FAQs

I received an email asking me to answer these questions:1) I think some sociologists say that we each belong to a "village" of a few hundred people that we "know" - our family and relatives, our former schoolmates, our neighbors and friends and colleagues past and present, our regular acquaintances and contacts (the butcher, for example.)Anyone we would recognize and greet in passing, I guess.So, as an ordinary Baghdadi, how many people that you "know" have been badly affected by this unnecessary conflict - killed, wounded, imprisoned, home destroyed, livelihood gone, and so on? Can you see how knowing this, knowing how bad it really is, would help our understanding your situation?
well, for me and my family we have not been affected so far with this directly, but my sister’s house was affected twice, it is near a police station and also an American base, so from time to time either the police station or the American base gets targeted, once there was a battle in their street and she was alone with her two children and she was pregnant, the sounds of machine guns and shootings were so close to her house that she and her children sat four hours under the stairs away from windows. the second time, they had all their windows broken when a police station near them was hit. Two days ago, they heard a nearby shooting and a gun bullet entered her kitchen, five min. after her daughter left the kitchen. The next morning they discovered 4 bullets hit their house from outside and they did not know who was shooting who.
Short time after Baghdad’s fall, there was a battle near my mother’s aunt house, one of their neighbors was hit accidentally in the battle, the neighbors tried to lift him and take him to the hospital, so they took my mother’s aunt car, and few seconds after that, the USA army thought they were fighters trying to escape from them, so they shot them with a missile. They were all killed, the car burned completely. the next day they had 3 funerals in their street.
My cousin’s family were on their way home, when a conflict started between the US army and some fighters, their car was hit with some bullets, but thank God they were not hurt. the same thing happened to my husband’s friend.The car of another cousin of mine had been badly damaged when a near US tank was shot by an RPG.A very old couple from our neighbors were almost shot, When an American troop asked them to slow down, the driver did not understand what they wanted so he thought he could pass them. They hit him with their hammer (humvee) and prepaid to shoot, but they discovered that he was very old to be a fighter or a terrorist. His car was badly damaged. This accident occurred three days ago.A friend of my husband died by a suicide bomber near the green zone, he left three children the youngest was only three months old. My parents house is near the ministry of oil, they got used to the sound of rockets that targeted the ministry, most of them had missed the target and fell in their district, the last one was only about 100m, and hit a fence of an empty house.These stories are samples of the life we are having, you can’t be sure when and where you will be killed.
2) Parallel to this: 150,000 occupation troops seems to work out at something like one soldier to every 80 or 100 Iraqi adults. So what friendly contacts have you, or your family, had with any of your” liberators" since May last year, when the invasion ended. These troopswere meant to be both ambassadors and advertisements for "freedom" and” democracy." How do you see them?
I did not have the chance to meet or talk with any soldier, and so are the rest of my family, we are a peaceful, non-trouble makers, since Saddam’s regime and now.
3) Speaking of villages and occupation, what really happened at Makr AlDeeb (the wedding massacre)? The news reports claimed that about 40people were killed from the air, without any warning or attempt at arrest. The American military made a few very strange statements, and promised an investigation, then ... nothing. The story just vanished. But all of Iraq must know the truth by now. Were there any "foreign fighters" there at all? Or did they just make 40,000 enemies by killing40 people by mistake?
well, frankly I have no idea about anything from that, I heard the news just the way you had, I don’t know any one from that village to ask him about that.
4. It looks like there is going to be a massive bombing campaign inplaces like Fallujah and Sadr City before the elections - anyone left standing can vote, I guess. Are you in a part of the city that will be safe from this?
There is no safe place in Baghdad, you may be killed any where even at your home, no one knows. But I’m far away from Al- Sadar city.These questions were sent by John from NZ.
PS. I want to know how to put a picture in my profile.