Within hours, we had left our home to find refuge.Things will get very bad

[kpete]

Within hours, we had left our home to find refuge. Things will get very bad
By Ahmad Ali in Baghdad
(Filed: 23/02/2006)

I saw the news of the bomb on television when I was eating breakfast with my children. By lunch we had packed up our essential belongings and left to find refuge at a relative's house.


There was no argument from my wife. She knew as I did what the sight of the destroyed dome meant.

We live in a mixed Sunni and Shia area in Baghdad. Tonight there will be bloodshed and retaliation attacks and this time we are not going to sit inside while hoping we are lucky and the bullets do not come through our windows. This time we are leaving because things will get very bad.

It is not as if there are not already problems here. A neighbour was shot on his doorstep only a few days ago. Recently I visited the shops and the road was sealed: five armed men had been shooting at one of the Shia shops. The shopkeepers from all the other shops started firing back and the bodies were just lying in the street.

Such situations are common. We get used to them whether it is the Iraqi army closing off all the access roads so they can raid some house or the American helicopters flying over at night.

But this is going to be worse, I think. This may be the start of when it all goes really wrong and the thing that we all fear - the sectarian war that will destroy my country and my children's future - may be about to begin.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/23/wirq123.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/23/ixhome.html

[wicket]

1. My prayers are with the people of Iraq

What a gigantic mess we've created :cry:

[rman]

2. how did Rumsfeld put it -

"Freedom can be untidy."

[Rowdyboy]

3. A total nightmare that lies directly on the shoulders of George Bush

What an idiotic clusterf**K

[KyndCulture]

4. Dear God.... prayers to them...

[Callalily]

5. How totally

heartbreaking. Can you imagine raising a family under these circumstances? Sad, sad childhood memories will be had by the young who must experience such violence, who must live through such hostility.

[Lerkfish]

6. assuming they live through it.

and if they do, they will grow up to hate western influence even more than their forebears, if that is at all possible.

[in_cog_ni_to]

7. Those poor people.

Damn. Thanks GEORGE. :grr:

The Civil war has started and our soldiers are in the middle of it. :cry:

What a damn mess.

[roguevalley]

8. this is horrifying. absolutely horrifying. and they want to remove

church and state here. SIGH! God help these people.

[stop the bleeding]

9. praying n/t