Beyond Riverbend. Iraqi bloggers answer questions about the war.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs/2006/10/iraq_as_bloggers_see_it_1.shtml

http://baghdadtreasure.blogspot.com/2006/10/their-own-words.html

The BBC asked a number of Irai bloggers about the war in 3 questions:

1. When did you start blogging?

2. Have your perceptions changed since then?

3. Compared to the current situation in Iraq, how different was it before the war?

4. Do you think the war was worth it or not? Why?

The answers vary. The majority of those asked think the war was not worth it. One comment caught my eye as most discriptive of the current situation.

"It was seemingly worth it in terms of showing despots that they are not the gods they have been driven to believe they are. What it did actually was encourage others to be just as vile, and as all Iraqis say in unison, "we used to have one Saddam, now we have a million more vicious replicas".

I'm bookmarking all their blogs to get a description of what's actually going on in Iraq from the people most affected.

Some of them are no longer in Iraq but are keeping track of the situation through friends and relatives.

If nothing else, they are a testament to human endurance and courage.

Please read them. It takes the "war" out of the hands of the media, politicians, and military spokemen and puts it where it belongs, in the suffering of real people instead of the amorphous mass known as "Iraqis", "Muslims", "Extremists", or "Enemies".

Since discovering these blogs, I've been clicking the links (just click the names) and am being impressed by them.

I'm a bit discouraged by the disinterest shown by the DU'ers.

Thank you for this. They are indeed a must read...

<snip>

Compared to the current situation in Iraq, how different was it before the war?

I’m not living in Iraq now, sadly. But from what i gather it is horrible out there. it is completely different now. Back then we were safe, on a personal level, nobody ever felt fear of going out to the street. We were leading a normal life, the only bad thing is that our rights were denied. But now, we think we have our rights, which we don’t. We think we can practice them, but we cant. we think we have freedom and democracy, but freedom and democracy are won, achieved, not given. That’s why we don’t appreciate it.


Do you think the war was worth it or not? Why?

the war was not worth it at all. For one simple reason, it didn’t achieve it goal. And that is for a good reason too, it was a lie. The whole thing was a sham. We are way behind where we were in 2003. Thins war cause a lot of wounds, that won’t heal easily.

I wish a few americans could figure it out...

<snip>
Before the war, we did not know what freedom that America brought means. We did not have mobiles or technology like now but the price of freedom is the souls of the Iraqis. We don’t want freedom now. We want the dictatorship as it provided safety and stability.

Do you think the war was worth it or not? Why?
I don’t see any logical reason for this war. We do not want freedom. We did not have the mass destruction weapons as they claim. Even if there were , I don’t think any country is able to attack America. But I think the main reason is the oil and the desire to control the whole Middle East region because they don’t care about the lives of Iraqis as they claim and do not want to provide peace and freedom. Otherwise, they would have not killed millions of children, women, and youths.

http://nabilsblog.blogspot.com/



An Innocent life of a young hair styler woman had to end like that.....

As what Eye witnesses told me...
She was on her way home... after she closed up her shop.. around 5:30 pm.... she hired a taxi... just at the time that she got inside the taxi car...
A civilian car with four young men inside it.. just blocked the way on the taxi.. one of the young men..(As they said.. they doubt if he is over 18 yo... they meant that the age of those boys is certainly under 18).. came out of the car.... and headed to the taxi car... brought that woman out of the taxi by force... put a black plastic sack on her face... and he assassinated her.
for what??? why did they kill her??? no one knows....

later about 8:20 pm an Iraqi Army patrol came and picked up the dead body.An Innocent life of a young hair styler woman had to end like that.....

I've been spending this morning reading what real, ordinary, Iraqi's are living through because we "liberated" them.

What's really happening.

At the optimism displayed by so many of these people. Even in the midst of what must seem like a warm-up for rampant genocidal conflict (more so than is now the case), many of these individuals retain a sense of hope for the future. We could all learn a lesson from that... In any case, reading these first-hand accounts certainly puts our petty concerns in a new light.

Despite the horror going on there they are capable of, for the most part, relaying to us the reality of it in almost calm tones. They are reminiscent of some of the diaries that I've read by victims of the holocaust.

Inspirational, in an awful sort of way.

From Miraj

When have you started blogging?
January, 2006

How did your perceptions change since?
I faced reality by realizing that our role as Iraqi bloggers is bigger than we have thought and that majority of the people who read our blogs were unaware of the facts and the bitter reality that the war dragged on us. Having said that, I found majority of our readers who supported the war are still insisting that America was right. So basically I have lost faith in American people in General with apologizing for the Americans who were and still against the war and the killing of innocents.


Compared to the current situation in Iraq, how different was it before the war?

(snip)

Anyway, despite that before the war I used to beg Allah for a miracle to take Saddam and all his gang members away from us and despite the pain I felt when saw these strangers who invaded our streets and buildings I felt that it was the only way to get rid of him and feel free.

On a personal level, even if I couldn't manage to work for a good company for Saddam's Mukhabart used to control everything and at that time the good jobs used to go mostly to the people with the strong contacts and despite the brutal sanctions imposed on us by the USA , I never had a security problem, I never saw a dead body, I never had to deal with a friend who was raped ,I never had to freak out when ever I try to call a friend with no answer thinking the worse might happened, I never had a problem with what I wear, I used to go out with a bunch of girls up till 10 pm to take long walks either in Alrubai'e street, Mansour or Karrada, I used to take my mother and sister and go visit our aunt and get back home real late, three women in a car in the night in Baghdad (now the idea it self is a good base for a horror movie!!!) .The electricity back then was far better comparing to now, other services were not easy to have but I never had to stand in line for 7 hours to fill my car with fuel nor my parents had to stay for 4 hours on their feet to get oil to the heaters in winter. Long list my friend!

Now we have lost in three years more than we lost in 30 years. You do not have to dig under ground to look for hidden mascaras, the dead bodies are thrown in the streets, a huge operation was preformed against doctors, engineers, writers, journalists, university prophesiers to execute everything that is good in my country. Then if that was not enough, terrorists were encouraged to enter the country from the country's widest open doors, a corrupt government took over and a civil war was provoked. A lot of people fell in that game due to the lack of education since all the educated people were either killed or emigrated from the country and not forgetting the huge gap created by the sanctions which were on educational level as well.

Most of the middle class have fled or been killed. The professionals, the educated, the skilled, the wealty, have all left the country so that only the under educated, criminal, poor, are left behind. If things get bad in the Kurdish areas, the well-off there will flee also. It is shamful what the US has done to a once proud people whose only crime was living under a dictator that we supported for so long.

:kick: