Baghdad Burning - Of Chalabi, Flags and Anthems...

[MSgt213]

There are two different kinds of strain. There's the physical strain of carrying 40 pails of water up and down the stairs to fill the empty water tank on the roof- after the 4th or 5th pail of water, you can literally see your muscles quivering under your skin and without the bucket of water, your arms somehow feel weightless- almost nonexistent. Then there's mental strain… that is when those forty buckets of water are being emptied in your head and there's a huge flow of thoughts and emotions that threaten to overwhelm you.

I think everyone I know is suffering from that mental strain. You can see it in the eyes and hear it in the taut voices that threaten to break with the burden of emotion. We're all watching things carefully and trying to focus on leading semi-normal lives all at once. The situation in the south seems to be deteriorating and we hear of fresh new deaths every day. Fighting has broken out in Falloojeh again and I'm not quite sure what has happened to the ceasefire. It's hard to know just what is going on. There's a sense of collective exhaustion in the air.

I've been reading articles about Chalabi being (very hopefully) on his way out. I can't believe it took this long for Washington to come to the conclusion that he is completely useless. Did anyone there actually believe he was going to be greeted as the leader of a new era? We were watching him carefully during the last few weeks, trying to see what he would do or say during the attacks on Falloojeh and all the fighting in the south. That was a crucial time… we were waiting for some reaction from the Puppets- any reaction. Some condemning words… some solidarity with the Iraqis being killed and left homeless and there was a strange sort of silence. One of them threatened to step down, but that was only after outraged Iraqis showed an inclination to eat them alive if something wasn't done about the situation…

Chalabi has only lately ventured out from under his rock (in the usual flashy tie) to cry out that Lakhdhar Il Braheimi, the special UN representative sent by Kofi to check out the possibility of elections, is completely and totally biased against Shi'a. So now Chalabi seems to consider himself a champion of Shi'a everywhere in Iraq. The amusing thing about this is the fact that, apparently, no one has told Chalabi that he has become the joke of the Shi'a community. We (Sunnis and Shi'a) tease each other with things like, "So… the Shi'a man of the moment is Chalabi, ah?!" and the phrase is usually received with an indignant outcry and a comparison of the man of the moment to… Britney Spears, for example.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

[acmavm]

1. The harm that man has caused will last for decades. To put himself in

power he aligned himself with a bunch of neocon racist thugs and killed (he actually caused the deaths) of thousands of Iraqis. And all go gain the throne. He deserves a fate worse than death. And then there are the American lackeys that went along with him and Curveball and tried to force their lies down the throats of the world. No human justice can ever pay these people back for what they've done.

[skooooo]

2. Why couldn't they have let people vote on the flag??

What a perfect way to introduce the concept of democracy!! Let the people vote on their own flag. And if someone decided to cheat with the vote, or stuff the ballot box, at least the stakes wouldn't be human lives.

[MSgt213]

3. Probably the same reason they wanted to sell off all of Iraqi state owned

agencies before a true government was in place.