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Text of the page (random words):
e who had to be helped by an outsider they are now but what did the us administration choose to do it pooped on them it allowed saddam to start a persecution of shia that was so extreme it left the country with deep scars that will take a long time to heal even the political situation would have been easier to handle the rift between shia and sunnis wasn t as big as it is now the country still had its secular educated class which now is all over the world having turned to political and economic refugees trying to escape the claws of saddam and the difficult economic situation in iraq after the war and the sanctions but as i said it is no use crying over spilt milk we have to deal with what we have now you say or should he have been left in power isolated from the international community and basically allowing the maintenance of the status quo well that is exactly what the bush administration chose to do at the time isn t it but that policy didn t just isolate saddam but the iraqi people and gave him more power over the destinies of iraqis we became so dependant on a government that wasn t at all fit to take care of us anyway all that doesn t matter now saddam is gone thanks to you was it worth it be assured it was we all know that it got to a point where we would have never been rid of saddam without foreign intervention i just wish it would have been a bit better planned does this mean that i will be wearing a i heart bush t shirt no because i don t believe there is any altruism in politics and the way he sees the world scares me what i do really and sincerely hope for is that the day you and other soldiers and us civilians here don t have to stay behind those high concrete walls isn t too far away and that you feel safe walking in the streets without those hard and heavy flak jackets so that we can sit and talk about these things in a karrada street tea shop there are many challenges iraqis have to face now so please stick around a bit longer and try helping us get thru them one of the more serious challenges is the fact that iraq has become a sort of an open playground for many political and religious factions who are using iraq as a fighting ground so there you have it mr somewhere in the north of iraq and by the way you never told me whether you had a blog or not this post was created with the assistance of asian dub foundation in the cd player and the great coffee i got as a present form my new blog friends in my mug pax out posted by salam at 6 42 pm tuesday february 10 2004 the wise oracle of gotham asks mister president can you give us the names of three national guard service colleagues who served with you between may 1972 and october 1973 she would have also liked to ask whether he has ever snorted coke blame her for making me think that kerry might be able to be the superhero who will save the universe i do think iraqis should worry about the presidential elections in the usa it is scary how much influence someone sitting so far away has over the destiny of a nation posted by salam at 3 54 pm you live in this place for most of your life and you think you know most of the religious festivals and traditions in your country right wrong i walked thru karada street last night only to be surprised by men standing in the middle of an intersection giving away sweets and candy to people in cars and a couple of kids with what was supposed to be fireworks karada which is a predominantly shai neighborhood was full of signs congratulating the shia nation on the occasion of the eid al ghadeer eid is a religious celebration not wanting to look like an idiot i took the candy shook hands with the nice gentlemen and ran home to my in house shia expert my mom she gave me the strangest answer ever oh yes ghadeer of course you have to go find and kiss 7 illwiya s it will bring you good luck illwiya is a female descendant from the family of the prophet kids when your parents give you strange answers try google her sister was a bit more helpful she suggested i go take a look at the final speech made by the prophet mohammed before he died the farewell speech but i still didn t get it there is nothing in it that would make the shia so especially happy unless there is something my school textbook is not saying as i said try google it turns out that the ghadeer thing is the best way to explain the shia sunni schism in a nutshell sit comfortably take a sip of that beer and get ready for a story it is the year 10 according to the muslim calendar the prophet has just finished his first and last pilgrimage to mecca to the house of allah on his way back he announces to the 100 000 muslims following him on that pilgrimage that he has just received a message thru the heavenly information highway they stop at a small pond called khumm pond in arabic is ghadeer which makes it ghadeer khum the prophet delivers his last speech to the congregation starting with saying that he fears he will not meet the faithful in this place next year somewhere in the middle he says the following i am leaving for you two precious things and if you adhere both of them you will never go astray after me they are the book of allah and my progeny which is my ahlul bayt so with that his family his descendants were given a free divine upgrade so to say but it gets better later in that speech he also says whoever i am his leader mawla ali is his leader mawla o allah love those who love him and be hostile to those who are hostile to him and presto you have a schism you see there were others who had their eyes on the quickly growing thing that was called islam and they were not going to give that over to this young ali just because he was the prophet s cousin as i pointed out earlier their full name was shi at ali which means the group of ali they were the people who have and are still trying to assert the right of the prophet s descendents to lead the muslim community and eid al ghadeer is a big thing because they plaster the streets that bit from muhammad s speech man kuntu mowlahu fa haza aliyun mowlahu this ali is the mawla of all those of whom i am mawla this in a nutshell is the start of the split in islam hope you enjoyed the story on the long list of things that i have not seen or experienced before the fall of saddam i can now add a new item eid al ghadeer happy eid al ghadeer to you all there was one sign that was so creative in what it proclaimed i thought it deserved a picture it says ali the talking book of allah imagine that two funfacts about eid al ghadeer funfact 1 everey year right after the haj ceremonies the saudi government make sure that the pilgrims from shia nations are on the move and not anywhere near the ghadeer where that speech took place just imagine it a celebration of shia legitimacy in a sunni country we can t have that can we now funfact 2 the thing about kissing seven illwiya s for good luck i was wondering why the streets of karrada didn t turn into a kissing fest when i was told that my mind was filthy girls kiss girls and the boys kiss boys on the cheek my mind is not filthy excuse me now i have to go find 7 boys to kiss posted by salam at 3 15 pm monday february 09 2004 shamless self promotion the coolest cover the of the book has to be the japanese edition and a polish blogger told me about a site that sells the polish edition update a reader from brazil sent me a link to a sitr selling the brazillian edition they seem to have chosen a starnge format posted by salam at 4 16 am saturday february 07 2004 yesterday was raed s birthday did you wish him a good one i bet you didn t shame on you posted by salam at 5 04 am the plan was to spend 5 days in sulaimaniya cousins 4 and 5 my brother and i to go to the north of iraq for eid but at the first day of eid we saw those horrible attacks in erbil and decided it would probably be better not to go the plan was to go there take pictures and blog well the plan fell flat on its face and i will have to do this from my bedroom in baghdad i have a confession to make well not really a confession it has been on the blog before but the issue was never properly addressed part of outing yourself is to have the thing out in the open and face it head on i have been standing on the wrong side of the fence concerning the kurdish issue even before the war when people were theoretically discussing future models of iraq the idea of a federal state made me feel a bit uneasy the thought that the kurds might not like us arab iraqis at all was always brushed away i needed to hear someone talk about the issue form a very arab nationalistic point of view to realize that i am not looking at the other side at all the arab nation is a myth that many arabs still believe in the main problem with that point of view is that it forgets the diversity of traditions culture and races in the so called arab world the way i saw it was the kurds had to stick to iraq the bonds the ties kurds and arabs united and all that well it is all bullshit it is actually arab iraqis who seriously need to beg kurds to stay along for the difficult ride the rest of the country is going to go thru the next couple of years the kurds have been thru this and an almost working democracy and governing system has emerged after 13 years of self rule we will be the unwanted load on their shoulders we should be grateful if they agreed to stay within the boundaries of iraq as part of a federation the discussion about the kurdish issue gets you the weirdest reactions from people it is at points like an atheist and a believer discussing the existence of a deity there is simply no answer and tempers will flare people will get angry and as we have seen in the past this is an issue that could lead to civil war a federal state is not an option it is a necessity there is no way around it a federal state along geographical lines as some people describe it will not work it will be along ethnic lines you say it will rip us apart mmhhm yep it will but it is a necessity you say no it will be fine i say look at the signs even before we are declared a federal state ministries are becoming tiny experiments for how the future will look like to get anything a job a promotion in a ministry where a shia minister has been appointed you better be shia not only that but it would be favorable if you were a member of the same party ministry of oil is shia ministry of communication is also shia but dawa party and it makes all the difference if you get the right references now imagine what would happen if we had a three part iraq do you really believe that a sunni from central iraq could really get a job in southern iraq wouldn t the kurd rather have another kurd working for him because he just doesn t trust arabs i have experienced this when i was working with journalists my presence was silence inducing the moment they realize i am arab but we have to go the way of a federal state time will heal the wounds and we will learn our lessons just as long as we can stay within this political entity called iraq what it means to be iraqi has to change at the moment i am kind of worried that our fellow kurdish blogger might be offended if he were called an iraqi to have a post titled how to finish off racism in a racist country like iraq some kurdish thoughts isn t a good sign is it my new computer background image says re examine every thought and concept you have posted by salam at 4 52 am a couple of months after the war ended the us army started blowing up uxo s unexploded ordinance it took me forever to figure out what those three letters meant they issued a warning saying that explosions on the top or half hour were controlled explosions just so that we wouldn t freak out almost half a year later i still look at my watch every time i hear an explosion i noticed my cousin does the same thing you wish and hope that this is one of those controlled explosions even when i am not really sure the us army is still blowing up ordinance at those times i was woken up by an explosion today opened my eyes and looked at my watch it was 20 past eight went back to sleep wondering if this is going to be big enough to make the news there are too many of them to mention the whole lot and around 11pm there was another explosion very close you look at your watch and think oh dear two days ago i spent the night at my apartment instead of staying over at my parent s i don t go there too often anymore it is too close to the green zone too much gunfire at night by now almost every iraqi can tell the difference between a kalashnikov what the so called resistance is likely to carry and the sound of the machine guns us troops have the constant reminders that it is not over yet posted by salam at 3 15 am it all becomes a mess the moment the poor traffic policeman decides to take a break one of the main features of post war baghdad are the amazing traffic jams the cool thing is the moment it gets too crazy someone will jump out of his car and do the policman thing waving his arms around and shouting or the newspaper guy will volunteer posted by salam at 3 07 am in a simple small room with blue mattresses laid on the floor to sit on ayatollah sistani one of his sons and an assistant met a group of sunni university professors tribe leaders and dignitaries during the 3 hour meeting not one single verse from the quran was recited he expressed his fear that federalism might lead to the fragmentation of iraq and said that if the elections had to be delayed for legitimate reasons he will endorse the delay my father came back from this meeting quite awed in preparation for the transition of power to iraqi hands there have been numerous conferences and discussion groups starting at neighborhood levels and going up to more specialized discussions this has been going on for quite a while and i know that he my father was invited to a couple of them to talk i read one of the papers he wrote on forms of representation he s a caucus type of guy which kind of makes sense in the current situation the country is not really ready for a direct one vote per citizen type of thing security issues and fraud and the lack of experienced people to monitor the elections come into play anyway after a couple of those meetings a group of sunni participants were invited to go and talk to al sistani my father didn t tell me the what and how because he knows i ll blog it my family used to tell me things before they knew about this bad habit i have but he came back quite impressed saying things like you wouldn t find a more secular imam which is of course an oxymoron but it could have been the fact that it was late and he had nothing to eat the whole day my mom sat with her hands crossed giving him the ha so what did you think you ll meet a raving lunatic look just i case you are new to this my father is a non praying sunni my mother is a praying shia a sistani shia and i think the quran is a very boring novel apparently there is another ...