Baghdad Burning
There’s a new blog from Baghdad, Baghdad Burning, and it’s subtitled a “Girl Blog from Iraq… let’s talk war, politics and occupation”.
It’s similar to Dear Raed, with on the ground coverage of the current insanity of life in Badhdad – but without the difficult to read format. (Dear Raed, I love your blog but PLEASE get rid of the light gray print on black motif). Baghdad Burning has larger print and is black on white – much easier to read!
Some excerpts:
Everyone is still discussing the death of Al-Hakim. Al-Hakim isn’t particularly popular with moderate Shi’a. One of my cousins, and his wife, are Shi’a and when he heard the news, he just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t like him much anyway- power-hungry clerics (of any religion) make people nervous.
The ride that took 20 minutes pre-war Iraq, took 45 minutes today. There were major roads completely cut off by tanks. Angry troops stood cutting off access to the roads around the palaces (which were once Saddam’s but are now America’s palaces). The cousin and E. debated alternative routes at every checkpoint or roadblock. I stayed silent because I don’t even know the city anymore. Now, areas are identified as “the one with the crater where the missile exploded”, or “the street with the ravaged houses”, or “the little house next to that one where that family was killed”.
“[Iraq] is not a country in chaos and Baghdad is not a city in chaos.” – Paul Bremer
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.
It’s a bad start to democracy, being occupied and having your government and potential leaders selected for you by the occupying powers… On the other hand, could we really expect more from a country whose president was “appointed” by the Supreme Court?
It’s so obvious to the rest of the world, isn’t it – that Bush wasn’t really elected at all…
PS, the English version of Aljazeera is up and running again