Baghdad- "A city of ghosts"

[Jcrowley]

...it was difficult to grasp how atomized and violent the 1,250-year-old city has become. Even on the worst days, I had always found Baghdad's most redeeming quality to be its resilience, a tenacious refusal among people I met over three years to surrender to the chaos unleashed when the Americans arrived. That resilience is gone, overwhelmed by civil war, anarchy or whatever term could possibly fit. Baghdad now is convulsed by hatred, paralyzed by suspicion; fear has forced many to leave. Carnage its rhythm and despair its mantra, the capital, it seems, no longer embraces life.

"A city of ghosts," a friend told me, her tone almost funereal.

The commotion in the streets -- goods spilling across sidewalks, traffic snarled under a searing sun -- once prompted the uninitiated to conclude that Baghdad was reviving. Of course, they were seeing the city through a windshield, the often angry voices on the streets inaudible. Today, with traffic dwindling, stores shuttered and streets empty by nightfall, that conceit no longer holds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701487.html

[WCGreen]

1. Thank god the Americans are there to restore dignity to the

Iraqi people....

[Jcrowley]

2. Three Main Problems

The Charnel House of Baghdad

by Mike Whitney

http://www.opednews.com

There are three things wrong with the current policy in Iraq.

Occupation, occupation and occupation.

Foreign occupation is the reason why over 90% of Iraqis want the Americans to leave their country. It is the reason why nearly 50% of Iraqis believe that it is justifiable to shoot American troops and why nearly 70% of attacks are on occupation forces. Representative John Murtha was correct when he said, "We are inciting the problem;" our presence is a lightening rod for violence.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_061029_the_charnel_house_of.htm

[WCGreen]

4. If Iraq invaded Cleveland, I would be shooting too....

[wholetruth00]

3. Ghosts don't even want to live there. A once beautiful city, a treasure

to civilization is now one of the worst kind of ghettos and a rubble heap.

[Botany]

5. Damn!

Where civilization started .... it is now dead.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. This war was a crime against humanity

if there ever was one. From the Hitlerite "Shock and Awe" so celebrated by the corporate whores, to the rape and murder of a child. Every detail, every act, has borne witness to the evil of the cabal that now controls and wields US military power without the constraint of any conscience or sense of morality.

Monsters.