Did I mention that G. has stopped blogging for ideological reasons? A statement will be issued.
he is giving his brains time off or something, and he even shaved his beard. The shia mullahs don't do the hug-kiss-kiss thing when they see him anymore. Maybe he got sick of that.

Baghdad's Jews: On their last leg
Two months ago I went to Bataween and looked for the Synagogue, you wouldn't notice it because there is a huge 4 meter wall around it, not even the policemen who were just around the corner knew where it was (or maybe they just didn't want to tell me). Anyway I found it, I guessed it was it, and I knocked on their door. The young man who came out didn't even let me in to take a look, he just told me that I should go away because I will cause trouble. The really scary thing thing was that just a couple of hundred meters away there was the SCIRI headquarters for the Bataween district.
hmmmm funny now that I am writing this I have a strange sense of dejavu. did I already tell you this or did I tell it to Diane only. anyway back to the jazeera article, because it is Jazeera they have to fuck it up as usual. look:

Here was the first person I had met who yearned for the clock to be turned back and former President Hussein to return – not a Baathist sympathiser, not a former member of the secret police - but a middle-aged Jewish woman.
The other two women said they also wished for the return of the former president and swore all their friends felt the same.
"In Saddam's day, there was the rule of law, there was safety. Now I dare not let my daughter out of the house. She won't be able to complete her studies. This is what the Americans have brought", said Subhiyya.

Now aljazeera can make people in the english speaking countries sick as well.

Zeyad's post on the 15th talks about the date the Coalition/CPA/GC whatever chose for the date of the release of new Iraqi currency. I you scroll down a bit and get to the part wher it says [Al-Zahf Al-Kabir] in bold. The point he makes is actually very inetersting and I thought about this as well. I do actually think that it would be a good idea to start superimposing new "events" on old ones. This is actually the best way to clear the markings history makes on certain dates, to just say "it is no more" does not really work. I think it did happen in the Soviet Union where they just adopted the old holidays and gave them new names. Look at the Kurds and Nawruz [unislamic and banned by the Taliban] they still celebrate it, it's meaning was changed so that peole later on forgot where it came from. The same should happen to our old national holidays. It is going to be very difficult to make people really just ignore the 7th of april or the 17th of july, all your life these dates have been engraved on your skull from the inside, so the best thing to do is give them new meanings, new reasons to celebrate. Now we will remember the 15th of October as the day we got our funky new/old money and not the day of al zahf al kabir.

My god I leave for a month and look what happens, Riverbend ranks right behind me on google (I have to start working those links again otherwise I will just drop of the ranking, she is just unstoppable) and there is a NEW IRAQI BLOGGER. It is called Healing Iraq, isn't this nice we have Baghdad Burning and Healing Iraq.

Listen to this, it’s really funny and they (people in the CPA) wouldn’t want anyone to tell you about it so it is double the fun.
Because anyone who is inside the “green zone” does not go outside, it is like they are living on a Martian colony, they have been trying to bring some of the “exotic east” inside the green zone, anyway one of the things they offer inside the green zone is a hair salon, who’s proprietor is the famous Karim Mourad (he’s a big shot Hair guy here) so they have him inside and it is either this guy or another who also offers massages at their salon, basic beauty spa thingy, or is it? For some reason he was doing something nasty on the way. If you were a man and came to get a massage he would get a “nice” young girl to do it for you and apparently things were not very “Halal”. Some killjoy complained about this and they (CPA big cheese) axed the massage parlor. Tsk tsk tsk, no consideration to basic human needs, or it might have been someone who complained because he would much rather get serviced by a nice young man. Killjoy either way. And they decided that no Iraqis are allowed to get hair cuts in there.

Another things Iraqis who work for the CPA or related offices are not allowed to have is Breakfast. If you are seen in the Cafeteria during the breakfast period your badge gets taken away from you and without a badge you get booted out of the compound. I talked to a couple of young women working for the CPA in the green zone and what they told me was very interesting, it seems from what they have been telling me that the ratio of women to men on there is much higher than the normal work space (if you exclude banks, it is very much women’s domain don’t ask me why) that is interesting by itself added to that Iraqis never get promoted to anything, they stay at “level zero”. The maximum pay is $15 a day and in order to be on time for the start of the working day you have to start queuing from 6am because of the long lines at the entrance gates. This lining up is one thing they are all freaked out about, all except the Americans in their green zone. Both women I talked to have been warned against telling anyone their home address and the communication between Iraqis in there is not very good, you don’t want to tell someone where you live only to start getting phone calls telling you stop helping the Americans. This has happened quite often. So although they have this on their minds all they time thay still come to their jobs, yes the pay is good but if they stop coming the “coalition” will be in the blind. They depend on these people to be their link to the “outside” world. And what do they do to insure they safety? They make them wait for hours in lines outside the green zone. The 14th of July Bridge and the Jumhuriya Bridge entrances are very nice places for any sort of saboteur. You only have to drive by with a Kalashnikov to mow down the Iraqis. Look these people are working for you and don’t tell me you don’t need them because that would be a lie, do you want to bring your own civil servants into a war zone? So the least you can do is not to make them into sitting ducks like the Iraqi police now are. This is another thing I would like people to pay some respect to. Iraqi Police kick major ass. Much respect. Wherever you go now and open up that subject you will see a lot of sympathy with those brave men and women and a total incomprehension to what this so called resistance is doing. They are killing Iraqis now. They say Jihad against the Infidel Occupier and they go kill those Iraqi police men. The Baghdad Hotel, the Turkish embassy and many more. It is not the Infidel the attackers are killing but Iraqis and this just might be good because the general sentiment now is “what the fuck do the Jihadis think they are doing?”. I wrote or said some time ago that most Iraqis are just sitting on the fence, well the last couple of attacks are tipping the balance against the Jihadis because they are killing all those Iraqis, they are putting bombs in streets and in front of schools, threatening to bomb banks where Iraqis are standing in line waiting to get their new Iraqi Dinars. So as we say here [biha saleh – something good will come out of it] maybe the people who are dying in those attacks are helping us understand that what those saboteurs are doing is just pure evil, telling people they are Muslim Jihadis doesn’t cut it anymore because they are killing civilians indiscriminately.

The new Iraqi currency is pure nostalgia. Let-us-take-you-on-a-trip-back-to-the-good-old-days type of thing, of course the irony will be totally lost on the younger people but me Raed and G. sat looking at the new 250 remembering the days when we would get a quarter of a dinar a daily allowance. It was enough for a bottle of Sinalco (a yellow fizzy drink) a bar of bad chocolate and whatever sandwich the school cafeteria was selling.

I am sure everybody already has seen pictures but here is a pdf link. we don't have Hundreds anymore.
They have changed the color which kind of spoils the effect, the quarter (250 fils) used to be green now the 250 dinar is bluish. Although the “Government” warned against the trade in the new currency – you know selling for more than its value because it is spanking new – it is already happening, the exchange rate is 2000 dinars per dollar in the old currency and 1900 per dollar for the new.
And we are still waiting for any attacks on banks.

[written two days ago]
It is four twenty five am and I have just gone past the Iraqi border point from Jordan. It is very very different from what it used to be. There is much less bureaucracy, although they still want you to do the pointless "AIDS test" which actually is just a way for the people at the check point to make money. They will give you a date on which you are supposed to do the test and they would just tell you to go to the nearest clinic to where you live, well I could do that without having to pay 5 bucks for someone to tell me that I should.
The one thing that did not change, and will not if you ask me, is that bribes are still accepted and welcome. Give the people at the check point who are supposed to check your luggage $10 and they will not look. You don’t have to open the trunk let alone bringing it out of the car. It is actually a mighty drag, especially if like me you have got four plus lots of small bags and most of them are filled with books and CDs. You don't really want to explain why you have five Salman Rushdie books, it never makes a good impression on the border guards. He would report you to his superiors as the anti-Allah. Don’t start with your “but you are free now” speech, it will take more tan six months to change that.
So the border point was made more pleasant by paying 10 fucking dollars, can you imagine that, only ten dollars and I could have a car full of explosives. Long live bribable corrupt countries. And of course the foreigners have to mess this up, they go and give a $40 “tip”, my god don’t spoil them like that next time they will want 40 from me as well. Anyway, I am on my way back home. happy happy joy joy.

Coming back into the country is much easier than getting out; first you have the problem of the passport authority. There is none so if yours has expired or you don’t have one; then tough luck. You ain’t getting one anytime soon. The Governing Council did promise that by mid September they would have that up and running but nothing happened, now why am I not surprised? I guess they have a bigger problem making sure they are safe from all the threats to actually do something. And did you read that incredible thing about them getting $5000 lunches. 25 people are costing Iraq $5000 to feed. Well it is not costing Iraq now it is more the “coalition” tax payers who are paying for that. They are Iraqis why are they having $200 lunches, that is unheard of, they are lucky the IHT does not have an Arabic edition, anyway I have strayed. I was talking about traveling out of Iraq.
So you are lucky that you got your passport before the war and you have packed your floral print shirts and polka dot ties, now where to go? It is funny how no country wanted to have Iraqis when we had Saddam and how they still don’t want us. Do we have [trouble] stamped on our foreheads or what? To get anywhere we still have to go thru Jordan, until the Baghdad airport opens for commercial flights. Now let’s look at how our friendly neighbor Jordan is dealing with that.
They have their borders open after the war for the Iraqis with big money to come; they have the families of all the ex-ministers there. They have their money in their banks and they are letting them buy loads of real estate. Then they decide OK this is what we needed let’s make life hell for the rest of the Iraqis. You have to wait for hours at the border only to be turned back. They don’t issue visas they just tell you to go to the border and the officer at the border will decide which is fucking pointless. Have the border guard in Baghdad so that I know whether you are letting me in or not, it doesn’t feel like a border point it feels like the door at a club with a really nasty bouncer. Sorry, not tonight. And it is a 5 hour drive to the border and 5 hours back. The driver who drove me to Baghdad told me that a week ago he drove an old man to the border who has arranged with his son, whom he has not seen for 15 years, to meet him at the border because he was afraid the Jordanian border authority would not let him in. and if they let you in they give you a transit stamp which means you have to leave the country within 72 hours.
Meanwhile they have Raghad [Saddam’s daughter] prancing around Abdoun Mall with two bodyguards waving hellos as if she were a superstar.
Whatever, all we need is for the Airport to open again and there will be no need to go thru Amman anymore, the business they will lose will make them feel sorry for being so mean, just imagine anyone who wants to get into Iraq has to go thru Jordan now. The foreign press the Iraqi expats, all this will go, khalas maku, the Jordanian guard will not have his kicks asking me to empty my pockets.

Three weeks in London and two in Amman, it felt like being out of Iraq for ages. I left Baghdad with one piece of luggage, I came back with three. The number of CDs and books I bought would keep a whole country happy for a year. And what was even better some of the journalists who came to interview brought me book presents with them, in one case I got a book sent by mail, The Devil’s Dictionary. That was a great Interview and a very funny book. Thanks Lina. And I finally got the promised yellow New York cab Diane bought for me before the war.

So here are my best London moments in no particular order :
- Seeing Jack Straw at the BBC and sitting in the same room for 10 minutes without having the balls to ask him : so where are the WMDs?
- having coffee with Ann Clwyd at he Houses of Parliament and finding out that she has been supporting [The Free Prisoners Society]. Before I went there people were telling me that she was so pro-war, when I sat and talked to her she amazed me with her knowledge and commitment. So pro-war she is but her heart is in the right place, if more anti-war people were as committed to helping Iraq out of the bad place it is now as she is things would be great.
- James Lavelle in Fabric, thanks Louisa for telling me I should go there. and London Garage does make sense.
- Birthday dinner, thanks wendy.
- The Demo in London on the 27th. It was supposed to be an anti-war/end the occupation thingy. I went there. I was amused. It felt very much like a nice Saturday family outing, look I have not seen many demonstrations. The ones I have seen are the ones we had here in Baghdad after the war they were all very angry, scary things. Then I go to the one in London and you have this carnival atmosphere. I was really interested in how much the guys selling the whistles were making. It was huge I grant you that and walking among all these people did feel very good. I was looking for an Iraqi flag to go and talk to the Iraqis, I thought there were non there until Yasar sent me a text message telling me they were already by Trafalgar Square [Hi Yasar, thanks]. I left and went to Camden.
- buying [Hatful of Hollow] for 3 Pounds.
- The room at Tate Modern where they have an instillation called [5 angels for the millennium or look at the Tate's page]. I didn’t want to leave that room.
- The Guardian’s G2 people. They make it look so easy; if you see their editorial meetings you would be amazed they have a paper out very day. You know, you expect deadly serious people and lots of arguing, the basic movie thing. It is not. They just sit and crack jokes.

The guys at Atlantic promised it was going to be OK and fun and it was. Thanks.

Still in Jordan, will be back in baghdad by thursday.
did I tell you that while waiting for the BBC Today show Jack Straw was in the same room with me, he was waiting for his turn to be put infront of a mic. It was probably one of the strangest moments in my life ever. I kept looking over the rim of my coffee mug, just making sure that it is actually him sitting in front of me.

my life has taken a sharp turn towards the surreal.
it starts with this [The Baghdad Blog].
did you see the promo, it is so scary it freaked me out the first time I saw it. do turn up the volume, the track is by the Aphex Twin and when Intro contacted Warp records they said that they can choose any track they want by the Aphex Twin and it's for free. Warp even has the promo linked from its site.
Then there is the today show on BBC Radio 4 later followed by a web chat.
a radio interview with Late Night Live in *australia*.
A daily telegraph piece (needs registration).
A web page on the Guardian site.
A million other interviews by people who are nice enough to bring me books as presents.

Salam Pax has developed a life of his own, he is not me anymore. and I miss baghdad like hell.

Today we shall have a world premier. An Iraqi blog-fight. Roll up your sleeves Riverbend, let’s talk about al-Hakim’s death.

Two posts [Chaos] and [Position Open]
Look regardless of what he stood for and the fact he and his party are very good buddies with Iran, the significance and the gravity of what happened is not to be overlooked. I agree with you, if SCIRI had its way we would end up as an Iran clone. But he is a religious leader, he is a “Marji’i” and at least for the moment they are playing by the rules. They are adopting a more lenient line, they talk about a constitution and they have Adil abdul-Mahdi who is a very clever man, the people who are behind the curtains are always more interesting than the actual puppets. And if we had abdul-Mahdis in all the religious parties believe we would not have had so much to fear, these are people who know how to walk the narrow path.
With the assassination of Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim the SCIRI leadership has been put in a very difficult position, they have to bring their militia into the play now. Their followers demand it and this is something abdul-Mahdi was visibly agonized about during today’s press conference. We all realize that if Badr Brigade got on the streets of Najaf the other factions will see no reason to send their militias down as well and this is never good, they will start fighting for turf and places like Najaf and Karbala should not become fighting grounds. I hope the Shia in Iraq, their leaderships, are wise enough to realize these holy cities should stay a symbol of their unity, their united struggle.
Most dangerously it will give, the assassination already has given as excuse to the more dangerous Muqtada al-Sadr to get his own militia together, he has been assembling one for quite a while now [Imam Mahdi’s Army] and these are the people we should all worry about, he is pissed off because he has been booted out of the Governing Council and since he is not a Hawza religious scholar he has no power without having his own bunch of thugs. The statements which were spread around today are using the death of Hakim to put more blame on the Americans. Although we know very well that Muqtada al-sadr would not mind getting al-Hakim out of the game. The demonstrators were asking for the security issue to be handed over to Iraqis believe me we do not want to be guarded by sadr’s thugs, their Friday Imams belive that women should not even go to shops and their [groups of virtuous] have been behind the bombing of shops selling alcohol and behind the threats to cinema owners.

Beside the significance of assassinating an Ayatollah these fuckers did it in front of an entrance to Imam Ali’s shrine. What idiot would do that? It is the same question everyone was asking about the bombing of the UN building, what sort of person would do this sort of thing? There is nothing sacred anymore. And right after a Friday prayer. There is just so much to this. Hundreds of people beside the Ayatollah, it is totally devastating.
Yes I know they would want to have an Islamic state here but they are much mellower than the Sadr and his “militant Hawza”, the importance of SCIRI is to counter balance. They have agreed to play the political game and abdul-Aziz al-Hakim (the Ayatollah’s brother) is on the Governing Council, isn’t he? They are working with the Americans.

Whoever did this is pure evil. The UN, an assassination in front of Imam Ali’s shrine. You wonder what will come next. If you ask me I think it will be media. Al-Jazeera I getting threatened quite often, and if you are moving with journalists the scariest thing that could happen is if people think you are from Jazeera. Al-Arabiya reporters were attacked in Najaf today and a couple of Reuter’s guys who the crowd thought were from Jazeera almost got in serious trouble. I got called an American intelligence agent and a collaborator with the Zionist agents, which kind of freaked me out. [here are pictures from the demo pic1 pic2]

you ask

Where is this guy living? Is he even in the same time zone??? I’m incredulous… maybe he's from some alternate universe where shooting, looting, tanks, rape, abductions, and assassinations aren’t considered chaos, but it’s chaos in *my* world.

I have an answer for you.

L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator, was on vacation. Nobody seemed to know when exactly he would return

He is on a beach somewhere in the states; I swear I am not joking. When they called him 3 hours after the incident he had no idea what they were talking about.
And there is another article in the Times worth reading, G was with Neil in Najaf and he is the Shia expert, they love him down there, they think he is a Shia muslim from Iran, if they only knew the truth. Anyway take a look at the article [Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 95 at Shiite Mosque] the death toll is now 113.

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more interesting links on Shia Pundit's Blog [Live like Ali - die like Husain].
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just saw this from AP

Two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports with the remainder Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.

Our house was searched by the Americans. That happened almost ten days ago. I wasn’t home, but my mother called the next day a bit freaked out.
They came at around 12 midnight they were apparently supposed to do a silent entrance and surprise the criminal Ba’athi cell that was in my parents house, unfortunately for them our front gate does a fair amount of rattling so my brother heard that and opened the door and saw a couple of soldiers climbing on our high black front gate. When the silent entrance tactic failed they resorted to shouty entrance mode. So they shouted at him telling him that he should get down on his knees, which he did. He actually was trying to help them open the door, but whatever. Seconds later around 25 soldiers are in the house my brother, father and mother are outside sitting on the ground and in their asshole-ish ways refused to answer any questions about what was happening. My father was asking them what they were looking so that he can help but as usual since you are an Iraqi addressing an American is no use since he doesn’t even acknowledge you as a human being standing in front of him. They (the Americans) have a medic with them and he seems to be the only sane person amongst them, my brother tells me they were kids all of them. Anyway so my brother and father start talking to the medic and he tells them what this is about. They have been “informed” that there are daily meetings the last five days, Sudanese people come into our house at 9am and stay till 3pm, we are a probable Ansar cell. My father is totally baffled, my brother gets it. These are not Sudanese men they are from Basra the “informer” is stupid enough to forget that there is a sizeable population in Basra who are of African origin. And it is not meetings these 2 (yes only two) guys have here, they are carpenters and they were repairing my mom’s kitchen. Way. To. Go. You have great informers.
While my family is waiting outside something strange happens, one of the soldiers comes out, empties his flask in the garden and start telling the medic to give him his, the medic shoos him away. They all think that the soldier is filling his flask with cold water from the cooler. Later it turns out that he emptied my father’s bottle of Johnny Walker’s into his flask and was probably trying to convince the medic to give him his to empty another bottle. Weird shit.
Aaaaanyway, they are looking thru my father’s papers by now and their genius translator comes to the commander of operation [Pax House Bust] and tells him he has found “suspicious documents”. They are passes to various conferences he has attended and bank cards for old closed accounts he used to have and most alarmingly for the person in charge was an invitation my father received a couple of days earlier to a meeting with General Abi Zaid to which he and others were flown to the Bakr Air Base north of Baghdad. Now the guy who was in charge starts trying to cover his ass and asks a lot of pointless questions, one of the more surreal ones was “so if one of your sons is writing for a foreign newspaper why are you still here?”. After this goes on for a while he gets the family out of the house again, closes the door and stays in there for 15 minutes. Comes out with the 20 galactic troopers and tells my father that he should inside check everything “I don’t want any complains filed later on”, my father just opens the front gate and tells him that if he wants to file a complaint he will thank you and bye-bye.

They came, freaked out my mother, pissed off my father, found nothing and left.
After refusing to get one my father finally conceded to get one of those cards that basically say you are a “collaborator”, and my mother will be spending a couple of weeks at her sister’s in Amman

The best Iraqi newspaper in english, I actually wish they would have an Arabic edition. Tell you a secret, the NY Times office here makes suer they have a copy of that paper in the office all the time they scooped them a couple of times.

IRAQ TODAY : The Independent Voice of Iraq

I wish they would ask me to work for them, I am planning to go and beg.

they have a great sense of humour as well go read [Now do you get it?]
They don't update the site as often as one would wish and there was an excellent article explaining the Hawza and its structure wich is not online.

[This is an answer of sorts to an email I got from Rachel, thanks R.]

This has actually been giving me sleepless nights; people interpret everything I say in a thousand different ways. And the problem is that I am not exactly very clear about how I feel about the war and occupation to myself, how am I to explain this to all the people who read this and the article in the Guardian.
G's incident has created a bit of a problem and the stone throwers on both sides have their stash ready to start throwing the moment it goes on the web.
I am not a spokesman for anyone. That is mainly why I don't answer media requests. The guardian said I can write what I want and it won't be them will be asking me about my opinion on this and that. I just had the good fortune to know decent English and know enough about western culture to be able to connect with the mostly western readers.

After the last article I wrote in the Guardian I was wondering whether I should stop whining. the problem is that people want to read that things are getting better and we are happy, but things are getting better in such a slow pace that it is almost imperceptible, and with the one step we move forward on one front we move back 3 steps on other fronts. People need to know that their kids and loved ones are here for a good reason and this is what they want to hear. Otherwise they send me emails saying that I am being part of the problem. They send me emails telling me that I should help the Americans capture the terrorists and Baathists, as if they walk around in the streets wearing signs. Maybe we Iraqis did expect too much from the American invasion, we did hope there is going to be an easy way. Get rid of Saddam and have the Americans help us rebuild. I don't think like that anymore. I am starting to believe that the chaos we will go thru the next 5 or 10 years is part of the price we will *have* to pay to have our freedom. This Beirut-ification is the way to learn how we should live as a free country and respect each other; it is just too painful to admit. It is too painful to have to admit that the [burn it down to build it up] process is what we will have to go thru. There is an Arabic poet who wrote a line which my friend Raed had burned into my memory:

This nation needs to learn lessons in destruction.

Don’t get this wrong, he meant iconoclasm, destroying what has been set in stone to rebuild new rules. When talking to Ghaith about what happened to him he said that he doesn’t want this to sound that he is against their presence here.

But I used to feel safe when around them, if it looked like trouble go stand by the Americans but now I don’t feel this safe anymore. I hated myself for having the same feelings and fear when I was being detained by the Americans as when I was being detained by the Iraqis. I was worried about the space they would put me in and was hoping someone I know would come by so that I don’t just disappear.

someone somewhere wrote that if it were the old regime he and his family and friends would have to worry about their safety. I do need to say that the people who are arrested by the Americans on check points disappear just as they used to do before; this was one of Ghaith’s fears. The Red Cross has access but it is slow. And it takes the Americans ages to “process” you. I am not whining these are facts. Check the Human Rights Watch reports. And Ghaith’s issue should be seen as a broader issue, journalism and this war. This is not the first time a journalist has been harassed by the military. A British friend and an Iraqi who were out reporting got detained for five hours for filming a tank, the film confiscated and of course the Iraqi reporter gets the rougher treatment, the british has the passport to protect her.
And NO it was not a super secret facility.
Yes I know, before you say it this is what I am saying, you don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. I am a crybaby and a whiner as some like to describe me. Whatever. And I am keeping my anonymity because I want to, most of you do that as well. Sometimes what I have written and still writing puts me in awkward situations with people I must talk to now and then, and I don’t feel very safe about voicing my opinions about certain parties and groups. We still don’t have a First Amendment.

Ghaith keeps insisting that what has happened to him is a small price to pay to get rid of saddam, but you see this is a bright young man talking. And he knows the difference between general policies and the individual reaction of a soldier who feels all Iraqis around him are out to get them. I am slowly reconciling myself to the idea that the Coalition forces will pull out in a year’s time (around election time I would say) and we will be left here to learn a lesson in rebuilding. I hope the UN will still be around.

RIVERBEND has started a weblog
Baghdad Burning

bad scene, very bad scene.
U.N. Says at Least 10 People Are Killed in Blast

was there about an hour after it happened. really bad. very quick response from the American military, the helicopters with red crosses on them were going back and forth and there wer always three waiting to get the poeple to hospitals. ambulances going back and forth. the whole area cordoned off. the worst was having to talk to people who have relative and family in there. it is a car bombed there is no question about it.
you realize this is the second car bomb, the jordanian embassy.
there is a friggin' Iraqi idiot now on Jazeera saying that the security responsibility should be given over to the Iraqi Governing Council. Fuck off, this is not about American presence in Iraq. these attacks have nothing to do with the so called resistance. These are fucking idiots who destroying all the efforts to help this country get back on it's feet. the fucking Governing Council could not control this mess the moment the Coalition Forces move out we are plunged in chaos. We have entered a dark dark tunnel and we have no idea what will happen now.

Ok this is what we know. a truck (some say a cement mixer) was driving by the UN building (Canal Hotel) then swerved past the median stopped in the outside parking lot. and exploded. the west side of the building was destroyed, they were in the middle of a scheduled press conference about land mines in Iraq. the street was chaos people were rushing out of the windows and doors. injured people were all over. the american ,ilitary was there pretty fast and started evacuating the injured. they brought in rescue teams to pull out people from under the building. the place of the blast was a huge crater and was too close to the wall. the word is still out on the issue whether it was a suicide attack or not, the driver could have just parcked the car and left. when we got there there were lots of poeple trying to find out what happened to their families. people crying, shouting. the thing is there is a a hospital right next to the UN building, the cieling there caved in because of the explosion. many injured but no one killed.
this is what I know and what I saw.

I am plunging into a fucking depression, do we have a future? is this country going to be hijacked by shit extremists who want to prove a point?

UPDATE: Sergio de Millo has died during the attack, a couple of minutes ago it was reported that his secretary was taken out of the rubble seriously injured now we have heard word that he has died.
and I think the Americans are finding more evidence that this was a suicide attack.
we have plunged into darkness.

New Photos by G. (pre beating) and I have now the whole incident on tape, he talked and talked and talked. I can be ruthless sometimes. will be on his and this blog in the next couple of days.

OK it had to happen and there is no point in denying it. The next chapter in [I sold my soul to the Devil] story.

SALAM PAX : THE BAGHDAD BLOG
There is a little something being prepared. They tell me he is providing the audio. You can imagine my reaction to that bit of news.

I am sorry I have been lazy.
here is the thingy I wrote for the Guardian. there is a mistake in the 4th paragraph, it is not the CPA which has a rotating chairman it is the Iraqi Interim Governing Council, sorry about that.

G. my friend got beaten up by US Army last night, he was handcuffed and had a bag put on his head. he was kicked several times and was made to lie on his face for a while. All he wanted to do was to take pictures and report on an attack, he works for the New York Times as a translator and fixer. He got more kicks for speaking english.
his sin: he looks Iraqi and has a beard.
story will be told, I need to get him drunk enough to get the whole thing out of him he doesn't want to talk.

I recommend very much reading Thomas Friedman's latest column Power and Peril. quite good. I met him when he was in baghdad for a couple of days, he is thinner than that picture they have on the site and he is very nice. Everybody was going to roll out the red carpet and stuff but he was very down to earth. and he got that moustache thing going on.........blends right in, you could mistake him for an Iraqi.

oh, and Shadid strikes again:
In Basra, Worst May Be Ahead

Sanchez the genius has it finally figured out: Their message, he said, has been that "when you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family."

General Sanchez said the message from the Iraqis was that in doing this, you create more enemies than you capture. Well, DUH dude. Would you like it if I try that on your family and see how you would feel about it?

I have totally forgotten how wonderful it is to have a dinner which lasts forever with friends. You have to rush home at around 8:30pm otherwise you will never find a taxi to take you home. But Raed arranged for a taxi to come and pick us up, we had a wonderful dinner and ignored the mess. His new friend S. was with him and she is the funniest girl with an Italian accent I have met. I was having such a great time I almost forgot that I loaded [turningtables] on my computer before leaving the office. I am very grateful to the person who sent me an email introducing me to turningtables.

I have spent the rest of the night reading the posts. He found Raed.

inside the barracks...on the walls there are hand prints...and names written in bad english...tell salam i found raed...he wrote his name with his finger next to a really bad self portrait...

moja please stay safe.
For all I know he could be the same soldier I have met a couple of days ago at the entrance of the governing council, listen to this:

……then all of this will have served a glorious purpose that no one can argue with...and we were over here doing the right thing...i need to feel that...i need to know that i helped unplug a dangerous beast before it striked...i need to know that for all those that have died their deaths were not in vain...i need to know that we have prevented horrendous events from transpiring...and i want all of this to go down in history as 'the right thing to do'...but for that to take place there are still a lot of things that need to happen...

moja, thank you. The doubt you express here just makes so more human than the stupid_lame_ass magazine called “THE LIBERATOR” the CPA has out there showing how thankful we should be. And I am sorry you have it so hard here, the post about the young army kids at he pool was sad really. They just don’t belong here. Please stay safe, and maybe re-think your decision about not showing us the “special” fotos you made just for your girlfriend. Show us those big sexy biceps.

oh and I think we should be sending him [get well soon] cards.

“I know what we have done is right and we had to do it but there must have been a better way to do it.”

When a soldier starts his conversation like this you can’t help but really really like him. He was standing in the heat, yesterday it was about 52C, guarding the entrance to building where our “governing council” meets. And he was on a roll, the next victims of his attack were the members of the governing council themselves.
“these guys, they work only four days and take the rest of the week off, they should be working 16 hour days to get their constitution going”. Give the man a cigar.
“they have huge lunches, throw tons of food out and they drive stolen cars”, by now we were laughing so loud in the car people were looking at us like we were crazy. He said that if his name is ever mentioned he will be in trouble and mentioned something about an “article 15”. We had 20 minutes with him while we were being OK-ed for meeting a Council member, he was so cool I wish the Americans didn’t freak out every time an Iraqi walks towards them I wanted to shake his hands and say thank you. He made sure I got my pieces of paper back and let us in. But he left us with one more pearl of wisdom:

“They tell you it’s the Oil but I know it is not the Oil, I just can’t figure out what the hell it is we are here for.”

He should be on TV.

The following conversation I was told about by G., but he is so lazy I will tell you about it myself. Inside the Convention Center (or as sometimes called The Iraq Forum), G was at the cafeteria waiting to buy a bottle of water when a man came and asked for a sandwich.

- is it Iraqi meat?
- yes sir it is
- are you sure it is Iraqi?
- Yes it was bought here
- No no, was the lamb slaughtered here in Iraq? Are you sure it didn’t come from Saudi?
- Sir, it is Iraqi. But even if it came from Saudi, the meat is also Halal there.
- No you don’t get it. They are not Shia muslims.

Usually it wouldn’t matter; everyone has his small little weird demands. But the problem was that the guy who doesn’t like Saudi meat because it is not slaughtered by Shia muslims is the head of an Iraqi human rights committee. Yeah, all humans are equal but some are more equal than other, aren’t they?

another little story, Raed’s mother is Shia muslim and they used to live in Saudi (which is Sunni central). One day she was asked by someone who got the courage to come up to her, they asked whether it was true that Shia muslims have little tails and they are allowed to marry their sisters.

Would anyone please remind why we need religions?

People, I have the most amazing surprise for you, well for those who have been reading the blog before the war. do you remember [Riverbend]? she's in Mosul now she is OK but she had to quit her job because some shia fundi took over wher she used to work and made life miserable. and she sent me something to put on the blog.
and she is *NOT* my female alter ego as some poeple have suggested, actually there were stranger suggestions that [salam pax] is actually [riverbend] but she decided to diguise her self as a man. whatever.
take it away Riverbend:

Sorrrrrrrrrrry Salam it took so long to answer but I had various reasons- won't happen again.

I guess you've been hearing news about Mosul? Well it's worse. The security situation isn't too bad (they don't rely on Americans in these parts- if they did it wouldn't be any better than Baghdad). Electricity is more or less sorted out (although we do have problems)- and no, it wasn't the Amreeeekan who got things running, thank you very much.

Things are really bad for females everywhere. Here it's somewhat safer, but not too much. People are boiling over because of the whole Uday/Qusai saga... I mean give me a break- something like 400 troops for 4 guys??? You'd think they'd want them alive with numbers like that! People are infuriated because of the whole commotion- planes flying, Apaches hovering and freaked-out troops shooting right and left (yes, they shot civilians). Then, on top of all that crap, they decide to show the pictures on tv to 'prove to the Iraqi people' the deaths of Uday and Qusai... Pleeeeease... those pictures were obviously Bush's war trophy. And could they have come at a more convenient time for the nitwit??? I think not...

So, things are tense here. They have been since the end of the war. Someone has told troops posted in Mosul that everyone is the enemy- even little kids- so watch out! And they have been doing just that.

I'm so angry and frustrated Salam as everyone seems to be. We've got thousands of angry, ignorant American troops running around with tanks and guns pointed at everyone. What the hell happened? And since you're working with the press, what's up with not giving the number of American casualties?! It's funny how on Al-Jazeera the give the numbers in the following way: 'two wounded and two dead'... half an hour later it's: 'three wounded and one dead'- 'lo and behold! They are being resurrected!!!

Well, I'm telling you now- there have been plenty of casualties in Mosul during the 'gunfight' and after (in one of the wooded areas), but you'll be hearing about those in the following form: Troops Die in Car Accident in North of Iraq as Car Swerves to Avoid Crossing Sheep!

Riverbend

I was at the Hussein sons burial yesterday, will be blogged. check out Tyler Hicks's photo. he is hardcore i tell you.
go check G.'s new post in the mean time. you want fresh and witty go to G.

I just want to make sure everyone read THIS article in the Washington Post, it freaked me out this morning.

Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived. His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves.

shitshitshit. and then you go talk to the US Army guys and they tell you they are fully "plugged in"and know exactly what is going on, Habibi people who keep you "informed" are being executed by their families. what surreal movie this country has become.
I am just a bit freaked out because the people I work with are making me spend the night over in Tikrit, I only hope no one sees me coming into town with the infidel americans again.
you know something has gone really wrong in your country when ou start having discussions with friends on what is the event that will make you decide to leave.

and Anthony Shadid kicks ass

Do you have any idea what it feels like when GOD says he's a fan.
dear sir: I think I can recite the [sprawl trilogy] by heart, I am a believer.

Here is something interesting for you to read:

I feared my role with the reconstruction council was sliding from what I had originally envisioned - working with allies in a democratic fashion - to collaborating with occupying forces.

I was in Tikrit two days ago and might go back there tomorrow. weird place. We might get lucky and catch Saddam.

It is so unbelievable how they have wasted a chance to show Iraqis they really are doing something. It was the most useless of press conferences, first off this Sanchez speaks only in Militar-ese, meaningless words come out of his mouth while we are all hanging on the edge of our seats waiting for one single picture, definitive proof. It is so easy, all it takes is to show us the friggin’ corpses. They do have them. Someone did see them and when asked why it wasn’t sown to the public they came up with the moral issues stuff. Habibi it didn’t bother you that all those Iraqis, Americans and British are being killed for dubious reasons, so why suddenly become so squeamish? Give the Images to Jazeera, moral issues have never stopped them from showing gruesome images, let them do your dirty work. All I care about is knowing, seeing, being 100% doubt free and that press conference proved nothing. An Iraqi journalist stopped me at the door of that hall and asked me whether I am American media (this happens from hanging around NY Times people too much), I told him I wasn’t but I could put him in touch, he said he was a journalist with IMN (Iraqi Media Network, the coalition sponsored media tool) he said that he wanted to make sure that the American journalists understand that Iraqis have huge doubts and if we would go out on the street we would be told that the whole thing in Mosul was a farce. Actually I was on the street and did ask that question. And people do need proof. The Americans just fucked up. Just like they waited too long after the fall of Baghdad to show the Iraqis they have things under control they have fucked up again by first making the decision to kill the idiots and then not give us clear proof of their death.
At that press conference there was a gentleman who asked an extremely important question which was answered by Sanchez with “that is speculation. Next question.” I later found out that the man in front of me was Fisk and the question he asked which we all want to be answered was: why was the decision made to attack with a force that would have been capable of annihilating a city block? Why did they opt for killing them when they knew their importance as sources of information on all sorts of things and the wish all Iraqis have that they be put thru trial?
Fisk started the ball rolling, sanchez was asked the same question at least 5 times in different ways and with it the question of how to prove this to the Iraqi people. And what do we get? Meaningless militareses. Beyond disappointing.
What sort of wake up call do they need? You get people saying the Americans are slow, the Americans are not fulfilling their promises. Don’t fucking lose it, you are really stretching your luck, act act act. You came and gave people big hopes and you let them fall flat on their faces. I can’t believe that there has not been a single big celebration, I went to the office this morning and one of the photographers was asking “so where do you think they will be dancing in the streets?”. It doesn’t feel like there is a reason to celebrate. People are still being killed left and right.
The only people who are having parties are journos and NGO’s, oh and I hear OCPA has a disco night at the Rasheed Hotel once a week.
After the war with Iran was over people were in the streets for a whole night, dancing and singing.
I am just pissed off, this thing today has redefined anticlimactic for me. I still have hopes for the day they catch Saddam. Maybe we will have our street party then.

And I would like to add that Jazeera is the worst ever. They should be banned under Mullah Bremer’s Fatwa banning all pro-saddam/pro-ba’ath propaganda. That political analyst they have, something al-ani, is a fucking saddamite.

just to tell you that i would be really dissapointed if Uday and Qusay were really killed in Mosul. this is just the easy way out for them. they should have been humiliated in public, images of them handcuffed and being pushed around.

Today in the morning every Thuraya sat phone in baghdad got a sms saying: "MTC Vodafone wihes you a pleasant stay in Kwuait" [!!!!!]

Update: a couple of hours later I got "welcome in he Kingdom of Bahrain", BHR Mobile Plus is also in the air. The Battle for the Iraqi frequencies has started

i am just so ahead of the NY Times:
U.S. Said to Seek Help of Ex-Iraqi Spies on Iran

American officials, he said, are fully informed about what the party is doing. Iraqi intelligence officers who have been asked to rejoin the branch contend that the United States is orchestrating the effort.

I told you about it almost two months ago, they just don't listen [it is at the end of that post].

U.S. Soldier, Iraqi Interpreter Killed

This is the fifth interpreter I hear about. Just like the policemen who were attacked almost two weeks ago, the interpreters are seen as ligitimate targets by Islamists and Ba'athists. A taxi driver was telling me the other day that those Iraqis who collaborate with the Americans are even worse than the americans "they are the devil hidden in saint's clothes".
The first interpreters I heard about were killed execution style, blind folded and had a sign saying "this is what happens to collaborators". There was something written about this in the NY Times [Iraqis Keep Working for Allies, But Danger Makes Them Fearful - you need to pay to read that, I haven't read it I only knew that someone has written about the subject].
The Iraqi interpreters in many cases end up as spokesmen for the American Forces, having to justify whatever mess they have created somewhere and why this or that person was arrested. Most people will not see them as just interpreters but they will start acussing them, it doesn't help to say that they only work for them. If Iraqi interpreters are afraid to work for the US/UK army they will operate in total darkness. and it is not only interpreters it is anyone who works with them on any sort of reconstruction effort.

Go check out the pictures I took of the Mandean new year celebration in Baghdad.
want some background on the Mandeans? check out this and this.

I first read about it in the Muajaha , they had it on their front page. (RAPE! New violence in new Iraq). They don’t have that issue online and they are just very young Iraqis who are trying to get a newspaper running while they get their exams done. The article was written with the help of all the staff members in al-Muajaha , but the person who got most involved was Hamsa . A very brave young girl who was at the morgue one day when she heard about the nine year old Sanarya, if you are wondering why the morgue it is because the morgue is the only place where they have a forensic medicine department.
Quite independently Neela Banerji meets an American pediatrician who tells her about a nine year old girl who was raped and brought to her by Hamsa.
Neela has written about it:

Rape (and Silence About It) Haunts Baghdad Read it here or here.

When Hamsa went to find Sanarya’s house she had with her a British filmmaker, Julia has the only footage of the only time Sanarya was asked about the rape. Neela and I went to see the footage, it kills you.
Hamsa was great during the first couple of weeks, she protected Sanarya from her brother, tried to get her a place to live with her sister away from the family. She and the American pediatrician did as much as they could but the pediatrician was transferred and Hamsa has exams, no one has visited Sanarya for a while until Neela, Zainab and Linsey went there. She was back at her parents place and they are beating her. Today I have been with Neela to unicef to talk to people responsible for the child protection program, we are trying to figure out what to do and how to help the kid. I will go tomorrow with Zainab and Neela to Sanayra’s on an outing, just to get her out of that house, for lunch or an ice-cream and so that I can talk to her sister Fatin and see what could be done to help.
People I am open for suggestions. I am totally in un-chartered territory for me. Other than Unicef who should we be contacting? I have heard about SOS Save the Children but they are not in Baghdad and I wonder whether an orphanage is really a good idea concerning Sanarya’s case.

Neela suggest reading The Human Rights Watch report on the issue:

climate of fear: Sexual Violence and abduction of Women and girls in Baghdad

Fairuz has a song called “indi sika feek” which means I have faith in you / I trust you. It should be our national anthem. It says:

I have faith in you
I have hope in you and what more do you want.
There is nothing more I can give
All my sentences end with you.
I have faith in you and this should be enough.
I know we will be able to pull ourselves together it just takes time. If you stop thinking this way you’ll fall apart. Some people have sent emails saying that I am not as “witty and fresh” as I used to be. I am sorry it is really hard to keep your wits these days let alone be witty. I was reading some of the stuff I wrote last October, I wish I had the rage I had in me then. Now I just feel disappointed, my city is becoming fuck-up-central. It is frustrating, how long do you think the coalition forces can keep their cool in the face of the constant attacks? How are they going to deal with the constant sabotage of infrastructure? We have no country or government anymore; they used to talk about “nation building” we ended up with nothing.
An Iraqi reader who lives abroad sent me an email which he got from Iraq on the 7th of July. We’ll assign him the spokesperson duties today.

>Subject: A letter from Baghdad
>From:
>To:
>Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 10:06 AM
>
>
>Dear friends,
>
>If you wonder why I haven't sent you anything lately;
>well, I started writing a long letter a week ago but
>while describing the extremely bad situation we were
>in last week (All Baghdad stayed without electricity
>for more than 3 days with very weak water or none in
>some places, plus a big fuel shortage for generators
>and cars), I was listening to the coalition
>broadcasting for the Iraqi people. They ware talking
>about all low priority stuff like printing "New
>passports" for Iraqis, Mr. Bremer attending a Symphony
>for the Iraqi Symphony group, and such stuff, without
>any mentioning of the fact that about 5 million people
>were living under a temperature of 47 degrees and
>without electricity and water for three days :-/
>You know, I reviewed my "dream list" back then; there
>was no "New passports" in it. It just contained three
>simple wishes: Electricity, Water, and Security.
>(This will make a nice motto instead of the old famous
>"Unity, Freedom, and Socialism", I might as well start
>a party of my own with this motto. It will sure make
>me very popular).
>Are such wishes to much to ask in the new millennium,
>and when you are under the occupation of the greatest
>power in the world?
>If you say be patient. Well, apart from the last 23
>years, remember the ex-regime has fallen for about
>three months now.
>
>Back to the letter I intended to write. So while
>listening to these great news, I felt so desperate and
>frustrated (Not from the Americans actually, but from
>the situation we are in), that I simply tore the
>message.
>
>The situation here is getting more complicated. You
>are hearing about the killing of the US soldiers every
>day. Neither me, nor anyone I know agrees to this.
>This should not be the way to solve thing. It is only
>making things worse. US soldiers are getting so tense
>in dealing with people. If such acts are not stopped,
>we will never have peace.
>
>There are also the destructive acts being done by
>unknown groups. They are destroying vital resources
>like electricity, water, and oil pipes.
>Some say they are people loyal to the ex-regime,
>trying to make things so bad to make people hope for
>its return.
>Others, say they are from Iran, just damaging the
>country.
>Some even say that they are done by the Americans to
>keep people busy with such stuff (A policy that the
>ex-regime used to follow).
>I, personally, am getting more convinced by the first
>opinion.
>
>What depresses people here is that there seems to be
>no short-term solution to all this. Electricity,
>water, and oil pipes are an easy target and hence we
>will always feel threatened, specially when we think
>of July and August ahead. "The true heat is yet to
>come".
>
>Nevertheless, we have no choice but to wait and see if
>the promises being given to us will be fulfilled, and
>lets only hope for the best.
> >As for other aspects of our life here:
> >- Do you know that the number of newspapers reached 73
>and the count is increasing. The same for Parties. We
>have two persons claiming the throne (if there will
>ever be one). People here have no respect for almost
>all of these parties. Most of them just took the
>buildings they like illegally and make them their
>centers. Imagine a party steals a building when it
>starts and expects to be respected.
>
>- The best job for anyone now is selling cold Pepsi on
>the road. The customers are often US soldiers trying
>to survive the heat. The amount of Pepsi trucks you
>see being unloaded everyday is incredible.
>
>- Finally, the mobile network, which is being
>installed by MCI, has started working. It is still
>limited now but it is supposed to extend to public use
>mid-July. Thy funny thing is that our code is the same
>as New York. So we are considered as if we are in New
>York!!!!!!!
>I will try to get a mobile soon. Then you can call me
>with very cheap prices because international calls to
>the US is always the cheapest and as you know - We are
>in NY :-)
>
>Some body living in Baghdad

have been in baghdad for two days now but didn't get a chance to put online what i wrote there. you can read the guardian column i wrote when i was there.
more importantly go read [Ishtar Talking] she writes from basra in arabic and i translate. does anyone know of another arabic blog or is Ishtar's the first? in case you are wondering, find out about Ishtar here and here

Basra has an internet place. only one. the other is the UN House but you have to have a press pass or be an NGO to get in, i have neither. i have "recruited" an iraqi woman from basra to start blogging in arabic.
The basra update will be written in baghdad. part of it will be on the Guardian tomorrow i think and the rest, which did not make it in the guardian will be posted here.

will be gone to Basra for a couple of days, no blogging no emailing.
in the mean time go take a look at G.'s photolog.

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Iraqi WOMAN blogger Zainab.
Zainab has posted her first entry on [realwomenonline.com], she is not one of my friends and I have only met her two weeks ago, she found the idea of writing online interesting. I am eager to know what she will write as everyone else. go read her now.

The most insane city, I just can’t imagine a city where so much explosive metal is lying around. The latest in the line of stories which at the moment could only happen in Baghdad is an explosion the Karadah street, just off the main road. A photographer walks down that road and sees someone lying on the street with loads of blood around him and missing one leg. No one wants to get near him. The guy had a hand grenade in his pocket, the idiot. And somehow the detonator goes off, boom, bye-bye leg. The funny thing was that there were some people around the guy who looked around very nervously. No one would tell you what was going on. Until you meet the friendly small shop owner who knows everybody. He says the actual explosion happened in a tea-shop down the road where lots of no-good types meet. And the guy’s hand grenade blew up in that tea-shop but his “friends” were so anxious that no one comes in that tea-shop, snoops around and finds god knows what, they clean the place up real fast, drag him to the other end of the street and leave him there.
Why would he have a hand grenade in his pocket? Well, many reasons. I don’t think he is the fedayeen type, like that taxi driver I met a couple of days ago. It just happens to be the weapon of choice for house robberies, you can’t say no to a man with a hand grenade, can you?

I have started a photolog, I lost my camera after i took the pictures which are on it now. so i will post some of G's pictures until i buy another point and shoot digital thingy

Actually we have been having pretty bad days. If you would have talked to me a week ago and I would have told you that I am very optimistic; maybe not optimistic but at least had hope. Now I can only think of two things. One of them was something my mother said while watching the news. She was watching something about the latest attacks on the “coalition forces” and their retaliation. She said that she has always wondered how people in Beirut and Jerusalem could have led any sort of lives, when their cities were practically military zones, she said she now knows how it feels to live in a city were the sight of a tank and military checkpoints asking you to get out your car and look thru your bag becomes “normal”. When you turn on the TV and just hope that you don’t see more pictures of people shooting at each other.
The other thing was something a foreign acquaintance has said after spending some time in the city on a really hot day. He went in threw his hat on the floor and said loudly: “I want to inform my Iraqi friends that their country is doomed”. I have no idea what that was about but the sentence just stuck to my mind.
The last couple of days have been so eventful and I wish I have posted things daily because now I don’t know where to start. Lets go a couple of days back. Just before the Bremer administration decided that it could not delay the issue of the laid off military one more day.
The protest in front of CPA:
U.S. Troops Kill 2 Iraqis During Protest
It was a bad day to start with and things have gotten out of hand very fast. At around 9 the crowd outside the Saddam’s ooops Bremer’s Palace (isn’t it funny how power drifts to the same places), if you would have driven towards the palace entrance that morning in a car that looked like could be media people in it you would have people mobbing your car and hitting your windshields with shoes. The reaction that day towards media that day was generally very bad.

AP photographer Victor Caivano said the demonstrators threw stones at the soldiers and at reporters, who were forced to retreat.

an Iraqi camera man working for Reuter’s if I am not mistaken, was hit badly on the head and had to rescued by the American soldiers. And it kept getting more and more heated wheni got there the bullets were already shot and the blood was on a couple of demonstrators shirts, the big mass had broken up. Most of them left after a couple warning shots were fired in the air as a small convoy was approaching, and here is where it all went wrong. Stones were being thrown at the journalists and US army and someone in that convoy made the decision to point the gun towards the crowd not above it. Four shots were fired. Two of them wounding two Iraqis fatally (they were taken in by the American Army at the gate and both of them died inside) and two more were injured, one Iraqi was arrested.
I really do believe that the decision to shoot was wrong. They have fired warning shots so why the decision to shoot and kill? They had a very angry crowd which became even angrier after the shooting. Doesn’t say much about the ability to deal and control crowds. Bremer, having realized that the situation of the jobless military people is getting to a critical point. You don’t want military trained people deciding that you are the enemy. The decision came to start paying them salaries and to start a small military, something like 40k soldiers. which is fine with me, who wants military. Let’s just have a couple of them in cute uniforms parading on Liberation Day.

From that incident and until today things have been moving in a downward spiral. The “coalition forces” don’t feel safe and we don’t feel safe either. You can see the distrust in their eyes and the way they hold these big guns towards you when you move close to a check point. And if you ever drive beside a convoy don’t look out your window they would be having their guns pointed at you, aimed right between your eyes.
Some areas are better than others, you still see soldiers in certain districts very relaxed walking around and talking to people. Kids on their tanks or buying roasted chicken from a restaurant. They are on their edgier side when moving or on checkpoints. I don’t blame them; I hate to be in the situation they are in. I was hoping that the day when they would be moving in Baghdad in civilian clothes and browsing thru our markets, mixing with people was closer than it looks now.

I had the chance to go to a couple of bases and talk to people there. The most fun I had was at one in the south of Baghdad where to my surprise I guy came towards with a coke in his hand and said “shlonak?” [how are you? In Iraqi dialect]. It turns out he was born in Iraq and left to the US around 85. This is his first time in Baghdad since then. It was great talking to him. He came with the army as a translator. Told me about the really bad days in Samawah, and how he isn’t really sure he is glad he came back. he didn’t exactly have a very warm welcome, specially the last couple of weeks during the weapons searches. Do you remember the guy G. was telling you about, the translator? It was the same guy I didn’t know that until I told G. where I met him. He’s really a great guy, so talkative and fun. It is a shame that some Iraqis made him feel unwelcome because he was helping the “infidel invader”.

Scary war story #2
(#1 being the night when our neighborhood was attacked with 20 shells from a tank on the Ameriya main road)

I was trying to get a taxi at 10:30pm last night (which is a stupid and dumb thing to do in the first place – curfew is still at 11:00pm) so this car stops and we agree on a 2000 dinar fare. The moment I sit in the car he starts cursing and swearing at “them”. Suddenly he stops in mid sentence turns to me and asks angrily
- are you a muslim?
*he has a muslim looking beard, is angry and I defiantly don’t want to start a theological discussion with him*
- yes, alhamdulillah I am a muslim.
- are you working with “them”?
*oh dear this is not going anywhere good*
- No! of course not. Why should I?
Pause.
- so do you think if I hide a hand grenade under the dash board they would be able to find it?
*shitshitshit*
- listen I really think you should be careful they have equipment which is able to detect these things, you really shouldn’t carry a hand grnade around.
- aha! So you know what equipment they use
*fuck*
- no,no, I said they might have this sort of equipment.

just then we pass a US patrol; one humvee and a couple of soldiers on foot. He slows down and looks intensely at them. They are on my side and he leans on me to look out of the window. This is the point when I start wondering whether I will die from the explosion after the this crazyfuck throws the grenade or from the retaliation fire.
He decides to shout stuff and whizzes off.

I think I was in a car with a loony-suicide-fucker last night. I wanted to ask why he wanted to hide a hand grenade in his car but I was really really scared. He just might decide to stick the hand grenade down my throat, because it is Halal to kill those who are agents of the infidel occupier.
What do you do when you are in a car with someone who asks you about the best place to hide a hand grenade?

Now you might say that he is part of that movement which calls itself al-Auda [the return] and is planning attacks here and there (I wish people would stop calling them sporadic but I will get to that in a moment). What makes this guy even more dangerous is that he is not part of the Ba’athi underground plot to re-emerge. He is one of the loonies who have taken the call to Jihad issued by the Imam of the abu-Hanifa mosque seriously. And these people just play so easily into the hands of the Auda. Anyway this auda rumor needs some serious confirmation because I havn’t seen anything, banner or graffiti, that actually names them.

To get back to the “sporadic attacks”.
Take the events in Mushaheda village: Nine U.S. Soldiers Are Wounded Battling Pockets of Iraqi
[NY Times, requires registration]
A convoy goes thru the village and gets attacked, RPGs or Kalashnikovs are fired. It is night and the visibility is pretty low, as a retaliation and self-defence you have the convoy shooting left and right down the road for the next couple of kilometers (that if if they didn’t decide to stop and go into attack-mode - see what happened in Hir).
Now when you go ask the people in the village, district or neighborhood about the attacks they tell you the attackers were strangers, not from the area.
Think of it for a moment. If I wanted to instigate anti-american sentiments in a neighborhood which was until now indifferent towards the Americans what would be the best thing to do?
I would find a way to get the Americans to do bad things in that neighborhood, for example shoot indiscriminately at houses and shops

Sabaa Khalifa Makhmoud, 26, had finished cleaning his blue and white bus on the opposite side of the road from the American convoy and had just stepped out of the vehicle when the soldiers began shooting in response to the attack. One of his daughters, a toddler, was outside with him, and he scooped her up and ran inside their house. The shooting blasted out two windows in his bus and left a ragged hole in one of the bus curtains.

make them go on house to house searches, tie up the men and put sacks on their heads and scare all the children.
this would tilt your American-o-meter from the “I-don’t-really-care” position to the “what-the-fuck-do-they-think-they-are-doing?” position.
take a look at the attacks the last week and their aftermath. This sort of thing repeats itself and kind of snowballs from grumbles to calls for Jihad, just like what happened in the Adhamiya district near the abu-Hanifa mosque after the confrontation between Iraqis and American soldiers ended with two dead Iraqis.

what else?
There are rumors that a couple of high-tension electricity towers in the north have been sabotaged. Electricity has gotten worse, we get 5 hours of electricity a day in my neighborhood; it was so much better one week ago. People start grumbling again about the promises the Americans made and have not fulfilled.

more?

Two tank mines exploded on the streets of Baghdad, this is the third one. They are putting them in black garbage bags, the first exploded under a truck which was part of an Army convoy. One soldier got hurt.
The other two both exploded yesterday. The first in an underpass right in the middle of baghdad’s Tahrir square. It exploded under a taxi, no one was killed but two people got injured. The second exploded in Ghazalia district killing a girl and injuring her mother. Now this second mine was laid on the street after the American check point left that same street and the people there are saying that the mine was left by the Americans, which is complete bullshit.

(Sorry, I am all over the place and I was never too good in formulating an argument, but I hope I am making some sense there)
What I want to say is that these attacks might be sporadic and unorganized; but they do what the Ba’athists want to do, creating a very tough situation for the American administration to do anything good or to keep their promises, changing people's sentiments. adding more heat to a summer which is too hot already.

You walk leisurely by the river on abu-Nawas Street, enjoying the view, you stop when you get to the part where the palaces are and take a look (before you would just rush by that part). On the other side of the road you have all these nice houses, old, colonial style. Exposed brick. Very unobtrusive, everything here has the color of sand. Then suddenly everything jars

The New York Times house in Baghdad. take a look.
Wasn’t there a show called “real Life” on MTV, the one with 5 total strangers living together. They had the most awkwardly colored houses, now we have one in Baghdad. Is anyone interested in doing a “real life” episode about the NY Times house here? You have the cooky looking house and the strangers all you need is a camera

The king is back; well the “pretender” is here – one of them, I think there are three hopefuls.

"In Baghdad, Having A Good Heir Day"

He is the first of the wannabe-royals to arrive in Baghdad. and boy did he get an interesting reception, It was a mess fit for royalty. You would have already heard that he came in the first civilian chartered airplane, loaded with “humanitarian aid” journalists and his bags. His first stop was the royal cemetery where he was supposed to make a speech and meet “his” people. He got out of the car and immediately he had the traditional lamb-sacrificed-under –your-feet thingy happening to him, after that more sheep got the sacrificial treatment along with a couple of chickens and the meat was being distributed to the “poor”. There was a moment when the crowd gathering to get the meat was bigger than the crowd cheering for him. And there was of course the brave young man who pushed his way thru and snatched a chicken and ran off, everybody was after him “who cares what the king is saying, follow the meat”.
Anyway in he goes and gets instantaneously mobbed by the press, it was a scene to behold. I now have a clear understanding of what a “cluster fuck” looks like. It was hot. The mausoleum is tiny and has no windows and you had those hordes of journalists-gone-mad all wanting to have that special picture. You can see the guy (sorry the Sharrif Ali) muttering: “what the hell am I doing here?” under his breath. Somehow Al-Arabiya got into the burial chamber with him and got a quickie interview right there to the annoyance of the photographers. And then the Arabiya reporter ran out of the room shouting “where is my camera man? Where is my camera man?”. Oooh it was hilarious. Sharrif Ali was supposed to make a speech to the gathered honorables, sheikhs and instant-royalty types who were seated in the garden. The funny thing is that non of them saw him when he came out and stood on the podium. Cameras and reporters had him encircled. I had two people asking me if I could point him out for them.
He was sweating, it was so hot and they had him right there under the scorching sun, he had this smile pasted on his face and a tiny battery operated fan directed at his neck and held by one of his people. Have you ever tried to look dignified while you are wearing a dark suit and under a scorching sun? it doesn’t work, the moment that little bead of sweat start running down the arch of your nose I will start laughing.
After a couple of verses from the Quran and some shouts of welcome, we get to the speech. I was waiting for the moment he opens his mouth and look at people’s faces when they realize that he speaks pretty lousy Arabic. He has this cute accent foreigners have when they speak Arabic. OK not that bad, but he sounds strange, his Arabic sounds forced.
Very uninteresting speech, he even goes so low as to fish for cheers in the most obvious ways: better wages, no gasoline lines bla bla bla. The good thing is that he didn’t get the applause he was hoping for.
Next stop: press conference in a HUGE mansion by the river. More media mobs, more nonsense. There is no flame there to inspire a mouse.

We left the press conference 15 minutes after it started. Right outside the hall where the media was trying to get anything out of the Sharrif ali we saw a huge man shouting at one of his “royal highness’” aides. This is what he was saying:
“look you asked me to drive you people around and I said OK, they promised me lunch so why are they now not letting me in?” he was talking about the banquet that they were preparing. It was a fun day, it really was.
How these guys who were not even capable of organizing a press conference will manage to run a country is anyone’s guess. And I can already see how people will react to the people who will want to be called princes and princesses.

go read G.'s new blog.

"so after 8 long hours.....
the Americans left, confiscating 6 antiaircraft heavy machine gun bullets form over than 40 houses.
the Iraqis were furiously talking of Americans searching our women, confiscating our protection weapons, and stealing our poor little chickens."

go now I am toolazy to write anything these days, it is too hot. i have no idea how all those people from foreign can stand the heat.

and I was wondering when will he find out and if he will be angry because I didn't tell him. I think he isn't.

"How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me."

He uses words like "chubby" and "cherubic" to describe me. ewww. and what is so wrong about saying "thingy" a lot.

Ya Allah have mercy on our souls. The old state owned Internet center in Adil district has been taken over by anarchists and they are offering internet access for FREE. You just need to dial up a number, no password, no special settings. Whoever heard of anyone doing that?
About week ago a rumor spread that the Adil center has put up a sat dish and will be using the setup the Iraqi government used to have to provide the service. [Uruklink.net] is back. The people who used to work there opened the center 4 days ago; you can have an hour of internet for as little as 2000dinars. Take that you greedy sharks. The center is very well equipped, they put together 30 of their best computers and have a very good connection (ok so 30 computers in a city of 5 million is nothing, but it is a start). They even got military protection. The people who work there got a couple of soldiers from the nearest army checkpoint to take a look, the officer asked if it was OK for his men to check on their emails and stuff. The reaction the first couple of guys who came in was a very amazed “Wow!”.
Yesterday they put up a piece of paper that said: “we are happy to announce that you can get free internet access by dialing up this number”. A small little paper on the notice board. The telephone network is not fully operational, certain districts don’t have phones at all, but as I wrote earlier many of the exchanges that have not been destroyed or looted have been linked together. You will need to keep dialing for an hour to get thru but it works, I tried it.
Not a million bad things could have wiped the grin off my face when I read that little note.
Baghdad will also be getting its first GSM network in about two weeks. A couple of thousand lines as a first step, mainly for NGOs and Administration. I think it is going to be MCI who will set this up.
Radio SAWA should be playing the Stereo MC’s “Connected” all the time.

I really need to get something out of my system.
I got an email. After throwing everything and the kitchen sink at me they ask:

"How are your parents doing?
Ah yes, your parents. Salam, people are wondering."

Actually they are doing very well, thank you. My father was invited to an informal dinner attended by Garner the second week he was in Baghdad; he also met some of Bodine’s aides and has met some of Bremer’s aides a couple of times too. Not to mention many of your top military people south of Baghdad.
Seriously, not joking there.

Let me make a suggestion. Do not assume, not even for a second, that because you read the blog you know who I am or who my parents are. And you are definitely not entitled to be disrespectful. Not everything that goes on in this house ends up on the blog, so please go play Agatha Christy somewhere else.
My mother, a sociologist who was very happy in pursuing her career at the ministry of education decided to give up that career when she had to choose between becoming Ba’ath party member and quitting her job, she became a housewife. My father, a very well accomplished economist made the same decision and decided to become a farmer instead.
You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell’s 1984 in my hands, a heavy read for a 14 year old with bad English. But that banned book started a process and gave me the impulse to look at the world I live in a different way.
go fling the rubbish at someone else.

Have I told you that my father agreed to act as the mediator in the surrendering process between a number of Iraqi government officials and the American administration here? He is a man with sound moral judgment and people listen to his advice. People at the American administration and many of the new political parties had asked him for consultation.
Did I tell you about the time when one of Bremer’s aides asked him what the difference between a tribal sheikh and a mosque sheikh is? They send them thousands of miles to govern us here and then ask such questions.
Did I tell you about his unending optimism in what the Americans can achieve here if they were given time? He is so much less of a skeptic than I am, we had our shouty arguments a number of times since the appearance of the Americans on our theatre of events.
You see, there is a lot that I have not told you about, and I don’t see an obligation to do so. You all hide behind your blog names and keep certain bits of your life private.
I think the things that were said in the email above and on other sites were out of line.
There is more

“It seems your writing is dedicated to proving two points, first, minimizing the American contribution to removing Saddam and then, proving what terrible things the US did to get rid of Saddam, so as to paint a picture that it wasn't worth it.”

As to the first. There is no way to “minimize” the contribution of the USA in removing saddam. The USA waged a friggin’ war, how could you “minimize” a war. I have said this before: if it weren’t for the intervention of the US, Iraq would have seen saddam followed by his sons until the end of time. But excuse me if I didn’t go out and throw flowers at the incoming missiles. As for the second point, I don’t think anyone has the right to throw cluster bombs in civilian areas and then refuse to clean up the mess afterwards.
Anyway.
I don’t really understand why among the 26 million Iraqis I have to explain everything clearly, are you watching the news? can't you see the spectrum of reactions people have to the American presence in Iraq?.
I was at an ORHA press conference the other day (got in with someone who had a press pass) the guy up there on the podium said in an answer to a question, that most probably the people who have had good encounters with the coalition forces were saying things are getting better and those who have had bad things happening to them were saying things are getting worse.
It is still too early to make any judgments, I don’t feel that I have an obligation say all is rosy and well.
Iraq is not the black hole it used to be and there are a bazillion journalists here doing better than I can ever do, they have a press ID and they know how to deal with stuff.
As to the question “why are you not documenting saddam’s crimes?” Don’t you see that this is not the sort of thing that should be discussed lightly in a blog like this one. And what’s with “documenting”, me tiny helpless salam documenting things that were going on for 30 years? Sorry to blow your bubble, but all I can do is tell you what is going on in the streets and if you think journalists are doing a better job of that then maybe you should go read them. One day, like in Afghanistan, those journalists will get bored and go write about Syria or Iran; Iraq will be off your media radar. Out of sight, out of mind. Lucky you, you have that option. I have to live it.

did some re-arranging on the last two posts, you can post to the past with this thing. and all the links were put in the right place.
Internet prices are getting steeper, now we pay 8 dollars for an hour. capitalisim! pah.
someone on al-Muajaha (before you start wondering, the "salam" who works for Muajaha is not me) was out in the streets a couple of days ago asking "where is saddam?". the best answer he got was from a 10 year old kid:
"Saddam is dead, he died five years ago."
well, that explains the mess.

here is the link to CIVIC, i should put it up in the links thingy on the left. Try to ignore the quote from senator Patrick Leahy right on top. it gets on mynerves but i still think what they are doing is important.

Pool side at Hamra hotel. Where every journalist wishes he had a room reserved. If they sit long enough there they could just forget that there was a war going on outside the hotel fences. Jennifer Lopez squeaking out of the speakers and cool $5 beers with over priced burgers and salads. “Please put these ICG reports aside I would rather work on my tan”. Stuff like that. They come in carrying cameras, sound gear or big folders with a red cross on them. Minutes later they are sipping on a beer wearing as little as they can.
Read simply refused to get out of the water, he kept telling me that the moment I would walk out of the hotel doors I will be back in Baghdad: no electricity, lines at gas stations, prices as burning hot as the weather and a life that looks as if it will never return to normal. You couldn’t define normal now anyway. Have you seen how a fish flips on its sides when brought out of water? This is how it feels in Baghdad these days. You are not even sure if what you say is going to get you a black eye.
I don’t swim. I sat reading a borrowed copy of the New Yorker. An article about the new X-men movie. All systems on autopilot, I really did wish something would happen that will make it impossible for me to leave. But there are things to do, people to see, life rolls on.

I was marginally involved in something that had to do with 24 pizzas and twice as many American soldiers. I shouldn’t be telling you about this, you will most probably be hearing about it from someone else but it was great. The faces they made when the car would stop and they would be asked if they were the guys who ordered the pepperoni pizza.
It is difficult, a two sided coin. On one side they are the US Army, invader/liberator – choose what you like, big guns, strange sounds coming out of their mouths. The other side has a person on it that in many cases is younger than I am in a country he wouldn’t put on his choice of destinations. But he has this uniform on, the big gun and those darkdark sunglasses which make it impossible to see his eyes. Difficult.
Hamra swimming pool is easier.

The Iraqi Central Bank should open on the 31-5; banks should follow the day after. It was said that the first couple of days the banks will exchange the 10,000 dinar bill for dollars in a gesture that would show that the bills are OK hoping that the way they have been devalued would stop. Your 10,000 bill is still going for 7000 dinars if you find someone who would buy it from you.
There is another strange story I have been hearing relating to the Iraqi dinar. Mainly in gas stations because they are the places with the most income these days, after the day is over and they want to close down. A US army car would come and exchange the Iraqi Dinars for US Dollars at the day’s exchange rate and the Iraqi dinars would be burnt at the spot. I heard this story three different times.
It is not as surreal as it sounds. Saddam printed more Iraqi dinars than the system could support. Too many dinars on the market, the value goes down and the real value is distorted. If the burning is happening then they are decreasing the amount of paper (dinars) that is on the market creating a demand and pulling the value of the dinar up, so it is not a “bad thing”. I don’t see a reason to be as alarmed as the people who told me the stories were.
You know the expression “armchair psychologist”? Well, I am the best “armchair financial analyst” you’ll find this side of the net.
Talking about the net, I wonder when and who will be the first to use [.iq] in their URL. It was not used by the Iraqis during the days of saddam.