Tuesday, August 31, 2004

what do the Iraqi Symphony Orchestra, the Basra traditional arts group, galleris on Abu Nawas street and a Tattoo shop have in common?

A second Pax TV film.
getting this stuff lined up was taking too much of my time.

the tattoo place is a fucking disaster, he licks the needle before dipping in it detol or something. The bear paw tattoo I wanted to have on my neck is not going to happen.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

leading a conga line to Shia hell

oh dear, oh dear.
I am going to the lowest level in Shia hell followed by the LLama Butchers, they took up the makeover challenge.

going down to Funky Town....again

Went to Sadr City again today, I felt I needed more material and was hoping to see some sort of welcoming festivities.
I don't really like going there very much, it depresses me. It looks bad, it smells bad and there are no happy faces just worried old faces and frowning young ones. and I seem to have slept on the wrong side of the bed; I woke up in a lousy mood.
Les Rythmes Digitales (real audio link) on full blast and a cup of ice cold coffee on the way to Funky Town managed to get me all hyped up again and was itching to jump out of the car with my camera. I don't know why but the caffeine buzz I get out of iced coffee is intense, I feel sparks behind my eyeballs

What I saw there can only be described as a provocation. Sadr City is not just surrounded by American tanks but they seem to have cut it off the rest of the city. I was trying to get to the big square with the huge Sadr portraits but there was no way to get around the Americans. I had to stay in the outer quadrants moving along the inner streets and asking people which way in. We got to a street where it looked OK to film, No American troops in sight and no groups of frowning young Sadr dudes.
These days I move around Baghdad with a guy called Hayder, he is just very good at creating a sort of safe bubble when I am looking thru that camera viewfinder. He has been telling people who ask who I am filming for that I am a cameraman for an Iraqi TV channel called Salam TV and since it doesn't exist nobody knows about it and they can't start throwing stones at me because they have no idea which side I am on. Hayder tells them that the channel is still in test phase.
I told that I will be working my way towards Pax TV.

Anyway...very few shops were open on the street I was filming on, a guy who was just closing told me why. Mahdi Army was on the attack just further down the street. They have had a difficult night here and he showed me where a mortar fell and damaged his shop and by the sound of it they were still at it.
The only two employees of Salam TV said thank you and got our asses quickly out of there. No sexy flak jacket = get out of the way of flying bullets.

Why do I think the American presence today is like poking a stick into a hornets nest? because many of the Mahdi guys will be coming back whipped and feeling they have wasted three weeks and what do they find when they get home? More Americans at their doorsteps. Not just a couple of tanks, but totally surrounding the center of the district. Am I surprised that there was a fire exchange? Not really.

I have decided to stop filming. I need to finish the logs and work on a script.
A joke overheard at the Guardian house in Baghdad:
How many Iraqis benefited from the American occupation?
27, The 25 Governing Council members, Salam and Ghaith.

And this from people who are supposed to like us.
Look it! My “video diaries” get screened at the Vancouver Film Festival.
They use [filmmaker] and my name in the same sentence, teehee. I truly apologize to all fimmakers on their behalf.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Al-Sistani. Does he need a [Queer eye for the straight guy] makeover?

I mean look at the beard! he is trying to throw his weight around these days and he really needs to work on his image. Ungroomed facial hair will not get you very far habibi.

right..
and now for something compeletly different....


You know why it is fun to have a minister in the Iraqi government in your house these days?
You can watch the government go into shock collectively. There is something wickedly funny when your father, sitting in his PJs and sipping on wine, answers your questions with “no comment” and gives you the mask of absolutely no emotions.

People, the Iraqi government has no fucking clue as to what al-Sistani is trying to do. Apparently they have been in touch with him for days now but his [March of millions] initiative has been a total surprise to them and they have no idea what to make of it or how to deal with it. And al-Sistani managed to give them another surprise by asking to allow the masses to go into Najaf.

Al-Sistani decided to do a couple of very un-Sistani moves. The heart surgery must have done something to him. Until now he has managed to float like a deity above the ground and to always seem a bit above those worldly issues. Just above the ground and acting like a peaceful Buddha. He comes back and suddenly the “great miracle of God”, as one wall graffiti declared, touched the ground with his feet and decided to pitch his weight against al-Sadr. I liked the floating Sistani much more than the one we have now. I worry that if al-Sadr plays him like he has been playing the Iraqi government for weeks now al-Sistani will loose a lot; he has been until now the only voice of reason coming from the religious Shia groups. and believe me that is an already very desperate statement from someone who is as godless as I am, it pisses me off that we have to go to men in turbans and bushy beards for hope.

I went out today to the southern exit out of Baghdad, I wanted to see the masses leaving to Najaf but I was late; I only managed to catch the convoys coming all the way from Kirkuk and a couple of smaller convoys. Still, I was full of warm fuzzies. We drove further down the road and I was a minute away from deciding to go the whole way. Just imagine if this was it; the millions following this inspired leader and being able to peacefully solve this problem by simply being there en masse. The first Shia peace sit-in. wouldn’t you want to be there?

Then nasty, cynical me popped up and squished that daydream. To start with al-Sistani invited the masses to join him on his drive up to Najaf from Basra because surrounding himself with as many people as possible is a good way to avoid getting blasted away by whoever doesn’t like to see him back in the field, ditto for asking the masses to wait for him as he enters Najaf. Yup, cynical me can get very nasty.

And the other thing that worries me is the fact that amongst the first to prepare to go along on this march to Najaf were people in Sadr City. Al-Sistani is probably making the same mistake al-Rubai, Iraq’s national security adviser, made when he opened up Najaf and instead of Sadr supporters leaving they flooded in from all corners and resulted in the current crisis in Najaf.

My mother, before going to bed, wagged a finger at the news presenter on TV and announced that all they want is to go in and pray the morning prayers at the Imam’s shrine and leave. If that is so I already regret not going.
In other news:
among the group of thirty journalists arrested by the Iraqi police the day before yesterday was G. they were released hours later but knowing how he feels about confined spaces, I got my first hand experience with claustrophobics when I got stuck for 10 minutes in an elevator with him years ago, I suggest you go and send him some warm fuzzies.

He’s been taking amazing pictures and deserves all the warm fuzzies he can get.

reasons to ride that camel and hightail it out of Najaf

New York Times
[Ayatollah Calls for Rally to End Fighting in Najaf]

Grim rumors began to circulate, most of them suggesting that the end was near. One rumor had it that the militiamen, especially those who had come to fight from outside Najaf, were selling their weapons cheap and skirting out of town.

"I want you to tell me the truth," said Hadir Syed, tugging an ice cart outside the Old City. "There is a rumor that the Mahdi Army gave up."


On my first day in Najaf as we were driving out of the shrine area hoping that we won’t get shot by snipers one of the journalists said “well, I suppose we can say about them what we want now without worrying, they won’t be going anywhere”. The Mahdi Army looked trapped.
That night someone came into the hotel where all the journalists were staying and gave the guys at al-Arabiya a piece of paper. A hand written letter which they taped to a wall and took pictures off. It had Moqtada’s seal on it but not a signature and at the time what it was saying seemed quite improbable, most journalists there ignored it and it was gone the next morning.
If it were true it would have been a call by Moqtada for his militiamen to leave and disband. In Arabic it said “antum fi 7ilin mini” – you are free of your responsibility towards me and cites a line from a talk by Imam Hussein as he announced to his followers that those who wish to leave and not fight “should see the night as their camel” i.e. you are free to leave if you want and use the night for cover.

So if it was feeling abandoned, trapped or insecure I am not surprised that there aren’t many of them left. The people who stayed were getting the shit kicked out of them the last couple of days. and their leaders and spokesmen were being arrested and shown on TV.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

The Fat Whiner is me me me!
Next Question.

I fucken hate "hello from picasa". why can't I post pictures the old way, each picture is a seperate entry. sorry about that.


Now watch me get all serious as I put together a 450 words pitch for a 15 minutes film based on what I have from Najaf and Sadr City. I can't remember the last time I was that serious, by allah if you are going to make fun of me I will start crying.

The current Iraqi interim government, the Allawi government, really had to accomplish two main tasks. The first was to prepare the country for elections to be held in December/January and the second task, and this is something the Iraqis including the Governing Council insisted on, was to restore security to the country. Their main argument was hand over the security file to us, the Iraqis, and we will be able to solve our problems better than the foreigners.
To the disappointment of many Iraqis this never became a reality, which to be fair, is not entirely Allawi’s fault. Recruits to the Iraqi police and army have not been enough and those who do join have become targeted by opposition groups calling them traitors and collaborators. Many policemen and soldiers refuse do be filmed.
At the same time Moqtada al-Sadr, son of a much respected religious figure who assumed leadership of what is known as the militant Hawza, decided to up the ante. Whether he is being influenced and supported by a foreign country (the Allawi government points an accusing finger at Iran) or not, he and his militia (the Mahdi Army) have managed to hijack Iraqi politics. The last weeks have been about him, it seems we have forgotten all talk about developing a working democratic model here in Iraq and all we think about is how to keep the box of explosives on which Moqtada sits from erupting.

What I have been trying to do is to take a closer look at the people who support him and are prepared to fight for him, the Mahdi Army. Many of whom come from the disadvantaged and poor Shia areas in Iraq. You won’t find any Moqtada supporters in Najaf or Karbala, where the Shia “aristocracy” are. But in the poor southern cities like Amara and Nasiriyah and the huge slum in Baghdad known now as Sadr city. In Najaf and in Sadr City meeting the men who form the Mahdi Army has made me reconsider my view of them, they are simple people, always very friendly and welcoming. It is their leaders who worry me.
Those people never had hope for a better future, now they see someone who has lived among them championing their cause. They see a hand extended which they have not seen by the Iraqi government. What I fear they don’t see is how Moqtada al-Sadr and the people he listens to are using those masses in a dangerous political game which might disrupt the future for all Iraqis.

Putting on my Salam Pax hat; this is a film about riding in the back of trucks with the Mahdi Army, watching kids in Sadr city play with toy RPG Launchers, walking in narrow roads in Najaf while they show me the front line and trying not to get shot by an American sniper.


Now we can all go sing A Minha Menina and be silly again.



"this way this way" a mahdi dude showing me where I will meet my death, and that is half of G in on the left

frontline action

damn it don't point that at me! he was being funny, saying things like "if you don't show me on sattelite TV so that my mom knows I'm OK I will kill you! ha ha ha". so "mom" please tell him that you saw him.

the shrine of Imam Ali. You cannot imagine the relief I felt when we got there after having to walk thru all those tiny streets trying to avoid snipers.

friendly enough to drop his RPG launcher before shaking hands with us, wouldn't want that pointing in my direction.

do you see that thing on the left? that is a container for mortar rounds, there is only one left.

more big guns

Mahdi guy who joined three months ago. "I come and go depending on where I am needed". he is from Amara in the south

that's what you have to do every time you cross a street, snipers were having a hell of a day. at one point two idiots stood right in the middle of an intersection shaking hands a chatting totally oblivious to the american sniper looking out one of the windows until he got really sick of them and shouted "Yo! is this going to take much longer"

creepy Mahdi dude, he was dancing and cheering while the gun shots kept hitting the other side of the wall.

this is close to the "frontline", which at the time was the cemetery. Mahdi dude taking a cigarette break.

this guy was introduced as a hero, they told me he shot a helicopter down with his big gun.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

does my flak jacket make me look sexy?

It is 9:30am. Everybody is outside with their flak jackets, notebooks and cameras wondering where the others will be going today and if anyone feels like venturing into the shrine area.
I don’t want to put on my flak jacket until the last possible moment; it is too heavy and hot. A photographer whom I barely know is standing in front of me suddenly she gets too close and says:
“This is a beautiful shirt you are wearing”

Believe me there is nothing that can totally knock you off your balance than someone commenting on what you are wearing while you are thinking if it is worse to die from a sniper’s bullet in your head or the Mahdis, thinking that you are an American, firing a rocket propelled grenade in your direction.

“This is a really nice shirt” !!

After my initial shock I revert to type and tell her that I really like it as well, “the embroidery on the side is really nice, eh?”. G came to the rescue with a simple and firm "shut up you fat fairy, put that flak jacket on".


Najaf has been until now the most stressful place I have been to. It is so exhausting, physically and mentally. It is very hot and you have to be wearing that heavy flak jacket whenever you are on the street. There is a lot of walking and running to be done. Whenever you cross the street you are thinking is the sniper who has the bullet with my name on it around this corner?
Those journalists down there have to do this everyday. Initially I wanted to spend 4 days; two and a half was all I could take. My blood pressure goes up with every bullet I hear. I guess cameramen need to stay in a chamber where they keep surprising them with the sound of shots until they stop flinching. Otherwise you end up having footage that keeps jumping.

just came back a couple of hours ago, so give it a chance to sink in. I am a bit confused about what the Allawi government is trying to do and my back hurts from that stupid flak jacket.


Thursday, August 19, 2004

off to Najaf for three days.
not sure I will be able to blog from there. I will if I can beg a couple of minutes online time from one of the journos down there so watch this space.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

press record.
....close your eyes.
........start running.

We are standing at what he decided was the safer end of the Ahrar bridge. Less than 20 minutes ago there was a little exchange of high velocity lethal lead along this bridge. He thinks that this time the safer side to go take pictures from is the American side; the insurgents attacking the Americans this time are not Mahdi’s Army – the Militia lead by Moqtada al-Sadir (hard line religious leader - who are quite friendly with journalists as long as you are not American. The ones shooting at the Americans here are the nasty Sunnis who would kidnap their own father if it looked like it would get them five minutes on al-Jazeera.

I am standing beside him with my camera wondering what got me involved in this shit in the first place and why did I even for one second think that it is a nifty idea to go out filming with him. The guy is quite obviously suicidal, he has [death wish] stamped on his forehead and I am going to be collateral damage for fuck’s sake. This is really all I could think of standing camera in hand squinting as I am looking at the American on top of his Bradley, or whatever those things are called, and joining that suicidal maniac in his argument on why we should be allowed to go on that bridge.
I stop when I realize what I am suggesting. I am joining the maniac in asking the quite bewildered American officer to be allowed to stand fully exposed between them and the Iraqi insurgents just as they are planning to go on the attack. Why? Oh, because it would make great TV. I have sunk that low.

The American officer, getting quite sick of us and deciding that we would deserve what we get anyway, said that it is OK to film and take pictures as long as we stay on this side of the bridge: “you see that light pole over there, that’s you’re limit”.
Like idiots we run happily with our cameras towards the Iraqi Army soldiers who are going to cross the bridge and whack the insurgents upside their heads but the Iraqis are not amused and they don’t want us near them. We promise we won’t show their faces and all we want to document is their bravery in trying to restore peace and law in this city which I promise is honestly what we wanted to do, I am not being cynical there. But they don’t want to be photographed. We get chased away by an officer who screams at us that he and his family have been getting death threats already and he doesn’t want more trouble.

Next stop: Sadir City.

Have you seen a map of Baghdad? The area that is now known as Sadir City is actually a relatively recent addition to Baghdad. The sixties saw a huge migration of people from rural areas and other cities to Baghdad. Most of them were farmers who sold their land to come and try their luck in the city. There was lots of money coming in from oil revenues and Baghdad was a little sparkling jewel in the middle of Iraq.
What the government created to absorb all the masses of people coming in was really just a huge slum. Hasty bad planning, basically just laying out a grid. Big parts of it never had even proper streets laid out and not even plumbing or electricity. There is a very big area in the city which is called “Chawader” which means tents, this is what it was. These were people who came with very little money to the city, mainly from the southern Shia areas and the government didn’t give a fuck to what was going on down there. It quickly became a slum. And don’t even think about upward mobility if you are from there. The moment people hear you are from there they wrinkle their noses and look somewhere else.

Why the history lesson? Just to show that it is not surprising that the people there feel this is payback time. The Sadir movement is based on those people who have been disadvantaged for such a long time, Moqtada al-Sadir is someone who lived amongst them and is now championing their cause. This is what the people of Sadir City see. What they don’t see is the dangerous political game Sadir is playing, the country is a big barrel of explosives and he is throwing matches around.


We decide to take our chances and head to the Heart of Darkness, the Hikma mosque, the movement's principal mosque. We didn’t even get close to it when we see a couple of middle aged men fiddling with something in the middle of the road. My suicidal friend goes close to talk to the guy and he comes back with a funny expression on his face. The guy down on his knees in the middle of the road was rigging up a road bomb. I try not to run away screaming. Just a kilometer away we met an American military unit diffusing SEVEN bombs laid in the middle of one of the main streets at the edge of Sadir City.

We get into the car and continue towards the Hikma mosque. The guy we saw playing with explosives told us that just an hour ago a delegation from Falluja has arrived with 30 cars full of supplies “in support of the struggle of their Shia brothers in Najaf and Sadir City”. I wonder if the Americans realize how good they have been in bringing two opposing teams to play on the same side.
We are late; most of the delegation has already left and what we are able to see is the group of Mahdi Army men who are out on the street chanting and waving their guns, giving the few Fallujans who have not yet left a very hearty farewell and thank you parade. There were around 60 men standing half of them were carrying RPG launchers, too many Kalashnikovs were being waved around, a couple of BKCs (which are like super-sized machine guns) and for the benefit of my camera they pulled out a mortar launcher including one mortar which they proceeded to set up with lots of joyous chanting.
Worryingly they liked us, G and I with our cameras. We were nonplussed all the way thru their little show of force, a mask of non commenting faces. It freaks you out later, when you look at what you have on tape. This is something G pointed out to me; while you’re at it you don’t panic. Looking at it thru your lens you only think if the shot is right and how it looks like; not what is being filmed.

Anyway…since they thought we had such balls of steel they didn’t mind us hopping onto their truck and taking a ride with them thru Sadir City while they patrolled the area. Eleven Mahdi’s Army soldiers, two stupid guys with cameras, 3 RPG launchers, 5 Kalashnikovs, 1 BKC and a guy holding a Rocket Propelled Grenade without a launcher. The guy with the RPG noticed my puzzled look; I mean what do you do with an RPG if you don’t have one of those shoulder mounted launchers? He pointed out the rolled up piece of cardboard at the end of it and proceeded to discuss the best way to fire those things without a launcher. It was like being in a parallel universe, just keep your eye glued to that camera viewfinder.

They take us to the mosque to show us what they received as donations from Falluja; I was made to film a guy on crutches holding an RPG launcher. He says he was injured in the hip during the “first Sadir Intifada” and G is taken to photograph a kid sitting in a wheel chair holding, yup you guessed it, an RPG launcher.
I don’t get the thing these people have for RPG launchers. The kids there, they don’t have little plastic guns to play with like you would expect from all good kids of guerrilla fighters but they carry home made RPG toys. Bless them.
They show me the sacks of rice, flour and sugar, loads of blankets and Pepsi! I was offered a couple of video CDs which have beheadings on them that they promise have not been shown on any TV channels, probably of local “infidels” who don’t get the attention non-locals get. I start feeling a bit worried, we have been here now for almost two hours and the people are getting a bit too friendly and are asking the questions I don’t want to answer, who are you filming this for? Do you want to stay overnight and film us attacking Americans? It is prayer time soon and we decide to hightail it.

Too much weirdness for one day. G is leaving to Najaf and I will spend tomorrow doing family things. My cousin is getting engaged so we are allowed to make fun of him for the next 48 hours.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering about the RPG sans launcher: you stick a piece of cardboard in its back end. Prop it up with bricks. Light up the cardboard and pray that it goes straight ahead and doesn’t do a backwards loop and hits your sorry ass. When I asked about how they could control the direction in which they fire this thing, the answer was: “ach, it doesn’t matter”.

Yes, unquestionably too much weirdness for one day.

Peace. Out.

Monday, August 16, 2004

tips on how to get killed in baghdad:
look like a foreign journalist and walk into Haifa Street

Baghdad hits you head on like a big heavy truck barreling down a highway. Ka-poww, you’re out! Flat on your back wondering what that was. It doesn’t make a difference whether you live here or you from foreign; once you are away from here for more than a week you forget how things are. You forget because you really get away the mess and just live a “normal” couple of days.
These days the first things that makes you squint you eyes in pain and wonder why the hell you came back is the heat. How any people could decide to stay in such a dry hot place is a puzzle. You walk into a wall of hot dry air the moment you open the door of your air-conditioned home, actually strike that air-conditioning has become a luxury the country with the second largest oil reserves in the world cannot produce enough electricity for even half the demand.

The other thing that does a [Kill Bill] style kick on your ass is of course the seemingly never ending violence, and the 15th was bound to see carnage in Baghdad and other cities because it is the first day of the national conference. A controversial meeting of 1300 “representatives” who are supposed to oversee the transition from this interim government to the next one which hopefully will be elected and NOT interim.
Interim; now that’s a word for you. Everything in Iraqi since the fall of Baghdad has been “interim”; we managed to go thru two interim governments and I worry that if we fail to get things going towards elections, that we will get another interim monster. No one makes any decisions; no laws are set because it is all “interim”.

Anyway, back to the violence. I went back on the street to start filming for my video diaries on the 15th. Not by accident of course, I chose the date because I know that there will be trouble. Little tip: journalists are like vampires, they will suck your blood and have a nose that can smell it from a thousand kilometers. The moment an explosion is heard they swarm out like a pack of sharks looking for it. They point their cameras they harass people to tell them things and after they had their fill they go back to their air-conditioned hotels for a cool beer. It’s a job and someone has to do it. And don’t start talking to me about the “journalism of engagement” because that just might end up being fatal to you if you were such a journalist. You have to, you need to detach yourself otherwise you will die heartbroken and frustrated with this insane world and lose all faith in humanity, that is if you haven’t already like me.

So what was able to get for my video diaries, you ask? Policemen too frightened to be filmed because of the threats to anyone who collaborates with the current Iraqi government. Iraqi soldiers who were to bored, tired and hot and who complained endlessly about their salaries; they incidentally were too frightened to be filmed with the exception of one who really wanted to be on satellite TV. Blood and carnage at a bus stop. And finally a fire exchange near Haifa Street with loads of Iraq soldiers cursing like, well, soldiers because they have to walk into the area and kill the Iraqis on the other side who were shooting at them.

Friday, August 13, 2004



Get your war on.
This one is very true
any way .. i was watching near by table in the club a man my age with family and friends.. after 1 second of stoping fire the man just rested his head on his chest and still sitting the same way ... with blood going out of his head .. he got shot with a lost bullet in the head

It was the talk of the town. The rich, hunting club going part of town that is. Now excuse me, have to go. I am assembling a lead helmet for my outdoor excursions here in Baghdad

G.'s invasion of the Guardian continues:
Tigris Tales on the 9th and a report on the events in Najaf on the 10th.

and he is taking some kick ass photos while there.
Informed Comment mentioned in a recent post Ibrahim al-Jafaari’s comment concerning the presence of coalition forces in Najaf:

"I call for multinational forces to leave Najaf and for only Iraqi forces to remain there," Jafari said in remarks broadcast on al-Jazeera satellite television network on Wednesday. "Iraqi forces can administer Najaf to end this phenomenon of violence in this city that is holy to all Muslims." [from Reuters]

It was picked upon by the Arabic news channels as well. They all see in this probably a rift in the Iraqi government since Allawi is actually FOR military intervention in Najaf if the current situation stays as it is.
The truth is that I was a bit surprised when I first saw that statement on the Arabiya news ticker. But later I read the full quote, I think the second part of the statement is indicative of something. Read it again:
"Iraqi forces can administer Najaf to end this phenomenon of violence in this city that is holy to all Muslims."


Now put this together with the news that the big attack on central Najaf has been delayed and I think I see something there. My thoughts are that they are going to get more Iraqis to join on the attack and they will be the ones who will enter the holy city. Problem solved, not the infidel occupier but the Iraqi forces will go into the city and “administer”; whatever Mr. Jaafari meant by that.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

yikes, they are flashing their mobs! (or mobbing their flashes?)

Baghdad Flash Mob!

what do people actually do in those flash mobs, and will they all be attending wearing same color t-shirts, because if not baghdad these days looks like one big flash mob. More worringly in this some devilsh way to get bloggers and internet geeks to congregate in one place so that the freaky jihadis can get ris of them in one single go? is this the first Flash Mob suicide attack?
I need to go get water I feel a bit light headed and paranoid. It might be the fumes from our crap generator.

starting a petition to have Sadir in the next swim suit issue of [Nude & Hard]

In her latest post Riverbend writes:

So is this a part of the reconstruction effort promised to the Shi’a in the south of the country? Najaf is considered the holiest city in Iraq. It is visited by Shi’a from all over the world, and yet, during the last two days, it has seen a rain of bombs and shells from none other than the ‘saviors’ of the oppressed Shi’a- the Americans. So is this the ‘Sunni Triangle’ too? It’s déjà vu- corpses in the streets, people mourning their dead and dying and buildings up in flames. The images flash by on the television screen and it’s Falluja all over again. Twenty years from now who will be blamed for the mass graves being dug today?
Essentially I do agree with you, the deaths during the recent days are more than scary and worrying. It makes your heart ache to see what is happening in Najaf. Unacceptable. But I think you are not pointing your finger in the right direction. What is going on these days in Najaf, Baghdad, Basra and other Iraqi cities is not entirely the fault of the coalition.
I can’t understand why you don’t see the danger in the group of people calling themselves Mahdi’s Army and the Sadir followers and why it is important to show them the limits beyond which they are not going to be tolerated.
I am totally convinced that there is no good in them. Has there been any constructive suggestion by them other than demanding the end of occupation? Is calling the shrine of Imam Ali a holy of holiest and then putting snipers on top of it a sign of respect? Is

I don’t see this situation very comparable to the Falluja situation; to begin with this could be the start of something much worse. It could lead to a much bigger problem in the south and with Sadir’s influence in Basra the threat to the future of Iraq could be much bigger, they already are threatening to close down oil export operations in Basra. And with Iran backing him wait for them to demand the south’s secession.

Sorry Riverbend, I have to disagree with you there, it is not the Americans who should be blamed for turning Najaf into hell on this earth but rather Sadir’s people. And I hope, actually I am sure that you would never say that you see Sadir as a probable leader for Iraq and I don’t think his actions should be in any way be endorsed. You know very well that the day Sadir assumes power in this country you and I will have to think about spending the rest of our lives somewhere else.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

you better not mess with me, we have big men with guns in our front yard

Things are worse than yesterday. My father’s security people asked us all not to leave the house today without telling them. Everybody is a bit freaked out after the announcement from Zarqawi yesterday that Allawi and his government are going to be his next targets.As if we were going anywhere; my poor mom can’t even look after her own garden with so many strangers in our house with big guns. My brother was told that it is not safe for him to go to work because the place where he works used to be where my father did his business from and that is an easy target so he set office at home; he put on his suit sat cross legged on his bed and dialed the ISP- instant office. The security people were acting so funny they even sent someone in my brother’s car to the office and made the poor guy stay the whole day there, my ersatz brother spent the whole day sleeping at the office while the real one sat in his suit on his bed.By 10:30am I was too bored already to stay at home the whole day and told the big boys with guns at the door that I am going for a walk around the block and took the first taxi to the city center. Down to the Looters market. I tried to find that new video al-zarqawi allegedly has just released, [Winds of Victory]. I go there regularly, beside being a market for stolen goods it is where you find all the bootleg DVDs. Usually the best selling ones get something like MTVs power rotation; the various stalls put on show their hottest goods. So it might happen that one stall has hardcore porn on full blast while the one beside it would be showing al-Sadir’s latest religious sermon and nobody finds that hilarious. A month ago most of the stalls had home video type footage of the Falluja battles and various attacks on American troops and there is a very popular singer called Sabah al-Janabi who sings anti American songs who seems to have constant creative diarrhea; in a period of 5 months he released more than 6 CDs – very popular. So I went expecting to find al-Zarqawis video but it seems that it is still so new it has not yet reached the major distributors at the Looters Market.Lots of belly dancing videos instead. The streets were relatively empty since the two huge neighborhoods Sadir City and Shula were practically cut off the rest of the city. Battles since the early morning. This time the mortars did hit the ministry of oil and everybody panicked. One of the things that did not get mentioned in the news is the attack on the minister of oil’s convoy. The last car in his convoy got cut off from the rest by a big bus, then two BMWs closed in on the car the minister’s guards were made to give up their weapons, take off all their clothes and made to walk stark naked to the ministry. Almost a scene out of Naked Gun. We don’t expect things to get better soon, not with Moqtada al-Sadir announcing that he will keep up the fight until the last drop of his blood. That statement is only going to get things worse. The Iraqi government retaliated by announcing a curfew on Sadir City between 4pm and 8am which really will not help. 4 is too early and 8 is too late, if you want people to obey you have to be reasonable. Anyway we expect things to get worse. A small little salam in me wants to be in Najaf watching what is happening and maybe filming but the rest of me is actually too terrified to go anywhere close to the troublesome neighborhoods and cities.
What a fucking mess this place has become.

Monday, August 09, 2004

it's the one year anniversary of signing my soul over to the devil

Anyway................... coming back to Baghdad these days is always difficult. It really is the equivalent of hearing your car tires deflate; a long pfffffffft that makes think: (oh fuck). A couple of months before it was very different, every time I came back I came with a sense of hope now this is gone because I know I am coming back to something that is worst than I left. I hate feeling this way because it makes me feel guilty; I used to love this place more than anything else. I used to feel like I belong. I lost that. These days I feel like I am drifting. So I come back every time hoping that I will find what I lost. An anchor. This time I am back in Baghdad for 5 weeks and I should be working on two short news films for BBC’s Newsnight program. I am still looking for a friend of mine with whom I am supposed to work together with him. He is a photographer for Getty Images and the Guardian. I am a bit worried about going to go out on the streets with a television camera on my own. But he seems to have disappeared, he goes on those crazy photo assignments and I assume that he is gone to the city of Najaf to spend time with the militant Shia groups and he usually turns off his phone. So as a result I am at home. I am actually too scared to go do it on my own.There was a mortar attack on the ministry of oil today. The ministry’s offices were partially evicted. Actually the ministry had no control, many of the people who work there decided that after seeing the images on al-Hurra channel yesterday they were better off staying at home. What al-Hurra showed was one of the strangest things I have seen for a while. They showed 5 Iraqis without any face cover setting up a mortar launcher and setting of three mortar rounds one after the other then got into a small bus and drove away leaving the camera man. The quality of the footage is not the usual jittery handycam images we see when they do their own Jihadi home videos and it was very professionally filmed. What was really worrying was that they never bothered to secure the tripod thing which supported the contraption. Every time they fired a round the launcher would jump into a direction other than the one it was originally pointed at. So it came as no surprise that the ministry was not hit but nobody wanted to take any chances and many of the people who work there decided to take the day off just in case. I spent my time at home reading [a short history of nearly everything] and listening to [Dogs die in hot cars]. Mindless fun to keep the bad bad world away.