One Week in Baghdad-The Blogger-WP

Here's a real eye opener! An Iraqi Blogger. See what life is really like for the average citizen under US occupation...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/03/18/BL2006031800700.html?sub=AR

BAGHDAD, Sunday, March 12 -- A sudden whizzzzzz . . . KABOOM sent me flying from the couch where I was dozing off, watching TV.

"What was that?" my father asked from the hallway.


page 2 snip: MONDAY

We passed through countless checkpoints manned by Iraqi troops. This time, the soldiers just waved us through. But sometimes they stop us, inquire about our destination, or they ask for our IDs. I stopped carrying mine some time ago; it gave out too much information, such as tribal, regional and sectarian background. You never know when you might end up at the wrong checkpoint. I just use my neutral work ID now.

Tuesday

Colleagues rushed, tea mugs in hand, to take a look at the TV screen. Our clinic director wasn't amused, watching his employees leave their posts, but he didn't protest. After all, there are no drugs in our pharmacy to prescribe, my dental chair hasn't been fixed for months -- and even if it was, there are no anesthetics for patients.



page 3 snip: WEDNESDAY

Being forced to leave your home is not a trivial affair. The last three years have witnessed scores of Iraqi professionals and businessman leaving to Jordan, Syria or Egypt, a second exodus of Iraqis far more alarming than that of the 90s. The country is slowly being stripped of its intelligentsia, and I fear that soon we will be left only with fanatics inside.

Following the Samarra bombing, many Shi'ite inhabitants of Sunni dominated areas north and west of Baghdad were forced to leave. In the south, a once sizeable Sunni community in Basrah, Nasiriya, Hilla and Samawa is diminishing day by day. Kurds in the north have regressed back behind their borders, further isolating themselves. Iraqi society is falling apart.

Page 4 snip:

FRIDAY

A quiet day, which left me to ponder a question that haunts me: We Iraqis continue to live between the hammer of terrorists and the anvil of American, British and Iraqi security forces. But what kind of a people are we to respond by killing our own?

I can't seem to get it without giving the WP some info.

I'd like to read it, but I don't want to have to "pay" for it.