"Iraq at a Glance"

Stories and News From Iraq After the Liberation.

My roomate, Scott, pointed me to the above weblog earlier today, and I've now had the chance to read through it a little. It's written by an Iraqi denstist who lives in Baghdad. He shares his thoughts and concerns about his home, his country, and his support of the Coalition troops who are trying desperately to uphold peace.

He also links to a variety of other Iraqi bloggers, a few US and Iraqi soldier weblogs, and a good collection of other first-hand blogger accounts of the current struggles in Iraq. I highly recommend it. It's worth your time.

Here's a sample post from Iraqataglance:

Freedom is a Responsibility

"Unfortunately, many people explain the freedom that has been given to us as they like. Some of them are looting from the governmental buildings... Stealing whatever they want and saying, "this is a freedom", 'these are our rights from the government". Others are building new houses wherever they want to build without licenses and they are saying, "this is a freedom". Others are not obeying policemen and drive however they want. Some people are not organizing themselves in queues and preferring the mess and fuss wherever they go saying that, "this is a freedom", driving in wrong directions in order to save time! "This is a freedom".

I want to tell those idiots that this is not a freedom this is an anarchy and chaos. The freedom is given to people who do not know what is the meaning of it.

Two days ago, a patient came to my dental clinic, he was dirty with offensive odour, looked like a beggar... After he’s sat down on the dental chair he’s started talking about an accident he had with his CAR!! I said "do you have a car?!" He said "yes, doctor." At once I concluded that he was a thief (in slang known as Hawasim, a name derived from Saddam’s description to the coming war at that time as Al-hawasim which means The Decisive War. After the end of the war, everyone whom seen in the loot and robbery is called ‘Hawasim’!!).

Back to the patient... I told him, "what accident?" He said, "yesterday I was driving in 'alkasra', a neighborhood in the north-east of Baghdad, with my PATROL and there was a traffic jam. So I went up the sidewalk and I drove along it passing all the cars then suddenly ANOTHER car went up the sidewalk when I couldn’t keep away from it. Then I hit that car so that the two cars were badly damaged. I blame the policeman for that accident," he said.

I said, "the policemen are doing their best to control such cases, it was your fault."

He said, "no... this is a freedom... I do whatever I want to do!!"

I was so angry that I wished to plant the probe in his eyes. Then I referred him to another dental clinic, because he did not deserve any type of help.

That was one of thousands of stories which make me feel that those people will never learn to behave like human beings. I look forward to letting the FREE people to think even for a minute daily about freedom and use it correctly and wisely."

Reading blog accounts like this get me thinking. We, as Americans -- sitting back at home, safe from the worries of daily car bombings, looting, and terrorism -- don't grasp the full measure of life in the 'war zone'. We're too used to our own freedoms to really care about those of others struggling for theirs. And more often then not, we rely too heavily upon the media to spoonfeed us the 'truth'. Perhaps, what we need to do is take more time, bypass the opininated media, and read the truth for ourselves -- from those who are truely living it.

-Jon
posted by Jon at 10:06 PM  I   I  0 comments