Life in Baghdad
Under siege: what the surge really means in Baghdad
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad Published: 10 September 2007
A city divided by high concrete walls, barbed wire and checkpoints; armoured columns moving through deserted evening streets lit by the glow of searchlights and emptied by official curfew and fear. This is Baghdad, seven months into the surge, and George Bush's last throw of the dice in Iraq.
On the surface, the Iraqi capital is less overtly violent than it used to be. The number of car bombings have fallen to "only" 23 a month from 42 in the same period last year, there are fewer sounds of explosions and gunfire than in the past, and there is, generally, less tension. And some of that must be due to the presence of more troops.
But for many Iraqis, the Americans have turned their land into a prison. The barriers, which have turned Baghdad into a series of ghettos, are meant to keep the bombers out, but they also keep residents penned in. People may feel safer inside their neighbourhoods, but are more wary of venturing outside them. A short journey across the city can take hours with roads blocked off and numerous checkpoints, discouraging people from visiting relations and friends and reinforcing the sense of isolation.
The walls, being put up by American contractors at a record speed, are formalising the break up of Baghdad. The city where Sunni, Shia and Christians once lived in comparative social amity – although not the same access to political power – is now so divided along sectarian lines that it may be impossible ever to reunify it.
Baghdad. A city that at one time, that was known as the world's richest and most intellectual city of the time, and was second in size only to Constantinople. While Europe festered in the Dark Ages, Baghdad was at the heart of a vibrant and diverse civilization.
That was then and this article states the realities on the ground now in Baghdad. What the Mongol hordes couldn't accomplish in 1258 A.C., we Americans have finally managed to do in the 21st Century.
Accomplished by the homicidal maniacs in charge of America, the Bush/Cheney Junta. Accomplished thru the complicity by either the yawning indifference of most Americans or the outright stupidity of the others, too busy watching that self-proclaimed "Best in the Business News" the narcissistic and increasingly irrelevant CNN.
While American tax dollars are used to support the world's largest military that is obsessed with destroying Baghdad and Iraq, the talking CNN/FOX gas bags show REAL news stories, like the return of Britnney Spears.
While some Americans will watch with bated breath the latest blonde bimbo antics on CNN, Iraqi's will watch in horror as bombs, artillery shells and machine gun fire from helicopter gunships are rained down in a never ending stream of death and destruction upon their once fabled city.
Give yourself a pat on the back America. We've finally managed to grab hold of the world's #1 rating as the most depraved and most dangerous terrorist nation in the world.
