THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

By all estimates; a greater percentage of Iraqis than U.S. Americans will risk their lives to participate in this "joke". Your larger submissions are scroll-pasts but this little one caught my eye and is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Dtom writes

Quote:

and if, if, they do, will you call that a "photo op"?

To the best of my knowledge I don't think the 'righties' are organized as a political activist organization as the 'lefties' are. And I think you have to agree they appear to be in a distinct minority in Hollywood.

Naw, all the righties that have gone to Iraq have gone as ISO to entertain the troops and they contribute that way.

BAGHDAD - Sitting in her dark, cramped apartment during another seemingly interminable power failure, Karima Selman Methboub promises to cast aside her family's fears of violence and doubts about the new Iraq to vote in landmark elections on Sunday.

"We are under the mercy of Allah - I will take all my family with me," says the matriarch, nodding at some of her eight children. "If something will happen, we will all die together."

Interesting distraction, that. Thanks for the link. Pity you don't understand democracy any better than Raed... or his family though.

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Thursday, January 27, 2005

Water Anxiety...
I have to make this fast. We have about two hours of electricity- hopefully. The water came back yesterday evening. It's just a little drizzle but it's certainly better than nothing.

E. was the first to hear it. We were sitting in the living room and he suddenly jumped up, alert, "Do you hear that?" He asked. I strained my ears for either the sound of a plane or helicopter or gun shots. Nothing... except, wait... something... like a small stream of... water? Could it be? Was it back? We both ran into the bathroom where we had the faucets turned on for the last eight days in anticipation of water. Sure enough, there it was- a little stream of water that kept coming and going as if undecided. E. and I did a little victory dance in front of the sink with some celebratory hoots and clapping.

This was followed by a lot of work. We spent the rest of the evening filling anything that was fillable- pots, pans, cups, bottles and buckets. The formerly empty area under the staircase is now filled with big pots of water covered with trays and mismatching pot covers to keep out stray bugs and dust.

I almost didn't sleep last night. I kept worrying the water would be cut off again. I actually crept downstairs at 4 a.m. to see if it was still there and found E. standing in the bathroom doorway doing the same. My mother is calling the syndrome "water anxiety". We were hoping the flow would grow stronger at night but apparently the water pressure is really low. E. and I rose early this morning because we decided last night that should the water continue to flow, we'd attempt to fill up the big water tank on the roof. The water from this tank goes directly to the electric water heater but since we haven't been using that for a while now, we decided to close up the tank and use it as a sort of secondary storage. We cannot get caught off-guard again. Drinking water rose to almost 1,000 Dinars a liter this last week.

E. and I spent the day carrying up buckets of water. The water flow is so weak, it takes about 17 minutes to fill up a 10 liter plastic pail (I was timing it). We've carried up about 10 buckets until now. The water still doesn't reach the kitchen faucets so we've managed to move the dirty dishes to the bathroom and are washing them there.

Unfortunately, the electricity situation has deteriorated. We're getting about four hours for every twenty hours in our area- I'm not quite sure what's going on in the other areas. It feels like we're almost cut off from each other.

Baghdad has been unstable these last few days. We had several explosions this last week and although the number of explosions wasn't surprising, the force of a couple of them had us wincing. There's a real fear of the coming elections and what they might bring. I don't like the idea that they've selected schools as election sites. School is out right now, but the security threat is obvious- elections sites are most likely going to be bombed. Schools are having a difficult time as it is getting things fixed and replaced, they don't need the added trauma of an explosion. It's just a bad idea.

The curfew begins at six from now on and there's also a "driving curfew" in addition to the ordinary one. I don't have the exact hours but I know that during several hours of the day, it's ok to be on foot but not ok to be in a car. I don't have the slightest idea how they're going to enforce that one.

Ghazi Al Yawir, our alleged current president, was giving an interview on LBC yesterday. Apparently, he and Allawi aren't on the same election list anymore because they had a falling out as to who should head the list. Ghazi proposed the president should be the head of the list and Allawi claimed somebody Shia (Allawi himself) should head the list. Now, Allawi's group is 285 on the election ballot and Yawir's group is 288, I think.

My favorite question during the interview was when the reporter asked him what he thought of Chalabi possibly being arrested. Ghazi looked flustered and a little bit unsure (apparently he hasn't been watching CNN while abroad). He actually told her that the person who claimed Chalabi was wanted was probably speaking his own "personal" opinion and that it wasn't representative of the 'government'- never mind the person in question was the Minister of Defense. To be perfectly fair, he didn't mention which government he was referring to- I couldn't tell if he was talking about the US, the UK or the current group of Puppets. He claimed that for Chalabi to be arrested there needed to be 'proof' he had actually done something wrong... the Interpol wanting him really wasn't enough.

It's a bit discouraging to watch the current government so uncoordinated. It's like they don't even communicate with each other. It's also somewhat disturbing to know that they can't seem to decide who is a criminal and who isn't. Isn't there some "idiots guide to being a good Vichy government"?

They say communications are going to be cut off very soon. Telephones are often cut off and the mobile network is sometimes inaccessible for days at a time but we heard there also might not be web access. Students have a mid-year vacation right now but no one is going anywhere. Almost everyone is trapped at home because the security situation is quite bad and no one wants to be caught in an area where an explosion might occur. If the bomb doesn't kill you, the Iraqi security forces or the Americans might and if no one kills you then you risk getting a bag over the head and a trip to Abu Ghraib.

There's an almost palpable anxiety in the air these last couple of weeks and it's beginning to wear on people- fuel shortages, water shortages and a lack of electricity. It's like the first days of the war all over again.

Juan Cole has a "The Speech Bush SHOULD have Given" and it's quite good. In my opinion, during this year's inaugral Bush could have summed it up with the following: "Ha! I can't believe you people actually re-elected me! Unbelievable! Some people just loooove the abuse!!!"

- posted by river @ 4:29 PM

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Interesting distraction, that. Thanks for the link. Pity you don't understand democracy any better than Raed... or his family though.

He is there .... where are you?
I dare say he has forgotten more on the subject than you willl ever suspect. I never met an expert on what other people know or don't know .... how do you do it?

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Interesting distraction, that. Thanks for the link. Pity you don't understand democracy any better than Raed... or his family though.

He is there .... where are you?
I dare say he has forgotten more on the subject than you willl ever suspect. I never met an expert on what other people know or don't know .... how do you do it?

What does his location have to do with understanding democracy? If anything, I would think it a disadvantage, no?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Gelisgesti wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Interesting distraction, that. Thanks for the link. Pity you don't understand democracy any better than Raed... or his family though.

He is there .... where are you?
I dare say he has forgotten more on the subject than you willl ever suspect. I never met an expert on what other people know or don't know .... how do you do it?

What does his location have to do with understanding democracy? If anything, I would think it a disadvantage, no?

Not a thing.... I don't think you can tell what a man knows or does not know at that distance when you would'nt know him if he walked right up to you. Where do you get off bad mouthing a man and his family when you don't even know them. That action does not bolster your self percieved knowledgeability..

Patrick Henry: "It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace!—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethen are already in the field. Why stay we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me: give me liberty, or give me death!"

February 2005
The War Against World War IV
Normn Podhoretz
…
Until 9/11, the realists undoubtedly represented the single most influential school of thought in the world of foreign policy, with all others considered
naïve or dangerous or both (though a patronizing pass might occasionally be given to liberal internationalists). It would not be going too far to say that for everyone of any great importance in that world, whether as a theorist or a practitioner, the realist perspective was axiomatic. And being, as it were, the default position, it was almost automatically adopted by George W. Bush, too, in his pre-9/11 incarnation. But on 9/11, Bush’s more or less reflexive realism took so great a hit that it collapsed in flames just as surely as did the Twin Towers.

Bush made no secret of his repudiation of realism, and he did not pussyfoot around it:
For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability and much oppression, so I have changed this policy.

That took care of the first guiding precept of the realist perspective. And Bush was equally forthright—almost brutal—in giving the back of his hand to the realist prohibition against using force to transform the internal character of other states:
Some who call themselves realists question whether the spread of democracy in the Middle East should be any concern of ours. But the realists in this case have lost contact with a fundamental reality:
America has always been less secure when freedom is in retreat; America is always more secure when freedom is on the march.
...

NORMAN PODHORETZ is the editor-at-large of COMMENTARY and the author of ten
books. His essay, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We
Have to Win," appeared in our September 2004 issue.