An Average Iraqi

The Last Three Weeks

2006-03-17T17:51:00.000+03:00

Well, what can I say about the last three weeks. I spent most of them at home. Stuck in the middle of all the holidays, curfews and a few big battles that happened near us. During the last three weeks, I only went to the university three times. And they were all last week. However, on the next week, I do not think that I will be attending any seminars too, because next Monday is a Shia religious holiday. Next Monday is the "Arba3enia" for the Murder of Al-Hussien. Shias will be gathering at Karbala for the occasion.

You know, I really pray that this one goes peacefully, because there will be quite a few million Shias in Karbala during the next three days. So any terror attack might really do a great damage. Especially that it has been known that terror attacks always target areas where there are a lot of people.

When I went to college last time, I was surprised how it doesn't get affected by all the political mayhem going around it, I think that most of us are too busy with their materials and tests to actually bother with Sunnis, Shias, terrorists and Americans. The police actually discovered a bombed car in front of the university. Although they blocked the street and there was chaos outside, but life inside the university when on like nothing happened, and I only discovered about that car after I got home.

Not more than an hour before, I got a call from a BBC reporter, asking for my opinion about the last three years, considering that the anniversary of the beginning of the war is this weekend. I really was surprised, because I have never thought of it. I never thought of remembering the day the war started. And I won't.

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Samara Catastrophe

2006-02-22T18:51:00.000+03:00

I got up early today, I was going to the university today. I was very excited about it, first time I go to the university for three weeks. I do not like sitting in the house with nothing to do with my time. As I expected, it was mostly empty, only for the second attempt students. Second attempt students filled the university, I could tell them because they were studying and memorizing while the seminars had not started yet. I did not stay there much, me and my friend got back as soon as he finished his exams.

When the cab was close to our main street, my cell phone started ringing. I looked at the number calling me, and it was a private number. It only meant one thing. Someone was calling me from outside Iraq. "Hey I'll get down here if you don't mind", I said to the driver. When I got off, I answered the call. A female voice said "hello" obviously she was not Iraqi, or she would have said "aloo" :) . She later introduced herself as a BBC reporter. I have dealt with them a few times before, especially after the period after the elections. I had been getting calls from them for the past few months now. So I was not surprised when she told me who she was. She asked if I had heard the big news today. I said no what happened.

"Yesterday a group of armed men dressed in Iraqi Police broke into a shrine in Samara last night, and bombed it this morning after they tied the guards". Now I was confused, I know that the only shrine in Samara is the shrine that "Hasan Al-Askari" and "Ali-Al-hadi" were buried. However, would anyone dare do such a thing? The answer was yes.

The shrine has a gold covered dome, which is more than 100-year-old. The dome is quite a landmark. It is Iraqi history. We used to see it from far away when we traveled from Baghdad to Mosul, as we pass by Samara. I consider it one of the main structures that define Iraq.

I believe that the reason for such an attack, is an attempt to stir up civil war, between the Shias and Sunnis. In addition, of course, Al-Sadr is not helping at all. His militias are already calling for revenge, and raiding Sunni mosques. Someone should tell him that Sunnis condemned these attacks, and that no one has claimed responsibility yet, why should he presume it is Sunnis. Does he not notice that he is falling into the plain trap laid in front of him?
The government has just announced tomorrow, Thursday, to be an official holiday.
I will try to update this post as the situation changes.

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The Cartoon Controversy

2006-02-12T17:21:00.000+03:00

I do not think there is a need to tell you the whole story; most of you know it by now. So let us get into it.
Muslims has and will always be, very sensitive in matters considering Allah, their holy book the "Quran", and the prophet Mohammad. Muslims consider it "haram" �means forbidden in Arabic - to offend anyone of those three. They will take it as a BIG insult when they are offended, or made fun off. The problem is, they sometimes react in violence.

I have to say that when I heard about them, I was afraid that this might explode the situation here in Iraq. The irony in this is that Iraqis dealt with the problem peacefully. With all the violence around me, I have not heard of any violent action done in Iraq because of these cartoons.

However, most Iraqis now � including me- are not having anything to do with Denmark anymore. Iraq is officially not importing from Denmark anymore, anything with the labels "Made in Denmark" is being dropped out. I have to note something here, that even the most Anti-Americans in Iraq, will buy American products, but not Danish products, to show you how big an insult that is for Muslims. I have to say that I am proud of the way we handled this matter, peacefully.

Unlike some of the other Arab countries. Here I want to say that I am 100% against the burning of Denmark embassies, and any violent action done to them.

I must point out here, that Muslims do not only cherish Mohammed, but all the other prophets as well. We name a lot of our children after the Arabic names of Jesus, which is "3esa", and "Mosa" for Moses.

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Remeber Me?

2006-02-11T13:38:00.000+03:00

Well, my MIDs are over, and I think I did fine. Althouh I almost missed the first one due to traffic conditions in Baghdad. Feels good to be back at the keyboard :).

However, My Internet Service Provider chose this time to have a major electricity failure, looks like he is going to be offline for a while. So, I am a heavy guest on Raghda for a while. Pff, I have so many unread messages in my email, not counting junks. Will write a longer post later.

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Less Posts for this Month

2006-01-06T14:10:00.000+03:00

Well, what can I say?. My mid-year exams are coming in two weeks. So my studies are taking more and more time from me. Hassan Kharrufa is a student before and after he is a blogger. Therefore, it is understandable that I will be making fewer posts on the coming days. Once a week maybe.

Anyway, the big news in Baghdad these days are kidnapping of the daughter or sister of the Iraqi internal affairs minister, Bian Sola3`. The news are still vivid as it looks like they are trying to cover it. But with all those checkpoints around the city, it is obvious that something is wrong. One of my friends did ask them about the reason of all this. That is how I know. The city is looking just like it looked a few days before the elections, or maybe worse. There is a checkpoint in every main street. They reduce a 4-lane street to a single lane street, search the cars, and look at all the women in the cars. Looks like they are determined to find her. So far, the kidnappers have not attempted to contact the family, I think. However, they know that she has been kidnapped because the driver was found, shot.

Most people say that the woman has been kidnapped as an extreme protest to the current fuel prizes. Although I do not think that, it is relevant. I think that if it was political, the kidnappers would have gone public with it, they have not.

The result was, that I missed a good part of a lecture I should have attended. Great timing with the mid-year exams knocking on the doors.

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Happy New Year Iraq

2006-01-01T20:00:00.000+03:00

Happy New Year everybody. Happy New Year Iraq.

Looking back at what Iraq has seen in the last year. Iraq has witnessed two governments. Then voted for a third one. The price of benzene went up from a really low 50 I.D/Litter, to a huge 250 I.D/Litter, and is supposed to go up until it reaches 750 I.D/Litter. I should start calculating how much benzene our car uses. I feel sorry for taxi drivers, now they are going to have to make their prices a lot higher, and people are going to start looking for other ways to move around, I myself I am starting to figure out other ways of going to college instead of relaying on them, in days when our ride doesn't make it.

The second it was 12:AM, I could hear the sound of shooting in the far. It was the usual shooting-into-the-sky Average Iraqi style of celebrating. But it got different. The shots became faster just a few minutes ago, signalling that the day did not have a peaceful start. The day was not peaceful at all folks. Twelve car bombs in one day. That is too high even for Iraq. But I have to admit that we found ways to keep ourselves happy. We watched a movie, all of us. Then we had a nice family dinner, and finally we exchanged tons of SMS messages and New-Year cards. So, you see Iraqis have fun despite all the disasters happening around them.

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Elections Aftermath

2005-12-26T18:02:00.000+03:00

So far, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq has not announced the final results of the elections. But the big success that the 555 list (An all Shia list) has achieved so far is creating doubts of the commission's integrity, especially in Baghdad. Accusations and even threats are flying around right now. Just a few days ago, Sunnis organized a massive demonstrations in a few provinces. Some of my friends participated in the Baghdad demonstration. They say that hundreds of thousands were there, and from the pictures I have seen of it, I think they are right. They are demanding that the elections are to be repeated in the provinces that has seen some of these very un-expected results. The un-verified results can be found at the commission's official site.

Just a few days after the elections, the government decided to partially stop supporting the prices of oil. So the prices of benzene, gasoline and gas has went up 300%, tripled. This has left the Iraqi street in anger. So far, I have not seen a single Iraqi who had liked this decision. Although the price of Oil was very low in Iraq, cheapest than water to be frank, but the Average Iraqi has been used to this prices from the eighties. So the sudden rise in prices has left him raged. Some of the southern militia controlled provinces has even refused to implicate these prices. But I don't think they are going to last much, because the only big refineries capable of handling such massive amounts of oil, are only found in Baghdad, and Beji.

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Trouble Ahead

2005-12-20T19:56:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq announced preliminary results of 10 provinces, partially. Baghdad results were 89% votes of total votes. So far the Unified Iraqi Coalition (the 555 all-Shia-list) is in the lead. Then there is the Tawafoq Iraqi Front (the 618 main Sunni list). Then the National Iraqi List (the 731 secular list). Right now, the 555 has 41% of the total votes, thank god, not yet above 50%. If they are above 50%, they can take the government all by themselves, but since they are not, they will have to share. Plus, these are yet preliminary results, the main Sunni provinces Anbar, Salah Al-Deen, Mosul, Diala and Kurkok are yet not accounted for. So I can safely presume that the 618 and 731 guys are going to rise in numbers, while the 555 is not going to rise but just a little.

Right now, I am watching a press conference on TV. It seems that a lot of the other lists are accusing armed militias of faking results. It is said that in southern Iraq, people were threatened to vote for the 555 list. Although I can't say if this is true or not, but I wouldn't say it is unlikely. Because Badr Brigade is a very strong militia in the south, and is known for doing killing and kidnapping. Once again, the story of the trucks coming from Iran filled with false votes, surfaces again. I am beginning to think that it is more than a rumor, and it might just be true.

The official spokesman for the committee Ferid Ayar, had announced that they have received almost a thousand complains. Twenty of them, as he said, are very serious, and need to be looked at immediately. Right now, a lot of the lists has demanded that the elections are made again, and with better supervision. I don't know what to think of this, I was very happy that I voted, and I think that doing it again, is going to mark this one as a failure. I don't want that. But again, I do not want to spend the next four years with a 555 government. Anyway, I guess that if they are to be repeated, it is going to be made for certain areas that has suffered from fraud.

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The Carnival of Voting

2005-12-15T13:46:00.000+03:00

It was not a normal day. Since the second I woke up, I had one thing on my mind. VOTING. Some of our relatives had already awoke early and went to vote. They said it was very safe, and so far no violence had happened. They also warned us not to take anything with us, except for IDs. So we left even our watches behind and went out to vote. There were four of us, plus two who had already voted. It was like Eid. Everyone was happy, people walking in the street saluted us even if they did not know us, we did the same. Even my 85 year old grandfather, who had much trouble walking, came with us to cast his vote. Although the walk was very hard on him, but he pulled himself together and managed to reach the poll centre. Later I went home, and took my camera. Going back to the poll centre, I took some pictures from afar so I don't get in trouble with the National Guards who were guarding the place.

You can see in this picture how many people are going to cast their votes.

Not my best shot, but yet worth going online.

These are our fingers. From left to right, me, my father, and my grandfather. My mother and grandmother voted too, but they have already found ways to wash the ink off. Women!!.

This is my 85 year old grandfather. He was treated like a king there. He sat in a chair, and they brought the pen and ballot paper to him. He chose his list, gave it to them, they folded it, and put it in the box. Then they brought him the ink pot.

Now there is nothing more we can do. Except sit down and wait for the results. I have fulfilled my duties.

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Baghdad with one day to the Elections

2005-12-14T20:47:00.000+03:00

In less than 12 hours the poll station will be open. Of course there is a curfew, so we have to walk. But who cares??. This is the biggest elections any Iraqi could ever participate in. Previous elections were important, but this is the big one. This is the one that everyone has been preparing for for at least a month before.

These elections are different. Everyone is realizing how important it is. No one is boycotting them. Everybody is going to vote, the question is, who are they going to vote for. Sadly, people in Iraq are still thinking in the way I'm-a-Sunni-I-vote-for-a-Sunni way. You can replace Sunni for Shia or Kurd. This is how it is. But yes, except for the 555 guys, most of the others are making coalitions with not just their class, but with others, some lists have a fairly good mixture of Shias-Sunnis-Kurds in them.

So I decided I would take a walk to the nearby street, and take a photo of it, so you can see what I mean by EMPTY. By the way, I am not going to host pictures on blogger anymore, just on flickr. So they can be linked from else where. Pictures hosted on blogger do not show if they are linked to from other sites. Oh and I have made them small for the purpose of fast load, if you want more detail click on them to see a larger image. See below the empty street:

There is a scandal that has just happened in Iraq now. With only one day to the elections, a truck coming from Iran was discovered with a full load of forged votes for.. Guess who??. Well, they have not said who, but there is really no doubt about the 555 list. Since many of it's candidates are actually Iranians. Yes I know I am going hard on them, but I just feel angry about this. Mostly because they are supposed to be the most honest, since they are religious. But no, they are not. They are depending on the masses of un-educated Shias in their campaigns. Putting pictures of Sistani in their posters, since Shias do ANYTHING he tells them to do, they put his picture so that people might vote for them.

Oh well, I still feel optimistic about the elections. This one is different. I know I have been saying that a lot. But yes it is different. Biggest elections any Iraqi can ever participate in. Right now I have little flyers of every major list in Iraq. Sometimes I go look for them, others I just find them in my lap. Anyway, tomorrow is still the big day, so please stay tuned for my tomorrow post. Of course I will not go vote fist thing in the morning. I will wait for at least 10 AM, to see how things are, and to be hones, if they were messy, I will not go vote, sad to say. So if I go vote tomorrow, I promise you will see my finger again. Peace.

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An Average Iraqi look at the Possible Winners

2005-12-13T13:13:00.000+03:00

Well, on this post I find it hard to be speaking for the Average Iraqi. Since no one knows what he want to vote for. Or else, the whole point of the elections will be gone. So what I am going to do, is put the names of the most popular lists, and what I think about them.

Unified Iraqi Coalition. Vote number 555: This list is very popular in southern Iraq, and mostly between Shias. But this list has a LOT of problems and bombs in it. If you check one of my previous posts where I listed the names of organizations and politician figures in each coalition. You can see the names under this coalitions. I would like to mention that all those names are Shias. This list is exclusively for Shias. I am not trying to propaganda against it, but seriously, who will represent the Kurds or Sunnis or any other minority. Who will represent the Average Iraqi. If that list is elected in Baghdad, I have to say that our lives might be very difficult. This list might do great to represent Najaf or Karbala, with it's Shia majority, but surely not the one for Baghdad, Sunni provinces, or Kurdistan. If this list gets more than 50% of the chairs. It will rule everything, and I have a feeling Iraq will be like a second Iran then. Needless to say, I am not giving them my votes.

Tawafoq Iraqi Front. Vote number 618: This list is probably representing the majority of Sunnis in Iraq. Better than the previous one since it has some Shia and Kurd members in it. Actually this is a very good list for Anbar and Mosul, with their Sunni majority, but still there are people who can represent Shias, Kurds, and even Christians. Although this list is better than the last one, but in my opinion, they will run things in a very similar way that Taliban used to do in Afghanistan. So I am not voting for this one either.

National Iraqi List. Vote number 731. This list is not supported by any religious faction, since it is mostly secular. That is why in my opinion, I think it will work for anyplace, since they do the representing in a politician view point instead of a religious, or in my eyes, racist way. Although I want Islam to be involved somehow in the system, but the way the two previous lists are doing it, is not my favorite. One more thing about this list, the 555 guys hate it very much. One more reason for me to vote for it.

Kurdistani Gathering. Vote number 730. This list has all the big shots of Kurdistan. Makes it perfect to represent the northern Iraq, or as they call it, Kurdistan. I have to say I am not very familiar with this list, they do not do a lot of publicizing in Baghdad, I think they are concentrating on the places where they can win. But from the names of the participants, I can see that there are a few Islamic and Turks in it. So as I said, perfect for northern Iraq.

My next post, which I shall put tomorrow, will be describing how Baghdad looks during the day before the elections. Also I will tell you some stories about elections that happened.

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The Story of a Car Bomb

2005-12-09T13:09:00.000+03:00

Today a car bomb exploded at 14 St Ramadan. Which is a very busy street in Baghdad. This car bomb has a very interesting story, which might help you understand how those car bombs work. The car model was most likely a Toyota Corona 1981.

The car was hijacked from it's owner a day earlier. And they killed it's owner so he cannot report it stolen and set the police in search for it. They put 4 explosive charges in it. The charges are not anything complicated. They are simple Gas cans. Which are sold by carts that roam the city, so it is easy to get.

Then the car was placed near a very famous Ice Cream shop. The place becomes very crowded in the noon. I think they put it their to achieve highest kills. Disgusting. Luckily the police spotted it. They dragged it away into the middle of the street. Blocked the street from all directions and cleared it. Then they opened fire on the car. One of the charges exploded and the car was all in flames. Thinking that it is finished the police dragged the car aside and left it.

This morning as life went on. A civilian inspecting the car discovered that there were three more charges. So he called the police. The police came a few minutes later and took the charges away. Rendering the car harmless at last.

Look at these pictures you can see the charges put in the car

Spot the black markings on the street. These are the marks of dragging.

The yellow plate is or was the charge. It is a simple Gas can which can be found easily in Baghdad. Not even worth stealing.

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Elections Fever

2005-12-03T12:13:00.000+03:00

When I go out these days. I see no empty wall. They are all covered in posters. Sometimes there would be layers of them. As competition rises. No empty spot is left. So posters are being put above others. The fever has reached the TV and radio too. As the commercials between shows and songs are being filled up by election commercials. Right now the different candidates and organizations have allied with each other. Creating what is called here "Coalitions". Reducing the number of candidates from a couple of hundreds to only nineteen. We will vote for these coalitions. Each one of them has a vote number. If I want to vote for a certain coalition. I would write the vote number of that coalition on the ballot sheet. You will find below a list of all these coalitions and the names of the different organizations they consist of.

Tawafoq Iraqi Front. Vote number 618. Consists of:

The Iraqi Islamic Party.

The General Council For Iraqi People.

Al Hewar National Iraqi Council.

Arabic List. Vote number 615. Consists of:

The Arabic Unifying Front.

National Solidarity Movement.

Kurdistani Gathering. Vote number 730. Consists of:

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Labor Party of Kurdistan.

Islamic Group of Kurdistan/Iraq.

Al Kaldani Democratic United Party.

Communist Party of Kurdistan.

Socialist Democratic Party of Kurdistan.

Democratic Party of Kurdistan.

Iraqi Turkman Brotherhood Party.

Independent Karbala Coalition. Vote number 533. Consists of:

Dr. Abbass Naser Hasani Al Hasnawi.

National Gathering For Karbala Iraqi Tribes.

Brotherhood and Peace List. Vote number 737. Consists of:

Brotherhood Independent Gathering.

AL Sheikh Ali Abd Al Husain Kamouneh.

Unified Iraqi Coalition. Vote number 555. Consists of:

Islamic Da'awa Party.

Islamic Virtue Party.

Centrist Coalition Party

Bader Organization.

Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution In Iraq.

Turkman Islamic Union of Iraq.

Justice and Equality Assembly.

Iraqi Democratic Movement.

Movement of Hizbullah in Iraq.

Turkmen Loyalty Movement.

Saed Al Shuhada Islamic Movement.

Al Shabak Democratic Gathering.

Malhan Al Mkoter-Mr.

Islamic Da'awa Party-Iraq Organization.

Reform And Building Meeting.

Al Sadriah Advertising.

The Justice Community.

Iraq Ahrar.

National Iraqi List. Vote number 731. Consists of:

Iraqi Communist Party.

Union Party.

Al-Qasimy Democratic Assembly.

Iraqi Republican Group.

Arab Socialist Movement.

Independent Democratic Gathering.

Iraqi National Accord.

Society of Turkman Tribes and Elites.

Alfurat Al Awsat Assemblage.

Iraqis.

Loyalty For Iraq Coalation.

Independent Iraqi Alliance.

Independent Iraqi Sheikhs Council.

The National List.

Ahrar.

National Iraqi Council List. Vote number 569. Consists of:

Democratic Iraqi Gathering.

The First Democratic National Party.

Iraqi Conference National Party.

United Labor Democratic Front.

Turkuman Act Party.

The Iraqi Constitutional Party.

Tareq Abd Al Kareem Al Shahd Al Budairi.

Genral Secretary Advertising For The south Sectional of Iraq.

The National List.

Constitutionality Al Shareef Ali Abd Al Hussein Movement.

Islamic Coalition. Vote number 549. Consists of:

Islamic Action Organization.

Faili Islamic Gathering In Iraq.

Religious Communwealth In Iraq.

Islamic Commonwealth For Iraqi Students.

Hussaini Cultural Organizations Union.

Rafah And Freedom Movement.

Justice and Future Coalition. Vote number 517. Consists of:

The Democratic Progress And Justice Party.

Dr.Khaled Hmoud Abdalla Al Sa'adoon.

Al Nahrain National List. Vote number 752.

Assyrian Patriotic Party.

Beith Nehrain National Union.

Assyrian Independent Gathering Movement.

National Caldani Council.

Hikmat Dawod Hakeem.

Kildani Democratic Rostrum.

Al Wafaa For Basrah Gathering. Vote number 512.

Loyalty to Najaf.

Ramadan Al Badran, Basrah Son.

Hewar National Iraqi Front. Vote number 667. Consists of:

Iraqi Christian Democratic Party.

Democratic Arab Front.

National Front For the United Free Iraq.

The Iraqi Sons Unified Movement.

The National Iraqi Front.

Furation- Human Rights. Vote number 647. Consists of:

Babil People Gathering.

Human Rights and Civilian United.

Mithal Al Aloosi List For Iraqi Nation. Vote number 620. Consists of:

Iraqi Federalist Gathering.
The Iraqi Ummah Party.

Watanion Gathering. Vote number 814. Consists of:

Iraqi National Movement.

Iraqi Unite Council.

Iraq Sun. Vote number 652. Consists of:

Islamic Tallea'a Party.

Democratic National Coalition.

United-Democratic-Free Iraq.

Al Khalas National Front. Vote number 798. Consists of:

Democratic Reconstruction And Justice Party.

Nasiri Forefront Socialist Party.

Sawamerah Lords Gathering.

Unified National List. Vote number 829. Consists of:

The Iraqi National Movement.

Iraqi Political Gathering.

Iraqi National Union.

The source of this list is the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Which has both English and Arabic. It was originally in a PDF formatted document. Which has both English and Arabic names of the candidates. The Arabic format was being displayed backwards for me so I did not copy any Arabic. Just English. You can download the file from this address.

Right now my favorite candidate is Dr. Iyad Allawi. Who is the leader of the Iraqi National List..

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The Students Day

2005-11-26T18:28:00.000+03:00

The students day used to be a holiday in Iraq. Celebrating the students everywhere. Although we do not celebrate it in college. But in my 6 year old sister's school. They did. I shall post you some of their photos. You can see clearly how much work was done in order to hide the children from the face of war.

This celebration has a history. It is celebrates the founding of the National Union of Iraqi Students. Which was the Student's union representative of the Baath party.

Before the war, children in every school would have a party during the day. They would bring gifts for their teachers. Throw a party on the day. So when this day came. The students were eager to have a party, how many student will understand that they can not have fun because this holiday was founded during the days of Saddam. So the principle of the school decided that the children deserved better than excuses . I liked what she did very much. Because does it really matter if the ex-regime founded this celebration. How can you explain to a child why he can not give gifts to his teacher. How can you tell him that it is not his fault, but he can not celebrate today although they know very much that this day is a party day. In other schools, a few children took some gifts and gave them to their teachers. The teacher refused to take it. What would that child feels when the teacher rejects his gift. I don't think that he will understand that the teacher doesn't hate him. My 9 year old niece which goes to another school than my sister, came home devastated when her teacher rejected her gift. Of course after that the child was afraid to go to another teacher and give her a gift because she thought that no one likes her.

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When Should the US leave??

2005-11-21T22:02:00.000+03:00

First of all the question is when, not should. Because it is a sure thing that the Americans should leave eventually. It is whether it should be done sooner or later that has been a discussion opener, in the US. Although there is a huge discussion about this in the US. But it seems that the Iraqis are not really interested at the moment. They have other things on their mind. The elections are coming, but that is going to be a topic for another post.

My opinion: Iraq is not ready for the US to pull its troops out. Maybe in a year or so, but not at the moment. I have a few reasons:

First: There are still many armed militias in Iraq. No country can prosper and grow with such militias in it. Like the Mahdi Army, Badr Brigade, Terrorist factions and even the Kurdish Besh Merga. . These militias have to be disbanded. Either peacefully or by means of arms. The US army would prove to be most useful in this I think. The Iraqi army may be trained well, but from what I have seen, they are way behind in equipment. They roam the cities in civilian pick-up trucks, and SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles, or as we call them 4WD in Iraq) that are not even bullet prove.

Second: With no powerful government in command. And the many disagreements and infighting between the Iraqi politicians. Civil war might stir up when there is no unchallengeable power force in Iraq. Like the US army. In which I hope we can replace by the Iraqi Army in the future. As there is no question that we cannot rely on the US army much longer. As probably it is the main reason all this violence has started in the first place.

Third: Iraqi is simply not ready yet.

What is done is done. It won't do anything to disscuss whether the American ivasion of Iraq was right or not. We can only go on from here, the question is how do we go on. I know many Iraqis are going to disagree, Najma will be the first, American liberals will too. I know I have objected to what the US is doing in Iraq now. But I will object too if they leave now, guess I am hard to satisfy after all.

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Another Free.. Eh Terrorist Attack

2005-11-18T14:22:00.000+03:00

I just said it in the last post. Terrorist attacks are being made in the name of freedom fighting. Just this morning a car bomb exploded near Al-Hamra hotel in Karada Baghdad. Followed by another bomb; a bigger car, or a truck as I heard. Look at this picture; you will see what I mean.

Want more pictures, see Yahoo slide show about Iraq.

The blast was so strong a building fell over, completely. As usual, none of the intended targets of the attack got hurt. Only civilians were killed or injured. Read the whole story on Yahoo news.

The Washington Post office was close to the attack to. Thankfully no one got hurt, but the office is in chaos. They were a little late to put coverage about the blast, as they rounded up every blast that happened during the day. You will see in this article how violent the day was

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Freedom Fighting or Terror Attacks

2005-11-14T00:27:00.000+03:00

There is a big difference between the two terms. Although many people in Iraq fail to realize the two terms, but there is a big difference. Freedom Fighting does not hurt Iraqis; it should only be against occupying forces. This has almost stopped now. Most if not all the recent attacks I see or hear about are always killing a lot more Iraqis than Americans. Although at this point, I do not see how any can benefit Iraq. I know I am not the only one who thinks this, but violence whatsoever in Iraq is not useful. Whether it is freedom fighting, or terror attacks they are always a step backward. I know that many Iraqis favor freedom fighters and call them heroes and all, but this really is not the time for this. There is a faster and easier way to get the Americans out of Iraq, which I guess is what we all want. The next elections are not far from now, although I do not know how long it will take after that. Surely, it is faster than the hard way.

After the war, all if not most of the violence in Iraq was happening between Al-Mujahedeen and the American forces. Now we rarely hear about those. Looks like the same people are now picking on more soft targets, with a goal to kill as many as possible. Take the recent attacks on the Iraqi restaurant. Or even the attacks in Jordan. They are both claimed to be freedom-fighting attacks. Both were done against places that supposedly serve or house Iraqi Soldiers or Americans. However, what is the outcome. They both killed and injured a lot more civilians than Soldiers or "Infidels", none were killed in the case of the Jordanian attacks.

It is time I gave up my opinion. I put a question mark on Freedom Attacks, discussion-able, is it really doing what it should, or is making things worse. I put a bold NO for terror attacks of any kind.

Note: This post has been emailed to my Email List subscribers. I would have written a longer post, but I am getting too busy these days with studying and all. Gotta go, I have a report to make.

Where are you M??

2005-11-10T20:13:00.000+03:00

Ok, I have finally figured out why I couldn't post. It seems that there are some incompatibility with Opera. Which I use as a browser. I guess I am going to be forced back to Internet Explorer. Oh well.

It was 12:10 Am when the cell rang. I had just prayed the dinner prayer and was going to sleep. I was surprised when it rang. This is not a usual time for it to ring. I ran to it, and looked at the name calling. It was a friend of mine named S*****. (I'll just call him S.). Who doesn't call me much. So I was surprised that he was calling at this hour. I answered the call.

Hassan:"Hello S."
S:"Hello Hassan, hey tell me do you have M's cell number"
Hassan:"M??? Uhh no, but I thought you had it?"
S:"I do. But I can't call him. He went out this morning and went to Al-Mansour. He hadn't returned yet.."
Hassan:"WHAT??. But it is past midnight. If he hadn't returned then something bad must have happened to him"
S:"Look, you are closer to his region than I am. I will give you his cell number try dialing. Maybe you can reach him. I haven't been able to reach him. His parents has gone crazy."
Hassan:"Okay okay. Give it to me, let me see what I can do."

I hung up. Thinking of the worst. I began dialing M's number. This was weird this was a guy that I have never called before. I wouldn't even know if it was him or not anyway. His phone was being reported shut down. This sometimes happened if the cell coverage is poor. But after the 15th try, I gave up trying. Feeling helpless, I retailed S.

S:"Hey Hassan, did you get to him???"
Hassan:"No... I can't reach him. Seems like his phone is off."
S:"Damn. Where the hell is he??"
Hassan:"I feel sorry for his family. Thy will have to wait till the morning in order to do something."
S:"His father is in Emirates. But he is going to come to Iraq tomorrow to help search for him."
Hassan:"Poor guy. He probably is leaving all his work undone. I hope he is well."

I hung up again. Feeling helpless again. I had to go to sleep since I was going to wake up early the next day. When I went to college this morning. M didn't show up. S was a mess. I don't know how he could show up at all. Right now. It is 9:00 Pm. More than 24 hours since he went missing. I called S a few minutes. He told me that strangers has called his uncle's house, and told them that they have kidnapped M. But they didn't tell a ransom. It is their way to make the parents wait in agony until they make one. Those people don't treat the Iraqis they kidnap well, they might treat a foreigner good, but never an Iraqi. They might not even bother to give him more than one meal a day. I pray for his safety.

Note: This post has been emailed to my Emailing List subscribers.

Eid Ends Peacefully.....Somehow

2005-11-06T21:12:00.000+03:00

I'm making this post through Email Posting. I can't post by the regular way. Each time I press the publish button the post disappears. Am I alone??

I don't know if it was me not following the news, or the Eid actually went almost peacefully. Of course there was a car bomb at the Iraqi Police, but I think that was it for Eid. All that happened. So I can safely say that Eid passed peacefully. We had so much fun in it. We had The Mosul Family as our guests during that. Of course I had already put our two computers on a network and proxied them so there is internet in both of them. Me and Najma won't be at each other's throat for it.

On the morning of the first day, we stayed home. Receiving visitors from all over Baghdad, lots of relatives kept coming during all three days. In the afternoon me, my brother, three of our cousins and three of our friends went out, simply hanging out and spending some of our money. :) . During the second day we simply stayed home. Third day I went to a party that was being thrown for the kids. Saw Treasure of Baghdad and 24 Steps to Liberty there too. We had so much pleasant time there, the most of it was watching the kids play around, running everywhere and then at the end of the party we gave each of them a gift to take home (I might post pictures later if I got some). J.S. was the most person addicted to the kids in there, I think a lot of the kids will remember her when they go home. From the second I arrived to the second I left, she was simply playing with them. Made me think, why isn't there an Iraqi that is so occupied with kids and have such heart for them. I play with my little sister sometimes, and I like her very much. But I don't think I can play with kids for a continuous 3 or 4 hours like she did.

You know I consider it the specialty of Iraqis to be able to have fun in the worst circumstances. I saw a lot of weddings on Saturday, although we usually marry on Thursdays, but what better time to marry than in the middle of Eid. I'm guessing most of you don't know how an Average Iraqi weds, prepare (or celebrates the wedding more precisely.

Of course the first thing they would think about it is usually the place where the main party is going to be held at. It has to be a big hall or an open space with so many seats and space enough for a really large number of people, as usually even the very distant cousins and relatives that you might have seen once or twice in your life, are invited. Neighbors and friends are invited too. Guess you make sure that everyone knows you are marrying. :). The traditional sign of happiness among the Iraqis is used too. Which is of course shooting live bullets in the air, surprised?? Don't be, this is the official sign of happiness for the Average Iraqi. Whether it is his friend's wedding, a win of the Iraqi football team or simply a happy event in his life, he shoots in the air. Whether it is just a pistol, or a classic AK-47 (Klashinkov), or even an extra-noisy rifle. Or in one case I have heard of, an RPG-7 shot at an empty plot. Don't worry no one got hurt, thankfuly.

Back to the wedding, sometimes the hall or the big space is above the financial abilities of a simple Average Iraqi. So a small party held at home would be enough. But a-must-happen is the ride the man and his wife make in a car. This is an Iraqi tradition, that the man and his wife ride in the most expensive car in the party, usually a Mercedes or a BMW, which is always cleaned to the bone, and makiaged in ribbons. That car will lead the convoy of happy cars. All of these cars will be sounding their horns during the trip, doesn't matter if they pass during a hospital or even an American convoy. They just keep "horning".

Iraqi Bloggers: From Pax to Sanyora

2005-10-31T23:08:00.000+03:00

This post was last updated on November 11 2005. The writing in red are what I have just added.

It took me some time to put this up. This is the journey the Iraqi bloggers made ever since Salam Pax first signed in blogger on June 2002 until the day I write this post.

History

The first blog started on June 2002 was Where is Raed. Salam says that he had to delete that blog after a Reuters Technology report about blogs mentioned it and linked to it. He says that he was too afraid at the time so he had to suddenly delete everything on that blog without backing it up. Now the only thing on that blog is the word "Sorry". Pax said that he didn't back up any of his posts, but a commenter has provided a link to some archives which he claims to be Pax's. Scroll down to the comments section to see them, I can't really say if they are genuine or not, but thanks to CharlesWT for them. It seems that Raed Jarrar is an old timer too. Joined blogger on December 2002, he and Salam were friends at that time. It seems that the second blog started by Salam, was like the first, dedicated to communication with Raed Dear Raed . Year 2002 ended with only two Iraqi bloggers in the Sphere.

One year after Pax entered the Sphere G joins it. But stops blogging mysteriously on September the same year. Whose name turned out to be Gaith Abdul Ahad, and became a journalist also. May 2003, a blogger named Jalloul creates a series of blogs in English, Arabic, French and Swedish .On July 2003 Nawar starts blogging, he too stopped mysteriously after one month of blogging. The Sphere gets a lot more interesting when on August 2003 the famous Riverbend joins the journey. She still blogs to this day. Ironic thing is that on her first post she says :"So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I'd start my own weblog... All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was "but who will read it?" I guess I've got nothing to lose". If only she knew how famous she was going to turn out to be.

On October that same year Zeyad starts blogging. He blogs to this day, barley. He too on his first post didn't expect what this was going to turn out to be. He said "Unfortunately, there haven't been enough Iraqis running weblogs lately. There are only five of them as far as I know. I took it upon myself to start a weblog and introduce other Iraqis to this new (to us at least) and exciting world". There are 170 Iraqi blogs now according the Blog Count. Guess your mission has been accomplished Zeyad.

Fayrouz and Ihath join on October too, Fayrouz creates another blog called Fay's Catholic Thoughts on August 2004, which she still blogs on, a third blog she created is called Fayrouz Break Room which was started one month before the previous one, on July 2004, and she is still blogging on it. Then Ihath creates another blog, of which she blogs on it in Arabic. Another Iraqi blogger joins on October, Fadhil is the first Iraqi blogger to start blogging all time in Arabic. A few weeks later, he creates another blog, but he hasn't posted on it since May 2004. Still blogs to this moment on his original blog. Then he creates another blog on July 2005, makes his last post on it on September 2005. Then the first Iraqi Kurdish blogger Kurdo starts blogging on October too, marking the entrance of Kurdish bloggers to the sphere.Alaa, Ays, Hammorabi and Nabil all start blogging on November 2003. Still posting to this day. Andy and Firas both start on November too but Andy stops on April 2004 and Firas stops on March 2005. Although Andy creates another blog of which he still blogs on it to this day.

November just keeps getting more exciting as the first one of the ITM brothers, Omar joins the blogsphere and start Iraq The Model. Ali makes his first post from Omar's account on December 2003. He ends the post by saying "By Ali". Mohammad uses the same method a few days later to begin posting from Omar's account himself, and posts his first post a welcome to the new year. Right now, Omar and Mohammad still blog at Iraq The Model, separate accounts for each one. While Ali has started his own blog on December 2004, he had made his last post on August 2005, but he mentioned he was going to be away for a couple of months, so we don't know if he had stopped or not. Maybe not.

December 2003 Wild Fire or Jo starts blogging, hes blog is a weird blog, and it took some time to figure out her first post. On December too, the Jarrars family is all blogging. Raed starts the family blog. Majid is the first one to write on it, however he waits another two months untill it is February 2004 to start his own blog. Khalid on the other hand, starts blogging on his own blog on December 9 before he starts blogging on the family blog on December 20. But Khalid creates another blog on April 2005, doesn't blog on it any more than the end of the month. Faiza starts blogging on the family blog one day after Khalid on December 21. She doesn't have a personal blog but posts usually to the family blog. Raed, Khalid and Faiza are still blogging to this day. Majid stopped on March 2005.

Alaasmary started blogging on December 2003 but he stopped on January 2005.

Year 2003 ends, with 22 Iraqi bloggers on the web. This day only 15 of them still blogging, while most of the others quit a long time ago.

On 2004 Iraqi bloggers went rising in numbers so fast it was hard to track them all. But it seems that the first new Iraqi blogger of the year 2004 is U who starts blogging on the first day of the new year. Hadn't posted since June 2005.Liminal starts blogging on January 6 2004. He is still writing to this day but less frequently. January 26 is the date O first began blogging. But he stops at May 2005. ZZ starts blogging on January 2004, with a very moving post that was written in memory of his beloved father. He still blogs. On the same month January 2004, he creates another blog but he hasn't blogged on it since September 2005,

The largest Iraqi blogging family is introduced to blogger when on January 2004 my uncle Ahmad Kharrufa started blogging. Although he had stopped on May 2005, but the flag has been carried. Najma joined on June 2004, and is still blogging to this day. Raghda started on July the same year, she is still blogging to this day. Dalia starts blogging on July too, but she hadn't posted since August 2005.HNK starts on July too, and is still blogging to this day. Rose Ahmad's wife, starts on August 2004, her last post was made on September 2005. Kais started blogging January 2005, but he blogged rarely, and has not posted since June. Dr.Truth Teller joins on January too, and is still blogging to this day. February 2005 is the date Hassan Kharrufa (myself) joins the blogger.com community. You are reading a post I have written, so I'm still blogging to this day. Sunshine starts on April 2005, and is still blogging to this day. The latest family member to joins the blogsphere isEmotions who starts blogging on July 2005, and is still blogging.

Abbas starts on February 2004, he is still blogging. Abu Hadi starts blogging on March but stops on April the same year. March 2004 Faiza starts a new Jarrars blog, she makes most of the posts, but she stops writing on it on October 2004. Ahmad is the fastest multi-post Iraqi blogger to quit blogging, he blogged for only ten days from April 16 to April 26.

Baghdadi starts blogging on April 2004, and stops on June the same year. Tareek starts on April 2004 too, he still posts. March 2004 Suha starts blogging. Though her name was a mystery at first, as there was no profile or anything whatsoever as to who created the blog. But A little digging up revealed her name. She stopped blogging on May 2005. . Ayad started blogging on March too. But he hadn't posted since April. Then Happy Bushra starts his first blog on this month, he still blogs on it this day. He creates his Second Blog on September 2004, it seems that it is mainly a pictures blog, the last post on it is dated April 2005.

May 2004, Abu Khaleel joins the group and is blogging to this day. Abu Khaleel himself started five other blogs which he writes in them sometimes. Rapid Democracy in Iraq, Meethaq for Iraq, A Glimpse of Iraq, Us Mistaked in Iraq and Disgrunted Americans

Shaggy chooses this month to start blogging too, and he has kept on blogging ever since.Hala Fattah posts for the first time on May 2004, but her last post was on September the same year. Reading her Profile, she seems like a very educated person. IRAQ makes his first post on May 2004, a very funny one indeed. But he hadn't posted since August 2005.

As June 2004 comes, Ibn_Alrafidain writes his first post. He seems to be still blogging. On the last day of June 2004, Sara starts blogging. While Ferid starts a couple of weeks later. Sara is still on the blogs, while Ferid has made his last post on August 2005. Maas starts on July too, but it seems that she was shy at the beginning, as her first posts were pictures only, it is August 2004 when she makes her first text-only post, still posting to this day. On the same month, IraqPundit begins blogging, and continues to blog to this day.

Ali Mohamed starts on August 2004, his first post is an Email Me post. Second post is a 32 pictures post. He continues to blog by photos. He stops at the end of the month. But he comes back on May 2005 to post a welcoming post!!. Neurotic Iraqi Wife starts on August. This day she is working in the Green Zone, so her posts are very infrequent, but she doesn't seem like quitting. The Pin Cushion is a one post blogger, his post was made on August 2004. While 13 or more known as Anarki, starts on August too, but unlike The Pin Cushion, he still blogs. Ibrahim Khalil makes his Intoduction on August 2004. Last post on February 2005. Maitham joins on August too, but his last post was made on October 2004. August 2004 is the starting date of Nancy as she wrote her first post on this month, she kept on blogging since that time.

Downfall first blogs on the first day of September 2004. But stops on June 2005. Othman is a one post blogger too, he makes his post on September 2004. PuRGaToR starts blogging on this month too. Then on December 2004 he creates another blog which he mostly posted photos at, he stops blogging on both sites on January 2005.

October 2004, Sami first posts, he doesn't look to be posting anymore, his last post was on October 5. Iraq Humanity starts blogging on the same month. His last post was made on August 2005. On November 2004 Black Eagle starts blogging, and has not stopped since then.

December 2004, the year is about to end as Husayn joins the blogsphere. Last post made on July 2005. Imad Khadduri, A Free Writer and The Iraqi all start blogging on December 2004, and continuous to blog now. Another blogger who is not interested in politics join the sphere on this month, Nameer nooon chooses this month to blog, he blogs mostly in pictures away from politics. Then a group of ChaldoAssyrian Christians created another blog, which they are still posting on to the moment. Najeeb Hanoudi starts blogging on this month too, he kept on blogging ever since. Sahil begins to blog on this month too, he is still blogging at the moment.

Year 2004 ends. 46 Iraqi bloggers has joined the blogsphere, only 22 of them are still bloging today. So that makes a sum of 66 Iraqi bloggers to join the sphere since June 2002. Right now 37 of them are blogging.

Here comes year 2005. The first blogger of this year, is a rather funny blogger. Dog of a Son makes his first entry on the first day of the new year. He blogs to this day. Duraid makes his first post on this month too, but he hadn't posted since April 2005. Although he had created another blog on February 2005, but he had stopped blogging on it on June the same year. January 12, Ishtarria starts blogging, and she is still posting. The Grandson too chooses January 2005 to begin blogging, and he keeps blogging at the moment. Then another Iraqi non-politics blogger begins blogging on this month too, Alfil is a cinema interested blogger, and he hadn't bloged anything else since that date. He keeps on blogging now.

Then comes Zan, who seems to be creating blogs more than he is posting. His first and main blog is started on January 2005, but the last post on it was on April 2005. Second blog was made on January 2005 too, but doesn't get beyond the month. Third blog is created on February 2005, but the last post was also on April 2005. Fourth and Fifth were both March 2005 exclusive. On February 2005 Mark Tuma started blogging and kept on blogging ever since.

On March 2005, Najma creates a Family Blog in an attempt to persuade her mother to blog, her mother started blogging on it, but made her last post on April 2005. Another all time Arabic blogger joined the sphere on this month too, Tara who is fully capable of understanding English chooses not to blog in anything but Arabic. A nice blogger starts blogging on March 2005, Vahal Abdulrahman blogs in the form of letters sent to Baghdad. He sends his last letter in a very moving post.

A weird and later hated-from-Arabs blogger started blogging on April 2005, The Iraqi Mistress does not get beyond May 2005. Narsay is another one month Iraqi blogger, he posts only on April 2005. Which is the starting month of S.R.Z, while her stopping date is on May 2005. Akba writes his first post on this month too, he doesn't seem to be blogging anymore, as his last post was made on October 19 2005. Wafaa' begins blogging on April 2005, she still blogs this day. soon joins on April 2005 too, and he is still posting to this day. On April 2005, Haneen starts and kept on ever since. Then on October 2005 Haneen creates a blog titled Photos From Iraq which she blogs on it in photos, and offers any other Iraqi to put pictures on it.

May 2005 comes with another blogger, as انا استرالي joins the sphere on it. His last post was on August 2005. It seems that a site named Niqash starts hosting blogs on this month. As many bloggers start blogging on it. Iraqi Diaries in English, Abbas, Abdul Muhsin, Sheymaa, Iraqi Diaries in Arabic, Naseer, Tayseer, Yaseen, Al-Shmius Media Network, Avin, Ihsan and Niqash Press Blog all start their blogs on it. Iraqi Diaries in English start on June 2005, and the last post is made on August 2005. Abbas and Abdul Muhsin only blog on June 2005. Shymaa blogs only from June 2005 to July 2005. Iraqi Diaries in Arabic blogs from June 2005 and is still on the blogs. Nasser and Tayseer blog only on July 2005. Yaseen blogs from July 2005 to October 2005. Al-Shmius Media Network blogs only on July 2005. Avin and Ihsan who are Kurdish bloggers blog from June 2005 to October 2005. While Niqash Press Blogs starts from July 2005, and still blogs to this day.

Al-Shekhili posts only twice on July 2005, and quits after that. 3yOoN_BaGhDaDiA starts blogging on this month, and she is still blogging at the moment. Then The Iraqi Roulette starts on July 2005 and is still blogging. The Little Snippet starts on the last day of this month. He is still blogging at the moment. The Kid Himself starts blogging on the end of July 2005. He has kept on blogging ever since

Hassan Blasim makes a single post on August 2005. Truth About Iraqis joins on the same month, and is still blogging till now. Another one post blogger joins the sphere on August 2005, Sami blogs his single post on this month. Treasure of Baghdad joins on this month too and he is still blogging. 24 Steps to Liberty is too a blogger who joins on August 2005 and continuous to blog.

Another weird blogger chooses to start blogging on September 2005. Caesar of Pentra is still blogging since that date. Another one post blogger is Security who posts his single post on September 2005. Alaa chooses this month as a date, and the children of Iraq as a subject to blog about. He kept on blogging to this day. Attawie joins the blogsphere on this month too, and he is still blogging to this date. Micho La Jolie Fille is a blogger who demonstrate her skills in Arabic, English and French in her posts, she is still posting at the moment. The last Iraqi blogger to join the blogsphere is apparently Sanyora who joins the blogsphere on October 17 2005.

On the date of the last update of this post, which is November 3 2005. Year 2005 has witnessed 46 new Iraqi bloggers so far. Right now 22 of them are still blogging. The total sum of the Iraqi bloggers to join the blogsphere since Pax first signed in on June 2002 is 112, of those there are only 59 active right now.

Looking for a certain blogger??. Don't try to read the whole post looking for a certain blogger, if you find him then you are very lucky, this post is very long and you could easily slip past a blogger or two, I recommend using the search tool in you browser to find the blogger you want. Search for bloggers not blogs and the name of blogs are sometimes not mentioned. If you still can't find a certain blogger drop me a comment, I will find him for you. Finally I would like to say that this post should be considered a biography for all Iraqi bloggers, and I'm presenting it as a gift to the Iraqi Bloggers for the Eid Al-Feter of the year 2005.

Ramadan About to End, Eid About to Begin

2005-10-29T23:27:00.000+03:00

When the fasting month, Ramadan, ends. Eid is to follow. Eid is a Muslim festival. It lasts for a few days. There are two Eids in the Hegri calendar. One is the incoming one, after Ramadhan, which lasts for three days. The other is after the pilgrimage to Mecca the holy city. Lasts for four days. First one is known as "Eid Al-Fetr", second one is known as "Eid Al-Adha". But we rarely call them those, better known as "The small Eid" and "The big Eid". Easier huh??

Eid is an Arabic word that means festival. And it is a festival by all means. Just today I went to Al-Mansour neighborhood. This is a place were you can buy clothes, all kind of clothes, it probably has about five hundred clothing stores there. It so crowded you would have to stand right in front of the stores window if you wanted to look inside. Everybody is buying new clothes for Eid. Parents buying gifts for their children. Eid always brings me the nicest of memories. When I was a child my parents would always put gifts and new clothes for me and my brother in our room during the nigh, so when we wake up they are just there, out of nowhere. I knew it was them. I tried so often to stay awake as much as possible to see when they put them, I would start reading stories in the night to stay awake, then I would go to the bathroom every now and then to wash my face so I can stay awake, but I never succeeded. I would always fall asleep before they come. I don't know if they did it during the night, or early in the morning.

Eid really begins when on the first day, people would gather in the mosque, very early in the morning. About sunrise. They would gather there, and would say the "Takberat Al-Eid". It's not a song, but it does have this rhythm. I guess the huge number of people saying it gives it this rhythm. It is always a pleasant thing to listen to, and begin Eid with.

The thing that makes Eid so special, is the gatherings. People would start going to their relatives and neighbors to congratulate them. Usually the Mosul Family would come too. Despite the long and hard road, they come. Because there is nothing more fun than the whole family in a single room. We are talking about 30 peoples here. All in a single house. We used to go out at night to have a dinner in a restaurant or something. One time, I don't think the Mosul family was there in it, my memory is vivid, but I don't remember them in it. However, we all went to a restaurant at 14 St. Ramadan to eat. We split into too tables, adults and non-adults. I was a non-adult then, but I was the eldest, it feels good to be a leader even for a bunch of kids. On that day I wanted to try something new, so I ordered something called "Tornado" which I hadn't heard of before or tasted. I wanted to try something new. I remember it tasted good, but smelled horrible.

Note: This post has been emailed to my Email List subscribers.

Constitution Accepted....But

2005-10-27T18:23:00.000+03:00

The results are finally up. You probably read it in the last Post which my friend Mad Canuck generously published. I voted for the constitution at the first place, and I won't hide the fact that I'm happy with this. Although questions of the Nineveh results validity are still unanswered. Though the UN supervised this event we can't be sure what has been happening behind closed doors. A fact is that there is fraud in every voting, but the big question whether these are enough to change the results or not. Whether it is simply the clerks acting up on their own to raise their favored side, which shouldn't be enough to change anything and will happen during the voting process in my opinion. Or if it is government controlled which can dramatically change the result of a certain Provence and in my opinion, will happen during the results counting process.

As I thought would happen, things escalated a bit after the result was announced. But I thought it was going to last a little more, Baghdad is quiet these days. Not much fights and explosions. Now when I say "QUIET" I don't mean that it is calm and peaceful, there no such thing in Iraq nowadays. But it merely means no big events, fights or explosions. Just the usual, shooting here and there, one or two minor booms and Americans or National Guards are becoming something you don't stare at. But you can't help but curse them whenever you see any of them. I don't know why the always insist on coming from the wrong side, or start shooting at the tiniest of reasons.

It seems I am not a full time blogger anymore. College is really heating up, and I am not ready to be left behind. This is something that takes at least 8 hours of my time each day. So I can't check all the links of sidebar daily as I used to. I'll probably start missing posts. But at least I know that the time will be well spent.

Note: This post has been emailed to my Email List subscribers.

Referendum Results are In

2005-10-25T23:49:00.000+03:00

Note: This post was written by Mad Canuck

Well, the results are in: the constitution passed the referendum in Iraq by a comfortable margin. Nineveh did vote "no", but only with a 55% majority, a full 12 percentage points short of the 67% required to veto the constitution.

Of course, the results were announced late in Baghdad, and the Average Iraqi isn't online right now to write this blog post, so I hope all of you don't mind the Average Canadian filling in for him... :)

As for the rest of Iraq, the referendum had a 63% turnout, and the constitution passed by a wide margin, with over 78% of voters casting a "yes" ballot, and in 11 out of Iraq's 18 provinces (all Kurdish and Shia dominated areas), the votes was over 95% "yes".

While there will undoubtedly be allegations of fraud, the voting and the subsequent counting process was monitored by United Nations observers. Carina Perelli, the chief of the UN Electoral Assistance division said the referendum "has been audited, controlled - it has been done really in a very professional way." UN observers are important in a referendum like this, since they are impartial, and do not have a hidden agenda. The Americans have an agenda - they would prefer to see the constitution pass, since they think this will allow them to bring their troops home sooner, but the UN is the world body that refused to sanction the war in Iraq, and where most member-countries oppose the US presence in Iraq. The UN has nothing to gain either way the referendum result falls, so having them observe the referendum can help guarantee fairness.

Full results by province can be found here.

Hassan is probably having an interesting night. A news reporter contacted him a few days ago and promised to call him after the results were announced to get his opinion on it. So, don't be surprised to hear Hassan's voice coming from your TV set or radio in the next day or two.

Of course, this blog is about the Average Iraqi, and not the Average Canadian, so I'll shut up now and let Hassan fill in the rest of the details and give his opinion on all this tomorrow.

Mad Canuck.

Voting Results Should be Tomorrow

2005-10-23T19:54:00.000+03:00

It's Sunday. Supposedly on Monday the voting results will be announced. Until now partial result of some provinces has been announced, but nothing official. I guess we are all waiting for what the Nineveh province will say. There are 18 provinces in Iraq. If the results in any three of them was more than 66% against the constitution, the constitution will be rejected. Then the whole process will be repeated, and it will be 6 months before another constitution will be presented, which I don't think will be much different from this one. Already two provinces, which are Salah Al-Deen and Al-Anbar has voted against the constitution. Now Nineveh is the only province that could vote either for or against the constitution. The only sure thing is that it will be a close call. No official result has been announced yet, so we still wait.

Rumors on the Iraqi street say that the constitution will surely pass, and that the government will make sure that happens. No hard evidence whatsoever has been presented yet. But that doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter whether it happened or not, what matters is whether the Iraqi people believe it or not. The Average Iraqi will not go after hard evidence, he will more likely follow the strongest rumor, or his own heart. Which can give the worst results, when people do this and that just because they simply like it, or not. If the constitution passes, the whole thing could end up back firing, instead of doing the good effect I am hoping it will make, thing could really escalate when the Sunnis refuse these results for believing them to be false. My friends tell me that if anyone declares he voted for the constitution in Mosul, he could get himself killed. I haven't asked any of my relatives in Mosul about this, guess I will update this post when I ask them. Now I keep hearing how many people voted against the constitution in Mosul, and that almost no one voted for it, from my relatives. Then how is it a close call after all. If that information is true, how can we really be sure what the people voted, it will be impossible to decide what the result is expected to be, and impossible to estimate the amount of fraud in the results, and whether it is enough to change the result or not.

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Assignment

2005-10-21T09:47:00.000+03:00

Well I have just been tagged by Najma to do some assignment. Good thing is when I do it, I get to tag other seven people to do the same. Who am I going to choose??

Seven Things I Plan to Do:

1- Graduate from civil engineering and get a Ph.D.
2- Been driving for two years, but it would be nice if I got a driver's license.
3- Go abroad, never been outside Iraq.
4- Get an Asia Cell card. (This is a mobile company that provides internet in phones. Only one in Iraq.)
5- Find a fast and cheap internet provider. (This might as well be classified as a dream)
6- Meet The Kid,Cecile and of course Mad Canuck.
7- Convince more of my friends to join the blogsphere.

Seven Things I can DO

1- When some professor gets to my nerves, I can easily skip his FINAl. Get a Zero in his exam, and proudly take the exam on the second attempt. Did it once when I was in high school.
2- Write one hell of a comment when really pissed off.
3- Spend the day without doing anything when there are a thousand thing need to be done.
4- Watch the same movie five times, and still discover events I have missed.
5- Say a thousand words in five minutes.
6- Type a 1000 word article in ten minutes.
7- Somehow managed to crash and fix every computer I have used.

Seven Things I can't Do

1- Say a single phrase that my grandfather can understand.
2- Get someone to understand what is a blog from first try.
3- Spend one day without yelling on someone.
4- Get from house to college in half an hour.
5- Pray the morning prayer (approximately 4:40 AM).
6- Stop Blogging.
7- Eat something healthy.

Seven Things I say Most Often:

1- Do you want me to run the generator. (Every time electricity goes off).
2- Do we have internet?? (Every time I come home from college).
3- AHOOOOO. (Every time I discover we don't have internet).
4- Well. (Have you noticed I start most of my phrases with that word).
5- Is today Even or Odd. (Every time I want to take the car).
6- What are we eating today.
7- You willing to go to Al-Jamia Al-Taknologia. (I say it to evey cab I stop. Only one of every ten is willing to go that far).

Seven People I Want to Pass this Tag to:

1- Cile
2- The Kid Himself
3- Olive Branch
4- Treasure of Baghdad
5- Morbid Smile
6- Chele
7- Ihath I enjoy your posts very much, how about you do one for me??.

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Another Iraqi Blogger joins the blogsphere

2005-10-19T18:49:00.000+03:00

Yeah, I know Saddam's trial is on TV now, but it has been postponed to November 28. No use me trying to tell what happened, it was on every TV channel we have. Anyway, I don't think it will have anything more than a moral effect.

On other news, my efforts to convince some of my college friends to get a blog has finally paid off. Today my best friend Samy has finally started a blog. However his blog is going to be mostly in Arabic, since his English is not very good. I will translate some of his posts if I think they are worth it. Go say hello to him, even if you can't read the post.

Oh and something else. Want to hear me talk. My interview with the BBC is finally online, but it won't be for much. So if you want to hear my voice you better hurry. Here is the Link. Although I kept stumbling at first, but I think I did good for my first Radio interview.

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Assumptions: Constitution seems like passing

2005-10-17T16:10:00.000+03:00

On Saturday the voting ended at 5 PM, with almost no or very little accidents. No terror actions were reported. The voting went well in Baghdad, the night before it was generally calm, except for the terror attack on the power lines. So we didn't wake up on the sound of shots, or on electricity either. Al-Anbar wasn't that lucky, the people woke on sounds of heavy fire fights and bombing too. The number of voters at Al-Anbar wasn't more than 33% of the total eighteen plus population. AL-Basrah, the southern most city of Baghdad was the most peaceful city of the day. No accidents whatsoever. Basrah is generally a city of Shias, they form 80% of the population, 15% are Sunnis, the rest are Christians, Turks and other minorities. In the North, Mosul went into a state of chaos in the morning, people didn't know where to vote, some vote centers were closed, the clerks at others didn't show up. Read what Najma wrote about that day.

I have been tracking the progress the guys are making in vote counting. The first estimates are that Anbar and Salah Al-Deen voted against the constitution. In the North, Mosul a city of Sunnis mostly, is estimates as a yes province. Although the Sunnis are the general population there, but Mosul has a lot of other minorities in it, Athorians, Kurds, Turks, Yezedias, Shabak, Shias and Turks. So I guess it is going to be tough to guess what the result will be. In my opinion, Mosul will be the province that decide the fate of the constitution. Because first estimates for Salah Al-Deen and Al-Anbar are that over 80% voted against the constitution. The constitution will fail if one more province voted against it. So if Mosul votes for it, it will pass. If it votes against it, it will not pass. Kurdistan has voted mostly for the constitution, which is predictable. In the South, estimates show that Basrah has voted for the constitution. Karbala has voted for it too. Najaf is going to be a close call. Because Al-Sadr followers will not vote for the constitution. Anyway these estimates are not conclusive. Results should come out in a few days. The constitution will pass if no more than 66% of the voters in three provinces voted against it. According to these estimates, the constitution will not be approved if one more province voted against it.

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Yes with a Capital (Y)

2005-10-15T13:04:00.000+03:00

Short Story: I DID.

If you don't have the time or the heart to read the long story, you can simply skip now and go to the comments section

Long Story:

We went out at 11 PM. Walked the long distance until we reached the voting center. There were personnel of the National Guard around it, and Police inside it. They searched us then let us in. We stood in the queue until it was our turn. We went in, two at a row. They gave us the paper in which we write our voting. I picked YES. Then there is the ink, we put our fingers in a bottle that is filled with this ink. It is supposed to stay for a few days. The reason of this ink is that it makes sure that the same person will not vote twice, and will not go to another voting center to vote. See my finger:

When we went back. The internet connection at our house was dead. Because of the attacks on the power lines yesterday night. We had little power yesterday night. I think the server is out of power too, so it is not starting. Now I'm at my aunts house, they have a different internet provider and it is working.

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One day to the Referendum

2005-10-14T20:50:00.000+03:00

I won't write a long post. Today I didn't go out of the house today. No one did. The streets are deserted, the city is almost frozen. You don't go out unless you have something necessary. Today at 10 Pm the curfew starts and ends tomorrow morning about 6 AM. Cars are not allowed tomorrow, so we are going to walk to the voting center. But it is going to be a long walk. The center is almost a kilometer and a half from the house. Bikes are not allowed either. My mom jokingly said that we should all go together, so if we die we die together.

I have decided to vote yes for the constitution. I know it still has a few wrong things in it, and that it hadn't been written in the same manner as it should have been, but it will work. You don't refuse a constitution unless you know it will not work. But this one will work. Especially after the changes on Wednesday, which has made it easier to change some of it's parts after it is accepted. Plus, I have gotten tired of this situation, and refusing the constitution will not change it. Maybe going further will.

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Just Had to Break the Rules

2005-10-12T12:39:00.000+03:00

I went out today, to shop and store anything we might need for the coming days. You never know what could happen. If something really goes wrong, and we get trapped in our house for a week or so, I wouldn't want to run out of food. Although today was not the day our car could move. But I had a feeling I could get away with it, and I did. I went through side roads only, not through any main street where a checkpoint or a traffic police could find me. Already the streets are beginning to look emptier. Most government facilities are going off these days. Primary schools, high schools and universities are all postponing their study until after the seminars.

I went near the local voting center too, to see how are things around. Seems like the people there are practicing for a big load. Although I didn't see any guards or anything. Maybe they will be deployed later. They shouldn't take the security matter easily. One big boom in the morning that kills a few people at a voting center, and people will drop voting and go home. It's real easy. I think when the day comes, I will be going early to make sure those damned terrorists don't have time to put their bombs and whatever they have. I want to vote, but I want to survive to see the results too.

The government has not done it's job in spreading the constitution as it should have done. Sure I can find it on the internet and probably on some newspapers and magazines. But that isn't enough. How many people will buy that specific magazine, and how many Iraqis can find it through the web. So instead of reading it, people are depending on what the politicians are saying about it, which is a sure wrong thing. Some politicians will criticize the constitution just to get a second chance to get inside the government when the constitution is refused. While the current government is doing it's possible to make sure this constitution is accepted. Right now, Iraqis abroad are not allowed to vote, mainly because most of them are sunnis who refuse the constitution. So it is down to politics. I don't know about anyone else, but my definition of politics is, "It is an open rules game played between the politicians to get what they want".

Update:

Almost a week ago, Sunnis demanded certain changes to the constitution be made, some of those demands will make the constitution more flexible to change once the new government is elected. These demands were accepted today.

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A Not-so-Average Dinner for the Average Iraqi

2005-10-09T20:13:00.000+03:00

On Friday I went to the most unusual dinner in my life. I'm used to eating with my family, sometimes with friends, rarely with strangers, never with non-Iraqis. Above all, I was the GUEST. It was the most exciting dinner in my life so far. With English being the main used language, I failed to recognize some saying my name more than once. There was only 3 Iraqis at the dinner, including me. I knew the two other Iraqis already, and there was Jon Finer, the Washington Post reporter who had interviewed me earlier. The others I didn't know. The dinner was not a business dinner, the reporters that came didn't come to discuss the news or anything, just to let off some steam. So I didn't catch many last names, except for Farnaz Fassihi from the Wall Street Journal, which I have her card now. The others I only know by first names now.

We ate Mexican food, tacos to be exact. I hadn't seen that before, and if it wasn't for Ellen Knickmeyer I wouldn't have figured out how to eat them either. Thanks Ellen. The food was great, I don't know where they found some one that can cook Mexican in Baghdad, but it was good. A hard moment was when they served the drinks. They served red wine. As a Muslim, I don't drink any alcoholic drink, and I wasn't about to let my principles go just so I could blend in a bit better. But Jackie saved the day, she brought me a soft drink. Thank you Jackie.

I know my written English is good enough for the web, but I hadn't really talked much English for a while now. I did some talking with the soldiers last year, when I was doing my summer field training at Al-Zaora Park. They used to come there a lot. Mostly I played translator there, between the Engineers and the Soldiers. But that was it, hadn't really talked English for while. It feels nice now to know that I can talk understandable English.

Um, this shouldn't go unnoticed, the title of this post isn't actually my idea. Mad Canuck came up with it. Plus he helped me with some phrasing. Thanks buddy.

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7 Days to the referendum

2005-10-08T14:51:00.000+03:00

I went out last night. Yes LAST NIGHT. I went out at 7:15 PM, and came back at 10:30 PM. The city was empty. Literary empty. No shop was open. The road was all in front of you, no cars in it. The city of ghosts, as Treasure of Baghdad calls it. With most of the outside lights out. The city is engulfed in darkness. The car moves in total darkness, if it wasn't for it's headlights, we wouldn't have figured out the way. Looking in front of me, I could see the shades of the street in front of us, empty. Every now and then, we would see a red or yellow waving light in front of us, signaling an NG checkpoint. Even as they talked nice to you. But you could hear the tension of their voices. At this time of night, some areas of Baghdad, can't be entered by the National Guards or the Americans. I recall that once, a neighbor of ours, had to take his daughter to the hospital at night. She didn't have anything serious, at 12:30 AM they wanted to go home, too dangerous to drive on their own, they ask an NG checkpoint to send a car with them to escort them. They said sure just tell us were you want to go. When they heard the name of the place, they looked at each other, then said: "We don't go there on our own, and you want us to take you there.". They told them to drive fast without any headlights, but that is all, you are on your own.

Away from politics for a while. I have changed the looks of my side bar, changed the order of the links, and I made them glide. It is not an original idea, I have seen it in other blogs, Fayrouz is one of them. Though it took me a long time, it is weird that when you preview the template, it doesn't look exactly as when you actually save it and use it. Probably updated my blog 10 times this morning. The categorizes of the blogs are original though.

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10 Days to the Referendum

2005-10-06T20:40:00.000+03:00

10 Days are left to the referendum of the constitution. The Iraqi street is in tense because of it. There are checkpoints at every main street in Baghdad now. In some areas, there are fortified checkpoints, and even tanks sometimes. These are the areas that are so violent they switch sides between the Americans and the insurgents overnight. For the third day in a row, I have not been outside the house, I could hear the sounds of shots every few hours on the nearest main street to our house. There was an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint there, and they were being attacked more than once a day.

Recently the government has made some changes to the rules that define the acceptance of the constitution. The change went like this: "Under the new rules, the constitution will fail only if two-thirds of all registered voters reject it in at least three of the 18 provinces.". The term registered voters mean the people who register for vote, but doesn't strictly mean they actually voted. It is just a name on a list. Which technically means if you don't vote, it is a yes. But the UN was supervising the referendum, and I think they applied pressure on the government to change it back. It is obvious that the change was supposed to give the referendum more chances of being accepted. But such step would destroy the concept of Democracy.

The good news is, the university has postponed the seminars until after the referendum. Which means me staying home for another two weeks. R&R for me. Anyway, I got out today, finally. I went down the street, bought some "Zenod Al-Set". Which are some famous Iraqi desert. It is a tradition to eat them when the fasting end each day. I took some photos of them with my cell, but I a friend of mine took the Bluetooth device for a couple of days. So I will post them as soon as I get it back. I always use my cell for the photographing because it is a lot easier to copy the pictures to the computer with a Bluetooth device, than plugging the camera with the computer, wires and all.

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IN HER EYES: Another Big Day

2005-10-03T22:47:00.000+03:00

The person that is going to play An Average Iraqi in this post is the same girl that played An Average Iraqi in the post IN HER EYES:The Big Day.

"Well, When that SMS arrived, I was home, bored. Probably because I had studied all summer, and now I suddenly have a lot of free time, and nothing to do with it. Can't go out. I spent most of the day in front of the TV, sometimes I would call my friends and chat a few minutes. So when that SMS arrived, I thought it was one of my friends sending me a message, and I would reply and that would be it. But when I read it, it was different, she said that the results for the 2nd attempt exams could be up on Sunday.

"I was so excited, first I had to arrange for transportation, thankfully my aunt works at a nearby place, I can go and come back either with her, or my father could come and get me, our car could go out on Sunday, thank god. Next I had to see who knew and who didn't, who is going to come and who is not, catch some gossip if there was a curve this year or not. The days went as slow as they could be. On Saturday, I slept but hardly.

"Sunday at last.... I arrived at the university at about 9:00 AM. Saw a lot of my friends, said hi to all, but I wasn't going to stay and chat, I had to go up and see what my result is, I didn't even bother to look around and see who has came and who hasn't. I went up the stairs, entered the staff and administration floor, I knew the room where the results would be announced. I went there, and asked the clerck if there was anything on the grades, he asked me what year I am, I said 2nd going to 3rd. He said they will be announced at 12. Oh 3 hours of waiting what was I going to do. I went down, saw more friends, we sat down at the cafeteria, spent the 3 hours there, then we went back to the department. One of the boys went up to see if the results has been announced yet or not. He came back and said they will be announced in the next 15 minutes, but said that we need a letter from the library that clears me of any books I might have borrowed, so if I had borrowed any books I should return them. Luckily I hadn't borrowed anything. So we went to the library, got our letters and went back to the department.

"The results were being announced, I felt like I wanted to fly there and get my results, I couldn't wait for the queue to reach me. But there was no other way, minutes passed like they were ages. Although the queue was made of many students, but silence ruled. I could tell it the person who comes out of the room had passed or not. One of the boys even "Halhal"ed. (There is no English word for that, but it goes something like "Kololololeeeeeesh". A sign of overjoy.) I laughed when I heard him, we only "halhal" when we are overjoyed in weddings and such. Others would come out on the verge of crying, some of the girls surely did. Finally my turn, when the last student in front of me went out, it was my turn to turn the knob and go in, I felt like my legs couldn't carry me, I even didn't know if I should push or pull, finally I figured it out. Went into the room, and told the clerck my name, gave him the letter, and waited. He turned to the computer, said my name in a questioning phrase, checking I guess, then gave me a small paper, and said "Mabroog" (congratulations).

"Oh I was at the peek of happiness, all my close friends who went before me had passed, now I have joined them. I'm finally in the 3rd year. Took me a lot of time, but it is done finally. No celebration was enough for me, I know I had grown older ten years when I was at the queue, but now I have the energy of a 2 years old kid. I couldn't even sit for 5 seconds. I couldn't wait to get home and tell my family. I'm finally a 3rd year civil engineering student...."

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Ramadhan Kareem

2005-09-30T00:07:00.000+04:00

Away from politics today, some of might know it, and some might not know it, but we Muslims, have our own calendar, although it is also made of 12 months, but each month is either 29 or 30 days long. The first year of this calendar was made the date the prophet Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Al-Madena Al-Monawara. So the date today is Sha`ban 25 1426. This calendar is Hijri, sometimes it is tricky to switch between those two calendars, but I use this site to make those switches. In this calendar we don't depend on the sun like the Gregorian calendar, we depend on the sightings of the moon. So depending on these sightings, next Tuesday or Wednesday is going to be the next month, Ramadhan.

Ramadhan is the holiest month of the Higri calendar. In Ramadhan fighting is Haram, meaning that a Muslim may not carry his weapon and go to war, because Ramadhan is a peaceful month (but we don't get our hopes on that). Also in Ramadhan Muslims fast (this might be a tricky expression). It means that a Muslim will not eat or drink anything between dawn and sunset. It is a tradition for the Iraqis to wake up at 3 Am roughly, and eat a big breakfast, which we call "Sohor", before the war, some men used to go out to the street at 3 Am with drums, they would drum there way around, waking people up. I remember when I was a child, I used to stand by the window, watching the neighborhood coming alive, darkness changing into Leigh. I remember that one neighbor would open the windows out of her room and yell at another neighbor; "What are you having for Sohor". The other one would reply, and ask the same question, then another reply, and the two women would close the windows and go back inside to prepare the meal.

During Ramadhan the city is different, and the people are different, restaurants would hang curtains on their windows. When sunset come, the streets are almost empty, some people might be moving around, but most of them would be home, with their families, having a well earned meal.

Sunshine also posted about Ramadhan.

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A Woman's Life in Baghdad Part II

2005-09-26T18:26:00.000+04:00

Compare your childhood to the childhood of your children.

"My childhood was before Saddam rose to power, it was happy, I went to kindergarten, which my 6 years old daughter was deprived from, she hasn't been to a zoo, or a playing ground. I used to go cinemas a lot with my family, while all 3 kids of mine hadn't seen or went to a cinema. We can't even go in a family picnic, because of the lack of security.

"We started traveling around in 1965, we went to England and Lebanon regulary, we also visited Jordan, Syria and Turkey, compared to my kids who hasn't been outside Iraq. Right now traveling outside Iraq is possible only to some Arabic countries, and from there to other countries. But most countries treat Iraqis in bad manner, treating them as if they were.... Terrorists. My own father as an example, he tried to go to England last summer on a business trip, to go to England he had to go to Jordan first, then to the British embassy where he was supposed to get a visa, but they wouldn't give it to him. My father is 77 years old man, what kind of damage can he make there.

"Right now, there are no means of fun for teenagers, so they either spend their time in their neighborhood, and that is not a good thing, or they might bring their friends home, or spend their times indoors, on the computer or TV. My older son is capable of driving a car now, but we don't let him go out with the car, or use it to get to his university in fear of hijackers, or kidnappers, especially that my husband is a well-known architect all throughout Baghdad."

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A Woman's Life in Baghdad Part I

2005-09-24T19:59:00.000+04:00

An interview with a woman from Iraq, this idea is actually Cile's idea. She gave the questions, I asked, the woman answered.

Tell us how was your life before the war, what was positive then, and what was negative, compare it to the current situation.

"As much as the situation before the war was bad, I prefer it to the presents situation. Before the war, the main problems we had in daily lives, was the disappearance of ethics, bribes in the authorities, and mistreatment to the citizens by them. This was due to the low financial income for most Iraqis. The management of these authorities was also incapable in terms of education and efficiency.

"The positive sides o the situation before the war were, mostly security. Robberies, kidnappings, killings and hijackings were low or none. As for the current situation, the financial income of Iraqis has risen noticeably, and the management of authorities, are trying to put the right men in the right places, honest, educated and experienced.

"Personally I prefer the situation before the war on the present situation, because safeness is something irreplaceable. Everyday, when my husband and kids go to their work or schools, I stay home, worried about them from suicide attacks, hijackings and getting shot by Americans. Hijacking is not something new to us, my two kids were hijacked roughly a year ago, and one of my kids almost got kidnapped in the process. So I prefer Saddam on the present situation."

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Test

The Carnival of the Relatives

2005-09-22T10:41:00.000+04:00

Once again, the Carnival of the Relatives, which is Najam's idea, is back to give me a headache, it takes a lot of time to put this together. Anyway, here goes:

Uncle Truth Teller is the first:

According to age, Emotions follows:

Well, Aya Grany hasn't posted, and my Uncle is sadly not posting any more, so the next one should be Rose, here are her posts:

Work problem

The next blogger, is someone who didn't have anything to do in his time for the last couple of weeks, so he killed his time by blogging. Hassan is next:

I'm older and she is younger, so Najma comes next:

Now, HNK is my next guest, her posts:

After a little chat with her, Dalia said she is very busy, and spending most of her time studying, promises she will be back when she have the time.

alright then, cat lovers, here she comes, Raghda:

The last one in my list, and youngest is Sunshine, she posted:

That was the Carnival of the Relatives, if you want more, see what the Other Side is saying.

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British Smash Into Iraqi Jail to free 2 Detained Soldierss

2005-09-20T18:00:00.000+04:00

This was the headline, if you read on this is part of what you will read:

Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives. Photographs of the two men in custody showed them in civilian clothes.
When British officials apparently sought to secure their release, riots erupted. Iraqi police cars circulated downtown, calling through loudspeakers for the public to help stop British forces from releasing the two. Heavy gunfire broke out and fighting raged for hours, as crowds swarmed British forces and set at least one armored vehicle on fire.
Witnesses said they saw Basra police exchanging fire with British forces. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia joined in the fighting late in the day, witnesses said. A British military spokesman, Darren Moss, denied that British troops were fighting Basra police.

We saw the story on local TV, It all began when an Iraqi checkpoint in Basra discovered a car filled with explosives, two british men in civilian uniform were in the car, I'm not sure if there was an exchange of fire or wasn't, but the Iraqi police was able to take the two in custody, later to a detention center in the city. I have no idea what they were going to do with all that much explosives, and why they weren't in uniform, but it is obvious they were doing something illegal, because British tanks went through the walls of the jail, fighting with Iraqi police in order to get those two commandos out, and in that process about 150+ prisoner escaped, aren't those detained supposed to be criminals or even terrorists, and now they are back in the streets. Way to go.

The British government denies using force to get the soldiers out, and claims they used diplomatic reasons to get the soldiers out. This will probably mean that the British government has something to hide, doesn't it, or why wouldn't they go to the easy way. The reason is that it would have probably taken longer, or that the Iraqi police might do some investigation with two commandos and might discover a few things they aren't supposed to know.

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Driving Rules in Baghdad

2005-09-18T21:16:00.000+04:00

I just got this in an email from a friend of mine, I liked it very much, so I translated it then posted it, I think anyone who has been to Iraq will like it very much:

When you are driving your car in Baghdad, you will treat all other drivers as your enemies, and you will be treated likewise. Except for the US forces and their tanks of course, but still you will be treated as an enemy.

You must not use any turning signal, whether it is a flasher, or hand signal, because that will reveal your intentions to the enemies, if the situation gets desperate, give a signal for a left turn, then turn right, and whatever happens let it be.

Pedestrians are obstacles in your way, don't care about them and don't even look at them. But.. You must not hit, or roll over any one of them, unless you are ready financially to face the consequences.

Use the following principle when driving in Baghdad: "If your car is old, then anyone who wants to keep his car better step out of the way, but if your car is new, then stay away from the old cars because they are ruthless enemies, and their drivers are looking for a way to get some financial support"

When you enter a "turn-around" you must not look to your left at the cars coming from the other direction, because if you look at them, this means that you are paying attention to them, and thus you must give them some space to move, and thus loosing one your new rights after the war

When you are in a traffic jam, you will follow this rule "The first one to hit his car from forward....Gets to pass". But do not use this rule with busses, in fear for your fenders, and the bus driver won't even notice that you have hit him. And of course don't use it with the US army vehicles, in fear for your life...

When driving slowly, don't leave any space between your car and the car in front of you, because leaving such space will mean that another car might squeeze in this place, and that will cost you your dignity, according to the current standards.

When driving fast, you must stick to the car in front of you, so that the driver ahead will notice you then one of those three things will happen:

     1. if the driver is very polite, or a coward, he will give you the lane to go past him, and then you have made a victory and you behold the right to look down at him while you pass him.
     2. if the driver is not very polite, he will give you the lane to go past him, but you might hear some words containing animal names, and some other words also, you should have anticipated that, and your answers must be prepared.
     3. if the driver is not polite at all, which is what most drivers are, he will not give you the lane, and he will start slowing down, forcing you to slow down too, and then there might start a small war in fire arms, so you must pass him from the right or you will lose that battle.

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Personality Explosive

2005-09-16T10:43:00.000+04:00

Most of you would have heard of the recent explosions in Baghdad, if you haven't check out the Washington Post. Before getting into the topic, let's explain a few things.

Shortly after the invasion, this new way of attack appeared, suicide bombs, the people who do this, do it because they have some kind of a believe, that when they die, they will be Shahids (martyrs). This might be true when fighting foreign forces, if we look at them as "Occupying Forces". But when it comes to killing the Iraqi police, or NG personnel, it is a different story. Then there are the killing of civilians. In Islam, killing is Haram (prohibited), unless in battle, or self defense. But killing civilians and especially muslims is a special case ,In Islam anyone who kills a single Muslim is considered someone who has killed all muslims, on the contrary, someone who saves a Muslim is considered someone who has saved all muslims. So whoever did those bombings, had the believe that those people weren't Muslims .

Now the explosion at Kadhimiyah happened at a place we call (Mastar) in Arabic, which is a place were laborers gather up for work, when any car pulls over there, they would all gather around it, would even compete with each other for the driver's attention. So when the van pulled over that morning, they all raced to the car, gathered around it, when the car exploded. So whoever did this suicide bomb, was targeting those laborers, because he believed they weren't Muslims, so he did believe he is going to be a Shahid (martyr) by this explosion. If that person believed that those laborers weren't Muslims, then he might as well, has believed that a lot more weren't, probably millions, so if such believe does exist, it will put almost every Iraqi citizen in danger. Because whoever did that suicide bombing, he wasn't alone, there were others surely, and they might have the same believe as he does. That those people aren't Muslims and it is Hallal (allowed) to kill them.

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US Soldiers driving style

2005-09-12T22:33:00.000+04:00

Since the day I first saw a stryker on the street I was amazed at what it was capable of doing in battle, but after a few months I became to hate that thing more than any abrahams or bradly, because unlike them the stryker can easily move around the city, but it is nevertheless not suitable for driving in the busy streets of Baghdad. The way the soldiers drive it is not a help at all, imagine this situation:

You are driving at Baghdad Al-Jedida (New Baghdad) highway, at almost a speed of 140 km/h (roughly 80 mi/h), you spot an American convoy coming on the other side of the road, so you say to yourself, they are coming, and I'm going, there is no trouble at all. But suddenly the lead stryker takes a sharp turn over the central island, and comes over your side of the road, the soldier on the top of the styker starts shooting warning shots, signaling you to stop or be shot. Now you are coming at high speed and you want to get the car at a full stop in almost 50 meters, maybe you can hit the brakes hard enough to make it, but what about the cars behind you, it is the highway after all, so you'll probably get your car punched through from behind. So maybe next time you will take choice number two, take your time in stopping so that the car behind you doesn't hit you, but the soldiers ahead see that you have failed to get your car to a stop, so they stop if for you, the hard way. You will get a full round of bullet all over you car, your engine is a complete wreckage now. You might even be SHOVED aside by the next stryker in line. Look at the bright side, you are still alive....

Real Story: My cousin in mosul, a year younger than myself. Was driving in Mosul, at a street called Al-Jamia (College) street, the street is three lanes wide, two of these lines were already taken by the benzene queue, leaving only one lane for traffic to be moving in it, so that creates a traffic jam, my cousin is stuck in it, he can't move his car in any direction. Then, an American convoy comes from behind, at high speed, the car behind him is able to slip between two cars from the benzene queue, while my cousin is stuck, unable to move his car, only by a slight turn to the right, but doesn't create enough room for such a big car, the stryker never slowed down, it hit my cousin's car so hard it crushed his trunk, and sent his car inside the car in front of him, then went over the central island, in the WRONG SIDE direction, again my cousin hears cars screeching from a far, and bullets fired in the air. Now is that kind of driving suitable for a city. My cousin went out of this safe and sound, thankfully. But the car is going to need a lot of work to be done until it is drivable again.

In order not to make this post, a whine'n'blame kind of post, I have a few suggestions. It has been decided a long time ago that no military convoy is supposed to be patrolling inside the city, in any case there is nothing in the city that the National Guards won't be able to handle like the US strykers. Such fire power is only needed when fighting large groups of insurgents, or making assaults on their hiding, like the assault made on Tal Aafar, and even there, most of the NGs did most of the fighting, but simply patrolling the streets looking for terrorists is not the job of the US stykers to be doing. It is a war machine after all, not a peace keeping one.

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IN HIS EYES: Hijacking attempt..... Again

2005-09-11T20:32:00.000+04:00

First of all, you might notice that I'm being a more active blogger than I used to be, this is generally because I'm spending most of my time these days home, in front of my computer, so I have nothing more to do than keep posting. I have been trying to figure out a way to right this post a few days ago, until I got a few ideas from Najma. So the AVIRAQI in this post is my own father:

"8 Months ago when my son Hassan, came running down the street, banging the door, I knew something major has happened and that it was going to change our lives forever. I was right, Hassan came with the news of the hijacking of our car, a black BMW has intercepted him, and hijacked the car by force. From that day on, our driving has became different, I have started to look into cars, how they drive, checking the rear view mirror every second to make sure I wasn't followed, even my driving became more aggressive to make sure that if anyone was thinking of following me to take my car, he is going to think twice before he does it.

"But sometimes people just have to try, It happened a couple of days ago, I was coming back from work, roughly in the afternoon, I was driving through a narrow side road, a little more than two cars in width, when I noticed that a small car ahead of me was moving real slowly, and it looked like the driver was looking at his rear view mirror too much, as I got closer to the car, it made a turn to another side road, and dissapeared from my site, but it looked like it has stopped. I immediatly pressed the pedals, and the car jumped forward, 35 years driving, this was just a piece of cake. When I reached the side road the car had turned to, I kept going, and sped up, I saw one of the two men in the car, had gotten out of his car, and was pulling back the hammer of his handgun, preparing to take aim, but I had already stepped out of his view, and speeding down the road, lowering his chances of a lucky shot. But thank god, he didn't shot, guess he already knew it was a waste of time.

"This has happened at a time we were saying that Baghdad has gotten a little better than just before the war, now 3 years later, nothing has changed from security perspective, I still could have gotten killed that day. Iraq is still in need of a lot more work done regarding security issues."

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IN HIS EYES: An Average Iraqi meets a not so Average Iraqi

2005-09-10T11:09:00.000+04:00

This is a real story that happened during the years Saddam was in power. I was telling it yesterday to my friend Mad Canuck, and that was when the idea of turning it into a post evolved, he was the one with the suggestion to make it an IN HIS EYES post, I really liked the idea, and here it is in a post. I hope you enjoy:

"I'm the manager of one of the steam based Iraqi electric plants, I remember clearly that day, we were running low on steam, which made our production less than 100%, and I was running everywhere trying to find a solution to the problem, then, the phone rang at my office, announcing that someone "Really high up" was coming to the plant today. OH CRAP. The last thing I need now, is someone in power going through the plant and asking, why haven't you done that and that. Not to mention that I might lose my head today, if HE didn't like something here.

"That someone was Hussein Kamel, he was the minister of industry at that time, someone that has only went as far as primary school, then quit studying, anything could go wrong if he misunderstood something. As I was showing him around, I kept trying to sound in charge, the man for the job, maybe I'll through the day that way. The he asked:

HK: "So I see, but you haven't told US the reason why the plant is not going on full power"   Easy one

AVIRAQI: "Well sir, the plant is going low on steam"   I said the whole phrase in Arabic, but I said the word (steam) in English.

HK: "Is that the only reason???"   One is enough

AVIRAQI: "Yes sir, steam is our only problem now.."

HK: "Alright then, I'll get you all the steam you need"   What the....

He turned to his bodyguard

HK:"Issue these orders: I want all the steam in the country packed up and brought to this plant, NOW."   Oh my GOD, didn't see that coming..

"He left the plant, unaware of his fault, as I was TERRIFIED to tell him. Later in the evening, a presidential order was issued, that no technician was allowed anymore to speak any foreign word in front of any government employee..."

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The Sunnis are in

2005-09-08T18:36:00.001+04:00

I was chatting with Treasure of Baghdad, he led my attention to an article posted by the Washington post, the article is titled Iraqi Sunnis register to vote in droves, that made me think. They are right, the last couple of times I went to the mosque, there were posters all over the walls, and they were distributing leaflets about the necessity of voting. Fact is that in the last voting, most Sunnis failed to vote, and I'm one of them, but this time is going to be different. Almost every Sunni I know has already registered to the voting, the Imam at the mosque tells at the end of each Friday sermon how necessary it is to go vote, although he gives other reason, like not letting US take control over Iraq, but the result is the same, people deciding their own future themselves, by voting instead of other means.

One of these leaflets, I remember, told about the results of the last voting, when most Sunnis missed it, and the results expected if they vote now, it was titled, The Comparison Between the Two Wrongs, as I saw it, since that leaflet was written as a religious leaflet, not a political one. It made a comparison between the results of voting and not voting. It specified the only reason in not voting as "The refusing of these elections as they are illegal.". But it specified the goods achieved in voting as "Participating in the government, getting the Americans out of the country as soon as possible by peacefully means and making the country a safe place to live in for the first time since 35 years"

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The new driving system, a solution or a problem itself

2005-09-06T21:23:00.000+04:00

As a solution to the continuous traffic jams, and heavy traffic all throughout the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a new system of driving has been initiated in the city of Baghdad. The new system stipulates that cars with even license numbers can be driven a day, and the next day they can't, instead cars with odd license numbers are to be driven that day, but can't be driven the day next. This only applies to private cars, not public transportations, so the number of cars in the street is reduced heavily, but on what cost.

This new system will make most people stay at their homes if they can't drive their cars, because most Iraqis use their cars to travel around, since the city is vast, and the public transportations are a mess, it takes a private car to move around, because taking taxis 3 or 4 times a week is just impractical. I have seen what other countries use for fighting traffic jams, for example in the US a method they use is to set up a high occupancy vehicle lanes, during rush hours. Those lanes can only be used by a bus, taxi or a car with more than 3 peoples inside. But this method is going to be very hard to follow in Iraq, because the traffic system is very fragile, and most checkpoints are more occupied with searching cars for bombs and weapons to bother themselves with lanes violators.

While other practical solutions can be found, for example after the war, many cars have entered the country, meaning that many families now have more than one car in the house, and it is true, many families have cars for father, mother and sons. That means more cars on the road, and definitely trouble. One might consider allowing only one car for each household, to cut the number of cars. Another solution is the roads itself. Sometimes traffic conjugations happens when the road is blocked with concrete blocks so that only one lane is open, or in many cases, the road itself is very bumpy, and can't be taken fast, cars need to slow down and take it slow to cross it. Plus many roads has been blocked for military reasons after the war, that has turned the traffic from the big main roads, into the small side roads, sometimes those roads are only big enough for one car coming and one car going, not a good replacement for a 3 lanes come and 3 lanes go main street.

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IN HER EYES:The Big Day

2005-09-05T19:48:00.000+04:00

Today I went to the university, this is the first day of the second attempt exams. I saw most of my friends, they either came to take the exams, or they came just for the same reason that I did, to see each other. It's amazing how much someone might look different to you, after not seeing him for 3 months. I myself has changed during the months I spend at engineering field training. Well, since I don't have anything of much significance to post, I think I'll try a second IN HIS EYES post. The hero here is a friend of mine, that has just tried the second attempt, because she couldn't try the first one as the roads for her house were blocked at the time.

"My house is in Salman Pack... Just outside of Baghdad. That has always made it a problem for me to reach the university, for a boy it might be easy to take a taxi and get to the university by his own, but a girl's life in Iraq is different from a boy's one. I can't take the taxi on my own, so when the roads are blocked, or when the car is down, I don't go to the university. One such day was on the first day of the first attempt exams three months ago, what could I have done, I had to go back to the house, and start studying for the next exam, like nothing has happened.

"I knew from the day I skipped the exam that I was going to face a tough challenge at the second attempt, I don't know why, but it is a habit in Iraq that the second attempt exams are always impossible. I spent those three months preparing for this day, it is after all my Big Day. It is strange how you feel that all the information you have memorized or studied would disappear in a flash before you inter the classroom, but they all get back when you see the questions on the printed paper...

"My friends always tell me that I'm a high maintenance person, and that was exactly what I was that day. When the professor asked us if anyone had a question about the questions, I asked him a million one, I didn't leave a dot or a comma without double checking it, no diagram and no table was left behind, I even checked if the question were put in a single paper or two papers. Finally the professor asked me to shut up and just answer the questions however I want, because he had other classrooms he had to check, and if I kept going, the time will be up and he will not be able to check them out. I laughed in myself, he was right, I was too excited and too stressed to make any decision by myself that day. Finally I did fairly well, considering that one of the questions came from a chapter we hadn't seen earlier, and it wasn't included in the first term exams, why would he do something like that. Although I was frustrated when I first saw it, but I calmed down when I saw that the questions had an option which would allow me to pick five questions out of seven to solve them. So I think I have done all I could do, now I have to sit, pray and wait until the results come..."

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IN HIS EYES

2005-09-03T21:19:00.000+04:00

A few days ago I read a comment that was posted by The Kid Himself, the comment was posted to Encounters post. He said:

"Nice blog, i am linking to u....Keep on writing but i have a bit of a suggestion about ur average Iraqi plot device, why don't u write him in stories? i feel that u have not used this to its full extent...So far u have only said the Average Iraqi would do so-and-so in such a situation, while u could give him more detailed features (average Iraqi features, write from his own perspective, how he reacts to certain situations, BE HIM)..."

That got me thinking, "Now why didn't I think of that". I really liked the idea, and that is when I came up with the idea of these post, IN HIS EYES. These posts are going to be stories that are told by people I know, other Average Iraqis. Before I get into the post, I would like to take a minute to announce the beginning of a new Iraqi blogger: Baghdad Treasure is my newest Iraqi Blogger Friend. Back to the post:

"I depend on my car for my living, no I'm not a taxi, am more like a driver. I work for a company and I only drive certain people, but when I don't anything better to do, I might stop for a ride or two. So here I'm in a usual afternoon in Baghdad, I was supposed to go refuel the car, but the fuel station was closed for lunch, so I though I should go find something better to do, and come back in half an hour or so to get back in the queue. So when I saw him waving his hands for taxi, I decided I would stop and see where he is going, if it was far I have to refuse. But it was near, and the guy looked like a decent kind of guy, so I wasn't worried when I picked him up. He asked me to stop once for a smoke, gave me one, told him I don't smoke, really nice. When we reached the place he wanted to get off, I stopped the car, and then everything happened quickly.

"He jumped at me, grabbed my hand with one of his arms, and with his free hand unlocked my door. I don't know where the other one came from, but he was ready, he opened the door, and hit my with the back of his gun, by that time I was coming out of shock so I caught his arm, but the other one pushed me out of the car, and kept yelling at his partner; "Kill him!!! Finish him". I don't know why he didn't, but by that time, I was exhausted, I'm too old for this. He pulled me out of the car, hit me again, at the same place and left me. I remember hearing the sound of my car's engine coming back to life, and then sounds became a blur. For a few minutes I stayed there, then I stood up, looked around but there was no one, I walked hardly back to the main street, but I didn't have any money with me, my head was all blood and it was dripping on my clothes too. Someone stopped his car for me, he drove me to a friends house, where I cleaned myself a bit, borrowed some money and got home".

"What can I say, the car is now gone, I will file the theft, not for the hope that it might be found, because I'm pretty sure it is gone forever, but I want to be sure that if someone uses it for something illegal the police won't come to me saying that this is your car and you have done such and such with it."

Please remember, that I'm not the one who had this experience, it is some other Iraqi, in which I have told his story like he is saying it. The Kid Himself thanks for this idea, I hope I'm getting it right...

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A catastrophe

2005-08-31T19:22:00.000+04:00

Although most of the roads today were blocked, I was going to a friend of mine, since his house is pretty near I didn't think the roads would be much of a problem, so my thought was to get to the main street and get a ride from there, but my idea was proven wrong when I got there, because the street was overcrowded, but there were no cars there, only people. Today is a big religious event for Shiites in Iraq, they would all march to a place in Baghdad called Kazimia.

So there was no way I could go by car, but the scene was nice, I stood there watching for a while, then I went back, called my friend so he could come pick me up from a different route. When I was at his house, his father suddenly entered the room and said "Come watch the news, quickly". Ok so this is the news. Ok now although you will read the article, but I have a few things to add. The local TV news station said it all began when some mortars fell on a nearby park, so people started running everywhere saying there was an attack, the news quickly traveled until it reached the bridge. Some people on the bridge started screaming that there was a bombed car on the bridge, or there were some terrorists on the bridge, in a few seconds later chaos was everywhere, and people started running everywhere, pushing each other off the bridge or stepping on each other, total CHAOS. Many fell of the bridge, some rumors tell that a part of the bridge fell over, so hundreds of people fell off the bridge into the river Dijla, most of them drowned.

For me I don't know what to say for those people killed, but the truth is they can finally rest, they will rest from all the suffering the Iraqis are facing like electricity, water and benzene. But I fell so sorry when I think of those people with families, or for the children who came with their fathers and mothers, I'm a Sunni myself, but I do have a heart, and it is bleeding now.

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Encounters

2005-08-25T21:15:00.000+04:00

Today was the third day in a series of escalating violence in Baghdad. The story began when Bader Regiment made an attack on one of the Al Sadr offices in Baghdad. Then Al Sadr armed forces made many attacks on different offices of the Islamic Party which houses Bader Regiment. Just yesterday there was an armed conflict between the too forces at one of the main streets of Baghdad, then the Iraqi National Guard and some US forces came into the fight, the result was six different burned cars, which the Iraqi police pulled and pile under the bridge, I saw them today, and I say the marks of the battle on the ground, rounds and marks of explosions were everywhere.

Yesterday I met a very interesting guy, he was taken as a prison in the Iraq-Iran war, he was taken prisoner on 1981, then release on 2002. Imagine 21 years as a prisoner. He told me that there was only two ways you could get released. The first was in a prisoners switch which happened a few times between the two countries, but not all the prisoners were released. The second way was to enlist at Bader Regiment, but no one would be accepted unless he had killed 5 other Iraqi prisoners, how brutal. Then the prisoner would be released to enlist with Bader Regiment and would fight for them. Now this regiment is in Iraq and supported by Iran, it's main task is to kill Sunis, and has been doing so since the end of the war. It is being supported by the Irani Islamic party, but right now it is in a big fight with Al Sadr forces, plus there is the Ali bin Aby Talib's Brigade, which is part of Omar's Regiment, and Omar Regiment is a terrorist Regiment who are followers of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, needless to say this brigade is an ally of Al-Sadr armed forces against Bader Regiment. This information is known in the Iraqi street and doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going to happen in the next few days between these sides.

Leaving the war and coming to peace, today I read a small manual that has been distributed by the committee to write the legislation. The manual has many useful information, and it has a table of dates. At 15 October there will be a voting on the legislation which will decide whether it will be used or not, then the elections are going to happen on December 15, we have already gotten our names listed for the voting, the elections are yet to come.

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The Carnival of the Relatives

2005-08-20T19:05:00.000+04:00

Since she is not Iraq, Najma has stopped blogging, and so one of frequent posts The carnival of the relatives, has stopped. Since many bloggers and readers use this post to make a quick tour of the new posts of our family, I took the task until she is back to Iraq.

She always started with the oldest, which is her dad :

In her latest one, Mama was next:

Now it is Rose turn. I had forgotten to add he in the original post, so I have to say I'm sorry for that aunt, but here are your posts:

I am enjoying the freedom

Since her mother hasn't posted, I should be next:

Now it is Her turn:

Her Sister , is next in the age series:

Me again

Depending on her latest post, Dalia is next in the queue:

More Pictures (Lebanon)

Now I have reached our local cats site, Raghda is the next one. Uh.. She has a million posts since they has left, so I'll just stop at her blog link.

It appears that the youngest blogger in our family is Sunshine, I haven't noticed it before, but she is the most active blogger among us:

Finished??? I can't believe it.. I have never put such effort in a single post.. Well . In the end I wish the Mosul Family a safe trip and for my sake a quick one...

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An Average Iraqi Re-Fuelling

2005-08-17T20:29:00.000+04:00

A few days earlier the old system of fuelling at fuel stations was changed, to understand the new system I have to talk about the old system. To shorten the length of the queue waiting to enter the station, which in some cases exceeds a kilometer in length. So the government decided to cut it in half by allowing only cars with even numbers to fuel in a day, and only cars with odd numbers to fuel in another, and by saying numbers I mean license numbers. But even this hasn't been of much help, because the queue always advances slowly, and it is known that the current production is not enough to meet up with the demand, along with other reasons, which don't have their place here. In most cases it is the duty of the National Guard personnel to make sure that only allowed cars enter the station.

The new system works in another way, first it cuts the cars into two sections; old cars and new cars (called Manifest in Iraq), which defer in license color. Then cuts the Manifest into odd and even. So a driver can only fuel once each 3 days. Which is less than enough for people who drive a lot, like taxi drivers and people who travel long distances from their work to their homes. In other countries, the transit system could take some of the traffic, but the ineffectiveness of the transit system, along with the huge size of the city of Baghdad, makes it useless to use them for transportation.

This leaves our friend, the Average Iraqi out of choices, but to stand the tall queue of hungry drivers for fuel, and become one of them, where it is your duty to ensure that you keep up and not let anyone take your place, then because the line moves slowly, it is not practical to keep the car running, so you shut it off, and many drivers will choose to push the car when the line moves, rather than start it up and lose precious fuel. Although it's very cheap in Iraq, but it is scarce, the price of one litter of benzene in Iraq is 100 dinars (6 cents) which is half the prize of a one minute call on cell phone, meaning that to fill up medium sized car you need 4000 dinars (2 dollars and 72 cents). But what good is it's cheapness if it is rare and hard to get. Some of the old cars, can be used to pump up fuel out of them, so let's say that someone fuels his old car from a fuel station, and then pulls up the fuel of of it, goes selling the benzene at prices that almost reach 10 times as the original ones at the fuel station, although it is strickly prohibited to sell fuel in the black market, but this is becoming a job for many Iraqis, and a good one if you are in a good place, since many drivers will remember where they can get fuel, and go there every time. Which means the those black sellers are going to be in the station 3 or 4 times a day, or more, taking places of other drivers by doing so.

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The Blast

2005-08-13T19:57:00.000+04:00

We knew in the morning that something was going to happen, because US patrols kept patrolling the are behind the construction site. The site is being built on higher ground than the surrounding area, although it is fenced, there is a place in the fence that has not been done, so we could see what is happening behind us. The patrols started early in the morning, the they went away, came after a couple of hours, then they went again, and the kept doing it. Late in the afternoon, we heard a big explosion from behind the site, as we ran to the low fenced are to see what was happening, I took this picture with my mobile:

The explosion wasn't a really big one, it was probably a land mine, mostly an armor mine, which is very big, and it will be easy to bury it in the shaken sands of the deserted areas. So whoever did it, all they had to do was find the tracks made by the armor and bury the mine there. Although the explosion wasn't big, but it seems like all the dust in the are was immediately in the air, and when the dust was cleared, no one was there.

Apart from bombed cars, and open conflict, mines are a rare way of fighting, because they aren't really useful in the city, since they can be spotted a long way away if they are not buried, and they can't be buried in the road. So only in rare cases has mines done anything to an American patrol, but in the open spaces like this, a mines destroyer come handy.

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The Red Planet

2005-08-08T19:11:00.000+04:00

When I opened my eyes this morning, the room looked RED, at first I thought my eyes where playing tricks on me, but the room did really look red. I got up, and looked out the to discover that the world looked like this:

This is actually one of the heaviest dust storms I have ever seen, the atmosphere looks red because too much dust particles are in it, a very high percentage, as I write this post, almost 10 hours later, the air hasn't cleared yet. I had some business to do outside the house, so I had to get out. As the car went over the road, the cars ahead where invisible, only the phantoms of their headlights would appear, followed by a beam in front of them, and only a few meters away, would the car appear, it would appear like it came from a fog. The good thing is that US patrols where not very frequent today, or it maybe just that we didn't spot them.

But if I didn't spot any US patrols, someone else did. It happened when my brother and his lessons group, where stuck at a traffic jam, the driver was anxious to move on, so as they where waiting for the traffic to move, a black Prince (CAR) stopped at a nearby sidewalk, they watched the four guys get out of the black vehicle, opened the trunk, took out an RPG, by that time the driver went WHOA. In a few moments, the cars where all over the pavement, trying to get out of there, but as they sped through the pavement, the US patrol had already left the scene, and the guys where now behind them, and no one knows what happened to them, there was no sound of explosions or a combat.

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The Legislation; Good Enough??

2005-08-03T17:46:00.000+04:00

Although it is still a draft, but the new legislation has aroused much discussion around it, whether between the Iraqis themselves, or between others. I will not write the Legislation here, for two reasons: One; It is too long for a single post. Second; It has been written in many places in the net, whether in Arabic or in English. Personally I think that the Legislation is not yet good enough to be the law in Iraq. But with a little more effort it could become good enough to work out.

But it is going to be very hard to get that legislation to be win the voting, I have made the math for the process to work. The legislation is going to need 12 million people to vote for it to be accepted, while on the other hand, 2 million people can get it un-accepted. Because it can get un-accepted if only two thirds of the population of three states voted against it. One reason of why that is going to be difficult to achieve, is that most Iraqis think that the legislation, once accepted, there is no way to change it except by changing the government. Yes although the court should have the power to change some parts of the legislation, but who knows about that. NO ONE.

The reason for such ignorance is that for more than 30 years the court had almost no power in Iraq, and was not independent, on the contrary Saddam could easily reach any judge he had in mind and make all the decisions he wanted, so there was no way for a court to change the legislation he wrote. Now thirty years after, still no one actually realizes how much powerful a court can be, because even now we still can't get the hand of justice to reach everyone, or protect them. I'll give an example; My aunt's husband is a doctor at the Abo-Graib hospital, a few weeks ago he made an operation for a woman, although the operation went well, the woman had some side effects after the operation, which could have been resolved after another operation. He informed the family of the woman, and he told them another doctor that could do the job, instead they went to another doctor which told them that the first operation was not successfully. So they went to him and threatened to kill him unless he paid a ransom of 4 million denars, although he paid that ransom, they still told him that they will come back to him and kill him if the woman dies. Sad to say there is no use to go to the police or the court, none could help him, now his options are limited to either leaving his country or go work elsewhere without his name spreading out, both options includes giving up his career at the hospital.

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3 Most Ridiculous Ways to Die in Iraq

2005-07-27T19:19:00.000+04:00

After living in war for a few years, I've heard and saw quite a number of people dead, maybe some of those people deserved to die, and surely some of them didn't deserve to die. Actually I think the number of civilians killed since the beginning of the war until now is much more than the number of US soldiers and terrorists killed together, and some of those civilians died for such stupid reasons that I would have found it impossible to believe it hadn't I heard of them. The reason of this post is to show how much work is going to be needed to be done to make our Iraq return to the way it was before, I know that things would never be perfect, but I will be satisfied when some or all of those 3 reasons of death are gone. Ok I have talked too much already so lets begin:

3: At number three, I have this: It is known in Iraq that one should keep his distance when driving behind a US patrol or any military vehicles, but sometimes driving in front of them could be just as dangerous. Because sometimes the US soldiers are impatient and won't wait for the road to be cleared, so they ram their way through any car in front of them, and sometimes they would shoot any car that comes in front of their way. I remember one accident a when I was having my final exams about two months ago, we were on our way to the university early in the morning, we reached an intersection were we had to turn left but there was this pickup truck stopped right in the middle of the intersection, at first glance I though it was just another dump driver, but then I realized that his face was covered with some newspapers. The guy was dead, turned out he was coming at exactly the way we were, but a US patrol was coming the other way, so they saw him turning toward them and shot him, he died from single shot, but his companion survived to tell the story.

2: Second place is taken by this: Opening a salon in Iraq could be fatal, especially in poor neighborhoods, I have heard of many bomb cars exploding in front of such places, and not just salons are targeted. Sometimes mobile shops, or any place displaying advanced technology, would be targeted for bombing. This is because of the thinking that any thing advanced is brought by the US soldiers, and carrying something like that means that you are working for them and it is a reason to death for many people. I know one of my relatives was once asked by rebels about his portable.

1: The number one is the almost unbelievable: It is perfectly acceptable to open a barber shop in Iraq, but recently many barbers have been shot, their shops targeted and attacked, some of them were even killed by use of silenced weapons in Gazaliya, the reason of the death is that they use a technique in shaving their customers beards, the technique involves using a string to shave some hairs so that they don't grow again. That technique has been used before the war, and I don't know why it is being forbidden now by the rebels, but right now many barbers refuse to use this technique in fear of their lives, and I don't blame them, some of them have signs on their windows saying that they don't use this technique anymore.

There are other stupid reasons to die for now, but these are the most ridiculous ways to die in Iraq. It is painful enough to lose someone, but it is a lot more painful when he dies for something that isn't even considered a reason for death.

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Summer Training

2005-07-22T19:11:00.000+04:00

Since I don't have anything new to post, and no good comparison for the fictional Average Iraqi, this seems like a good time to talk about the place where I'm spending my engineering summer field training. The place is on the outskirts of Baghdad, right after a sign that says "Baghdad says farewell". No need to say it is very far for that reason, the daily work starts at 8:00 am and ends at 5:00 pm usually, unless we have something urgent to do so we take extra time. Because of the length of the trip, and in order to make it in time, we have to go out very early to catch the time, we usually set off at about 6:15 am, and be there in about 7:30, some of the engineers like to bring their breakfast with them and eat it when they get there in that extra half hour they get there, in order to get a little more sleep at home, I like to eat my breakfast home. At the time we hit the road, only a few cars are on the street, and sometimes we would be the only car on the road, and at that US military are at their peek, we see them around every corner, and when we are the only car on the road, all their weapons would be fixed on us, which makes us really nervous, especially when the patrol is a tank patrol, the bridge of the tank would rotate and follow us down the street, making us sit on the edge of our seats.

The place is intended to become a rice factory, it is a very big site, with enough place of future expansion. The main part of the factory is going to be a steel structure, not a concrete one like most other building in Iraq, and most of us are seeing a steel structure of this size for the first time, one have to be really careful when he builds something as rare as that, actually none of us has experienced doing steel structures this size, well there has to be first time for everything. The site is in a small village, very small and is almost defined by the main highway. I think the village is living on the many factories spread around the area.

Since the place is almost in the desert, we always get strong wind there, strong sun, and many dust storms. A few days ago there was a huge dust storm that made the whole place look RED, we took a picture of the whole engineering staff, and it looked like it has been taken in Venus. Neon tubes looked blue to me, and the room was all blue, almost like you were living underwater, it was a very funny day and I came home with dust all over me, and my hair looked yellow. And just yesterday we had to wait for one of the builders to complete his work until we could call it a day and go home, so we had to stay after the normal working hours waiting for him and his crew to finish work, we were 8 engineers of different ages, so we brought a ball, made two teams, and played football until he was finished, and the funny thing is that the guys who didn't play finished the water so that we the guys who played, thirsty after the game, would find no water to drink. It is amazing isn't it, with the war going around us some still can find their way to happiness.

Internet in Iraq

2005-07-10T18:32:00.000+04:00

It feels really weird sitting in an internet cafe in Baghdad, it seems that the Iraqis in internet cafes are very interested in privacy, the computer am sitting on right now has got to plastic plates on the sides of it's monitor to prevent any other user from seeing what I do, but it is equipped with anything an internet surfer or chatter might need, beginning from fast internet and ending in a webcam. It has got multiple other internet programs, which are shortcutted all in the desktop. Some are user installed and some are installed by the owner of the cafe.

Now this brings me to another chapter of the Average Iraqi Life. How does the Average Iraqi handles internet. Most of the new young men of the country know how to use internet, and have at least a Yahoo email accounts. Strange as it is, most Iraqis begin their internet experiment with chatting, and the majority of them doesn't do anything but chat, entering user rooms, clubs, political debates sometimes, even fightclubs... Then some of them, those who are able to speak English might find their ways into other areas of the internet, like yahoo groups, skype, kazaa and blogger. The names I mentioned are just samples, some find their other ways, it depends on the tastes of the Iraqi. The strange thing is I find that most of most of my friends who know the address of my blog, does read it, but they don't dare blog, they don't even dare comment, even if they find something really provoking.

The only way to get internet before the war was by Dial Up. But it was censored, every web location you go to is noted and everything you do in it in known, and the dial up was really hard to reach, because it was the only number in Iraq, and it still is. After the war things changed; First there was a few other dial up numbers which you connect to them free, since it was still chaos and the U.S. wanted to maintain a good image. Then those disappeared and the dial up system came back, but it was different, much expanded and not censored, and then the wireless entered Iraq, it is a satellite connection networked around multiple subscribed users, but it is not very stable. In my case we have been to two providers until now and thinking of trying a third, not satisfied with the service so far.

Today I went to the university, by the way I had succeeded my exams and I came fifth on my class. In a class of almost sixty students only eighteen of them passed from first attempt, not a very good figure, it was almost twice the number last year. Well as some of you might have noted from the comments of my last post, I have became 20 on Thursday, and when I got my first congratulation I had completely forgotten that this was my birthday, I usually see it coming days ago, but this time I was the last to know. Anyway, thank you all.

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Lets Talk About The National Guards

2005-06-24T16:04:00.000+04:00

Finally the water is beginning to get stronger, it appears that the terrorist attack on main water pipes was more devastating than it first appeared, because they anticipated that it wouldn't take them more than two or three days to get it fixed, this has affected most of Baghdad, even the meeting of the National Assembly has been postponed because of it.

Getting to the point of the post; A friend of mine was arrested a few weeks ago by National Guards, and especially by the wolf regiment or as called in Baghdad (Loa' Al-zeeb), which is the unit that usually makes all the raids of houses suspected of terrorist actions. So they raided the house of a friend of mine a few weeks ago, although the poor guy didn't have anything to do with terrorism or anything, but the raid was made as result of some information given by an anonymous person. It seems that whoever informs about terrorist locations gets $1000 if it was true, which is the good part. But the bad part is if it is false he gets $300, which made many people give such information regardless of it's credibility, because he still gets the money whether it is right or wrong. The NG personnel searched the house and one of them searched the computer thoroughly, even when they didn't find anything they took him with them, it seems that whoever is caught cannot be released unless by a judge, which is something we are not used to in Iraq, could say that a few years ago my friend would have been dead.

One other thing, did you know that the uniforms of the National Guards and Police forces in Iraq are being sold in certain areas of Baghdad, especially Bab Al-Sharjy, which is almost a market of everything, anything can be found there. For example right after the war there, a friend of mine tells that he did see a commercial written by hand on a wall saying (Solve your problems for just 1500 Dinars) which is a little less than a dollar, guess what you will by that, a HAND GRENADE. Anyway I guess I drifted off point, back to the National Guards, anyone can get their uniforms, Imagine the chaos that could create, it has been known for some terrorist groups to mimic national guards units and do whatever they please in their name, which isn't exactly what we can call popular in Baghdad. This is mostly because of their brutality, too rough in doing everything, they have developed the idea that they have the right to do what ever pleases them in order to get their missions done, even if it meant random fire.

I noted a few interesting posts this week, first one I noted was made by Mad Canuck. The post is titled Us army In Iraq Police As the Target. The post is talks about what problems the US soldiers are facing especially since they are the most targeted people in town. Second post is has been made by Cile the post is titled Declaration of Revocation. The post is a letter from England to the US, which is not intended againt anyone so let's try to be mature about this. Finally Raghda wanted to tell that she is back with more cats pictures if you are interested. This is starting to sound like a TV commercial so I guess I'll stop here.

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Electricity Vs Water

2005-06-20T10:47:00.000+04:00

Oh so that is why we are having a water shortage, guess who. That is right; a terrorist attack at Al-Kazim had resulted in cutting the water off from over half of Baghdad. It is really a depress to come home after a long day in the blazing sun of June and find that you can't take a bath. How does the Average Iraqi deal with such problems? Mostly he will resort to getting from other sources, for example in each house there is a big water tank in the roof, which can be useful if the domestic water is out. Another method, but not so common is to buy water, either bottled or contained up to 20 litters in a container. The last resort is to get a well in the garden, which is actually very easy to do, because there is a lot of ground water in Iraq. All you have to do is to dig a 20 m hole in the ground and there you have it, you just have to make sure the hole doesn't close, so you put a pipe or something. The only problem is that the water isn't really drinkable, although it is healthy, but it is hard for someone to drink such water.

This comes in the same time electricity had gotten better, now we have a 3 after 3 schedule. Which means we get electricity for three hours and we miss it for another 3, and so on. Well I guess one can't get everything at the same time. Come to think about it, it wasn't more than two weeks when we heard that Dubai had a total blackout, which almost stopped life out there, the blackout was no longer than two hours, but it did massive damage because no one was prepared for it. While here in Iraq, the Average Iraqi can easily spend his day without any domestic electricity at all.

There are many ways to go around the problem of no electricity, the most common one nowadays, is to get your own electricity, by either a small home generator, or a massive area generator which can power up many houses with basic electricity needs. So all you have to do is to sign in, and get a cable that can cover up the distance, and the last solution is to get them both, which we have done in the house. We have a 4.5 KV generator on the roof, which has been secured with chains to the balustrade, cause the only thing you can't steal in Iraq is something you can't move. And we have signed in the local area generator, which is a 500 KV generator. Plus, there are other ways the Average Iraqi would use to get around the electricity problem, like UPSs for computers, and there are some local ones that have been made to run on car batteries, to light up a few things with. Which we have too.

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A Come Back

2005-06-16T21:33:00.000+04:00

Finally the 16th, today I finished my final exams, did fine. I would have thrown most of the books from the window by now if most of them weren't so huge, some of them could kill a man if they fell on him. The department used a cut-down policy during the exams, which is to cut down the number of the student in the department to almost half the number, achieved by hardening the questions. Questions for the strength of materials, fluid mechanics and concrete design were especially impossible. The reason of the policy is that most of the department students joined the department after the war by means of connections, and there was no limit for the number of students at the time, which resulted in too much students, needless to say; survival for the better.

So many things have happened since my last post, probably the biggest event is that operation lightning is put into action, there are now more than 40000 U.S soldiers in Baghdad, which is why we have been seeing them every so often these days, and there are Iraqi National Guard personnel at every traffic intersection. I even heard that some areas of Baghdad are going to be cut off, and searched house by house. There are three hot areas in Baghdad now which are: Al-Kazalia, which is near the highway going to Fallujah, that place became a war zone during the operation in Fallujah. Next is Al-Amiria, and last is Al-Dora. These areas are going to be the most affected areas by operation Lightning. Also during my exams there was a huge battle between terrorists and U.S. soldiers at the Al-Amiria highway, the next day we saw about 15 burned cars scattered along the street. Oh and the last good news is that the Iraqi National Guard have finally gotten their own armored vehicles to use, we see them everyday at the sides of the airport highway, which is the main highway in Baghdad, it connects main parts of Baghdad together, and is the only way to the Baghdad Airport.

Now I have to catch up to the blog news, so many posts have been posted that I have to read, I feel like I have traveled through time, and came to the future, to see everyone have been posting and posting and I don't know how many people have forgotten that the Average Iraqi blog exists. Well now my exams are over and I'll be back posting, hopefully I won't fail any material or I'm going to have to take it again in the summer.

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Weapons in a university

2005-05-11T18:09:00.000+04:00

The two Hummers came flying through the open gates of the University of Technology while the Bradley stayed out in the street, they took a right, then a left and stopped in the depth of the parking lot, killed the engines and got out. There were about seven of them, with an Iraqi female translator. The good thing is that they stopped in the parking lot, not in front of a department, which meant this was just a patrol. The sight of U.S. soldiers in the street is a very normal sight and not something you would stare at, choppers like Apaches and Cobras are now known to Iraqis and most of us could identify them by sight, even the Abrahams tank isn't very rare to see. But at the university things are different. Weapons are not allowed, so the sight of armed soldiers walking through the university was the special of the day. Like all the places in Baghdad the university has had it's share of terrorist actions, a year ago a bomb was found in one the labs, police scrambled into the place with U.S. specialists to disarm the bomb, since then the security has been very tightened, to discover that many would come to college armed with small guns. And in the beginning of this second year of mine in the university, it was a target for mortar bombing which created such a panic then, one of them went very near the central library of the university, and many students were injured because of the flying glass.

The front entrance of the university, which is on the left side of Al-Sina3a st. (The industrial st.), is well guarded and students are searched for weapons before entering the university, which is supposed to make the place a safe area, but the back entrance is a place where there is no government. There is only a single guard, who doesn't bother to search anyone, just stands there. Even though plenty of students come that way, because this entrance is closer to the Baghdad Al-Jadida Highway (The new Baghdad Highway). A week ago there was a problem between the students of the computers department, and the students of the former Rasheed military college, police came and the front gates and entrance were closed to prevent anyone from getting out and in, but the back entrance was going on as normal. I guess it is going to take more than bombing to make those folks realize they need to start searching for weapons before letting anyone come in.

My finals are starting on the 24th of this month, and going on until 16/6 so I'll be very busy until that time, because for someone who wants to get a PhD in the future, it is going to take a lot more than just succeeding my exams to get things going. Last year I came second on my branch, and third on the whole department, very good huh??. This year though is not as good, my mid year exams weren't that good, so I'm not sure if things are going to be like that. Any way I guess I'll be posting less than once a week in the next few weeks, it took me 3 days to write this, each day I write a paragraph and today I'll post it.

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Fire Arms in Iraq

2005-04-24T23:40:00.000+04:00

Today I had a really long journey until I reached the university, not only it was the day for the meeting of the National Assembly, but a truck had it's package all over the road, seems like an accident or something, anyway the guys on the truck where simply sitting there, and the package was just small wooden boards, they could have easily moved it out of the road but they simply didn't. Everyday you have to wakeup even earlier than before to make it in time because of such events, you never know what could happen to the road, Americans could block it, an explosion might happen, or just traffic problems. And there is the heat , because in a country where temperature could rise up to 50 Celsius IN THE SHADE, even some cars would heat up, some of the old cars couldn't be driven more than a few hours in the summer, I still remember the problems we usually had with our old car a few years ago, we always carried water with us to cool down the engine in times of need, and when I was first learning how to drive, simply turning it on was a long procedure, you don't need to know what happened when I tried to make it move.

Ok it has been a while since I last talked about the star of the show, THE AVERAGE IRAQI . Let's talk how does the average Iraqi handle fire arms. A gun is a rare thing to find in Iraq, the most popular weapon is the AK47, which we call "Klashinkoof", a Russian weapon of course. It can be found in almost every house in Iraq, some people carry them in their cars, they usually don't hesitate in using them, I remember seeing some people use them to enter gas stations after the war, which is why there are US troops or national guard at every gas station now, and it is very popular when it comes to terrorists. Weapons are not necessarily used in defense or attack in Iraq, their most frequent use is in weddings, and nation wide happy occasions, how??. Well for example when the Iraqi football team won on the Australian team, almost everybody went to the roof and started shooting in the sky, you could think there was a war out there, choppers stopped flying for a while until things calmed down, this is probably the most dangerous behavior of the average Iraqi, you hear people everywhere saying how it is a bad habit, but there are just too many people out there that think it's alright, guess it will be some time before we can change that. I remember in the first day after the end of the war, US troops weren't accustomed to this behavior, so they would think that there was shooting elsewhere. I've had a few chats with some US marines during my summer field training, which helped very much to improve my accent, and I learned a lot of their ways and habits. One of them was speaking very bad Arabic, but he was learning fast, I helped him a lot. Back to weapons, most of people don't even now how to aim accurately, all they know is how to load it, reload it and fire it.

War Isn't Everything

2005-04-17T18:00:00.001+04:00

When any one outside Iraq hears the name (IRAQ), the first things that get to his mind are: War, US army, Terrorists and death. Even me when I hear the news of a US marine killed, or an explosion at some place, it doesn't leave the same effect it used to do before the war. For today we decided to get out of the war situation and calibrate the graduation of the 4th year students like war never happened, even if Saturday was an official holiday, students went to college to make the department look like it is born new, they worked harder than they do on normal days, and I don't think that most of them has ever studied this long. I got out to college about 7:15 am and reached college about 7:45, after a little talk with the security boys they let me into the department even before the staff got in the building, I wanted to take pictures of the department before anyone got there, and I did, here see the pictures:

Fancy Work, and if you can spot the cube, it was opened later.

Doing these was the hardest part of all

I don't know whose idea was this, but putting the funeral behind the world trade center is a nice touch.

If you take a good look all these figures are real figures, but the faces are of students.

The maker of this one wanted to show us what a good weapon smith he is.

See the bridge miniature?? We brought tank toys, humvees toys, car toys and a car was painted in black and messed out a little to make it look like it has just exploded. The scene looked as real as it can get.

sadly I missed the two big towers of the department, one was the Evil tower which was the best thing in the party, the second one was an Iraqna mobile tower which we brought into the department. Later on people started showing up and the department was full of students not necessarily from the department, but it was VERY crowded in there, I know everyone agreed this was the best graduation party for the year. Doing all this decoration required massive team work from the 5 branches of the civil engineering department which are: Structure (I'm in this branch), Project Management, Roads and Bridges, Sanitary and Dams. They even hired a decoration engineer to get it right.

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Loooooong Time No See (UPDATED)

2005-04-12T19:14:00.000+04:00

What can I say?? Busy? That's old. Internet? That's obvious. Exams or Time? That's busy but not in so many words. Dead? That's permanent. Let's just say all the previous without the dead part. Thing is; after getting tired of our old internet service provider who was way overloaded, we decided to try another one, the process from searching for one until finally connecting to internet from home again took more than a week. This time it is remarkably faster but has a habit of coming and going when most subscribers are online. We know our internet speed by going to this link , our speed came 121.52 Kbps.

What happens when you stop coming online suddenly for more than a week; You come back with an email that has 36 unread messages in it, and an instant messenger full of offline messages asking where are you, why are you never online and when will you be online again.

A couple of days ago the national assembly decided it was time to make a few decisions for a change, the result was the new president Maam Jallal. His name is Jallal but I don't know why or what is Maam. But the reflections in the Iraqi street came almost a zero, no one actually cared about the new president, or the new government because it is just ink on paper until now. These days the last year students of each department are having their graduation parties, each department calibrate on a different day, ours is on Sunday. The college is full of colors and each department makes a list of it's graduating students and in front of each name is a nickname of the student, a sentence he/she always say or something known of him/her that could be used as a reminder. While on the same time me and a couple of guys on our way to college, the car broke down in the middle of a traffic mess, unable to get the original to work and unable to get another our only option was to walk. With a time limit on our backs we did a little more than 3 km on feet in less than an hour, until we reached a place where we could get a ride, which we did happily.

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The Big Holiday

2005-04-01T18:54:00.000+04:00

Between the National Assembly and the Shiat (in Arabic it is spelled Shi3a) we had a really long holiday from Monday to Sunday. The National Assembly ended with the only result to meet again on Sunday, very resourceful! The Shiat have a yearly occasion, which I don't much about, but in this occasion they usually travel from Baghdad to Karbala ON FOOT. For that reason, the streets were filled with law enforcers in their different forms to prevent any attacks, and it is costumed in Iraq that a BMW is usually used in any attacks because it is very fast and make a splendid way of escape, so BMWs were searched thoroughly. Anyway the reason for such a long holiday is that the Shiat start traveling on Monday to reach Karbala on Wednesday, so the streets were crowded and travelling by car became almost impossible. The National Assembly took place on Wednesday too. Later we heard from TV and to be exact from the Sharqia TV channel that Thursday was to be an official holiday, because it was between two holidays.

Just a while ago, I heard from the same channel the news about the explosions at AL-MALWIA, which is an ancient minaret built in 852, and is about 100 KM north of Baghdad. Seems that US snipers were stationed there until the last week. Locals said that this might have been done to prevent the snipers from using it again, what a waste! The minaret guard said that he woke up on the sound of an explosion and he saw some of the rocks falling down. That minaret is a landmark in Islamic architecture and one of the great archaeological treasures of Iraq, and I don't think that it should have been used for military purposes in the first place, or to be targeted for it.

Well this is interesting, Raghda , and Dalia have finally remembered that they are blogging and were generous enough to post. By the way I don't know why I haven't seen it before but Dalia has a post titled Samara with pictures of the minaret, 2nd and 4th one are the targeted minaret. I have searched the web but couldn't find any pictures of the minaret after the explosion. Maybe later.

Digital Camera

2005-03-27T18:25:00.000+03:00

Today I went to college armed with a digital camera, one of my friends has a brother who works in the mobile company (Iraqna). So we had an intention of making him call some of the guys with his private number, which doesn't show it's number when he calls, so whoever he calls the caller will not know who is calling. The plan was that he calls a few of the guys and tells them a few of last numbers they called and tells them that someone of them has made a complain about him and if he didn't stop calling him, his line would be cut off. I was supposed to zoom in from a distance and take a few pictures of them after the shock. Sadly the signal of Iraqna was really bad this day at college we couldn't call the brother and give him the green light.

But I wasn't going to come back with an empty camera, so I took some pictures with friends and a couple of pictures for my department, which I have an intention of publishing them, if the internet connection is going to allow it, because it is really crawling today.

The funny thing is this: In our department bringing a mobile that has a camera is not allowed, while bringing a digital camera is allowed. The reason in forbidding mobiles with cameras is that some of the students used them to photograph professors in their classes. Now is it not possible to do the same thing from outside the class without being noticed with a digital camera, and you can even zoom the camera to get a really good picture. And yet my Nokia 3200 is not allowed while the Epson camera is allowed.

By the way, do you remeber the small pump in the big underground hall that I keep talking about, it is still working and taking the water out, but I think that there is a sanitary problem in the hall, becuase the water doesn't seem to be going away.

Small Minds

2005-03-21T15:24:00.000+03:00

I know it has been a while since I last blogged, been busy. Yesterday I went to college, There are still some spots of water left here and there, but what got my attention is an underground hall which is about 2m below ground level. This hall has some water still left in it, the water is about a feet high, but the staff are using a pump that is no bigger than my hand to get the water out, I think they will be finished by the day after tomorrow, if the pump can survive that long without being shut down.

The only possible explanation is that they are VERY small minded, because it is obvious that a 40 m2 hall is going to need a lot more firepower. So they bring in the cheapest motor they can find and plug it in, then leave it there and come check it out a couple of days later, what would that accomplish, probably burning the pump and the hall won't be much different, and then they might think of getting something a little bigger than that pump.

Another example of small minds are the public transports that come and go from college, the main street which the college is connected to, is called (Al-Sina3a St.) meaning The Industrial Street, it is a pretty street with lots of computer stores in it, it is known all over Baghdad that if you want anything related to computers, then you should go to Al-Sina3a St. The problem is that cars park and double park on it's sides so that leaves only one moving lane, and that is the lane in which those big public transit cars come and make their stops, and they don't move an inch until the car is full. This usually creates major traffic conjunction and other public transit cars waiting for their turns would go mad and screaming everywhere for it to move, then they take the first one's place and do exactly as it does.

Well today we discovered the reason why our cable connection is so Unconnected after 7:30 PM. The newest way to make a vehicle explode is to wire it with a mobile, so when the mobile rings the vehicle explodes. The US army has put jammers on it's humvees and tanks, and they jam any transmission including wireless connections, and that is what caused so much trouble with internet. The same happens to my cell phone, after 7:30 PM the signal disappears and it re-appears near midnight. And the reason so many cars explode after the targeted convoy is too far is that the terrorist would rather die than go back to his comrades in failure. And that is the smallest mind I can find.

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Rain, rain and more rain

2005-03-11T17:38:00.000+03:00

At the time I'm writing this post, the rain has been coming for a little more than 24 hours. And I am trapped in the house, cars can't go out because you can't see the street, since it is covered in water. If you can't see the street, then your car could be stuck in a hole or anything, we have lots of them around here. Here see those pictures you'll understand.

We really are going to need boats.

This umbrella saved my life.

I wish had some bath foam.

See the dots in the water?. This is the rain still coming down.

They say this is a street, It looks like a river to me.

That car isn't going anywhere for a while.

Well you've seen what it is like now, I'll show you each one of those pictures when the water is gone, you'll be surprised.

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Need For Speed

2005-03-10T19:28:00.000+03:00

Just a while ago I came from the most rainy day I have ever seen, it didn't rain like this even in the winter, and I thought this was summer or someting. On the way back from college to my home I saw a handfull of single accident,
one group accident and a couple of cars that got stuck in the mud. I guess I wasn't the only one caught un-aware. This is because of the combined effect of rain and another Average Iraqi characteristic; It is the Need For Speed.

That's right, just like the name of the game, An Average Iraqi has a real need for speed. On highway it is not uncommon to see cars going above 160 km/h (roughly 90 m/h) and some sports do well above 220 km/h (roughly 124 m/h). If
you think that it needs the left lane to happen then you are wrong, passing from the right is very easy and much more likely.

Going forward is not the only solution, there is the sideways way too. For example; jeeps especially the Nissan Patrol, GMC and Path Finder often go above the middle island, thus avoiding wating for their turns on U turns, which
is usually crowded.

By now you must be thinking, I've seen it all, but you are wrong, because going forward or sideways doesn't always work, so that leaves backward. This is done by going wrong side on the left, because we drive on the right in Iraq.
And it seems that the most lane to the right of every road is always left to the wrong-siders to avoid accidents. So you see this kind of driving is the reason of most acciedents, I guess being average isn't alwasy enough.

Next on the blog news: Since my last post Najma posted twice, the first one is on the same topic as my 22 down post, the second one has a link to the new Family Blog they have done, in which her mother (aya grany) has recently wrote her first and second posts. HNK did the same thing the way I see it in her 2 lines post. Their Father (who's is my mother's uncle, so I guess that makes him my great uncle??) did the same on his one of two posts recenlty, on the second one he gave me a hand in telling another Average Iraqi characteristic, which is an interesting subject backed by a funny story.Cile posted a post recently which I think is about interviews on his Streamtime but I'm sure that after reading this he will enlighten me about it.

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Replacement

2005-03-09T00:00:00.000+03:00

My uncle has recently traveled to United Arab Imarates, just a few days after Raghda's father went to the same destination. I don't know if he had said it in his blog but he lives with his wife and a three years old daughter. They live in a my grandparents BIG house. She is supposed to follow him in a few weeks. So someone must stay with my grand parents because, they can't be left alone, guess who is the replacement.

This is going to be a weird experience, I have lived before with my grandparents, there was a time when I and my grandfather were the only ones in Baghdad, but this is going to be for a longer term. There are benefits for me and disadvatages too.

benefits:

1. The house is much closer to a main street compared to our isolated house, and is closer to most of my friends.

2. My grandfather is my fan no.1, so I rarely get NO for an answer.

3. The same goes for my grandmother.

4. I will be away from my annoying brother, wich I think HNK will agree with me that it is a blessing, since she and Najma had an unforgettable experience with him while I was in Baghdad.

Dis-advatages:

1. I am going to have fist fights on every meal because, somehow in the eyes of my grandmother I never eat enough. And on other occasions when I'm not hungry she will think that I don't like whatever she had prepared, and before I know it the whole refregrator will be on the table.

2. They always fight on the slightest things, me and my brother don't fight as much as they do, and we fight all the time. So the judge in most of their fights is going to be me. God helps them.

3. I have a habit of talking fast and skipping some letters in the process, and my grandfather just can't understand a word from me, he understands my 4 years sister better than he understands me.

4. They don't have an internet cable connection, so I am going to have to stick with dial up connection, so putting a post will take half the day.

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Bad Luck

2005-03-05T14:14:00.000+03:00

Finally Giuliana Sgrena the Italian journalist which was being held hostage in Iraq, has made it back home, but she has been shot in the shoulder and one of her bodyguards is killed. No it wasn't the Iraqis, it was the U.S army. Don't believe me, read it here . Those soldiers are supposed to have been trained for two years right?. Why would they do something like that then??. It is because the car didn't slow down at a check point, and because it is the custom of terrorist fighters to come flying at check points, soldiers shoot any speeding car which fails to slow down at a check point, and Giuliana Sgrena was no exception. I don't blame them for shooting, but I blame them for what they shot, couldn't they just shoot at the car instead of the people in it, I think they can. May be this accident will change the way U.S soldiers treat other people.

Next on the blog news: The two runaways, Raghda and Dalia are back with pretty good posts. Oh and here is a really good blogger, Najma with her relatives carnival post, which I look good in it. And last, HNK is whining AGAIN but she has a cute picture which is worth seeing and her post is a reflection of her.

Yes this should be useful, On the left is my new emailing list service, instead of coming from time to time to see if I have updated my blog, why don't you let me come to you. Subscribe and I'll take care of the rest. Unfortunately it can only support 500 subscribers. May be I'll be able to do something about this in the future.

Internet Finally

2005-03-03T19:22:00.000+03:00

It has been a couple of days without internet for me, our service provider is switching satellites, he finally figured it out and we are back on the road. He says this one is faster than the older one, I'm not noticing any difference, may be am wrong but at least it is the same.

The new weekend (Saturday) is making problems at college, week schedules are changed and like 4 hours are lost every week that needs to be put on other days, it is only my department that is not having trouble because our department original day off was Saturday, so it is like nothing has changed. I gave my blog address to some of the guys at college, they just can't believe they can get unlimited capacity for free without commercials, may be we'll be seeing more of them later.

Some thing terrible happened today, Raghda's father is traveling to United Arab Imarates and so his cell phone is now Raghda's. Today she miss-called me at 6 am to wake me up, and I usually wake up much later, so I was very HAPPY when she called. But tonight at 2 am is payback time, I'll make sure she doesn't get a good night's sleep.

22 Down

2005-02-27T23:09:00.001+03:00

A couple of days ago, a couple of terror gangs were caught in Mosul, one of them was named "The liberation Army", but I can't remeber the name of the other one. However those terrorists seem all to have been recruited by Syrian Intelligence for cash, they were transferred to Syria were they received training on different handy works. They were being paid dearly and some of them were promoted to what they call a prince if he slaughters more than 10 persons, and his pay is increased respectfully. They did many horrible things for small amounts of cash even so. The Iraqia TV channel showed the whole thing, but it doesn't have an internet site so I couldn't find any links to this story.

All of them started fighting Americans at first and then turned to other jobs like kidnapping. They knew the people that worked with them but they knew their contacts to Syrian intelligence only by figure, so they are untrace-able. The interrogating officer got pretty mad at them at the end of the interrogation, I don't blame him. That's what an average Iraqi would have done.

Next on the blog news: Cile (Xer-Files) has started blogging recently, pass him by and say Hi. He says he started blogging because of me, I say I started blogging because of Najma (A Star from Mosul) and so the show goes on, lets see who is going to start blogging because of Cile.

Make up Your Mind

2005-02-24T18:34:00.000+03:00

It has been a week since college started out again, it is a breather to be able to go out again and enjoy being with friends. The only fun-spoiler is getting there and back, but I have already wined about that so I'll just pass on it this time.

Each day when I wake up and head to college the weather is more hot than cold, or let's just say cool. But it doesn't take it much more than the 4 hours of my lectures times in college for it to cool down. So by the time I get home, which is like 6 Pm the sun would have vanished and I am more like an ice cube. So sun do me a favor and MAKE UP YOUR MIND, because I don't know what to wear.

I told a couple of guys about the blogger and a project evolved about getting the department an offical blog, but it is still an idea. I'm hoping it will become a reality because it could turn into a really good thing. But as I said still a project.

Time War

2005-02-19T01:34:00.000+03:00

My endless battle with time is how to spend it, and when I get bored it means I'm losing, and right now I'm losing. Usually when I get bored I would go out, spend time, come home late stuff like that. It seems like a million years ago. I don't think that after the war I hung out after 8 PM. I actually have nothing to do when I'm home, and my best way to spend time is to go to college, get some homework, some times the phone can kill an half an hour or so, but college is the best of my allies.

It looks like our new president is going to be the Kurdish Jalal Talbani -I'm not sure how to spell his name- although he is not there yet but he's just around the corner, so I'm not going to judge him or anything because I virtually know almost nothing about him, I'll just wait and see how it turns out. Generally the situation is better after the ellections, big explosions are becoming less and less frequent, minor fightings are tireless but less altogether, so the future looks bright after all.

Trip to College

2005-02-15T07:57:00.000+03:00

Today I took my trip to college, I study Civil Engineering in the department of building and construction. The way to college takes roughly about an hour and a half, depending on the traffic and army convoys, which travels much slower, will not take any one passing them, and will shoot any one who doesn't take the hint.

Even so, that is not the worst thing, because the convoys actually move, unlike another situation. Imagine a very busy T intersection which barely moves whith the precence of traffic control, now take the traffic control out, what will you have, the answer is CHAOS.

The way back is a bit better because the traffic is lighter since most people are already home back from work, it's beggining to get dark, and NO ONE goes out in the dark unless he's got some kind of a death wish. Since most hijackers are out in the night and most of the fights between americans and terrorists occur at night, and believe me you don't want to be there when it happens, bullets will be flying all over the place, explotions here and there, see one and you have seen them all.

Now I'm drifting off point, so back to the trip. One time during the gas/gasoline shortage the car actually ran out of gas, great just what i needed. And it picked the greatest place to stop, it was over some bridge so we couldn't just leave it there we had to push it down and find some place to park it, the driver went to get some gas but we couldn't wait for him, there just wasn't enough time. So we went on our own that day. But it seems he managed to get some gas and picked us up on our way back.

Unwillingness to understand

2005-02-12T17:51:00.000+03:00

Just a while ago i recieved a message from someone in France. I guess many of you have heard of the kidnapped French jouranlist; Florence Aubanas and her guide in january, 5th. So this message was about her, the sender sent with the message another message for her and asked if i can post it in my weblog. So here is my answer to him:

Unwillingness to understand

Florence,

Now it's been 38 days since you disappeared and I feel the omnipresence of your absence.

Absence of a journalist involved in the defense of democracy values; absence of a very appreciated woman.

Now it's 38 days there is a lack in the journalist profession, as if it was missing some letters in the word "liberty". Or as if an arrow -the arrow of intolerance- sanked into "liberty".

Your absence, this lack, this emptiness are growing every day. And I stumble over the sentence "unwillingness to understand".

That's absolutely certain that the pen of the journalists and the image of the photographs are essential defences facing the war, facing exactions, facing corruption. Your articles, as those of your colleagues, are so much pillars for democracy. One of these pillars will lack, and democracy will shake! So your presence in Iraq disturbs. As Ingrid Bettancourt in Colombia also does. As Enso Baldoni did. But I still do not understand how one can kidnap or murder

Then, which French people could ignore that you disappeared ? Which one and more, which journalist ? Which student in a school of journalism ? Nevertheless, this morning, I read only 650 messages on Liberation's forum and hardly 1200 on that of "Reporters without frontiers" Hardly 1800 support and sympathy messages. I read them all. Only a few come from colleagues. Even so, certainly your kidnappers have direct access to these. Since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, we noticed that terrorist and islamist fighters are masters in the art of communication with internet. But, where? Where are the supports of thousands of journalists, press correspondants, photographs, local reporters, students in journalism? The more the days flow, the less I understand these absences

So Florence, all that, is too much. Much too much.
Get back soon! It will give meaning to the word "liberty", still drastically reduced this morning. Then, I hope we will work together to resolve these unwillingness to understand. For no more Abdel Hussein Khazaal, Guy-Andre Kieffer, Fred Nerac, Giuliana Sgrena and many others at the cover of world newspapers or sticked to the front of town halls!

Thierry

Mr. Know it All

2005-02-07T22:38:00.000+03:00

One of the main behaviors of the average Iraqi, is that he doesn't like to say "I dont' know"; he'll propably start talking and drift off point, sometimes it's good, but that is a rare case. Reminds me of someone but am not going to say who. For example, I walked into a store the other day to buy a certain program, so i asked the guy if he had it, from his first words i knew he had never heard of it but he wouldn't simply addmit it. So he starts piling everything he had on the desk, and when he finally couldn't find it he said "Well i guess i ran out of it", no comment.

On the other hand it is sometimes hard to get down the prone of pride escpecially if you are considerd an expert in some field and then you're asked a question that you don't have the faintest clue about, now how about THAT. An average Iraqi would have changed the subject which is a very good solution, what would you do. I'm waiting.

Prologue

2005-02-03T00:42:00.000+03:00

Prologue

The average Iraqi is a person who walkes fast, talks tough, breathes air filled with home made smoke and God knows what else gases a bomb releases and sometimes it is worth his life to cross a street or drive a car.

Take me for example on Wednesday i was driving a car, I had already bought some stuff, getting home with the car was the least of my troubles. Turned out I was wrong. The car never made it home, not my home anyway. Yeah that's right i was robbed but i wasn't shot because i did what i was told to do, not exactly what the average Iraqi would have done but that is just fictional anyways, i mean no one is exactly AVERAGE.

But i can guess what the average Iraqi would have done. He would have propably tried ramming their car with his or pull a gun something like that. Well my car was new so i would rather give it to them than destroy it and keep it, and i didn't have a gun, not that i would have used it anyway. So either i pull a rabbit from the hat or give it to them, i chose life.

Ok now the average Iraqi would go to the cops and report it, i did that of course but i wouldn't put my bets on them because most of them are volunteers and they are not trained cops and believe it or not a good proportion of them are actually ex-convicts. So they are fruitless, which means only one thing; my car is a GONER