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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Inwoners Baghdad ''vrij'' om de dood al rottende tegemoet te gaan



Coolassprov MC
21-09-06, 07:10
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-letter20sep20,1,226790.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true


No One Dares to Help
The wounded die alone on Baghdad's streets. An offer of aid could be your own death sentence, an Iraqi reporter writes.
September 20, 2006


Because this account of daily life in Baghdad reveals where the writer lives, his name is not being used to protect his safety. He is a 54-year-old Iraqi reporter in The Times' Baghdad Bureau.

---

ADVERTISEMENTBAGHDAD — On a recent Sunday, I was buying groceries in my beloved Amariya neighborhood in western Baghdad when I heard the sound of an AK-47 for about three seconds. It was close but not very close, so I continued shopping.

As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead.

The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened.

I was still looking at the wounded man and blaming myself for not stopping to help. Other shoppers peered at him from a distance, sorrowful and compassionate, but did nothing.

I went on to another grocery store, staying for about five minutes while shopping for tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. During that time, the man managed to sit up and wave to passing cars. No one stopped. Then, a white Volkswagen pulled up. A passenger stepped out with a gun, walked steadily to the wounded man and shot him three times. The car took off down a side road and vanished.

No one did anything. No one lifted a finger. The only reaction came from a woman in the grocery store. In a low voice, she said, "My God, bless his soul."

I went home and didn't dare tell my wife. I did not want to frighten her.


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I've lived in my neighborhood for 25 years. My daughters went to kindergarten and elementary school here. I'm a Christian. My neighbors are mostly Sunni Arabs. We had always lived in harmony. Before the U.S.-led invasion, we would visit for tea and a chat. On summer afternoons, we would meet on the corner to joke and talk politics.

It used to be a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, bustling with commerce and traffic. On the main street, ice cream parlors, hamburger stands and take-away restaurants competed for space. We would rent videos and buy household appliances.

Until 2005, we were mostly unaffected by violence. We would hear shootings and explosions now and again, but compared with other places in Baghdad, it was relatively peaceful.

Then, late in 2005, someone blew up three supermarkets in the area. Shops started closing. Most of the small number of Shiite Muslim families moved out. The commercial street became a ghost road.

On Christmas Day last year, we visited — as always — our local church, St. Thomas, in Mansour. It was half-empty. Some members of the congregation had left the country; others feared coming to church after a series of attacks against Christians.

American troops, who patrol the neighborhood in Humvees, have also become edgy. Get too close, and they'll shoot. A colleague — an interpreter and physician — was shot and killed by soldiers last year on his way home from a shopping trip. He hadn't noticed the Humvees parked on the street.

By early this year, living in my neighborhood had become a nightmare. In addition to anti-American graffiti, there were fliers telling women to wear conservative clothes and to cover their hair. Men were told not to wear shorts or jeans.

For me, as a Christian, it was unacceptable that someone would tell my wife and daughters what to wear. What's the use of freedom if someone is telling you what to wear, how to behave or what to do in your life?

But coming home one day, I saw my wife on the street. I didn't recognize her. She had covered up.

After the attack on the Shiite shrine of the Golden Dome in Samarra in February, Shiite gunmen tried to raid Sunni mosques in my neighborhood. One night, against the backdrop of heavy shooting, we heard the cleric calling for help through the mosque's loudspeakers. We stayed up all night, listening as they battled for the mosque. It made me feel unsafe. If a Muslim would shoot another Muslim, what would they do to a Christian?

Fear dictates everything we do.

I see my neighbors less and less. When I go out, I say hello and that's it. I fear someone will ask questions about my job working for Americans, which could put me in danger. Even if he had no ill will toward me, he might talk and reveal an identifying detail. We're afraid of an enemy among us. Someone we don't know. It's a cancer.

In March, assassinations started in our neighborhood. Early one evening, I was sitting in my garden with my wife when we heard several gunshots. I rushed to the gate to see what was going on, despite my wife's pleas to stay inside. My neighbors told me that gunmen had dropped three men from a car and shot them in the street before driving off. No one dared approach the victims to find out who they were.

The bodies remained there until the next morning. The police or the American military probably picked them up, but I don't know. They simply disappeared.

The sounds of shootings and explosions are now commonplace. We don't know who is shooting whom, or who has been targeted. We don't know why, and we're afraid to ask or help. We too could get shot. Bringing someone to the hospital or to the police is out of the question. Nobody trusts the police, and nobody wants to answer questions.

I feel sad, bitter and frustrated — sad because a human life is now worth nothing in this country; bitter because people no longer help each other; and frustrated because I can't help either. If I'm targeted one day, I'm sure no one will help me.

I was very happy when my eldest daughter married an American. First, because there was love between them, but also because she would be able to leave Iraq, and I wouldn't have to worry about her safety day after day. She left last year.

If you had asked me a year ago whether I would consider leaving Iraq, I would have said maybe, but without enthusiasm. Now it's a definite yes. Things are going from bad to worse, and I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Four weeks ago, I came home from work. As I reached my street, I saw a man lying in a pool of blood. Someone had covered him with bits of cardboard. This was the best they could do. No one dared move him.

I drove on.

Max Stirner
21-09-06, 12:08
Tsja.

Sjiieten en soennieten gebruiken hun vrijheid om elkaar massaal af te slachten en dat is de schuld van het Westen.

Coolassprov MC
22-09-06, 07:29
Geplaatst door Max Stirner
Tsja.

Sjiieten en soennieten gebruiken hun vrijheid om elkaar massaal af te slachten en dat is de schuld van het Westen.

De omstandigheden waaronder dat gebeurt komen geheel, volledig en alleen voor rekening van het westen.

Je kunt het natuurlijk, voor je eigen gemoedsrust, gaan herleiden naar vermeende bloeddorst in de genen van Soennie's en Shia's en gaan gooien met, onder domme blanke mensen populaire, raciale stereo-typeringen met Arabieren en moslims als lijdend voorwerp..

Ook als hier in Gouda het licht uitvalt bij de V&D, beginnen goed doorvoedde en beschaafde blanke westerse mensen en ideale (schoon)ouders en (schoon)kinderen hun oerinstincten te tonen en stortten zich als hongere wolven op de plundering van de V&D.

Als achteraf blijkt dat er iemand geweest is die moedwillig en bewust de stroom heeft uitgezet moge het duidelijk zijn wie de werkelijke en directe verantwoordelijke is voor de plundering van de V&D!

Coolassprov MC
22-09-06, 07:38
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
De omstandigheden waaronder dat gebeurt komen geheel, volledig en alleen voor rekening van het westen.


Iraq was more complex than just Saddam.

We should have learned from the experience of the British in the 1920s, when modern Iraq was created—namely, that bringing in outside leaders would not work.

People expressed views about the need to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, about the potential for sectarian violence and the rise of militias, about the fact that the Shiites would want to rise politically.

These were not minority views in the intelligence community, but the administration ended up listening to other voices. The focus was on invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam, and after that everything would be fine and dandy.

http://harpers.org/sb-six-questions-emile-nakhleh-1158706094.html


have come to believe that our presence is part of the problem and that we should begin to seriously devise an exit strategy.

There's a civil war in Iraq and our presence is contributing to the violence. We've become a lightning rod—we're not restricting the violence, we're contributing to it.

Iraq has galvanized jihadists; our presence is what is attracting them. We need to get out of there.
The idea of Iraq being a model for the region has also been tossed out the window. Now the only question is whether Iraq will become a haven for sectarianism, or follow either the Iranian model or the standard Arab authoritarian model. It's only three years old, but the once-touted model of a secular, democratic Iraq is all but forgotten. This casts a dark shadow on American efforts to spread democracy in the region.

Mark
22-09-06, 07:54
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
De omstandigheden waaronder dat gebeurt komen geheel, volledig en alleen voor rekening van het westen.

Je kunt het natuurlijk, voor je eigen gemoedsrust, gaan herleiden naar vermeende bloeddorst in de genen van Soennie's en Shia's en gaan gooien met, onder domme blanke mensen populaire, raciale stereo-typeringen met Arabieren en moslims als lijdend voorwerp..


hey als ze elkaar willen afmaken moeten ze dat zelf weten. Dat is niet aan ons om daar een oordeel over te vellen.

Max Stirner
22-09-06, 16:24
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
De omstandigheden waaronder dat gebeurt komen geheel, volledig en alleen voor rekening van het westen.

Je kunt het natuurlijk, voor je eigen gemoedsrust, gaan herleiden naar vermeende bloeddorst in de genen van Soennie's en Shia's en gaan gooien met, onder domme blanke mensen populaire, raciale stereo-typeringen met Arabieren en moslims als lijdend voorwerp..

Ook als hier in Gouda het licht uitvalt bij de V&D, beginnen goed doorvoedde en beschaafde blanke westerse mensen en ideale (schoon)ouders en (schoon)kinderen hun oerinstincten te tonen en stortten zich als hongere wolven op de plundering van de V&D.

Als achteraf blijkt dat er iemand geweest is die moedwillig en bewust de stroom heeft uitgezet moge het duidelijk zijn wie de werkelijke en directe verantwoordelijke is voor de plundering van de V&D!


Precies, dat zeg ik.

Het Westen had nooit Saddams mooie sfeerverlichting mogen doven. Want hierbij vergat men rekening te houden met het bekende Iraakse spreekwoord: 'Als de kat van huis is, gaan de muizen elkaar met machinegeweren, autobommen, kettingzagen en boormachines te lijf'.

Coolassprov MC
23-09-06, 17:04
Geplaatst door Max Stirner
Precies, dat zeg ik.

Het Westen had nooit Saddams mooie sfeerverlichting mogen doven. Want hierbij vergat men rekening te houden met het bekende Iraakse spreekwoord: 'Als de kat van huis is, gaan de muizen elkaar met machinegeweren, autobommen, kettingzagen en boormachines te lijf'.

Je hoeft geen ogen in je kop te hebben om te kunnen zien dat Irak veel beter af is onder iedere voorstelbaar en onvoorstelbaar brute dictator dan onder de handen van het zogenaamde vrije Westen! Het was slechts wachten op de VN om dit te bevestigen.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1696153.ece


The republic of fear is born again. The state of terror now gripping Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein. Torture in the country may even be worse than it was during his rule, the United Nation's special investigator on torture said yesterday."

De beste manier waarop het zogenaamde en zogenoemde Westen de wereld kan helpen is door het niet te helpen. Zoals een Amerikaanse legercommandant ten tijde van de Vietnam-oorlog verklaardde;

''The best way we can help Vietnam is to get our crooked dollar hands off Vietnam''

Max Stirner
25-09-06, 14:12
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
Je hoeft geen ogen in je kop te hebben om te kunnen zien dat Irak veel beter af is onder iedere voorstelbaar en onvoorstelbaar brute dictator dan onder de handen van het zogenaamde vrije Westen! Het was slechts wachten op de VN om dit te bevestigen.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1696153.ece



De beste manier waarop het zogenaamde en zogenoemde Westen de wereld kan helpen is door het niet te helpen. Zoals een Amerikaanse legercommandant ten tijde van de Vietnam-oorlog verklaardde;

''The best way we can help Vietnam is to get our crooked dollar hands off Vietnam''


Anywayz, ze doen het toch echt zelf, elkaar afmaken.

Coolassprov MC
25-09-06, 18:41
Geplaatst door Max Stirner
Anywayz, ze doen het toch echt zelf, elkaar afmaken.

Het westen is direct verantwoordelijk voor alles wat in Irak gebeurt en alles wat daar uit voortvloeit; leer er alvast aan wennen.

Coolassprov MC
25-09-06, 18:45
Geplaatst door Max Stirner
Anywayz, ze doen het toch echt zelf, elkaar afmaken.

Moeilijk he?, Verantwoordelijkheid nemen?

Max Stirner
25-09-06, 19:15
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
Het westen is direct verantwoordelijk voor alles wat in Irak gebeurt en alles wat daar uit voortvloeit; leer er alvast aan wennen.


:droef:


En toch doen ze het zelf, elkaar afmaken....

mark61
25-09-06, 19:20
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
De omstandigheden waaronder dat gebeurt komen geheel, volledig en alleen voor rekening van het westen.

Geklets.

mark61
25-09-06, 19:22
Geplaatst door Coolassprov MC
Moeilijk he?, Verantwoordelijkheid nemen?

Ja, voor het ontvoeren van ongewapende machteloze mensen, ze martelen en afmaken.


"The Americans made me do it."


Ja, in paviljoen II.

Coolassprov MC
25-09-06, 19:23
Geplaatst door mark61
Geklets.

Klopt!

Coolassprov MC
25-09-06, 19:24
Geplaatst door mark61
Ja, voor het ontvoeren van ongewapende machteloze mensen, ze martelen en afmaken.


"The Americans made me do it."


Ja, in paviljoen II.

Dat is wat het internationaal recht zegt; de bezettende macht is verantwoordelijk voor de veiligheid van iedere burger.

You can have the cake and eat it too!