the Saudi government rather has the Iraqis in the airports than roaming. Now we have to go thru the “haj mabrur – blessed haj” games, everybody visiting everybody else, and they give you these little thimbles of water from Zamzam, which is supposed to have some sort of healing and purifying effects on the soul or whatever. People, I want to be the person who does the documentary showing that the Saudi government has been extending the life of that well by adding _tap water_ to it. Some hajis who see me smile when they are giving these little bottles of blessed water as presents decide that a praying rug would be better, they will have to start me on the road to redemption in the first place and the flying carpet from Mecca will be my fast track to Jennah (heaven). My blasphemous ranting aside, becoming a Haj is a big deal. It is an exhausting couple of weeks and anybody who commits him/herself to such an ordeal has at least earned the right to get a special name, and Haji has a nice ring to it. I, personally, have decided to go to Mecca as late in my life as possible, you see if the “Tabula rasa” part of the Haj is right and there is a “god” it makes sense to live life like a pig then go purify your soul in Mecca and live your last days like a saint. I have it all worked out, that is my contingency plan for the remote possibility of the existence of a deity.

A reader sent me an angry email a couple of days ago (not the reader who writes in the comments, someone else) asking me why I dislike the “human shields” so much, he/she actually asked “why do you spit on them?”. Ewww. Now I was never that unfriendly. I have not met any of them in person, which just might happen in the next couple of days, what I dislike is the idea. But since dissing them gets people so exited, here we go and do what [destiny’s child] don’t, “cause their mamma taught them better than that”, we be dissing the shields again on the internet.
One of the latest group to arrive in Baghdad, mostly Europeans, were welcomed to the Rasheed hotel , which is like the Waldorf Astoria of Baghdad, no other hotel is more expensive and exclusive. All of them were wearing T-shirts with what was supposed to be "Human Shields" in Arabic, but they had it all wrong it said "Adra'a Basharia" instead of "Duru'u Basharia" which got them a few giggles and a new name; they are now the "Adra'a" just to show how clueless they are. A lot of funny Arabic these days with all these HS's running around, a van with a foreign number plate standing near the ministry of information has "No War" written all over it in many languages the biggest in Arabic. All over the front of it is says "La Harba" which is wrong and sounds like a night club, my cousin thought that was cute. Anyway, what really got my goat this time was finding out that they get food coupons worth 15,000 dinars per meal, 3 for every day.fifteen thousan.
Do you know how much the monthly food ration for a 4 person family is worth, for a whole month not per meal (real cost, not subsidized) ? 30,000 dinars, if you get someone to buy the bad rice they give you for a decent price. 15,000. What are they eating? A whole lamb every meal? Let's put this within context. Today in the morning Raed, our friend G. and I went for a late big breakfast we had 2 tishreeb bagilas (can't explain that, you have to be an Iraqi to get it otherwise it sounds inedible) and a makhlama (which is an omelet with minced meat), tea, fizzy drinks and argila afterwards (the water-pipe-thingy) all for 4,750 dinars, and we were not going super cheap. A lunch in any above-average restaurant will not be more than 8,000 dinars and that includes everything. 15,000 thousand is a meal in a super expensive restaurant in Arasat Street, in one of those places that really almost have an "only foreigners allowed, no Iraqis welcome unless you are UN staff" sign on it. I will stop calling them tourist when they stop taking all this pampering from the Iraqi government. Did I tell you about the tours? Today was Babylon day. You are really missing it, the cheapest way to do the Iraq trip you have wanted to do but were too scared.
And I have a tip for all freelance journalists who are not getting their Visas. Join your colleagues. It's the best way to get past the visa thing, every third one of these "shields" will be writing an article somewhere. Hurry contact your local "war tourism" travel agent.
Sorry, I just don't get it. What are they doing here?
So, that should get me enough hate mail for the next couple of days.

Enough of that. TV time. the biggest TV event last week was the first [waznak thahab - your weight in gold] show with Noor al-Sharif (no relation to Omar) as show host. Noor is a very serious Egyptian actor, I linked to one of his shows in a post I wrote last Ramadan, this is his first as show host and he totally blew it, he looked scared and nervous. The contestants were calmer and cooler than him, we used to have Aiman Zedan, who is a Syrian actor, do the show and he was a killer. The show is actually on Abu Dhabi TV but our Youth TV just steals it off the air and shows it the next day, state sanctioned piracy, what else can you wish for?

[Back to Iraq 2.0]
I just can’t remember how I stumbled into this weblog, but today reading it was like having my ears tickled from the inside (you know, like that guy on the MTV station break) listen:

By not supporting a democratic Iraq, by appointing con-man and a flim-flam artist Ahmed Chalabi as provisional leader, by inviting Turks to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan and promoting some gauzy ill-thought-out vision of a democratic Middle East imposed by force of arms, the Big Idea idealism, which never rested comfortably on the shoulders of a president who detests complexity, comes off as callow, cynical and ... what are the words? Oh, yes: "Absolute bullshit." The ideas and principles upon which the United States was founded -- "liberty," "freedom," "justice for all" -- and for which we allegedly fought and won two world wars and the Cold War, have become mere words, talking points and awkwardly mouthed slogans used to make a case for a war that no one except for a small junta in Washington wants.

is he good or what? Check out the link, do you see that photograph on the top of that article? This shop [Mazi] is like a legend here in the central governorates, "it’s, like, this huge supermarket where you can buy everything". Baghdad doesn’t have super markets only corner store kind of shops. Every Iraqi who gets to Duhok (they are not many since it is like going into another country) has to keep telling you about it for hours, it’s a super market for allah’s sake and a pretty expensive one at that. Keep your cool. But I don’t mind the presents they get me from there.
I have a bit of a problem with his right side panel, but i guess it's my browser, i have to copypaste the text somewhere else to read it.

I am getting a real kick out of posting this:
THE GUARDIAN IS WRONG, check your sources baby. in the article titled "Iraqi defence minister under house arrest" it says:

He [Lieutenant-General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Jabburi Tai, minister of defence] is not only a member of President Saddam's inner circle, but also a close relative by marriage. His daughter is married to Qusay Hussein, the dictator's 36-year-old younger son - considered by many as his heir apparent.

Wrong, Falsch, Khata'a. Qusay's wife is the daughter of Maher abdul-Rasheed who is a very important military man. he led the armies which "liberated" the Fao area in the south of Iraq in April 1988. he was put under house arrest a year after that for some reason or other and is now living in the iraqi westren desert raising camels and staying out of politics. Qusay does not have a second wife only saddam has. so their is no use saying that those loony muslims have more than one wife, maybe she is the second missus Q.Hussein.

Last night one independent source in Baghdad contacted by the Guardian confirmed that Gen Sultan was in custody. "He continues to attend cabinet meetings and appear on Iraqi TV, so that everything seems normal," said the source, a high-ranking official with connections to Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party. "But in reality his house and family are surrounded by Saddam's personal guards. They are there so he can't flee."

I, not a "high ranking official", can tell you that his family is not under house arrest, his son is still driving that fancy car around Arasat Street intimidating everybody like all good sons of ministers do.
I first heard this on BBC worldservice this morning and then my father told me he read it on the guardian's online page. I thought I should share that. now excuse me, I have to get back to practicing my funky-chicken moves.

A first on this blog, here comes a quote from the Quran:

"qulna ya nar kuni bardan wa salamen ala ibrahim"
We said, "O Fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for Abraham!"
Surah 21. The Prophets

Plot background: Abraham and the Heretics are having their equivalent of a WWF Smackdown (smashing of idols, miracle face-off, the works) finally the Heretics decide to throw Abraham into the fire and tell him: "let your god help you out of this". Thus the (nar) fire is turned into (bardan wa salamen) coolness and safety and Ibrahim walks out safe and unscathed.
I think I heard that 'bardan wa salamen" quote a thousand times during the last four days. People want to believe that what happened in the Security Council will actually shoo away the ghost of war, I don't think it will. The Blix and Baradei reports are as wishy-washy as the first reports, we can quote the parts that say we're cooperating and the "others" can quote phrases that say the exact opposite. Besides at this moment I think it is not only about the issue of Iraq and WMDs, it's beginning to look like a showdown between the USofA and the rest of the world, we get to be the example.
Anyway to watch the Security Council this time you didn't need to sneak up the dish, just find one of the 4000 Iraqis who have subscribed to the 14 state approved sat channels; the Syrian Sat Channel was transmitting the session live, with translation. Most people listened to it on Radio Monte Carlo, if at all.
Actually most of the people in Baghdad were stuck in the streets waiting for any kind of public transport. This is the first sign of a big organized demonstration. All buses, state and privately run lines, are grouped in various spots in the city to transport the "demonstrators" from their work places to where the show is supposed to take place.
Drop them at point "A" and pick them up at point "B", school kids would just disappear between these two points. There are a couple of excellent ice-cream places in al-manusr where one of the "demonstrations" took place.
This is what it looks like when you are in one of these affairs: you get out of the bus, wait for a mind-numbing couple of hours until they tell to march, you start walking until you see the guy in the front of your group (usually an eager party member) start jumping and try to pump some life into the bored group of people behind him, you shout the obligatory things, pass the stand where the officials and press are waiting then you get back to whatever you were discussing with the person next to you.
The worst experience with "demonstrations" people ever had was sometime during the eighties. I can't remember when exactly but the Grand Festival Square [sahat al ihtifalat] the one with the two intersecting swords has just been opened a short time before and this was the first BIG demonstration there. It was mainly high-school and university students. Instead of the drop here, pick up there strategy they decided that everyone should just wait within the boundaries of the square, guards were all over the perimeter, no one could leave. Then they decided to wait. This was during the summer by noon kids started dropping and fainting. No water and no food and not even a place to sit in the shade. When they realized it was getting serious they brought in trucks with bread and water tanks, you can imagine what it would look like with thousands of hungry and thirsty kids. Total chaos. No one died but many were seriously injured and they never did that again. Demonstrations? No thanks, I have mastered the art of sneaking past the green-clad guards.
Instead of getting trapped in one of the streets they have closed for the demos I stayed home and helped my mother pack things. We have not decided to leave Baghdad if "it" happens but just in case we absolutely have to. We are very efficient packers, me and my mom. The worst packers are the emotional ones. The (oh-let's-remember-when-I-bought-this-thing) packers, we just do it in cold blood, we have done this quite often, we are serial packers. Grrrrrrrr.

It's not only us who are packing. G. (he who reads novels in atmospherically correct conditions) is helping most of his foreign friends to pack as well, we have said our goodbyes to most of them. The French Cultural Center stopped all language courses being taught by French staff and they have said their goodbyes and good wishes to their students. The Russians are locating all 2000 citizens and telling them to leave. (what are 2000 Russians doing in Iraq anyway?), the Chinese embassy which is as big as a small village is empty. If you have read that UN report about humanitarian scenarios you might have come across something the report calls (phase V), from what I understand (phase V) is something like "extreme crisis, get the heck out of there" sort of thing. At the moment UN staff who would not evacuate until phase IV are being told to take long vacations starting with Eid. Notice "vacation" and not "this is officially a phase IV situation, grab your bags and run".

Now, the thing Wired wrote about. Not the emails but the site blocking and 8e6 Technologies, I know I should not bite the bait but I can't help it. My guess is 8e6 Technologies didn't know that it was selling the software to an Iraqi entity, it was most probably done by the French who did the internet setup in the first place. Because I was getting a bit worried about who is reading what, I also did a bit of prodding to find out how they decide what to block and what not and it turns out it is the mess I always knew it is.
Q: Google gets blocked for days at a time, why?
A: The reason is that the Mukhabarat minder at the ISP decides that he does not want to bother with doing his daily random checks and just registers the Google URL as blocked. it takes a couple of days and some paper shuffling until someone explains to him that it is not google that is the baddy and that things can be looked for in other places.
The firewall blocks URLs and terms within a URL or search request, but that only works with the popular search engines. The rest is done with random checks of URL requests going thru the servers.
Q: blocked Arabic sites are more than obviously "hostile" English language sites?
A: there are no special requirements concerning languages for the minder to work there.
Q: they do know their porn sites well.
A: well it is more interesting to check on them than the politics stuff, who wants to read when you can look.
Q: is there a proxy that is not firewalled?
A: of course, Uday's (i.e. the ministry of youth / Olympic committee) .
Q: can I get a username/password?
A: go fuck a cow…..
(well it didn't hurt to ask).

did you know david bowie says "god is an american" near the end of "I'm afraid of americans"?
i mean if bowie says it he must know something, he has connections, i have been told.

I wasn't going to blog until after Eid, but there is this whole "authenticity" thing going on concerning this blog.
the people who have been reading this blog for a while know that we have been there and done that. [the link is old, Al of the Culpepper Log and I are super cool now, he smacks my butt whenever i do something stupid] and I don't really want to go into it again.
To the people coming from WIRED, please always rememebr that I am no authority on anything, quoting me like the journlist did there makes me a bit nervous, salam says this salam says that. big media scares me, trouble is never far away. i hope the article is not part of the print edition that would scare me.
and i am just super grumpy and will regret this post later.

Very bad internet connection the last 2 days, the local servers ping but no pages load, then suddenly for 10 minutes all is super fine but I can barely check my emails let alone read any news before it goes again. Writing this just because it became a bit of a habit, we’ll see if I post it.

Remember the time just before the Gulf War when everybody was rushing around and people were doing their perfunctory “well, we tried but…….blah blah blah” speeches. This is what it looks like now. This is “the re-run of a bad movie” bush was talking about in one of his speeches; believe me I don’t want to sit thru it either, watching the world get in line after yet another bush and his magical flute.

[unrelated funfact: you know the band BUSH ? DJs on the English language radio station in Baghdad (voice of youth) are not allowed to say the name of the band, they have to spell it. “Bee yu ess etch have yet another single out”. I bet all the DJs there thank god there isn’t a band called schwartzkopf, imagine having to spell that everytime you play a song.]
[another unrelated funfact: do you remember this childish joke, in case you don’t know what this is: this is a mosaic of Bush senior on the entrance to al-rasheed hotel, all visitors have to step on it if they want to get in, al-rasheed is where all international state visitors are accommodated, I have seen funny ministry-of-silly-walks like attempts to not step on it, its silly really. Well you can’t see it anymore. They have put a huge rug on it.]

The Adha eid is tomorrow, Haj is over and time will be ticking out. The streets are full of people buying Eid treats for kids and preparing for the Eid feast. My parents, because they are from two different environments, have separate traditions for eid I get to choose where to go for the big lunch, which should be after the Eid prayer in the mosque but since I don’t do that I get a couple of extra hours of sleep.
I will most probably spend the first day with my mother’s family. Tastier food, our favorite caterer Abu-Karam is making the stuffed lamb and he will, as always, drop by to see how well his lamb has been received and have a drink with my uncles, besides, around 30 people and 4 generations make a good party. Big family gathering food fest. Yay.
The war will just have to wait.

Thanks for all the advice on how to get my well-water treated, now I don’t need to worry about that anymore. What still worries me is the air-tight room business, as much I try not to think about it Alan (who started the issue in the comments link) is right. So I guess I have to thank you for offering all the information. It’s just not that easy getting the family to listen, it took me a week to convince them that we need a well. There is one place where I got even more information from, Imshin has posted something a while ago about that issue so I went back to check only to find an even more informative post with a very useful link. (OK, so I am not sure how the proprietors of that site will react if they know an Iraqi is finding their information very useful).
Imshin I hope you and your family will be safe. These days I keep thinking of the lines anya has sent me earlier:

We are playthings in the hands of time
Dancing to music that is not our own.

I have so little control over my life these days let alone understanding where the world is heading to. I hope we all be spared any unnecessary grief.

Saddam has a new photo taken with his sons on the 4th of this month. notice the friendly looking pistol in Uday's belt. a perfect family photo.

CASI [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq] press release dated 7th January 2003:

A "strictly confidential" UN document, written to assist with UN contingency planning in the event of war with Iraq, predicts high civilian injuries, an extension of the existing nutritional crisis, and "the outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions."

the document is titled [LIKELY HUMANITARIAN SCENARIOS] and was apparently mentioned for the first time in this Times article (23rd of December 2002):

THE United Nations is making secret contingency plans for a war that would halt all Iraqi oil production, “seriously degrade” the country’s electricity system, provoke civil unrest and create 900,000 refugees, The Times has learnt.

CASI says that it has obtained a draft of this document through a UN source who has authorized the publication of parts of the document. With all the talk about human shields and anti-war protests none of the "human shields" is thinking of a "B" plan. And from what little I have heard most international agencies including UNHCR are saying they are not really prepared or don't have enough funds in case of a "humanitarian emergency" in Iraq, and even if the funds were available, getting the goods to where they are needed is also a problem. It makes pretty grim reading.
There is one term which I have not seen before. [IDPs] Internally Displaced Persons. The report estimates the number of IDPs at 2million. Refugees to bordering countries at around 900,000 to Iran and 50,000 to Saudi Arabia, they would be " from Baghdad and the Centre Governorates" (paragraph 17). I guess the western desert makes Jordan and Syria a bit too difficult to reach but Turkey would probably also see a lot of refugees (well, they have prepared their tents within the Iraqi border there anyway). A more recent article on the UNHCR site says that the expected number of refugees is around 600,000 :

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, said Tuesday between 500,000 and 600,000 Iraqis are likely to become refugees in a U.S.-led military action in Iraq.
Lubbers told a news conference in Geneva that half of the Iraqi refugees are expected to flee to Iran while the other half are likely to head to Turkey in the north.

makes more sense than going to Saudi Arabia. But there is one little fact that the UN document mentioned above does not state, this is from the UNHCR:

Lubbers said a military conflict in Iraq will also produce a large number of internally displaced people in Iraq fleeing the war but, as in the case of the war in Afghanistan, these people would not be covered by UNCHR since they are not classified as refugees under international law.

so what happens to the 2 million IDPs ?
back to [LIKELY HUMANITARIAN SCENARIOS]
The report summarizes the scenarios by splitting them into two stages Emergency and Protracted Humanitarian Requirements. Here is the list for emergency requirements:

- Bridging, material handling and transport. - Food and necessities for some 5.4 million people.
- Health supplies to treat injuries for approximately 100,000.
- Health supplies to treat the highly vulnerable for up to 1.23 million.
- Health supplies to cater for the ongoing needs of 5.4 million.
- Nutrition supplies for 0.54 million.
- Water treatment equipment for 5.4 million.
- Chemicals and consumables for 5.4 million.
- Sanitation materials and chemicals.
- Total range of services for 2 million IDPs, some of whom may well become refugees. The number that may eventually be in this category cannot be assessed with any confidence.
- Emergency shelter for 1.4 million.
- Family reunion facilities for unaccompanied minors.
- Facilities for 100,000 Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries.
- Mine Action activities, (demining, UXO clearance, mine awareness).

you notice it doesn't make any mention of possible doomsday scenario if one of the sides uses "unconventional" weapons. I guess if that happens it would be out of everybody's control, rather not think about it.
Here are all the links, take a look at it:
LIKELY HUMANITARIAN SCENARIOS [html version]
LIKELY HUMANITARIAN SCENARIOS [scanned PDF of original]
LIKELY HUMANITARIAN SCENARIOS [4-page PDF booklet]

Lisha has magnetic poetry just for me.
you know I love this, you should check all her magnetic poems.
boy did I miss you, and your site was going crazy the last couple of weeks. hope everything got sorted out, sorry to hear you have lost your novel notes.

Found some old pictures.
mini picture tour time (click on small pix to see larger):

[click me to see photo]
this building was hit by a number of "precision bombs" during the Gulf War. This is now our main link to the internet world. The picture is face on if you could see the side you would notice that a couple of the floors are built with slightly different color of brick, these are the floors that were hit. The Sinek building was built in the late sixties, designed by Rifa'at al-Chaderji, he lives in the States now.
---------------

[click me to see photo]
Another building by al-chadirji, this is one of my favorites. It houses the Union of Industries. this is the entrance to one of Baghdad's main commercial streets. Along this street you can still see the closed offices of all major airlines. Now only one is open (not in this street) the Gulf Falcon is the only airline flying from Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut two times a week.
---------------

[click me to see photo]
View of al-Sinek bridge, this was also hit during GW I. Getting across the river was a major problem during the first year after the war. An old Baghdadi tradition was resurrected. The floating bridge. There is a children's song about a bridge that would run away with every flood and kids running after it asking it to come back, this was during the 20's before the British built the first bridge (maud bridge after general maud who led the British invasion of Iraq, now it is called the bridge of martyrs. maybe tommy franks will get his bridge as well, who knows.). The photo is taken from a balcony in the old Melia hotel (now al-mansur), actually all of them are.
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[click me to see photo]
everybody should recognize this mosque, it is the background to all broadcasts from Iraq. This is the mosque facing the Ministry of Information, all stations have their tents facing this mosque, you see it from another angle of course. the big silhouette that looks like a ziggurat in the background used to be the ministry of foreign affairs, now it is part of the palace complex, a beautiful building, at sunset with the right light it looks like something fit for [Blade Runner]. Luckily it was not hit during GW I, hopefully it gets thru this time as well. If you look close to the right of it (in the red box) is saddam special tower, it was built with amazing speed. Also part of the palace complex.
---------------

[click me to see photo]
this is the approach to the Sinek bridge, on the left is the Ministry of Planning, Architect: Gio Ponti. This was a time when a very sharp city council was commissioning major international architects to do all sorts of projects in Baghdad. We have one of Cobusier's last built projects, the [Saddam indoor sports hall] was finished after the death of Le Corbusier. Walter Gropius designed the University of Baghdad and Mies van der Rohe its mosque. And there is an unbuilt project by Frank Lloyd Wright for an Opera House in Baghdad (it's a tiny picture, couldn't find a bigger one of that sketch). pre-tty cool,eh? now we can't even get world class IRAQI architects to work here.
---------------

8th February 1963
president Abdul-Kareem Qasim is ousted in acoup led by the Arab Socialist Resurrection Party (the first Ba'athist "revolution", later to be called the "fair maiden" of all revolutions), Abdul-Salam Arif becomes president and kicks out the Ba'athists 10 months after they have put him in the president's seat. Saddam is among the group who attacked adul-karim's car in al-rasheed street.
17th July 1968
the second Ba'athist led coup, Arif is ousted, General Ahmad Hassan Al-bakir becomes president, Saddam Hussein is vice president. 16th July 1979
Al-Bakir "resigns", Saddam Hussein becomes president of the Republic of Iraq.

We get a public holiday to contemplate how could there have ever been people who were fooled by Ba'athist ideology.
One Arab nation with an eternal message.
Unity (wahda)
Freedom (huria)
Socialism (ishtirakia)
Sometimes when talking to someone who was there during all this, the generation which had a chance to go out in the streets and affect change, it just slips out:

- Salam Pax: "you were tricked and used, you realize this."
- Parental-Unit: "yes, now what? do you want an official apology?"
- Salam Pax: "no just wanted to make sure you acknowledge it"

only my commie uncle starts shouting abuse at me :-)

Powell speech is around 6pm in Baghdad, the whole family is getting together for tea and dates-pastry to watch the (Powell Rocks the UN) show. Not on Iraqi TV of course, we have decided to put up the satellite dish to watch it, yes we will put it away afterwards until the next event. I don’t exactly like the thought of two months in prison just to have 24 hour BBC (no free CNN on ArabSat which is the only sat we get with our tiny dish).

A quick run thru what is going on in Baghdad before uncles and aunts flood the house. The juiciest bit of news actually happened about a week ago but I was told about it today. A couple of days ago it was rumored that all top officials had their phone numbers changed, well who cares it’s not like I call Saddam every night to chat, but today a friend explained why. Around six days ago the phone lines of the Iraqi air defense units were “attacked”. When you picked up the phone in some of the command units you didn’t get a dial tone but a male voice speaking in broken Arabic. What it said is close to what the infamous email said, don’t use chemical or biological weapons, don’t offer resistance, and don’t obey commands to attack civilian areas and so on. This went on for a couple of hours. Now everyone has new numbers. I have no idea how that is at all possible. I do know that for some rural areas we use microwave signals for phone connections but they can’t be so stupid as to use it for military purposes.
Way to go uncle Sam. This is going to make one hell of a James Bond movie.

The trenches and sandbag mountains I wrote about last week are now all over Baghdad. They are not being put there by the army; they are part of the Party’s preparations for an insurgence. Each day a different area of Baghdad goes thru the motions. Party members spread in the streets of that area, build the trenches, sit in them polishing their Kalashnikovs and drink tea. The annoyance-factor of these training days depend on the zeal of the party members in that area. Until now the worst was the [14th of Ramadan] street, they stopped cars searched them and asked for ID and military cards, good thing I wasn’t going thru that street, I still have not stamped my military papers to show that I have done my reserves training.

Saddam is still meeting officers daily, and we have the pleasure of watching these meetings three times every day. Each batch he meets leaves the place with a 1.5million Iraqi Dinars check and a brand new car. The latest cars to be put in the warehouses I pass by are Toyota Corollas, all white. The warehouse has around 150 of them (we counted the trucks standing outside). It is said that there are a couple of thousand more new cars waiting just outside Baghdad, parked so close to each other when one of them caught fire they couldn’t get to it fast enough, 38 cars burned.

Don’t you just love gossip?

A work related trip to Arbil in the north of Iraq had to be canceled when I found out that if I am going to sit in the same car as a WHO staff member I have to get travel permit from the ministry of foreign affairs, even if it was “local staff” i.e. Iraqi citizen. The permit takes around three days to issue which would have made the whole trip pointless. I really wanted to go. There is no border as such but you go thru an “Iraqi” check point and a “Kurdish” one, and the best way to get thru them without hassle is to travel in an international agency car, but that requires permit from the Iraqis. Bummer.

Door bells are ringing have to go now.

"Players and spectators in the arena
Baffled by our moves and by the world's
We are playthings in the hands of time
Dancing to music that is not our own."
Khalilullah Khalili, afghan poet.

Reader "anya o" sent me those lines.
There are not enough words to express my thanks for all of you. For your kind words, your concern and the help offered.

Diane, having used the words [blogson] and [Salam] in the same sentence, gets to suffer thru all the embarrassing things "blogsons" do: me going on and on about pointless things and frightening her with the thought of me singing "thank you for the music" wearing my best ABBA costume. Thank you.

Jim Henley, man you are fast. And he knows I just have to tell Diane so he sends the email to her as well. Thank you, saying that I have been flattered by your offer is an understatement. Thanks for thinking of me.

Kathy thanks for all the tips and for offering me a blog home. And thank “MommaBear” for me as well.

Al, being the first to throw the (he’s a CIA ploy) thing at me will always give you a special place in my heart. This time he wrote me a poem.
Take it away Al:

Splendor in the Grass

Our ol' buddy Salam, he's a dirty lil' perv
Hussein just can't stop him
Bushy's chances are slim
When he's on a love mission, you know he won't swerve

So our bombs start to droppin' on his city so dear
And the Casbah starts rockin'
While the town folk be gawkin'
In shock as the smoke starts to clear

As the neighbors start looking for their goats most preferred
Past Saddam's charcoaled ass
Follow the bleats in the grass
And find Salam out humpin' the herd

You owe me a new keyboard; my brother spilled his sugary tea on it after he read this now it’s all sticky. Thanks Al

The lady who calls herself “a reader”: thank you, I hope you keep coming and keeping an eye on me.

Emily (I think hawkgirl.blogspot.com) thanks for offering to host my blog.

And finally Jason [shellen.com] from Pyra Labs. I was setting up a blog somewhere else when I got his email. I guess this means I will have to tattoo [blogger 4 ever] on my arm now, maybe right under my [I heart Omar el Sharif] tattoo.

I didn’t post the last couple of days because I wanted to see if they were going to block [blogger.com] as well. If they did that they would have figured out what this is, but since they didn’t it means they are giving blog*spot the geocities treatment. Since the first day internet was offered to the public anything on Geocities has been blocked, later msn communities, yahoo groups, anything on tripod and aol were blocked. The latest additions are livejournal and blogspot. But what happens is that sometimes when you are hopping from link to link a geocities site opens press refresh it disappears, go back and get to the site from the link that let you see the site and it loads again. I have no idea why this is like that but blogspot is the same now. Not that I care. Having had a thousand suggestions from you emailed to me and a techy brother I am now set up with two nifty programs which let me go anywhere I want. This isn’t a state secret, everybody here who wants to use yahoo or msn messengers has looked for things which let you circumvent the proxy, but it’s a cat and mouse game. They know which sites you’re using they block it and you look for another.

Thank you for making the last couple of months just great. for taking the time to read this weblog, to link, write an email or comment. most of you know more about what I feel and think than my family does. for starters none of them know I blog, you do. and Diane just knows way too much for my own good :)
thank you

i knew it. they did something to the firewall.
blogger is accessable but I get an access denied message for all blogspot sites.

time to take a break and maybe look for a new blog home. diane will know if I'll post again somewhere else.
thank you ladies and gentlemen, you have been a wonderful audience, good night.

a car ride to al-mansour to get sandwiches, late at night.
10 new sandbag protected trenches seen on the way. appetite totally ruined by thoughts of who will use them and what will happen along these roads.
maybe exploration journey tomorrow to see what else is being done to baghdad.
I am either angry or scared i can't make up my mind.

Everybody got an email from the Iraqi ISP saying that email and internet services will be irregular and maybe cut off for long periods in the next 48 hours. "Maintenance and improvement of the service", may be that should be translated to "screwing the firewall bolts a bit tighter" or maybe they are just dealing with that weird SQL-Slammer-virus-thingy, Uday's news paper wrote about it today on the last page. Either way it makes posting a test of patience.

I don't watch enough TV, just so that no one tells me I have been hurting the Iraqi average TV time I spent a lot of the last two days watching Iraqi channels. Great entertainment. You see Saddam, in order to prove that he is A-OK, is almost daily on TV. He gets a number of officers and asks them questions which he answers himself. He actually said that the west probably thinks that he can't sleep at night these days and has to take sleeping pills; well you are wrong he sleeps every night very well, because he knows his people "are pleased and happy". Well that explains the feeling I have. So, no sleeping pills for saddam, maybe he can give me his. And to prove how relaxed he is he serves the officers tea, coffee and sweets and drinks it with them *gasp*. Of course the coffee sits waiting until he says something like "well, drink your coffee men no one likes cold coffee" and as if pre-rehearsed they all lift the small cups and take a sip in one single synchronized move, it looked hilarious. There is also a program called “guardians of the nation – humat al watan” which used to be only once a week now it’s every day around 7:30. It is the official ministry of defense program and between announcements to draft reservists or such we get little sketches about evil evil western governments. [They are not shown on the Iraq Satellite Channel so you can’t see them. But you can watch the daily saddam hour]. Latest reservist news? Well, if you were born between 1958 and 1951 you are officially off the hook, no more military service for you boys, and the guys who drew the short straw are 1971 and 1966, you are up next. Probably the worst time to do your reservist training. The possibility of paying your way out of the two months is canceled out because Qusay himself is overseeing the training of the reserves.

in the mean time: Me and the girl from Gotham, we be playin’ Blogger Ping-Pong She has got some You ain’t got none

Jack the newest member in the [shut up and say thank you] club had this to say in the comments to the post below:

“Think about it, where are bomb shelters, duh, in government or large buildings with a GPS coordinate on someone's list. I can't believe after reading some of the articles you posted that you don't think your government wouldn't mind using you as a shield. Just stay in your home, you will be much safer. When someone knocks on your door and says "U.S. Army/Marines", then you can come out. Believe me, your welfare are at the top of our thoughts. Our goal is to help everyone be as free as us. It may sound corny but it is true. We have always come as liberators. Thousands of young Americans have died over the last 226+ years to help others be free. With all you have to offer, you guys should be as prosperous and peaceful as anywhere else. Who knows. Supposedly the beginnings of man were there. Maybe we'll have a new beginning there to show the rest of the world how it should be.”

dear jack
Duh yourself ! since you obviously have not been to Baghdad you are not an authority on where the bomb shelters are. These shelters, I think around 30 of them, were built during the Iraq-Iran war. Yes some of them were part of military complexes but many were built in civilian neighborhoods, they were built during a time when the government would give huge loans to people building shelters in their own backyards and bomb shelters became part of the building code for any public building. Jack that statement is simply not correct.
Has anyone been able to prove that on the night that shelter has been used as a C&C center, that there was anyone of importance beside the obligatory Party members? Bad intelligence? Shit happens? Well you pooped on me buddy, don’t expect me to be all ah-great-america-we-love-you, and your government will be pooping on me some more, now how does that make me feel?
I am not taking any of that “the great liberators – help others to be free” talk because I do not believe there is such a thing in politics called altruism, there are no free lunches and no one does *anything* without some personal motives. So if your government is going to go to war it is not because they are “helping others to be free” it’s because a hundred other reasons and this one just happens to be a nice one to throw to the public. And no, I will not say it’s the oil, because it is not only oil, although it is a nice little extra thrown in.
I think may be you should read this article [Perils of Victory] (link indirectly via eve tushnet, she linked to [looking on the bright side] which had a link to perils of victory), it starts with a quote from Graham Greene’s “The Quite American”:

“He was incapable of imagining pain or danger to himself as he was incapable of conceiving the pain he might cause others” ……. “The consequences will not be immediate” predicts an Arab ambassador at the UN “you might see GIs distributing chocolates in the streets of Baghdad and being embraced – for three months. And then the opposition to the new colonial power will emerge, and to any other clients being imposed as Iraqi leaders”.*

You just make it sound so easy, you know it’s not. But what the hell, after watching the victorious American army march thru the streets of Baghdad you’ll just turn CNN off and look for another show.
Jack, I hope you understand my view, we simply don’t trust the motives of your government. And if that government is going to war with Iraq we are not naïve to think that they are doing it because they want to spread love and freedom. I am not even sure peace and freedom are going to be among the side effects of that war.
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*Diane: remember when I wrote to you about that Sophia Loren movie with that scene? Look, Mr. Arab ambassador has seen that film too, this amongst all things is an image which irrationally annoys me, you told me I was not making sense (I wasn’t) but it still bugs me. Is there a way to at least tell them not to distribute Hershey bars or anything with marshmallow filling?
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was looking thru the comments, Russil I am quoting you here [from the comments]: "But Americans shouldn't say that they're going to war for humanitarian reasons. As you can see, it just pisses people off." thank you. I have always been told to get to the point and not go around in circles. that was my point

well, someone has another raeson to get to baghdad:
"Onto Baghdad!
I want 1,000 tiles, half the blue with the pretty medallion in the middle and half with the little hand.
Onto Baghdad!"
teehee, you are most welcome! you would make the poor guys' day asking for a 1000 tiles.

Those foreigners are all over the place, I think I know what it should be called: War Tourism. betcha they will be out of here faster than you can say ‘Iraqi-peace-team’ when things get a bit too hot.
It must have been a slow day for news people because the Mutanabi Street was full of them, or Iraqis selling second hand books have become important news items. At least three news teams were filming in that crowded street with their Iraqi minders shooing people away from the cameras. Later on I walked thru Al-Rasheed and Al-Sadoon and they were all over. Not news teams this time but the War Tourists, some of them even carrying backpacks which have [Iraq peace team] written on them in gold marker. And I guess we will be getting more tourists soon. Come on, have a couple of days on us. They will be accommodating you in Al-Rasheed Hotel for free and you get the official sight seeing tour, a couple of lunches with people you can tell your kids you met, when they are shown on CNN and you get to be on TV singing “give peace a chance” in front of the UN building in Abu Nawas (don’t miss the excellent grilled fish - masgoof - while you are there, the restaurants have a good view of one of the oldest presidential palaces).
I know they all mean well, but I really don’t think coming here and getting photographed with Iraqi officials is helping their “cause”. Do thy really want to stand up and risk their lives for this regime. If you are so in love with the situation here, be my guest let’s trade places because if it is a “cause” for you, for me it’s my life and the way I have to go thru it.

Al-Muhajaba’s blog brought to my attention an article written by an American-Iraqi jurist, Sarmid Al-Sarraf. Her site isn't loading today for somereason, i would have linked to the post( Here it is, it works now). The article is on a site I can’t access (my new hobby is collecting pages I get access denied messages from) so she kindly emailed it to me:

It is Immoral to Oppose War in Iraq and Not Simultaneously Address Saddam's Crimes Against Humanity

If you ask me I think War is going to happen and the various NGOs are not going to change this. I am not counting on them to stop the bombs falling on my house. So if they are going on marches would they at least check themselves for what they are asking for? I give you another Iraqi, this time a former member of the Iraqi Communist Party now in the UK:

Dozens of nations have chemical and biological weapons. None has deployed them, except Saddam's regime, first against the Iranian forces, later against Iraqi civilians. Governments should be held responsible for such crimes. Ironically, the United States let Saddam get away with no punishment for the actual deployment of chemical and biological weapons back in 1988, but it is now adamant about confronting him for a possible deployment of such weapons in the future. This is the logic of preemption. Yet there is no law, domestic or international, that permits a prosecutor to go after an ex-convict for a future, would-be offense. There is every law to bring a culprit to trial for actually breaching human norms in the first place.

or as Al-Sarraf puts in at the end of the article:

OPPOSE WAR and INDICT SADDAM

but I can see why a lot of these people won’t go for that. Shout this a couple of times and I am sure your organization won’t get travel permits to Iraq. Of course both Al-Sarraf and Jabar suggest solutions which are not as attractive as they think they are, Jabar says:

Here's what I think ought to happen. One, threaten Saddam with indictment. Two, give him an alternative for safe passage at the same time; this may create a crack in the ruling class-clan. Three, send a list of thirty or so of his aides who are persona non grata and demand that they leave the country with him. This ought to convince the rest of the class-clan members that they are not threatened en masse -- only those who were most responsible for the offenses of the regime. Four, encourage this class-clan to oust Saddam into exile and sweeten the deal by offering a mini-Marshall plan. This mini-Marshall plan would be made available provided power was transferred to a civilian, interim government.

And what? leave us with the rest of the “class-clan” to slug it out between them? While the north of Iraq becomes the Free Republic of Kurdistan and the south eaten up by Iran? –before you ask, yes I do have a problem with Kurdish independence. This is Iraq, it lies between the Zagros mountains in the north and the Gulf in the south. We have lived together in the past and we will in the future, just because we have a loony government now doesn’t mean my Kurdish neighbors hate me. If there is one ba’ath party slogan I am prepared to keep shouting after all this is over it is [Kurd wa Arab Mutahideen] Kurds and Arabs United, but I digress. There is of course one argument which would shut me up for 5 seconds. Some of these organizations are doing as much as they can to help, and they would not be able to do it if they weren’t on good terms with the government. Then again I don’t really believe that the result justifies the means, but sometimes compromises have to be made. And maybe I should just shut up and say thank you…but I won’t. I mean thank you for all that has been done but at the moment and in the current situation try reconsidering the human-shields idea.

Eh, whatever. It is too depressing anyway. Let me give you something fun to read:

U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq

Yes Stefan, I know you told me already. I just didn’t believe it.and thanks for the funny subject line; [time to say goodbye]. I think I will be watching The Day After again, to check for hints on how to survive.

and another inetersting article from the Christian Science Monitor:

As of the specter of civilian casualties, Private Gritz, like many soldiers have no clear answer. “………The Iraqis strap kids to tanks. What can you do?”

Oh god I think Iraqis are a bunch of barbaric animal people, which makes it OK to kill them, because they don’t have feelings anyway. The article is really good; you can feel the reporter running with the soldiers

”Eeeee!” Female clerks held hostage in the post office shrieks US troops storm in.

dear oh dear. This is almost like playing C&C Renegade. I wonder if they will be waiting for the “mission accomplished” line flashing in the sky.

And another read (you can tell I don’t have much work to do besides preparing for Operation Office Evac):

Apparatus of Lies
Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003

Say what you want, but every government has its propaganda machine. And if the US propaganda was not so effective certain polls wouldn’t turn out such weird results[I lost the link and can't find it]. But what I find especially tasteless is the use of the Amiryah Bunker as a “case study”. That was a civilian bomb shelter; don’t tell me about the 10 army officers sitting in a room there.

………selected civilians had been admitted to the top floor at night, while the Iraqi military continued to use the lower level as a command and control center

what a load of bull. “selected”? whole blocks of houses in amiriyah were empty after their residents died in the shelter. People would come at night because Baghdad was bombed mostly during the night. Drag your mattress and spend the night there, it had emergency power generators and hot water. Let me tell you something really nasty, when the bombs hit the water tanks in the lower floor burst. You got grilled and smoked upstairs, boiled downstairs. That would put you off bomb shelters for the rest of your life. Nukes or no nukes.

[raed]
as bad as it gets

[salam]
kefak 7ub, hope you're feeling better. and how is that final coming along. the phone got cut off the other day just when I was going to ask you about that. you know I'm a cheap fuck you get one call every two weeks. unless you start paying my phone bills that's all you're going to get.
The latest addition to sites I can't access are all the livejournal sites. I hope they don't get on to blogspot. although if they got livejournal blogger can't be that far away. cross your fingers.

Everyone should go touch Circular John's Belly button.
"but... EEEEWWWW I CAN PUSH IT BACK IN AND MAKE IT POP BACK OUT EEEEEEEWWWW"

Bad bad weather, cloudy skies and having to turn the lights on the moment you wake up because the sun just forgot to rise or something. I am grumpy, having only Travis to listen to at the office is not helping my mood either. How these guys manages to make everything sound so depressing is amazing.
A quick run thru how things are in Baghdad the last couple of days.

- Electricity: two hours off every four hours, my cousin is calling this psychological training for harder times. He spends his two hours in total sensory deprivation, as in no radio, no light no, TV. Only candles and the sound of the rain. While I use my nifty “converter” which basically is a car battery I recharge every time we have electricity, good for light and a small TV (for half an hour, otherwise I drain the battery too fast) and I am re-reading [The ticket that exploded] for the third time.

- Internet: For some reason the ISP does not have uninterrupted power supply for the servers or something because they also go down with the blackouts. I don’t know, but something happens which knocks people off the server in certain areas at a time and does not allow them to log back on until after two hours, which is the scheduled time for a power cut these days. And three more governorates are going to get internet this week, Tamim, Anbar and Salah al-Deen. Happy porn surfing to all.

- The Dinar: It is still above the 2100 per US dollar, last night it was 2275 Iraqi Dinar. And demand is increasing because of the people who are going on Haj. The Iraqi National Bank did respond to the fall of the dinar in a wacky way, they started selling a limited amount of dollars per day per Rafidain Bank branch for 2000 ID. Every morning you would see lines of black-market dollar dealers line up to get the $1500 they are allowed to exchange per person and then go sell it for the inflated price on the market. Made the fat-cat-dollar-dealers richer and did not solve the problem.

- The Rations: the way the ministry of trade has been heaping rations on people is seriously hurting the price of the goods included in the rations. Many families depend on selling part of the rations to support their income. Wheat is dirt cheap now. You used to be able to exchange 1 kilo of wheat for 7 pieces of bread, but since wheat is so cheap now bakers give you only 3 breads. This also goes for the powdered milk. And we have been getting really nasty Egyptian soap. I am sure they wouldn’t wash their tiled floors with it for fear of corrosion, but I guess it is good enough for Iraqis. Another bad deal made in the name of food for oil, and another well connected trader bought an apartment in London.

- The Jordanian Border: there is now a special area in the Jordanian part of the border-point where they keep “unwanted Iraqis” until they find a ride back into the country.
Best way to go to Jordan from Iraq (if you are an Iraqi, that is):
Take a plane; don’t use the much more affordable bus. You have a better chance of getting thru the border if they think you have money.
Book a return ticket even if you plan on staying, see above.
If you plan on coming back use the bus on the trip back and cash in your return ticket.
Either have a visa to another country or give a believable reason that you can’t stay for longer than 10 days, a signed paper from your workplace stating that this is a business trip for so-and-so days is good.
Be prepared to wait for a couple of hours in a room with ten other people until the officer is ready to see you.
Good luck.
Alternatively, go to Syria. They still have their borders open to Iraqis, maybe not for long.

- The Inspections: nobody was paying much attention until they decided to go into those houses in al-Ghazalia district. That got people talking. Documents or no documents the whole thing is frowned upon. If they do this a couple more times the disapproval will not only be from “official sources”. And there also has been talk about the interviews abroad, the idea of taking your family with you if interviewed abroad does not work, define family for me please. Parents? Siblings? Wife and kids? Aunts, uncles? What? And the Iraqi government knows this, pressure can be applied always.

- The Weather: wet and cold, it has been raining a lot and we even had hail. Absolutely no sun.

-Raed [he is not in Baghdad but in case you were wondering why he isn’t posting in Arabic]: After being the only one who didn’t lose it during his aunt’s funeral, which true to our grief loving ways was 3 days for men and 7 for women, has come down with a bad flu and has a project final coming up soon too. But at least he started responding to my emails.

- Mememe: *sigh* whoever invented the term “between partners” is a desperate optimist. I might as well try here:
Obedient slave seeks Master, whip and users’ manual come attached. May need some assembly. If interested email addy above. I can cook and will wash the dishes too if “commanded” to do so.
Oh….and I have changed Beers, I now drink Sanabul instead of Farida. It is quite unsettling to find a cockroach floating in a bottle of beer you were just about to guzzle Down. This is as exciting as my life gets these days.

.........and in the poetry ring, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome DIANE.
she's back, well, I think she is. you would have expected a fanfare or something. but no, just that scary little poem.

Take that you Bush-y emails

I am so excited about what I heard on the radio this morning I can't stop smiling. For the first time the Iraqi government acknowledges the fact the population is not a herd of blind sheep.
In a not so direct response to the e-mail "attack" last Friday night and the anti-government radio broadcasts in the south. [BTW the mail-server was brought back online last night, we all got a 200kb text document about new logins and stuff] the government is airing a public announcement of sorts.
I almost choked on my tea when I heard it during breakfast.
It is set as a dialogue between two men speaking in Baghdadi dialect. The first asks the other if he has been hearing the news and if he knows "Shaku? Maku? [what's happening? What's not happening?]. In a Q&A format the other one starts "explaining" the nature of hostile and unfriendly media reporting, how we should not listen to these things because all they want to do is get to you and undermine your confidence, that all we hear is part of a psychological war. "But what they don’t know" the wise-one says "is that we are of strong character and these things don't fool us". It is quite long I will have to listen to it again to remember all that was said.
The emails, broadcasts and leaflets are not mentioned explicitly but this clearly is a response to them. what is very remarkable is that it never, not once, mentions saddam. They use "nahnu", us the people, "al-wattan" the nation and only once right at the end the wise-one uses "leadership". Very clever. It is propaganda but it doesn't overload you with the typical saddam-ese. It really is the best piece of propaganda I have seen them do.
At one point "the doubter" asks "the wise one" about war, the answer is evasive. He says it doesn't matter whether matters "get hotter or cool down" we should not listen to hostile reporting and believe it. Well, I guess this means I am removing the NY Times from my bookmarks then. I am a good citizen you know.
You can't believe how excited I am about these five or six minutes. They have acknowledged a crisis situation, they have never done that before. And it is not done with speeches directed to politicians abroad but to the people, in a simple story-like way. It's a first. I am celebrating this by not clicking any of my news links and watching Iraqi TV only.
Well….for the next 5 hours at least.

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linky stuff:
I have been getting quite a bit of linky-lovin' from something called [Sensible Erection]. I get an Access Denied screen when I try to open the page, I can only hope the site has chosen me the sexiest Bear in the middle east [link shamelessly stolen from Blee Bloo Blar].
talking of sites I can't access:
milk and cookies, nice name naughty content?
H.E.Y.Y.O.U.I.K.N.O.W.W.H.E.R.E.Y.O.U.L.I.V.E, Mr. site-zapper has you in his sight. Access Denied.

Since my cover blown by Unqualified Offerings, I might as well just give up and tell you what my true mission is, I am here to brain-wash you and get you to join the Party.
I am sure you are wondering what [Baath] means and whether it involves communal ablution ceremonies. The party's name in Arabic is Hizb al-Baa[here you make a sound as if you were choking]th al-Arabi, which means the Arabic Resurrection Party, as in the resurrection of one united arab nation bla bla bla. Nice innit?
So what are you waiting for, I said JOIN!
Don't come looking for me when your enrollment papers come and you get shipped to Damascus not Baghdad. You should have checked whether this is the Iraqi or Syrian Ba'ath before you've signed these papers.

This is a long post, maybe too long, a couple of questions flicked the [verbose-mode] switch. Sorry.

Flash back from an earlier life:
I am just moving in with new flat-mates, I am living with non-Arabs for the first time. We look at other suspiciously whenever any of us is eating. He looks bemused seeing me add salt to my yoghurt while I think how odd, sweet yoghurt? When he saw me eating cheese with honey-melon, he thought that was funny: "melon with cured ham is good, but cheese?" [ewww, ham and melon]. Raisins when found in food would be put aside on the edge of the plate, while my favorite rice recipe is with lots of raisins and almonds. Later culinary middle ground would be found in an Israeli falafel place, they really made the best falafel and would put the strangest sauces I have seen put in a falafel sandwich. It is there where I met the only Iraqi Jewish person I know, he used to work there and overheard me and a couple of Iraqi friends discuss the merits of eggplant salad with falafel. He spoke good Arabic and in Iraqi dialect after that we would get super huge sandwiches whenever he was working. But that is beside the point.
Fast forward to this life:
Former flat-mates have a son and they are emailing me the strangest questions.

Do you think there will be a war, what do people think?
That is a tough one, I can't tell you whether there will be war or not. I look around me and see two governments gearing themselves up for it. Someone wise once said "don't look at what a politician's lips are saying, look at what his hands are doing". What it looks like is War. Slow deliberate moves on both sides. One side is entrenching, in what seems to be constant denial of what has happened 10 years before and very probable defeat, the other side, well, we are hearing the words massive, huge and for the first time since [enter your chosen historical war landmark here] too many times. And what do people think? We need change desperately. The few attempts and people who would have had a chance to do something about the way the government is have been ruthlessly eliminated since the late seventies, by the late eighties Iraq was Saddam-land no real challenger was anywhere in site. After the Gulf War there were a couple of uprisings here and there, none were organized properly. All were quickly and brutally wiped out, not only the people involved but all their families. Change is not going to come from inside, unless the government somehow implodes, for example, saddam's death creating a rush and fight amongst possible successors to take his place and giving other parties/people space to act. I am not holding my breath.

What will happen after the war?
That depends really on what the American government and its allies want to do. I hope we don't fall into chaos. I hope Iraq doesn't split. I don't know. I am still trying to figure out what will happen during a war, because what will happen afterwards looks a bit bleak. Somehow the things that can go horribly wrong are so much clearer than the good things.

What alternatives are there to saddam?
That ties in with the question above. If there was an alternative, a clear credible alternative, everyone would have felt more optimistic and maybe even more cooperative with all the efforts the world is going thru to "disarm and neutralize". It has been mentioned a lot in the western press that Iraq used to have one of the most educated, secular and moderate populations in the Arab world, it still is. Hold that thought. Now look at the so called "Opposition Groups" abroad: nationalistic Kurdish parties, Islamists in all possible colors, and most distressingly the Iraqi National [American puppet] Congress*. These are the alternatives being pushed by the American/British governments as possible successors to the Ba'athist regime. There are other small groups but since they don't serve the future interests of certain governments they don't get a lot of mention. Take the Iraqi Communist Workers Party for example, OK so the name is a problem I can't hear communist or socialist for sometime but they have a spokeswoman who blows me away every time I hear her talk, Nadia abdul Majeed is whose badge I would be wearing if we were having elections, but has anyone heard of her? No. Are we going to? I don't really think so. First they have to do something about the name and second they don't say the right things when they talk about the US, this is important for any party wanting to be on the scene if an American led "invasion" does happen. We had a long discussion about this a couple of days ago, there are no true "alternatives" it is a void.
Let's put it this way; it's the hungry-but-not-knowing-what-you-want-to-eat feeling. Everything either looks bland, boring or moldy.
So what happens is your babysitter [US government] just force feeds you that nasty looking stew [INC].
*why is the INC and Ahmad Chalabi distressing?
well, how about this:

"He's a criminal banker," says Akins, the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "He's a swindler. He's interested in getting money, and I suspect it's all gone into his bank accounts and those of his friends."

and this:

Almost no one, not even the INC itself, thinks that Chalabi has any cachet inside Iraq.

or maybe this:

The INC and its backers make no bones about the fact that the American forces gathering to attack Iraq will be liberating Iraq's oil. Unable to restrain himself, Chalabi blurted to The Washington Post that the INC intends to reward its American friends. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," he proclaimed.

why does he think that the INC already has right to distibute bounty?
and finally:

Do these strategic realities, and the wide ridicule of Chalabi among Middle East experts, matter? "I don't think their point of view is relevant to the debate any longer," says Danielle Pletka, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute. "Sor-ry!" Thanks to the "entire vast army [of neoconservatives]" who've successfully won over Bush and Cheney, she observes, the INC has something that the other groups lack: the support of the president of the United States.

sorry, but I personally loath the man and his party.

In case of a war, can't you leave the country before it happens?
I could. The question is do I want to? No I don't, this is probably a turning point in the history of this country, I want to be here, I want to be part of it if I can. At this point in my life I care too much about my family and friends to jump ship and go watch it on CNN.

If not will you stay in Baghdad or can you go somewhere else?
We, the extended family all 30 of us have decided to stay in Baghdad. I am sure that the moment things get too hot the government will issue a curfew and people will not be allowed to travel between governorates, at least they will not be allowed to come in or go out of Baghdad.
During the Gulf War the family was separated, all left Baghdad into other cities or rural areas. Keeping in touch was a major problem. And later on when some people thought they could start their own revolution things started getting nasty. This time all would rather stay in their homes, at least to make sure the looting that happened the last time won't happen this time.

there is more but I think this is enough for now.

found this on indymedia.org:

.........
The inspectors came and looked,
And looked, and looked, and looked, and looked.
They looked high and they looked low,
Every place that they could go.
They looked in every hole and crack,
Each drawer and closet, bag and sack.
They found nothing in a trunk-or
Even in my private bunker.
They did not find a single stash
Of weapons of destruction (mass) ...
And STILL you won't get off my a**!
I've done all that I can do.
The rest, dear Bush, is up to you.
Please don't be angry, don't be sore.
We don't need to have a war.
Let's go back to the good old days
When your dad and Reagan sang my praise.
I was your faithful ally then.
Why can't we be friends again?
I say, let's let this whole thing drop.
(My best regards to your dear Pop.)

Daman Asset Management has launched a new investment product - Daman Iraq Opportunity Fund - with a view to providing investors with the opportunity to participate in the international reintegration and reconstruction of Iraq.

well it had to happen.

The fund, with a life of five years and extendable for another five years, is confident of giving out aggressive dividend payout.

so come on what are you waiting for? and it is safe, the fund will return the investments to the respective investors with bank interest rate

_

Poll Results

frankie still says war but you said....   first week of february..haj or no haj, it's going down 29   second half of february. it's warmer. 30   It's not happening till march/april 14   nah....not until next autumn, it's closer to the elections that way 9   what? are you blood thirsty? there will be no war. 9

well february it is then. I wish you could have made up your mind which part of february, hiding under the bed for a whole month without anything happening is not going to be fun.
I still think they will wait until after Haj and Eid, the last plane full of white clad piligrims leaves Mekkah will be followed by the first plane dropping leaflets saying "go for cover, Boom!".

All hell broke loose at the Iraqi ISP. The mail server has been disconnected for three days now. I had no idea what is happening I don't use that email account. I heard a rumor but I have little trust in the service provider, the server always breaks down. But I got confirmation from someone who actually saw that email.
Three days ago an email was sent to all users I have not seen it, but the friend who did receive it says that it was urging Iraqis to give information about weapons stored in their homes, and not to show any resistance in the event of an attack, not to support the Iraqi government. It was written in Arabic and had an address to send information to. The mail was sent at 00:00 and 15 minutes later the mail server was shut down, and is till now.
I guess all mailboxes are being deleted now. But what are they going to do about the people who did download their mail?
I’m trying to find someone who has the email but isn’t afraid to admit that he still has not deleted it.

UPDATE

well the washington post knows :[US Government Starts E-Mail Campaign to Key Iraqis]
so does ABC Online : [US sends Iraqis anti-Saddam emails]
The title of the Washington Post article is not exactly correct, my friend is not a "key iraqi" ,whatever that means. Anyone who downloaded their mail around 12 got that message.

AUTHORITIES BLOCK E-MAIL SERVICE
Iraqis began to receive the e-mails last week, visitors there said. The state-controlled e-mail service is available only to a small number of Iraqis, mainly government officials, senior public servants, academics and scientists.

that is also not quite correct. All you need is an ID a phone line and cash. It's the cash that gets in the way of people getting the e-mail service. and the fact that Iraq is not a very computer literate land. Importing computers is banned by the sanctions commitee, we get smuggled equipment thus expensive. the people mentioned in the article get their service for free, that is what should have been said. while they get it for free we pay an arm and a leg.

Iraqi authorities have blocked the e-mail service access in an apparent attempt to stop the messages from spreading inside the country, visitors said.

too late for that, the whisper is a buzz already, people are talking. everyone wants to see what was that email like.

Me thinks the internet service will be axed soon. we'll see. I wonder if the next step in this geeky game is to hack a couple of official Iraqi sites, future war or what?
If you call the state company responsible for the ISP now they will tell you server is down for maintanance. I really feel sorry for the network administrators, they are probably having their fried balls for lunch now. What could they have done?

The Internet is available in Iraq but many sites are off limits and all foreign e-mail servers are blocked.

we'll have to talk about that. reuters people don't know shit about internet in iraq

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ or maybe we have just been spammed by a bored spammer.
Adnan[adnan.org] thinks we have been spammed too.

Maybe, one day we might even measure global tensions by the amount of politically motivated junk mail circulating around.

political spamming, someone should think of a name for that.

Sorrow is never singular. It always comes in multiples
Raed’s aunt has passed away yesterday. She had to undergo two heart operations in 4 days, and has been in intensive care since the beginning of this year. Raed used to joke about the fact that the only person in his family still interested in political action in Jordan is her, the one with the frail heart. I remember her talking of demonstrations and protests during the events in Palestine last January while the Jordanian government was threatening to use force if the protesters got near the American or Israeli embassies. Everyone in the family would jokingly tell her that if an officer so much as breathed on her she would come back home with multiple injuries.
Raed, I can’t reach you. Your cell phone has been turned off for days and you don’t answer emails. I wish I could be there with you.
Today a colleague at the office came to our house to tell us his son has died of brain hemorrhage this morning. He is one of the senior engineers; his son is two years younger than me. Because he is not Iraqi, the paper work involved in getting him out of the country is surreal. How to explain this to a mourning parent is impossible. I stayed with him the early couple of hours. While others were trying to figure out how to get the family to Jordan as fast as possible, the mother understandably doesn’t want to stay in Iraq.
There is no appropriate response when someone tells you about the death of a loved one or a family member, I stutter and stumble thru formal responses which mean nothing really.
My heart and thoughts are with you Read and your grandmother, who is the strongest amongst you, if she has held it together through all what the family has been through before so will you.

I was looking around for a free online poll thingy to ask the following question: how soon do you think IT is going to happen. a couple of people have been sending me emails saying I should be careful, any day now. and I also agreed with the idea that the proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan around 3 - 4 february, but I have a new theory. I only missed it because the house of Pax is so religiously not "with it".
It is Haj season soon. Unless the US government wants a couple million pilgrims in the KSA when it starts military action, nothing will happen until after Eid al Adha which should be around the 12th of february. Besides we have al-ash hur al-hurum now (muslim readers help me out here) these are three months in which fighting is Haram.
But if Bush were Dr. Evil he would go and start a war during Haj, provoke Muslims around the Globe into doing something outragous, Gets out his weapons of mass distruction directs them at Mekkah and:

Wham Bam, Bye Bye Islam

starting World War Three. But Bush isn't Dr. Evil and I am a fruitcake with pictures of giant lemons on his weblog.

don't you just love google. here is the poll. get those mouse buttons clicking.

frankie says war. so......what do you say? first week of february..haj or no haj, it's going down second half of february. it's warmer. It's not happening till march/april nah....not until next autumn, it's closer to the elections that way what? are you blood thirsty? there will be no war. Click here to view results

No this isn't a mutant radioactive lemon in my hand, although it could be, it is almost as big as my head. It is a citrus fruit we call Kappat (don't ask I think it's Farsi) fresh from my mother's garden. and no, it doesn't have great lemonade potential because it is practically all peel and kind of dry inside. But the peel can be used to make great marmalade.

Today wasn't only a holiday (the 82nd anniversary of the Iraqi Armed Forces) but the sunniest day we had for a while. And what do I spend it doing? Ordering and arranging the "emergency supplies" in the storeroom upstairs. Now that the Iraqi trade minister has advised us to stock up no one is afraid of being accused of being screwy and paranoid. After spending a couple hours organizing the mess I think we have too much sugar and too little detergents. Back to the store. Boy is that shopkeeper making a fortune from the orders he is getting. I wonder if the Trade minister only gave that warning to empty their full storehouses, because if the war doesn't happen I am dumping all the stuff I bought in front of his house and demand he buys the lot. Pronto.
And in another unprecedented display of care towards the population the government started digging water wells in various residential areas in case of water shortages. In schools, near Party quarters and other controllable places. I am pushing for our own well at the house of Pax, but my father thinks I've gone mad. It's not expensive and they only drill a hole the size of a CD, 30 meters deep and disco! You've got water. Not for drinking of course, but still it's water. I mean it's my back they'll break dragging water back from the nearest well. (Actually I see his point this is paranoid and crazy, forget the well).
They have also called on the Ration Distribution centers to come and collect the rations for May which means we're getting three months' rations in February. Now I am sure they just want to empty the storehouses.

At around 11am I took a break to watch the speech. The first broadcast is always at eleven and they repeat it every couple of hours afterwards. If you are really interested in the content go read it here. It's the usual saddam-ese.

If anyone attempts to intimidate you, the people of Iraq, repel him and tell him that he is a small midget while we belong to a nation of glorious Faith, a great nation and an ancient people who have, through their civilization, taught the human race as a whole what man was yet to know.

The president was never a great orator, if you're looking for great then you have to listen to Mubarak, but this time saddam didn't even shout at us the scary bits. Just the "Da da da" school of oration. No fire. It makes you wonder. How come we didn't get a dictator who just burns you with the heat of his words? At least make me believe in what you say for the 20 minutes you're on TV. Not even that *sigh*
And boy was it heavily edited. Not bad camera transition stuff, but the "wait let's do that again" variety. Mid-sentence cuts. It probably doesn't mean anything but it is distracting.
There was one single inspired moment near the end of the speech. He looks straight at the camera (the rest of the speech he is looking up and down from paper to camera) and says:

The enemy ought to remember the terrible end of all empires that committed aggression against our people and nation in the past.

with long pauses between words, pure drama. Loved it. "al maseer.... al mashu'um..... li kul.... al imbiratoriat...... alti aatadat ala umatina"
OK so it doesn't make sense and I have no idea what he is talking about. What terrible end? All "aggressors" have come and gone with plenty of bounty, from Hulagu Khan to the British. But he scared the shit out of me.

I alway wondered what those leaflets the americans are dropping in the south of Iraq looked like, a friend of mine told me that the one he saw looked in color and size like a $100 bill (I did read somewhere that they dropped leafletrs "printed in green") pretty neat, I can imagine people runing around snatching them from the sky. Pennies from heaven. I wish I knew someone who lives there well enough to ask him to bring me one.
The latest, umm, droppings (sorry that was cheap) were not that good apparently. CNN.com has one on its site. here, take a look. I demand better graphic design. this looks like an ad for kids radio. I would love if they would have The Designers Republic as graphic consultants, that would make these leaflets true collector items. Come on, are you starting an Axis of Bad Taste now ?.

[salam]

Dear Raed
I know you probably won't be able to read this today, I hope by the time you will your aunt will be out of the icu and in good health. don't fall apart. your mom told me you had a fight with H earlier. don't do that over the phone. I am sure she loves you and whatever you or she said was because you both are under so much stress considering the circumstances.
I also want to thank you for being so unpredictable and showing up in baghdad on the 31st, who knows, this might be the last time we see each other for a while. I am very happy you came. you know, checking around I found out that quite a number of our friends and relatives are having guests from abroad spending their christmas week off here in baghdad. ziad is specially happy with his friend's visit (you know the one he keeps telling us is his only real friend ever, I guess we were chopped liver). what? is everybody saying goodbye? It feels like being on the titanic and knowing what will happen to it, so everybody just stop hugging and kissing, I won't die dammit.