http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

I look at this woman and I can’t feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They’ll feel pity and maybe some anger, but she’s one of us. She’s not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone. We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren’t they? That is gone too.

read this post by the riverbend girl in baghdad.

the sandbox

doonesbury just started something called a sandbox. Its a collection of blogs etc from the US military effort in iraq. Kind of interesting. Lots of stories protected under the First Amendment. The latest post starts like this -

..."I love the Army, I truly do. It has offered me incredible opportunities, and helped me come a long way from the crank-smoking high school drop-out that I was 15 years ago. And I love our country, even when I don't always agree with the people that run it. I'm desperately sorry to the people that have lost loved ones here.

My husband's job site was ambushed last week, and although no one was hurt, it has prompted a lot of these reflections. It was a terrible question to ask: If, God forbid, he had been hurt, what would it have been for? I read an article in Rolling Stone recently, about a reporter riding with some soldiers here in Iraq. He put it into words perfectly.

Those of us serving here simply can't afford to ask that question."....

where did she go?

that girl who used to write the riverbend blog from baghdad hasnt posted anything since her last post a month ago which was about zarqawi.... i hope she is okay

riverbendblog.blogspot.com

sad but true

America is drowning in the shame of war crimes. One monstrous slaughter of civilians after another, each denied and covered up until brought to light by photos and eye witnesses. The once proud US Marines, unable to defeat the resistance that is picking them off one by one, is now a frustrated, demoralized force that is getting even by murdering 3-month old babies and old women

the war machine

In more painfully personal terms, Cindy Sheehan writes, “Looking back on my life up until Casey was killed in Iraq, on 04/04/04, I have tried to analyze over and over again what went wrong. I knew that our leaders were bought and paid for employees of the war machine, and yet, when Casey came of age, he put on the uniform and marched off to another senseless war to bring his employers that rich reward of money and power. The warning for American mothers and fathers is this: the war machine will get your children, if not now, then your grandchildren. It is a hard and steep price to pay for the certain knowledge that the people in power think of us, not as their employers and electorate whom they swear to serve, but as their tools to be used as cannon fodder whenever the impulse strikes them.”

stop this madness

Day after day, scores of Iraqis -- mostly Sunni victims of Shiite gangs -- turn up bound and gagged, with electric drill holes in their bones, and bullets in their brains. They are found in mass graves, in vans stuffed with bodies, in ditches. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing cities and neighborhoods in which they are a minority or feel unsafe, becoming refugees in their own land.

i use a electric drill sometimes...and that part just was too much to imagine

pics of soldiers

just so we dont forget that theres a war on in babylon...two pics which i got in an email recently. I wonder if americans who look at this picture feel proud of their soldiers and say the slogan " support our troops" or do they feel that these pictures would be so much better without the uniforms, the soldier would look so much better at home in civilian clothes, playing with kids, petting his cat and leading a normal life. So is it "support our boys" or is it "bring the boys back home".

The kid playing with the cat really shouldnt be in a dehumanizing war, where years down the line he still cant escape the memories of blood and bombs..he shouldnt be at risk of getting his limbs blown off or worse.. why couldnt he be part of the peace corps teaching kids in africa to read, why is he being made to carry a rifle around?

the bend in the river...from the land of the two rivers

theres this lovely funny bright girl in Iraq, Baghdad to be precise who is writing a blog from there....u can read her blog here . Below is an excerpt from her latest post.... I think she has done a lot for the credibility of blogging as a true journalistic medium. One gets a good feel of how things really are by following her blog while a lot of the print media reporting somehow seems very fluffy.

The line said:

وزارة الدفاع تدعو المواطنين الى عدم الانصياع لاوامر دوريات الجيش والشرطة الليلية اذا لم تكن برفقة قوات التحالف العاملة في تلك المنطقة

The translation:

“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”

That’s how messed up the country is at this point

.

One Morning in Haditha

One Morning in Haditha
U.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes last November. Was it self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded revenge? A TIME exclusive
By TIM MCGIRK/ BAGHDAD

Posted Sunday, Mar. 19, 2006
The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communiqué from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like "T.J., you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.

But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.

read more

iraqi blogs

Zeyad – http://healingiraq.blogspot.com



Baghdad Treasure – http://Baghdadtreasure.blogspot.com



24 Steps to Liberty - http://twentyfourstepstoliberty.blogspot.com/



Fayrouz Hancock - http://fayrouz.blogspot.com/



Riverbend - http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/



Hammorabi - http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/



Salam Pax - http://justzipit.blogspot.com/



Salam Adil - http://asterism.blogspot.com/



A Free Iraqi - http://afreeiraqi.blogspot.com/



Iraq Blog Count - http://iraqblogcount.blogspot.com/

new pics from iraq

new pictures of abu ghraib

the kinder nicer british

British Troops Beat Up Barefoot Iraqi Teens A video shown on BBC TV on February 11, 2006 shows British soldiers savagely beating and kicking unarmed Iraqi teenagers in an army compound. Officials at the Ministry of Defense are said to have investigated and established beyond doubt the authenticity of the video.

Shot secretly “for fun” as a home movie from a rooftop in Basra in southern Iraq by a corporal and shown to friends at a home base in Europe, it was given to the News of the World later by an anonymous whistle blower. The footage shows soldiers pulling four Iraqi boys in their early teens into their army base after a riot and beating them with batons, then punching and kicking them repeatedly on the body and head and between the legs. Within the space of one minute, some 42 blows are rained on the four teens whom the whistle blower said “were just kids” who did not even have on shoes.


One soldier can also be seen kicking a dead Iraqi in the face. The unidentified cameraman can be heard laughing and urging his colleagues on with vulgarities... read more