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i bloggers are also less vocal than usual it is understandable that some of the rosy picture painters may be short of material but this cannot explain the silence of others there is no shortage of material there i myself have been having such difficulty it is anger and some element of desperation i nowadays have more feelings of fury and bitterness than inclinations towards rational discourse one writer who has emerged during the past year called himself shalash al iraqi he is a resident of sadr city with a great deal of first hand knowledge of that part of the city the name he has chosen certainly has redneck overtures he has a unique lovable writing style sarcastic critical and funny he writes in classical arabic but frequently interjects local terms and colloquial expressions he covered numerous subjects of present day iraq mainly concentrating on social and political aspects he has no love lost for the previous regime no time for the new political process no tolerance of the farce now called democracy and certainly no disposition for sectarianism i followed his writings closely with great admiration he never failed to make me chuckle while reading his essays he was mentioned now and then by vigilant outsiders such as cecile of streamtime dr imad khadduri sarted a blog to collect shalash s writings yet he remains largely unknown outside iraq shalash too was quiet for several months however over the past three weeks he has written three essays i will translate his last one to give a feel of a prevalent mood shalash is no longer funny shalash s new essay has a different flavor there is nothing funny or sarcastic about it it is entitled a desperate letter the essay is written in long paragraphs i have taken the liberty to segment it and tried my best to retain the original flavor but i cannot do that with the style a desperate letter as i and others expected the security plan became a cover for murderers and night gangs that have allied themselves with infiltrators into security forces to kill people and dump them in garbage piles otherwise how would those in charge of the plan explain how those killings assassinations kidnappings and abductions take place with such a massive deployment of armed forces and the nightly curfew how do those criminals move and do their deeds and how do they spread death in the streets in such cold blood are they ghosts that move outside the vision of check points during curfew hours or are they part of the forces implementing the curfew i know that the government has no explanation or is ashamed to admit the politically embarrassing truth people mr prime minister well know now that those death gangs are no longer secret death squads as the media are fond of calling them those same gangs are publically proclaiming their acts and that those death lists are being openly circulated between members of what you call militias the bitter truth brothers and i say this for the thousandth time is that certain gangs have infiltrated the sadrist movement with the knowledge of some of the movement s leaders they do all sorts of criminal acts and intimidate the police that they have infiltrated the disaster is that senior officers in the ministry of interior fear criminals who have criminal records in iraqi courts prior to the fall of baghdad the name of the sayyed s office branch of muqtada s offices now terrifies the police more than the previous regime s security forces terrified the people on top of that the crimes that started as political and revenge motivated liquidations have turned into a culture there is a new fearsome addiction to killing and taking pleasure in blood there are murders just for the sake of murder killings for reasons that the very act of contemplating is a crime against humanity now there are people who cannot go to bed before shattering people s skulls with their pistols what a sour life between the days of car bombs and nights of criminal gangs from this place from the mountains of pain terror solitude and fear i address the prime minister your excellency for a reason unknown to me i though well of you the solution is not through massive deployment of security forces police commandos and forces of occupation the simple solution is for you to go to sayyed muqtada and ask him to publicly disown those murderers and declare that they don t belong to his movement and remove his cover of them and leave the people to deal with them people already have lists of these gangsters and their connection to the sayyed s office is common knowledge sooner or later the people will take their revenge from those killers and when they do iraq will again sink in seas of blood in comparison to which the rivers of blood now flowing will seem like little ditches we have had enough the fearsome nights are stifling us and we now have come to hate the fall of baghdad we hate liberation we hate sunnis we hate shiites we hate turbans and sidaras baghdadi head gear a reference to adnan al dulaimi a sunni politician we hate jihad and jihadists resistance and resistors we hate concrete we hate streets and sidewalks we hate the ministries we hate establishments we hate news channels and news and communiqués we hate the parliament that has now become a venue for swearing in ceremonies and nothing else we hate songs we hate commercials we hate newspapers we hate cars and car depots we hate conferences we hate surprise visits we hate neighboring countries we hate the multinational forces we hate the night we hate the day we hate summer we hate the sun that sends hell we hate sleep we hate water and electricity we hate petrol and corruption and theft we hate sectarianism we hate sectarian allocations we hate reconciliation we hate the government of national unity we hate committees and commissions of integrity trash rehabilitation and silliness we hate political parties and organizations we hate assemblies demonstrations banners and chants we hate laughter we hate crying we hate work we hate study we hate each other and we hate ourselves but and this is our problem we still love something that was called iraq will you save what is left of this iraq what have they done to this country is this what they mean when they say freedom is messy and yet i still have hope it is people like shalash al iraqi who despite all their suffering have not lost their humanity and have not lost their compass that give me that hope posted by abu khaleel 2 23 pm friday may 05 2006 this blog is now a book this blog is now available as a book with the same title from lulu i have added a chapter with some details of tribal life and strife in the triangle of death this is what it says on the back cover a primer to the country and the people through facts and anecdotes the country s composition and diversity in ethnic religious urban rural and civic tribal terms the occupation the chaos and lawlessness that followed and their effect on the lives of people and individuals a look into the triangle of death one of the most volatile regions from the inside showing some of the intricacies of tribal relations but above all this book is about people it aims to illustrate how ordinary people dealt with the traumatic situation why civil war was so hard to ignite and why there is still hope it may help the reader understand the failure to understand that led to failure posted by abu khaleel 4 28 pm saturday december 31 2005 the mess pot the greeks were here too iraq was known to the greeks as mesopotamia the land between the two rivers this is such an apt name much of iraq s long history is influenced in one way or another by those two rivers tigris and euphrates alexander the great himself also liberated iraq he actually died here reportedly from an overdose of the local liquor araq a powerful drink made from palm dates and never drunk straight when the british liberated iraq during the first world war the british boys began calling iraq jokingly the mess pot a mess pot it is now that the americans have also liberated iraq it is their turn to learn what a mess pot they have got themselves into somehow they even managed to add a bit of an extra mess to it themselves this blog has been my attempt to give a tiny glimpse of my tiny glimpse of iraq i hope that i have been truthful posted by abu khaleel 8 58 pm baghdad taxi dance i was watching a short documentary on one of the many new tv channels the other day the crew was accompanying a taxi driver around a day of usual business in baghdad describing his experiences with people traffic jams and dangers the man who seemed to be in his late 40 s was an engineer who had left for britain in 1989 and then went to malaysia for a better jib he was laid off and took another job as a calligrapher of qur anic verses that took him to abu dhabi he missed baghdad and according to his narrative was prodded by his wife s nagging he came back home the only job he found he could do was using his own car as a taxi this reminded me of the many taxi drivers i met over the past few years in fact taking a ride in a cab in baghdad and in other iraqi towns is almost always a unique experience although there was always a law prohibiting the use of private cars as taxis nobody bothered to enforce that law since the onset of those sanctions in 1990 you therefore meet all sorts of people working as taxi drivers teenagers granddads university professors civil servants engineers jobless army officers and occasionally the professional taxi driver before the invasion i rarely took a cab although i always hated traffic congestions those were usually manageable before the unchecked rush of new cars the total abandonment of traffic signals traffic laws and the absence of traffic police rendered driving in baghdad almost a unique and detestable experience now the traffic police are back but the numerous roadblocks the various check points and the continuing disregard to all traffic laws still makes driving in baghdad a nasty experience after the invasion i began increasingly relying on taxis for a variety of reasons in addition to avoid driving i used to take long walks for the benefit of my bad back go to the internet shop etc and then come back home in a taxi taking a taxi in baghdad has its own rituals as soon as the taxi stops he is told of the destination if he doesn t like it he says so sometimes apologizing sometimes he just drives off the price is then negotiated once that matter is settled you get in men invariably take the front seat next to the driver and chat all the way to the destination women take the back seat and keep to themselves following the usual greeting of allah bil khair the dance begins both driver and passenger start making tentative small talk to gauge one another for extreme views or simply to determine where the other guy stands on the most important issues the idea is to just touch on a few subjects and see the other s reaction to them this dance usually takes about three minutes most people are very efficient and get that ritual out of the way in the minimum of time the driver is usually the more cautious party he usually has to keep a long list of dangers in mind drivers know of too many stories of taxi drivers being stabbed or killed for their cars having an old run down car is no guarantee of safety once that is done a wide variety of topics depending on the two people and their moods and interests are talked about like barbers taxi drivers are usually full of stories they meet so many different people everyday from all walks of life if you can identify their personal filters and biases you can learn a lot about the pulse of the street from a half hour taxi ride posted by abu khaleel 8 42 pm monday december 19 2005 cultural differences and respect how can chewing gum be lethal there is no shortage of cultural traits and behaviors iraqi people have which give cause to despise these people i can list hundreds of such traits this essay is not about that it is a view from the other side these little glimpses depict some of the cultural differences that led to enormous consequences following the american invasion of iraq different people simply react differently to similar stimuli what can only be seen as perfectly normal actions in one culture can convey unintended images to another in many instances society expects a certain mode of behavior it was a short video clip on tuesday november 22nd 2005 there was a ceremony where the us army was handing over saddam s palace in tikrit to the iraqi authorities the american ambassador to iraq zalmay khalilzad was present in addition to other dignitaries iraqi and american there was a thud the place was targeted by a mortar shell that didn t explode the clip showed a small glimpse of the chaos that followed men in expensive suits hiding themselves behind chairs men in army uniforms some started to run some crouched and some moved rapidly to protect their superiors and their charge one soldier threw himself to the ground face down but for a few seconds i noticed a group of four iraqis in traditional arab dress who remained sanding quietly i thought that was fascinating i am almost certain i saw one of them smiling weren t those people afraid of course they were but they couldn t show it this brought to memory a tribal sheikh i knew who used to take his only son with him to the weekly tribal gathering a routine assembly where tribal kin met and discussed things of common interest and solved some of the conflicts that needed addressing for most part of a day that young teenager had to endure long sessions of what must have been boring proceedings and discussions if the boy as much as turned his head quickly following a sudden noise such as a slamming door or a shattered glass of water that man would scold the boy on the way back home sudden undignified movements like those were simply unacceptable for a future tribal chief perhaps this example is a somewhat extreme but it illustrates the point i am trying to make it also reminded me of a news conference given by saddam s minister of defense sultan h ahmed shortly before the fall of baghdad the man was sitting at a table behind him was a curtain or a tent wall those who saw that briefing may remember it for something else this man said that he expected the american army to reach baghdad within five days at the same time when the infamous information minister sahhaf was declaring victory during the interview there were several very loud blasts the curtain shook the man either when listening or while talking did not even blink an eye in much of tribal iraq which includes about half of all iraqis people in positions of leadership or authority are expected to remain calm and collected at all times including times of crises posture is of utmost importance this of course is not unique to iraqis one of the major impressions that killed the halo of invincibility of the us army in iraq was the perfectly normal reaction of...