Triggers

A bright ray of sun coming in through the window shades woke me up. My head was pounding and my mouth was dry as if I was sleeping in the desert. I opened my eyes slowly trying to reduce the light's unforgiving effect on my pupils. I scanned the room. My full-bookcase, my TV, an empty glass. I peeled the blanket off my chest slowly like a prisoner making his escape.

I sat on the bed cradling my head between my palms. What happened? Where was I? Ah! I remembered. It was a nightmare.

I put on my sports T-Shirt and short and sneakers and got ready for my daily jogging. I decided to run faster today. I wanted to forget all the wounds I encountered in Baghdad. I put on the headphones and started listening to hard rock songs. It was weird to hear these songs since I never liked them before. I just wanted them to fill my head with loud music to make me forget what I had seen in my nightmare. But then it all started. A rush of thoughts, flashbacks, feelings, and moments. With every step I ran, I felt the pain of both of my leg muscles and my horrific past. I kept running watching nothing in front of me but a chain of images I had seen, a cut leg, a drilled corpse, a child sobbing, a woman beating her head, a school destroyed, piles of corpses, the smell of the morgue, the daily coffins on taxi cabs and KIA minibuses. They were like panorama chain images. I kept running, faster and faster, but more images came before me. Um Bashar, my father’s friend and neighbor, funerals, shattered bodies, destroyed buildings, burned corpses, hospitals blood-covered floors. I raised the songs volume, but in vain. The sounds and voices of explosions and people’s cries were louder. My heart was pounding fast. I thought it was because I was running, but it was different. I didn’t have this feeling since I was caught in the middle of street fighting on the highway in Baghdad. It was the same feeling I had when I was covering a bombing at an army recruiting center when an ambulance arrived and everybody shouted “car bomb”. It was the same feeling I had when I went to the morgue covering the reprisal attacks after the Samara bombing.

I hit my head with my hand and yelled at myself within myself. “Stop it. Stop it. Leave me alone.” Then I stopped running didn’t feel but my feet running me back to the house. I took a deep breath and bent down and then sat at the grass. I remembered what was this all about. Anderson Cooper’s 360!

It's never quite over. After all the sadness, the anger and the healing, after it happened and done, it can all come back in an instant. Set off by a trigger with the unrelenting power to roll back time. Last night after reading some chapters from the new book I started reading, I decided to watch a movie or a TV show or anything that makes me sleepy after the two tea mugs I had. I tried with all my senses not to watch the news. I made sure that morning that my family has survived the day. I knew better than to do it, but I couldn’t help it. An addict falling off the wagon. I hated myself for being so weak. My eyes follow the words on the screen. Month of Mayhem. Where else than in Baghdad a month of Mayhem would happen, I asked myself.

Before I got to the image of Anderson Cooper, I come back to my senses and hit the next channel button. I've learned my lesson not to open the wounds again, but quickly realized I couldn't. Too much love to my country. I switched back to CNN. An image, one small gesture, and the sadness which seemed to have almost disappeared found its way back from the dead, like a serial killer in bad horror flick.

Mayhem was the word the CNN reporter described what Baghdad was going through. His one-hour-interview with Anderson triggered all what I had seen during the time I worked as a reporter with the American newspaper.

I got up from the grass, determined, I started running again. This time, my mother’s voice came louder. “Live your life.” I ran faster shouting within myself “I will. For you, for Iraq for my future.” I will live my life, but I will never ever forget, and as we say, the strike that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Assif Muhammad, Iraq "I have lost everything"

I read this heartbreaking story about a widower pleading for help for his seven-year-old daughter who is suffering from cancer, and thought of sharing it with you.

BAGHDAD, Asif Muhammad, a 32-year-old engineer, says he is desperately looking for help for his child who is suffering from cancer. A widower since his wife was killed a year ago in a Baghdad explosion, he is trying to survive and take care of his only child, seven-year-old daughter Maysoon.

Muhammad has no money and two months ago was sacked, he says, because of his sect. Now looking for a job and treatment for his daughter, Muhammad said he has to save her life because after losing his wife he cannot bear to lose his daughter. Should he lose her, he says, he would prefer to die.

"I'm in a critical situation. I don't have money for my daughter's treatment. She was recently diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. Government hospitals lack medicines and I cannot buy from private pharmacies because the prices are astronomical.

"I have looked for help from an NGO but they don't hand out medicines and with each day it is proving more difficult to get a job because of the sectarian violence.

"I was a perfect employee, doing my job responsibly and respectfully but two months ago people in the office started to disagree with my decisions, especially when I failed to approve some projects which weren't good enough. As they were mostly Shi'a, they put pressure on my boss to sack me - without explanation or compensation for my three years of service.

"I rent my house and I don't know how I will continue to pay the rent. If I don't get a job I will be forced to leave and look for a displacement camp where I can stay with my daughter.

"She was always the jewel of my life"

"Ghadah, my 29-year-old wife who was killed last year, was an amazing partner. She was always the jewel of my life. She was food-shopping when a car exploded near the market taking her life and those of dozens of other innocent people.

"I have lost everything and cannot lose the only remaining thing in my life. I have to save Maysoon but I'm getting desperate because she doesn't know that her problem is so critical and that without proper treatment she could die any time. She smiles all the time and this makes me more sad and distressed.

"We live in a Sunni district of the capital which has been the scene of fighting and sectarian violence.

"I will keep looking for a job and treatment for Maysoon and God will help me, I'm sure. Life in Iraq has become chaotic because people have lost faith in each other as never before.

"During Saddam Hussein's regime, people would have collected money and tried to buy the medicines for my child, but today when you ask for help or even a loan, they just say they have too much on their minds to think of saving the life of a stranger."

Don't They Deserve Support?

I’ve been following the news of the three missing U.S. soldiers since it happened. It’s the talk of the town. Every channel speaks nothing about the war but how to save the lives of those soldiers. It is incredibly amazing how the U.S. government and army are doing their utmost efforts to rescue these soldiers which is something I respect the Americans for. The lives of the soldiers are very much important for them that they offered a two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who leads the US army to the place where those soldiers are held.

Since the incident I couldn’t but think of the poor nine Iraqi soldiers who were executed by al-Qaeda militants who sadly control huge parts in the country. I was thinking why didn’t the Iraqi government offered to help or drain a canal to find the missing Iraqi soldiers? Are their souls that cheap? Aren’t they fighting the fiercest enemy on earth? What about their families? Their mothers, sisters, sons and daughters, and wives? Didn’t they deserve to be rescued as well? Is there anything else left to make me respect this terrible government?

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Silencing Truth

In a war zone, the truth factor plays a big role. Journalists are usually the tools for this truth. To let the world hear and see how real life looks like in Iraq, journalists-Iraqi and western- sacrifice themselves to let the news takes its way to the viewer, reader and listener. This is a fact that no one can argue about. But when there is a ban on the freedom of the press, the world should be completely alert because the suffering of the innocent people will not be heard anymore.

I have just read a news article by the Associated Press headlined “No photos allowed after Iraqi blasts.”

Here is the article as it was broadcasted today on Yahoo News. I think all of us should be alert. Freedom? Democracy? Any comment?

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Police fired warning shots in the air at the scene of a double bombing Tuesday, enforcing an order banning news photographers and TV camera operators from filming the aftermath of deadly bombings.

The Iraqi government said it decided last weekend to keep photographers and camera crews away from blast sites to prevent them from damaging forensic evidence. Media groups feared the order was aimed at preventing scenes of horrific carnage from being broadcast around the world.

The ban got its first test Tuesday, when a pair of bombs hidden in plastic bags exploded in two shops selling CDs and cigarettes in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad. Police said at least seven people were killed and 17 wounded.

News photographers and cameraman rushed to the scene only to be turned away by Iraqi police, who fired warning shots in the air to disperse the crowds.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf defended the decision and said it would only last for an hour after the explosion.

He said the move was not designed to curtail press freedom but to protect evidence and the privacy of the wounded. He also said the government wanted to keep insurgents from filming the scene for use in propaganda videos.

"I would like to say that this is not a total ban. It is a short ban because after one hour from the explosion, journalists will have the freedom to do their work," he added, saying the ban was nationwide and would include the state-run TV station Iraqiya.

Iraqi and U.S. authorities have frequently complained that the publicity surrounding car bombings and suicide attacks is jeopardizing their efforts to stop the violence, which has proven unrelenting as Sunni insurgents adopt new tactics to evade stepped-up security measures.

Reporters Without Borders expressed concern about the decision, saying it "feared that growing restrictions on the media could end in a total news blackout."

The international advocacy group stressed the importance of the images in providing an accurate assessment of the toll the violence is taking on Iraqi lives as well as the security situation in the capital, where movement is severely limited.

"When the streets become impassable and the authorities provide no information about the attacks in real time, the role of the reporter becomes essential. Coverage of these attacks allows people to evaluate the security risk and to avoid dangerous areas," it said.

Shihab al-Tamimi, the head of the Iraqi Journalists Union, said he understood the Interior Ministry's concerns.

"But at the same time, the security forces should give more understanding to the work of journalists. The journalists have a job to do and they should be able to do it if it does not break a law. For example, if a photographer is after a picture at the explosion site, that does not make him a propagandist for insurgents," al-Tamimi said.

Iraqi authorities often have been criticized for imposing media restrictions since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In August 2004, the government closed the Baghdad news office of Al-Jazeera television, accusing the station of inciting violence. The office is still closed but the station operates in the Kurdish-ruled area of the north.

Reporters Without Borders also noted that the Iraqi parliament voted May 9 to take legal action against Al-Jazeera over perceived insults against top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In December 2006, parliament also briefly banned journalists from covering its sessions.

Earlier this month, Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as a "clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world," cited the Iraqi government for retaining repressive laws from Saddam's era and for the detentions of journalists without charge.

___

Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Symbols

When Kahramana helped the police catch the forty famous thieves by pouring oil in the jars where they were hiding, she became a famous character across the world. The magic talented hands of Mohammed Ghani beautified one of the most famous squares in Baghdad with a sculptor of Kahramana pouring the oil on the thieves who were hiding in the jars.

The sculpture stood in Baghdad for decades welcoming people from allover the world and telling them a story of a famous imprint of how beautiful Baghdad was.

My grandparents’ house was in Karrada where the beautiful statue stood. When I was a child, I remember my parents taking us there every Thursday night and we would pass by the statue at night on our way there. I still remember how fascinating it was every single time I passed by it. Every time I looked at it, I remember the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which I read and watched its cartoon since I was five.

Today, Kahramana stands sad with some of her jars broken. A recent car bomb explosion broke some of them leaving it damaged like everything else in the city. Maybe the explosion was meant to kill civilians or army forces, but for me, it was also meant to destroy the jars to rescue the thieves hiding in them to help them continue destroying and killing people, but most importantly to rob the smile from our faces, rob our lives, and rob Baghdad’s beautiful appearance.

After insurgents damaged parts of this sculpture, al-Maliki’s government made sure to destroy the other. The Arch of Victory, another great piece by Mohammed Ghani, is on its way to disappear from Baghdad’s sights. Each arch consists of a pair of hands holding crossed swords. The two arches mark the entrances to a parade-ground constructed to commemorate Saddam's declaration of victory over Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Since the US-led occupation to Iraq, Iran has become extremely successful in controlling vast areas in Iraq, especially Baghdad and the southern cities by deciding even what should stay and what should be removed. The first sculpture they ordered Prime Minister Jafari was the one in Palestine Street. That sculpture embodied the sever harsh treatment of the Iraqi prisoners of war in Iran where one Iraqi soldier’s arms were chopped off as he was pulled by two Iranian military vehicles from opposite sides. Today, the hands that held the swords of the Victory Arch are now bronze sheets curled on the ground.

Let them destroy everything they want. But what they don’t know is that history cannot be erased. Sculptures will be rebuilt and arches will be raised again one day to mark the new victory.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Cemetery for Journalists

On the World Press Freedom Day, Baghdad witnessed a new attack. This time the attack was against one of the most popular entertainment radio stations, Dijla, where guards and other radio staffers battled with dozens of gunmen who stormed the building, killing one guard and wounding two others.

Radio Dijla [Radio Tigris], is Iraq's first independent talk radio station which brings Iraqis a lively mix of music and the uncensored opinions of ordinary people. For many who live in the middle of the war-torn Baghdad, listening to music and radio talk shows is a kind of relief that they miss these days with all the death threats and the shattered bodies they encountered here and there.

For extremism, entertainment is something forbidden. Continuing their evil campaign against journalists earlier, they never hesitated in attacking any other soft target like Radio Dijlah. After trying to assassinate Iraq’s most respected and popular radio and TV anchor Amal al-Muddaris, and after killing Khamel Muhsin who spent decades in the Iraqi media, they tried to silence the sound of entertainment and take us back to the Stone Age.

What surprised me the most wasn’t only the insurgents’ increasing attacks, but the also government’s reluctance in providing protection to the journalists who are sacrificing everything to keep this life moving. The Radio Station’s website detailed the attack and stressed on the fact that they asked for the government’s help, but the government forces did not respond immediately to the attack leaving the staffers battle with the world’s fiercest terrorists alone. Here is how Radio Dijla website detailed the attack:

On the World Press Freedom Day, the third of May at two-thirty in the afternoon, about eighty members of the terrorist al-Qaeda group attacked the headquarters of Radio Dijla in al-Jamia’a neighborhood, killing the chief security guard and wounding two others, in addition to the destruction of almost the entire ground floor [of the building]. Prior to that, there was a foiled attempt to kidnap four of the [station’s] employees at eight-thirty on the same day.

Eyewitnesses said a group of armed men blocked the roads leading to the station’s building before they started the attack in which they used rifles, RPGs and grenades. The armed men succeeded in breaking into the headquarters’ two-story building after they killed the chief security guard, the martyr Adel al-Badri, but they faced a brave resistance that lasted for forty-five minutes, which took place inside the hallways of the building. At the meantime, the acting director of the station Karim Yousif was calling for the security authorities for help to rescue the twenty-five employees who were besieged on the first floor. However, despite the continuous calls for help, the National Guard forces came an hour after the attack started while the nearest checkpoint was about 500 meters away.

The army forces arrived after the armed men fled. They came with four armored humvee hummers and two pick-ups. The soldiers told our employees that they have only fifteen minutes to get into the vehicles because they don’t expect any back up force in case they have to clash with the insurgents. They stressed that if the employees do not get into the vehicles by this short time, they would leave the area and the employees behind. The colleagues left the area and were driven to one of the squares in Baghdad.

That was not the end of what the terrorist did. They came back shortly [after the evacuation] and occupied the building for thirty hours and left after setting the entire building on fire and exploding it afterwards. The authorities were informed about the armed men’s occupation of the building, but we didn’t do any effort to get rid of these armed men despite the information they received about their presence. This is considered a scandal and negligence by the authorities which results in making the citizens reconsider their trust in the ability of the security authorities to provide protection, security, and stability.

Now, what else could I add to their last statement? This government is so weak. That’s it. I feel sick of their failure. If they can’t protect people, can’t protect journalists and can’t protect even themselves, what’s the benefit then from having them running the country? Where were the security forces when the employees called for their help? And even when they came, they were very scared that they didn’t want to stay for more than fifteen minutes. They were afraid! What a shame! Where is all the training the US military boasted they provided them with? Is that what they trained them? Stay no more than 15 minutes? Wow! No more words.

The LA Times wrote a good story about the attack. Read it here:

"We've asked the government more than once to please secure this road. Every week, someone gets killed or kidnapped around here," he said. "They come and secure it for a week, but then it goes back to what it was.

"Jamiya has become a cemetery for journalists," he said, citing a list attacks on other media outlets and journalists in the area.

Rikabi said his goal was to be back on the air with limited programming within 72 hours. He said listeners had called to offer anything, even their gold jewelry and houses, to help pay for the station's revival and its move to a safer location.

Finding such a place in Baghdad, though, will be a problem.

"If you move to a Shiite area, your Sunni staff won't come to work. If you move to a Sunni area, your Shiite staff won't come to work," said Rikabi, who estimates that he has lost about 30 employees because of security worries. Now, the station has a staff of about 55.

"We should probably just choose a place in the middle of the river," he said with a slight laugh. "That's not Sunni or Shiite."

Another story worth mentioning is in the video below. The story of news photographer who was kidnapped with his son and beaten after his captors confiscated his camera and the gun he used for protection as he goes out reporting.

Lawlessness has reached its peak in Iraq. There should be something done. Life became too miserable that it becomes very hard for the strong people to keep moving with their lives. Insurgents seized the opportunity of the US-backed government and are doing all kinds of terrorism.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Diyala Cries for the Government’s Immediate Help

When I lived under Saddam, the news on propaganda TV networks did not mention anything in details about how the Taliban regime made Afghans live in hell. I didn’t even know who their leaders were until recently. I only recall the news coverage of how the US bombarded Afghanistan after September 11 attack and how it targeted Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban regime.

In 2003, I bought my first satellite TV receiver. Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya were my CNN. Both channels broadcasted some documentaries about Taliban and how this regime brutalized the people of Afghanistan in the worst ongoing violation of human rights the world had ever witnessed.

Public executions and abuses were trade marks of this puritanical regime. I recall once seeing some of the footage Aljazeera aired of how Taliban executed people in the stadium in front of thousands of people, who God knows if they were thinking they would be next. Encyclopedias and dozens of articles on the web enlightened me and kept me informed about this tyrannical regime. But the thought of them controlling my country never came to my mind. I thought because of the demography, modernity, relative secularity and education of Iraqis, any form of Taliban would never be able to control my country. How mistaken I was! I didn’t know that criminals like these can do anything to take over any piece of land on earth, no matter what it takes. I didn’t think that guns and bombs can burn even God’s heaven.

Here they are! Deployed like ants in Iraq. They started killing educated people, doctors, university professors, and students. They started with their plan to threaten education. They forced massive numbers of elite educated people to leave the country after they threatened them or killed some of them with their families.

Then they vowed to start a civil war and succeeded. Today, they officially took over huge parts of the country including Baghdad, Diyala Province and Anbar leaving the rest of the country blended with different militia control and a federal region.

There are so many stories to be told about the new Talibanization in Iraq. All kinds of explosions, kidnappings, killings and beheadings, but one specific article made it pretty clear that it is official now that Iraq is out of control and that the government is hiding behind the blast walls which the Americans built for them when the end of modern Iraq started with their invasion which came with no future plans, except capturing and executing Saddam.

The article is published in Azzaman newspaper on a PDF version. “Public Executions Under the Name of Islam” is the second of a series of comprehensive coverage of what the insurgents are doing in Diyala province, especially in its capital Baqubah. The insurgents, who most of them belong to al-Qaeda in Iraq, are doing exactly what Talibans did during their rule of Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001. Public Execution!

The article is published in Azzaman newspaper on a PDF version. “Public Executions Under the Name of Islam” is the second of a series of comprehensive coverage of what the insurgents are doing in Diyala province, especially in its capital Baqubah. The insurgents, who most of them belong to al-Qaeda in Iraq, are doing exactly what Talibans did during their rule of Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001. Public Execution!

Below are excerpts I translated from Azzaman’s article, showing the brutality of the new “State” these terrorists formed in that specific region.

The urgent calls, denouncing the crimes and the brutal massacres committed by armed groups or what is know as the “Islamic State of Iraq” in Diyala, increased daily asking the government’s immediate intervention to rescue the people of the province, whose patience in enduring that, vanished and the security forces entirely failed in even protecting themselves.

The massacres are intentionally done to spread fear among the neighborhoods more than killing separate individuals. Dozens of civilians are being kidnapped. A few hours later, [the armed groups] gather people and seize the opportunity of the people’s presence at the markets, which they turned into public fields for executions. The armed men surround these markets to force the people see how they execute [the hostage]. One of the armed men stands in the middle of the market and address the people before executing the hostage. He provides the crowd with background about their hostage, who is always charged of being a commander in a well-known militia, while most of the executed people are people from Baqubah, some of them are even well-known [in the city].

One of the young men kidnapped was an employee of the Morgue Directorate, whom all media reporters know as a retarded young man. He was the only breadwinner of his family. He was slaughtered by a knife in front of the people in al-Mualimeen neighborhood. The speech [which one armed man gave] accused him of being a militia man, but he was taken because he was from the other sect. [meaning he was a Shiite]

Most internet cafés are closed since they deviate people from Jihad and worship. In one incident, a bomb was put in front of an internet café, destroying it which forced most of the internet cafés in Baqubah to be close.

Bqubah today is a city of ghosts. People hide inside their houses starting form 11 a.m. because of these acts.

In another incident, a resident said one man was kidnapped by the “Islamic State of Iraq”. The man was whipped seventy times because one of the “State’s” men heard the man swearing to his father’s soul instead of swearing to God as he was speaking to a friend on the cell phone. He said he found many people were being tortured and some were killed and others were sentenced to memorize three parts of the Quran.

A friend told us what he saw by his eyes how a man was brought to the middle of the market in Buhruz town. After their speech, they beheaded the man and put his head on the top of a car and threw his body in the middle of the street. At that time, it was time for noon prayers. The armed men left the scene and went to the nearby mosque to pray and even of them had stains of the slaughtered man’s blood on his shirt.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

So Typical

© alriyadh.com/ the man is "the Arab World" and the bombs are "Iraq, corruption, Israel, unemployment, terrorism"

It is so typical of the Arab countries to close their doors in front of any initiative to help Iraq. I am not surprised to hear that they are not willing to drop off the billions of Saddam debts, which he used in his wars. They are doing their best to make sure Iraq becomes the worst place in the area so that they keep their countries safe, stronger and more prosperous than Iraq. They know very well that if Iraq stands on its feet again, they will be gone, not by Saddam-style military operations, but by huge economical prosperity.

The BBC reported from Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt that some Arab countries, particularly Sunni Arab nations like Kuwait, are still keeping their distance from Iraq except Egypt which agreed to write off all the money it was owed by Iraq.

These countries refused to drop off the debts and some did not even mention the issue despite the calls for the International Compact with Iraq, which sets ambitious benchmarks to achieve a stable, united, democratic Iraq within five years.

Of course, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are two of the most countries that are ignoring this issue. But as I said, it’s typical of them. I don’t know why they are even participating in this conference. I wonder when Iraq will take the initiative of withdrawing from the Arab League, which is nothing but a puppet in the hands of the Arab tyrannical regimes. I like how Libya started the first initiative to do so. Although I have reservations against Qaddafi the tyrant, but I think he was smart enough to withdraw his country from this phony unity which once I believed in.

It is said that during hard times, people get to know who the friend and the enemy is. Unfortunately, we called these cowards “brothers” once upon time. But now, I raise my voice and say that they were not and will never be our brothers. What kind of brothers who mourn the death of a tyrant who did nothing but bringing destruction to one of the great countries in the region. Of course, they pray for him and cry for him. He benefited them on our expense. But wasn’t what he gave them enough? Didn’t Kuwait get revenge from all what he did in 1990? Wasn’t the war they helped in creating enough to get revenge? They vowed to destroy the entire country and they did. But isn’t it the time to stop their hatred and try to help stabilize the region? Isn’t time for them, the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Syrians and the Egyptians to try to stop flowing these criminals who tempted unemployed Iraqis and disbanded army members to destabilize the country? Don’t they know that these terrorists will move to their countries if they take over Iraq?

Don’t Arabs feel shameful that Paris Club, Bulgaria, Britain, South Korea, Australia, Denmark, Spain and China decided to drop off some of the debts while they don’t? Of course, they don’t because they are Arabs. They are disgrace to their nations and the history of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley.

I am sure some people will say I am speaking against the tyrannical regimes only. NO, I am speaking against the people as well who cried rivers of tears on Saddam when he was executed. I don’t feel honored to have those as brothers or sisters. I am proud to respect and admire only those who really supported Iraq and Iraqis with their blood, education, assistance, and everything possible to help even small groups of people, not those “brothers and sisters” who did nothing but send suicide bombers and cry on someone who did all what he could to destroy Iraq and give it on a burned plate to foreigners and terrorists.

I am glad Iraqis are no more silent about this. I am glad Iraqis can see the real face of the Arabs who call Iraqis traitors because Saddam was gone. Well, they are the traitors. They are the terrorists and they are the ones who deserve to be spat at.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

New Iraqi Blog from Baghdad

Most of the Baghdad bloggers, including me, have left the country perusing either shelter or Graduate and Post Graduate degrees in other countries. It has been very rare to read Baghdad stories from an Iraqi inside Baghdad. This phenomenon has almost vanished since last summer. Even Riverbend, who seldom reported news lately from Baghdad because of the situation, has decided to flee the civil war. However, I’d like to introduce you to a new Baghdadi blog called “Great Baghdad” by a Baghdadi journalist living and working restlessly in Baghdad.

Please take a few minutes and stop by his blog and read his new posts directly from Baghdad.

"Hi, since I'm a journalist and also a resident of war torn Iraq. and since I have been seeing lots of things which I feel allegiant to the city which I was born, raised and grown loving, that Is Baghdad. I decided to put down my thoughts and sightings of what is going on in Iraq in General and Baghdad in particular . hope you will be able to see Baghdad through the eyes of some one who consider him self to be one among millions of Baghdad's Lovers."

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com