News, June 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Many Iraqis still not won over by US invasion
Jordan Times, 6/30/03
BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Jassem Alwan Blasim watched his two younger
brothers die when an apparently errant US bomb crashed into the street
next to a Baghdad market in March. In all more than 70 people were killed.
“I will never forgive the Americans or Saddam Hussein for what happened,”
Blasim said from his electronics shop, seated where he was on that day,
just a few metres (yards) from the crater caused by the explosion.
“Instead of having a proper wake, we could only drop them at the graveyard. It was wartime.”
The US campaign to win over Iraqis may never succeed with people like Blasim. But even the many supporters of the American effort have yet to declare it a success.
“I don't feel completely free, because Saddam is still alive. If they don't capture him, that rat will continue to live underground. Until they capture him, there will be no security or freedom,” said Fatima Hassan Mohammad, 41.
Virtually every Iraqi blames the United States for the miserable conditions of daily life: Power blackouts, water taps that run dry, and levels of crime and unemployment few have ever seen. Impatiently they demand their own government.
Many see the United States as a great power that is failing Iraq, even though it toppled Saddam and wants to build a prosperous democracy in Iraq to be a model for the Middle East.
“When will America do something for the Iraqi people? It has been three months and we still have no government,” said shopkeeper Kadhim Jasim, 35. “They are paying millions of dollars for the big contracts (to rebuild Iraq) and they cannot even collect the trash. Down with America!”
Return to normal?
Interviews with Iraqis suggest they long for a return to normal — if only anyone knew what normal was.
With traffic lights out of service, cars ebb and flow according to the intuition of the drivers. Most give way to US tanks and Humvees that rumble down the boulevards.
Occasionally citizens take matters into their own hands. In the Shula neighbourhood, one man crowned himself traffic cop, signalling directions with a plastic whistle. Drivers obeyed.
The 53,000 US troops in Baghdad do not easily mix with the people. Some adopt street children — or vice versa — as friends. Kids who once knew only “Hello Mister” now offer a more slangy “What's up?”
Commerce, which is duty free at least until the end of the year, flourishes on the broken sidewalks. Whisky and beer, restricted under Saddam, go on sale early in the morning, slowly baking as temperatures climb above 40 degrees Celsius each day.
One entrepreneur was seen selling shotguns out of the back of his car not far from where Saddam's giant statue fell during the symbolic end of his rein on April 9.
Satellite dishes, banned under Saddam, are in demand.
“This is the height of democracy. I feel happy when I sell such a thing without having to worry about being executed or thrown in prison,” said Khaled Jaleel, one retailer.
Jaleel was a rare interviewee who asked nothing more of the United States.
Another was Blasim, the man whose brothers were killed by a bomb. “They were sitting right where you are, and both were killed while I only had a scratch on the hand,” he said. “I don't want any compensation from the Americans, not even all the money in the world. God will avenge them.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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