posted on September 6, 2003 04:02:28 PM new
It sounds like her family was one of the few who were treated well by Saddam Hussien. I think she (like helen) would prefer to have Saddam back.
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]
posted on September 6, 2003 04:38:19 PM new
Don't believe a word of it. Didn't get through the first paragraph and found the FIRST sign of ignorance, namely semiautomatic machineguns.
A girl supposedly pinned the article? How old? Why would a girl care about Rumsfeld?
--------------------------
As a counter point here is a differing view of the same Baghdad:
(Excerpt from the article)
Commentary: Letter from Baghdad
By Ken Joseph Jr.
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- I have been shocked at the difference between the Baghdad I found on my return and all the bad news from the city.
Despite the recent bombings, Baghdad looks dramatically different. The stores are full of supplies. The streets are crowded with people and cars. The buses are working and police are on the streets, directing traffic.
At night the streets are full of pedestrians, many families with children. I am at a loss to reconcile what we see on the ground with what is being reported.
The "regular people" are much better off than they were. Security has improved with Iraqi police everywhere, telephones are starting to work, electricity, while off and on, is relatively stable, the stores are full of food, and, little by little, people are getting jobs back.
Pensions have been paid on time. The schools are working and people for the first time have hope and a future.
When I was here before the war what was most awful for people was that they had no future -- nothing to look forward to. For us who have never experienced that situation, it is difficult to understand, but it is akin to being in prison without the possibility of parole.
They would look at me and say, "Sure we have food, a place to live, a job. But can you understand what it is to live with no tomorrow? It is like living in prison."
Now -- for the first time in 35 years -- they have a hope and a future. What most impressed me was to see Iraqis really hustling. They are thinking of starting companies and importing goods.
People, especially young people, say that for the first time in their lives they can travel overseas, surf the Internet, make international calls, and watch satellite TV. It is a wonderful time for the average Baghdadi.
What is really happening is the movement of Iraq from a "police state" to a "normal" country. During Saddam's time, life in many ways was stable, crime was low, prices were low.
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Read the remainder @ http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030902-025719-3281r.htm
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
posted on September 6, 2003 04:58:23 PM new
Over 65 percent of people in Iraq are unemployed. Water and Electricity are still not restored completely.
Your article from Washington Times, which is a news outlet like Fox, does not surprise me. An article such as that must make you wonder about the news reports that have been broadcast by MSNBC and CNN indicating that Baghdad is a chaotic disaster.
posted on September 6, 2003 05:07:48 PM new
I learned a good lesson about the press back in 1988 (1989?) when I was stationed in Kentucky. A big earthquake hit the SF Bay Area and the only thing I saw on tv was destruction. Every picture on tv was a destroyed building or structure and it seemed like the whole Bay Area was reduced to rubble. I was scared to death for my family for three days until the phone lines were working again.
I finally got a call through to my family who lived 30 miles from the epicenter and I was relieved to hear that everyone was ok. I asked about the property damage and expected the worse. Total damage: a few broken pictures and a few broken glasses. The earthquake was NOWHERE NEAR as bad as the press made it out to be.
posted on September 6, 2003 05:40:56 PM new
Helen, and your source is totally without it's own liberal slant in it's reporting?
What is a BOGSPOT? Nothing more that a internet bulletin board. Where are this "girls" credits & publication history. For all we know, YOU Helen could have written & posted the article, claiming to live in Baghdad.
Yes the item I posted in reply was published in The Washington Times among other papers. But if you look at the original by line it shows that Ken Joseph actually was reporting for "United Press International". Other reporters for UPI have included Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Merriman Smith, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid, Harrison Salisbury, Westbrook Pegler, Oscar Fraley, Raymond Clapper, William Shirer, Charles Collingwood and Helen Thomas. None of whom could hardly be considered conservatives
There are ALWAYS two views on the same subject
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
posted on September 6, 2003 05:51:22 PM new
Salam Pax who writes from Baghdad is identified in this article. And he has vouched for the girl who writes as Riverbend.
She has spent some time in the United States and that is how she learned to write so well.
It's true that all news is slanted and that's why we should try to read a variety of news reports. It's really interesting in my area, for example, to compare the two major newspapers, The Washington Times and the Washington Post.
posted on September 7, 2003 06:39:27 AM newThe Promise and the Threat
The Myth: Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad. The men and boys would ride to school on their camels, donkeys and goats. These schools were larger versions of the home units and for every 100 students, there was one turban-wearing teacher who taught the boys rudimentary math (to count the flock) and reading. Girls and women sat at home, in black burkas, making bread and taking care of 10-12 children.
The Truth: Iraqis lived in houses with running water and electricity. Thousands of them own computers. Millions own VCRs and VCDs. Iraq has sophisticated bridges, recreational centers, clubs, restaurants, shops, universities, schools, etc. Iraqis love fast cars (especially German cars) and the Tigris is full of little motor boats that are used for everything from fishing to water-skiing.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that most people choose to ignore the little prefix ‘re’ in the words ‘rebuild’ and ‘reconstruct’. For your information, ‘re’ is of Latin origin and generally means ‘again’ or ‘anew’.
In other words- there was something there in the first place. We have hundreds of bridges. We have one of the most sophisticated network of highways in the region: you can get from Busrah, in the south, to Mosul, in the north, without once having to travel upon those little, dusty, dirt roads they show you on Fox News. We had a communications system so advanced, it took the Coalition of the Willing 3 rounds of bombing, on 3 separate nights, to damage the Ma’moun Communications Tower and silence our telephones.
Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.
Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!
Something you should know about Iraq: we have over 130,000 engineers. More than half of these engineers are structural engineers and architects. Thousands of them were trained outside of Iraq in Germany, Japan, America, Britain and other countries. Thousands of others worked with some of the foreign companies that built various bridges, buildings and highways in Iraq. The majority of them are more than proficient- some of them are brilliant.
Iraqi engineers had to rebuild Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991 when the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ was composed of over 30 countries actively participating in bombing Baghdad beyond recognition. They had to cope with rebuilding bridges and buildings that were originally built by foreign companies, they had to get around a lack of raw materials that we used to import from abroad, they had to work around a vicious blockade designed to damage whatever infrastructure was left after the war… they truly had to rebuild Iraq. And everything had to be made sturdy, because, well, we were always under the threat of war.
Over a hundred of the 133 bridges were rebuilt, hundreds of buildings and factories were replaced, communications towers were rebuilt, new bridges were added, electrical power grids were replaced… things were functioning. Everything wasn’t perfect- but we were working on it.
And Iraqis aren’t easy to please. Buildings cannot just be made functionary. They have to have artistic touches- a carved pillar, an intricately designed dome, something unique… not necessarily classy or subtle, but different. You can see it all over Baghdad- fashionable homes with plate glass windows, next to classic old ‘Baghdadi’ buildings, gaudy restaurants standing next to classy little cafes… mosques with domes so colorful and detailed they look like glamorous Faberge eggs… all done by Iraqis.
My favorite reconstruction project was the Mu’alaq Bridge over the Tigris. It is a suspended bridge that was designed and built by a British company. In 1991 it was bombed and everyone just about gave up on ever being able to cross it again. By 1994, it was up again, exactly as it was- without British companies, with Iraqi expertise. One of the art schools decided that although it wasn’t the most sophisticated bridge in the world, it was going to be the most glamorous. On the day it was opened to the public, it was covered with hundreds of painted flowers in the most outrageous colors- all over the pillars, the bridge itself, the walkways along the sides of the bridge. People came from all over Baghdad just to stand upon it and look down into the Tigris.
So instead of bringing in thousands of foreign companies that are going to want billions of dollars, why aren’t the Iraqi engineers, electricians and laborers being taken advantage of? Thousands of people who have no work would love to be able to rebuild Iraq… no one is being given a chance.
The reconstruction of Iraq is held above our heads like a promise and a threat. People roll their eyes at reconstruction because they know (Iraqis are wily) that these dubious reconstruction projects are going to plunge the country into a national debt only comparable to that of America. A few already rich contractors are going to get richer, Iraqi workers are going to be given a pittance and the unemployed Iraqi public can stand on the sidelines and look at the glamorous buildings being built by foreign companies.
I always say this war is about oil. It is. But it is also about huge corporations that are going to make billions off of reconstructing what was damaged during this war. Can you say Haliburton? (Which, by the way, got the very first contracts to replace the damaged oil infrastructure and put out ‘oil fires’ way back in April).
Well, of course it’s going to take uncountable billions to rebuild Iraq, Mr. Bremer, if the contracts are all given to foreign companies! Or perhaps the numbers are this frightening because Ahmad Al-Chalabi is the one doing the books- he *is* the math expert, after all.
