Why the children of Gaza don't deserve to be killed?

Simply because they are children...

Watch this video that was made by Saudi blogger, Raed, author of Falsafat.

Reaction on this topic can be found here.

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Seeing Our Past in ‘Betrayed’

It was the same scene playing in my mind as it was on the stage. A young man called Adnan standing between mutilated dead bodies at the Baghdad morgue, looking for his friend’s body. As I was watching, I recalled how I stood in the real morgue back in 2006. The smell of the decaying bodies and the horror of being identified by the militias who were controlling the morgue flashed back into my eyes. I couldn’t but feel the warm tears pouring, watering my cheeks. The whole scene reminded me of the story I covered for the Washington Post when Shiite militiamen killed hundreds of innocents after the Samarra shrine bombing in 2006, an incident that triggered the civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites in the war-torn country.

The horrific scene was performed in Betrayed, a play by the The New Yorker writer George Packer, author of the acclaimed The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq. Betrayed, which was screened at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, is about the plight of the Iraqis who worked for the Americans who were either killed or threatened to be killed by the extremists who considered them traitors, spying for the occupiers and who were betrayed by their American employers who did not help them survive or flee the country for protection. The idea of the play started as an article in The New Yorker by Mr. Paker who adopted the play's plot and characters from real stories and information he gathered as he reported in the article.
The play was great. The New York Times put it in the best words:

“But the clarity of the writing, the urgency of the story being told and the fine performances give the play a sharp dramatic impact and a plain-spoken beauty. Painful human experience is presented here as just that. Nothing else is necessary to awaken sympathy, despair and awareness of a grave moral failure on the part of the American government.”

Last night was great not only because I watched the play, but also because I had the chance to meet George Paker whom I consider my idol, along with Anthony Shadid. I never want anything in my career life just to achieve at least half of what they achieved. Mr. Paker was a very nice person. We talked about the article, the play and of course his book The Assassins Gate.

Before the play started, my Iraqi friends and I had the chance to speak with celebrity and American actress Sarah Jesscia Parker who was hosting the play along with Matt Dillon, and Refugees International. We had the chance to speak with Sarah Jessica about how we lived and worked for American organizations, be it for the government or for the U.S. newspapers. My friend, B, whom the play was partly based on her story as a young woman working in the Green Zone for the Americans, explained to the superstar the reality of the daily risk she put herself in to do her job. Parker was all ears. It was the second time she attended the play. She said she was ready this time. She brought her tissues.

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Anti-War-On-Gaza Demonstration in Washington D.C.

As I was going to have lunch last Friday Jan. 9, I came across this anti-war-on-Gaza demonstration at the Lafayette Square, across the street from the front of the White House.



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The Luckiest Man Alive

I have long been following Barak Obama's news, having had the hope he would become the president of United States. Even though I’m a non-American I believe studying Obama means studying how the world’s superpower is going to be led. I have been reading dozens of articles about him since I have gotten to be familiar with his name when I first came to the States in 2006. I even remember writing a story for my “Journalism and Politics” class about his decision of announcing his presidential candidacy for 2008. I have also watched TV programs and listened to interviews with and about him on the radio. These have all hooked me up to support him for a better America and hopefully a better world.

However, studying Obama politically is not enough. I felt I needed to study his personal life as well. Thus, and three days after he was elected to be the president, I headed to the nearest bookstore in downtown Washington DC where I go to work and bought his infamous memoir Dreams from My Father. I wanted to see why millions of people around the world, including me, fell in love with this man’s character.

The book sat on my bookcase for a few weeks because I was reading another book I needed to finish, a habit I don’t think I will change. I can’t read a new book unless I finish the one I have in hands. Some of my friends read three books at a time. Anyways, I started reading it recently and lived with Barak Obama the person, his life from childhood to adulthood and marriage.

Legendary Toni Morisson called Obama "a writer in my high esteem" and the book "quite extraordinary.” Indeed, it is an extraordinary account of life. Even though I loved Obama’s political accomplishments, I have never expected him to be such a great writer. His literary style chilled my entire spine with details portrayed with emotions and metaphors not any writer can master.

Every time I read about one of the characters in Obama’s life I feel I got to know him or her. His grandparents, mother, sisters and brothers. I loved how he talked about his sister Kenyan sister, Auma. She reminded me of my sister and how greatly she loves me and cares about me. The brother-sister relationship between the two of them was greatly discussed in the book, despite the fact that they lived oceans away.

As for his achievements, I should no longer be surprised that this man has become the president of the US. His will and strength when he was young and when he started off as a community organizer made me respect him a lot more. He did what no one in the African American Chicago community was able to do. Above all, he believed in what he was doing. He believed it was a good cause that needed to be addressed and dealt with, not ignored.

Throughout the book, Obama was brave enough to talk about what he was really going through as an American with African roots, what his father meant to him, how his relatives lived when Obama Sr. was alive and after his death, his brothers and sisters solidarity in hard times, and how after all of that he was awarded with his wife Michelle and how at the wedding he felt “the luckiest man alive.”

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McCain-Palin Superstar to cover the Gaza War!!!

My colleague at work thought I was reading an article in the Onion. She was shocked when she discovered that the article was actually published on the Web site of a local NBC station.

The article was about Joe the Plumper announcing his new career as a war correspondent. Joe who is not even a licensed plumper, is going to Israel to report on the Israeli war on Gaza for an Ohio-based conservative Web site.

[Joe the Plumper] tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants "go over there and let their 'Average Joes' share their story."

What a moron! I wonder what would Christian Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Robert Fisk and many other experienced international correspondents (whom Israel banned from covering the Gaza carnage) would say about this!

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Shoe and Awe

Foreign correspondent and editor Magda Abu-Fadil wrote a very interesting blog post that was published in today’s edition of the Huffington Post.

In her post, Abu Fadil detailed how the Bush shoe incident left an impact on the worldwide fury against the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

It was bound to continue. The shoe has been transformed into a weapon of protest and fury at Israel's onslaught on Gaza, and by extension George W. Bush's unconditional support for the Jewish state.

The post also includes an interesting anthology of cartoons published in Arab newspapers and Web sites regarding the Israeli attacks and Bush’s end of presidency.

Read the entire blog post here.

Blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com

Life is back to Washington Post’s Iraq Coverage

With Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Shadid going back to the war-torn Iraq and the great work photographer Andrea Bruce is doing there, the real picture of Iraq has finally emerged, after two years of regular, non-powerful articles that did not reflect much of the country’s turmoil.

Shadid who won the Pulitzer for International Reporting in 2004 has recently returned to the segregated, wall-divided Baghdad which he left a few years ago. It hasn’t been that long since his stories started bringing my attention again. Like in his must-read book Night Draws Near, his stories are full of life. You can actually imagine yourself in whatever place or situation he describes. And of course, on today’s Washington Post front page, Shadid had THE story. In an article that other reporters have actually failed in investigating, he was the one who wrote in details about what Iraqis really feel these days. His words in his “In Iraq, the Day After” were extremely similar to what I hear from my family and friends, something American news headlines have intentionally ignored since last year.

Before Shadid returned to Iraq, I have been mostly fond of one particular thing on washingtonpost.com: Unseen Iraq, a blog maintained by Andrea Bruce, a Washington Post staff photographer who received several awards for her international photography. In addition to her amazing eye in shooting pictures, Bruce has a great style of writing and an honest description of the images she snaps.

That being said, I would advice the readers of this blog to follow Shadid and Bruce’s great work more often. Their work is honest, sincere, and accurate and is not motivated by certain propaganda. It is a mere reflection of life through words and photos.

Blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com