Waiting for the Soldiers to Leave – and Worrying What Happens When They Do

I cannot even imagine living this nightmare. :-(


http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/2995/Uninvited_Guests_US_Soldiers_in_Iraqi_Homes

Uninvited Guests: US Soldiers in Iraqi Homes
Waiting for the Soldiers to Leave – and Worrying What Happens When They Do
By JANE ARRAF Posted 9 hr. 59 min. ago


Baquba -

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Selma worries: “When you’re finished here you’ll leave and what about tomorrow? We have no neighbors, there is no security here.” She tells me her uncle was kidnapped four months ago – they paid the ransom money that was asked – all the money they had she says – but they still have no news of him.

“We’re caught in the middle here,” says her husband. The middle, for families like this, is between the largely Shiite national police and hard-core Sunni insurgents. He’s grown oranges and dates for years but this year he wasn’t able to spray the trees – his wife shows me a fig with worms in it.

Gaines sits down on a wooden bench and waits. It’s a simple house – the rooms radiate out from an interior courtyard with benches cushioned by folded quilts. The huge poster of Mecca favored by Sunni families with a young girl in white praying is neatly taped to the wall. A ceiling fan powered by an electrical line they’re run from a nearby government building moves the still air.

The kitchen is a propane gas stove in one room and a refrigerator in the other with plastic dishes stacked in the sink to dry.

The family has grown oranges and dates for years but this year the government hasn’t sprayed the orchards in their area. Selma tears open a fig with her fingernail – showing me the tiny worms in it.

“There’s no police in this neighborhood – no Iraqi national guard. How am I not supposed to be afraid?” Selma asks.

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