more from dearest riverbend

[stellanoir]

She posted on Friday and I saw a link. This one's from Saturday.
If someone's already posted then mods please delete. I'm going to rearrange the text slightly just to comply with the four paragraph rule because it's so powerful.

Go to her site at http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com for the links.

 Saturday, November 13, 2004
 
Murder...
People in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq.

They say the people have nothing to eat. No produce is going into the city and the water has been cut off for days and days. Do you know what it's like to have no clean water??? People are drinking contaminated water and coming down with diarrhoea and other diseases. There are corpses in the street because no one can risk leaving their home to bury people. Families are burying children and parents in the gardens of their homes. WHERE IS EVERYONE???

Furthermore, where is Sistani? Why isn't he saying anything about the situation? When the South was being attacked, Sunni clerics everywhere decried the attacks. Where is Sistani now, when people are looking to him for some reaction? The silence is deafening. We're not leaving the house lately. There was a total of 8 hours of electricity today and we've been using the generator sparingly because there is a mysterious fuel shortage... several explosions were heard in different places.
Things are deteriorating swiftly.

More on Falloojeh crisis here: Aid agencies say Falluja "big disaster"... Eyewitness: Smoke and Corpses...
Iraqis will never forgive this- never. It's outrageous- it's genocide and America, with the help and support of Allawi, is responsible. May whoever contributes to this see the sorrow, terror and misery of the people suffering in Falloojeh.

[Crunchy Frog]

1. Thank you for posting that.

:kick:

[stellanoir]

3. tis truly my pleasure to share her thoughts

even though they are heart wrenching. Anyone who thinks they really know what's happening in Iraq through the media filter who is not reading the Iraqi bloggers is full of it.

Here are some other links to Iraqi bloggers. . .

http://raedinthemiddle.blogpsot.com ( he's really mad)
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com (faiza is a middle aged (raed's) mom who is very opinionated. scroll down past all "????"'s (presumably Arabic text) to the English translations \
http://justzipit.blogspot.com (Salam Pax's newer site)
http://where'sraed.blogspot.com (Salam Pax's older site-really informative about the run up to war)

Oh and Salam Pax visited D.C. over the past several weeks and wrote a travelogue for the Guardian. . .Read all seven days if you have the time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1332687,00.html

[Robbien]

2. This part about the Iraqi army is a bit revealing

How do people feel about the Iraqi troops? There's a certain rage. It's difficult to sympathize with a fellow-countryman while he's killing one of his own. People generally call them "Dogs of Occupation" here because instead of guarding our borders or securing areas, they are used to secure American forces. They drive out in front of American cars in order to clear the roads and possibly detonate some of those road mines at a decent distance from the American tanks. At the end of the day, most of them are the remnants of militias and that's the way they act.

And now they are being used in Falloojeh against other Iraqis. The whole situation is making me sick and there's a fury building up.

[stellanoir]

4. still in "shock and awe" over how our election

was impressively albeit diabolically systematically manipulated, I keep wondering. . .would that it were they dealt with the Iraqi reconstruction so efficiently. Sad, sad, sad.

[welshTerrier2]

5. "where is Sistani?"

Where is Sistani now, when people are looking to him for some reaction? The silence is deafening.

The questions raised here are critically important ...

Sistani will do nothing ... for now ... he is watching the Evil Empire fight his battles for him ... when civil war finally takes hold in Iraq, as it must, Sistani will be glad he let the U.S. do his bidding for him ...

and, for those who like to do a little "speculating", I was very suspicious of Sistani's "medical trip" to London several months ago ... was he really sick ?? maybe ... or maybe not ... perhaps this was nothing but a diplomatic mission to negotiate with the West ...

would you be shocked to learn that past U.S. policy has gotten us into bed with all sorts of strange characters in the Middle East ?? is it just possible that Sistani is bush's horse in this race ?? make him a few promises, tell him to stay out of the battles with the Sunni insurgents, and one day, all this can be yours ... frankly, Sistani has been a disgrace ... how can any prominent Iraqi sit quietly while the U.S. murders innocent citizens and turns the entire country into a cauldron of hell ??