WiserBlog runs a letter home from Farnaz Fassihi, staff reporter and Middle East correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. It is a devastating portrait of the situation in Iraq. Here's just a snippet:
Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.
Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.
...The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war
The New Yorker has an article this week that paints a bleaker picture in another dimension. Hussein's ethnic cleansing, dispossessing Kurds to make for ethnically pure cities, has created fault lines that are already cracking wide open. It is an ugly, frightening future.
Posted
by D. Weinberger at October 1, 2004 11:48 AM
Comments
You know I hate democrats bitching all the time about iraq. If you read any Iraqi blogs and military blogs you would see that there is a tangible process. Most sunni's would actually vote if there were an election today. There was a recent poll done in Iraq and they found that a vast majority of people (>70%) say that it is getting better in Iraq. Look, Saddam was insane and needed to be brought down. How can you criticize our nation and our president for that matter, for trying to bring a better life for Iraqi's. I lived in Korea for 7 years, and tons of people today and back then said that it was a mistake to go there. Well I tell all those people to fuck off because now South Korea is a great economic power in the world with nothing but good things to say about the US.
Goddam Democrats need to be under Saddam for just a second and lets see if they'd still be bitching then.
Posted by: Paul | October 1, 2004 03:40 PM
Paul, I'm not sure you know this, but this woman lives in Baghdad and these are her own personal experiences. Her own personal views. Freedom of speech. Isn't this what America stands for?
I have no idea what you experienced and I never will, but it must have been terrible. I wonder why you hate her so much...could it be she's saying all the things you've kept inside all these years?
Posted by: BettyBoop | October 7, 2004 09:31 PM
Most sunni's would actually vote if there were an election today
yeah for saddam
Posted by: Anonymous | October 18, 2004 04:32 PM
i have a comment about Jazeera satellite channel. i always watch al itjah al mu,akis, a program appears on Jazeera trying to create a greater mess in Iraq and unforunately they succeed.i just want to tell them how can they open thier mouths while they opened thier lands to the american forces to enter Iraq and then they started to attack them by media. All Iraqis remember when Faisal al-qassim,the boaster of this program visited Audy, saddam son, in his prostitution place in Palestine street. it is wellknown that no one visit audy but two, (the prostitute and the brocure). i think he is both. i chalenge him if he can open his mouth and blame the government in Qatar for doing so.
thanks
an Iraqi Citizen
Posted by: ahmed khudair | December 4, 2004 08:41 AM