Baghdad residents face water crisis

[Synnical]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CF37A1C0-C838-4B87-BD73-E2604EAD90AF.htm

Most of the Iraqi capital - particularly the western districts - has been without water for the past seven days.

Added to a lack of electricity - the national grid is off more than it is on - a crumbling mobile phone network, endless lines to get fuel and a daily dose of bombs and mortars, it has made it next to impossible to even think about the coming election.

<snip>

There has been no explanation for the crisis, which has provoked such anger and frustration that one Iraqi called a news agency demanding that something be done.

[Miss Authoritiva]

1. Thanks for the link.

Maybe I just keep missing the coverage, but I've often wondered what daily life is like in the major cities of Iraq since the occupation. How reliable are the essential services? How are the food supplies? What factories are running and what are they producing? How is the agricultural sector faring? Do people get up, have breakfast, go to school and work? Just how routine is everday life in the major cities? I don't mean this in a sarcastic way, but excluding carbombs and IEDs, is everyday life more or less routine? I've never gotten a sense of this from the American media.

Scriptoids

[thecrow]

2. Try reading Riverbend's blog

Baghdad Burning
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Bring tissues...it's easy to cry from reading this blog..

[CoffeeCat]

5. OMGosh...I just read the blog...I'm mortified.

I'm just beside myself. I cannot believe I live in a country that is doing this to Iraq.

The blogger mentions that the Iraqis are being threatened into voting. If they don't vote, their food rations--which they have been dependent upon since the 1990's will be cut off.

I'm so angry right now, I could spit nails!!!! How does this happen? Bush is evil...I get that. However, how does an entire military sanction terrorism and perpetuate fake elections for PR purposes? It's absolutely horrible.

Quote from the blog:

"Terror isn't just worrying about a plane hitting a skyscraper…terrorism is being caught in traffic and hearing the crack of an AK-47 a few meters away because the National Guard want to let an American humvee or Iraqi official through. Terror is watching your house being raided and knowing that the silliest thing might get you dragged away to Abu Ghraib where soldiers can torture, beat and kill. Terror is that first moment after a series of machine-gun shots, when you lift your head frantically to make sure your loved ones are still in one piece. Terror is trying to pick the shards of glass resulting from a nearby explosion out of the living-room couch and trying not to imagine what would have happened if a person had been sitting there.

The weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we're told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America...

Congratulations Bush- we are a threat now."

On behalf of our entire country--I'd like to say that I am so, so sorry.

[daleo]

3. Nearly two years, and still no reliable water

Quite the success. I suppose it is by bizarro BFEE world standards.

[diamond14]

4. all the water is horribly polluted too...water has been a major health

problem since the USA WAR CRIME of April 3, 2003...when USA bombed the electrical plants and water treatment plants in Iraq....


and bush* decided right then, never to fix or repair the Iraqis systems....just let them die....water-borne diseases cover everything from polio, to diptheria, and more...with NO Medical facilities or supplies, IMO, the situation is ghastly.....no body wants to talk about the Iraqis that are dying from polluted water everyday....and the toxins from WAR (PCB's from electrical transformers, fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides/rodenticides, dioxins from burning plastics, asbestos from bombed buildings, lead-based paint pulverized, depleted uranium blowing in every sandstorm, leaking gasoline storage tanks, burning oil fires spewing carcinogens....etc.).....

[CoffeeCat]

6. We're also destroying their agriculture...

According to this blog: http://abutamam.blogspot.com/ we are not only destroying their water and electricity--we're pilfering their agriculture in order to reap corporate profits for U.S. companies.

"U.S. declares Iraqis can not save their own seeds"

"As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo:
Pay Monsanto, or starve.

"The American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer, updated Iraq's intellectual property law to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection'.

The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, and is the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, to be now illegal.. Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically modified (GM) seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from seeds developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, and shared freely like agricultural 'open source.'"
Iraq law Requires Seed Licenses November 13, 2004

--more on the blog site.

[donsu]

7. can we all say 'planned genocide'

the fewer Iraqis there are the easier it is to steal their oil.

our military says things like this: if the Iraqi would do what we tell them to do we wouldn't have to kill them. therefore it is their fault we are killing them.

racism of the bushgang rules.