Mosul is in my heart; and in my heart it will be kept safe.

firstly on my early days in blogging i were writing about politics. i wrote many of my opinions that were proven to be incorrect and many of my thoughts that were changed in respond to my whole life events.

 For example; I regret writing badly about Sadam because for me as 26 Iraqi person: i never knew a president before him nor a person worth to hold the term( President) followed after Sadam.

 I regret my appeal for American soldiers to leave Iraq since those came after from Shia's sectarian Army, SWAT and ISIS were worse and worse and worse.

I regret cursing my life when i had family, home, and Jobe ! And most of all;

i regret not leaving Iraq earlier by my choice not like the way i fled; frighten, sacrificing and completly lost !

 I promised not to write again about politics but after all, i must change my mind temporary and writing about politics,hoping this won't cost me my life ! i will write about what are hidden from news that people around the world don't know. things that are going on in Mosul that no body hear of!

 The ISIS Attack to Syria took a wide, extensive area in the media and Mosul's attack took a little! i feel shocked when i met people here in Jordan don't have an Idea that ISIS really attack Mosul!! yes i am serious. many of them don't know that.

I am an example of people who give up listening to news 10 years ago but after the events in 2014 i felt i have to know everything and in urgent! but that's didn't work. it seems that no body is understanding what is going on. the whole things goes as scenario of a pre-drawn plan to divide Iraq! or to erase Mosul from map maybe!

 The first crimes of ISIS in Mosul was exploding many of BOTH churches AND Mosques. exploding historical monuments followed after.The militarian aviation from the other side are shelling large building of the government and universities in their believe that ISIS's soldiers are living their.

what's really happen is that many shelling killed many inoscent Mosul's residents and that ISIS knows prior to the begin of the shelling the possibility of being hit and so they leave the areas!



In addition to all that; Mosul's dam are now subject to collapse !  Mosul residents are now between the devil (ISIS) and the deep blue river crises .


Mosul's residence who didn't fled are divided into groups:


1- Those didn't fled because they were ill or elderly ( yes; for me as a person who fled Mosul: we all had to leave the car somewhere and walk on our feet for a large distance and i was lucky that i didn't slept on the streets like some)


2- Those who didn't believe that NO ACTION will be made. The country of neanderthal? Sumerian and Asur's culture don't have army to stand against few hundreds of extraneous terrorist group!

*the most painful point is that sectarian's army that ran from Mosul with the first few hours from the attack were paid monies enough to raise a state budget*


3- Those that their love to Mosul stand against their fears ( Die with Dignity take over the humiliating life). As a Moslawi refugee i can tell : yes it's humiliating to have no country!


 Those three groups are now suffering from not only the absence of water most of the days but also from the lack of salary income and shortage of some food stuff and the absence of other except those locally manufactured.


Those groups of people are stuck in the hell that was ignited one and a half year ago. They can't go out of Mosul nor anyone can send helping stuffs or money to them. we can't call them! nor can hear their real stories on the internet social media as I heard that ISIS impose severe control on the internet connection and those who wrote against ISIS were executed.


 In the end of this post; all what i have left to say is a quote from a poet:

" I was exiled from my coountry and the strangers settled instead And destroyed all my beloved things"

Iraqigirl book now on store..

(( People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of ))
Paulo Coelho.



Every thing begin with an idea, and then become a dream, a dream become a destination and then finally become a work that may lead to success.

I had read a words that had been stocked in my ears "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it"

And I really did want to write a book so strongly and there were and are still some people stand beside me and pushing me forwards to achieve my dream and my goal.


Haymarket's book ,
John Ross ,
Elizabeth Wrigley ,
Sasha Crow (my dear friend) ,
Grandfather ,
Mam and dad
And my annoying sister,Najma ^__*

Here in this book, I shared my diary with you.
In this book, you will read my thoughts, my poems, and most of my last post and you will have an idea of my life as a teenager in the middle of this war.

Best wishes &
May all your dreams come true...

H.N.K

http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?products_id=1776

week dreams

Salam to all,

As you all, I finish my primary school this year with a good average, high enough to enter the collage I want.

After I got my mark, I began to think seriously about what I want to be. I always dream to go to Pharmacy College but for some reason I hesitated about it.

To be a pharmacist is a good and suitable job for me if I will work in Iraq. But Will I have a future as a pharmacist if I’ll leave Iraq!! . I don’t trust the situation to be better tomorrow.

So, I was between choosing to go to pharmacy college, Dentistry College and Art cultural college. I asked for advices, I hear people opinions and I was completely lost. I was really unable to take a decision and that make me feel very angry.

After a while I removed Art cultural college from my list and I began to take different decision everyday, everyday I change my mind and everyday I fall apart.

I compare between the two collages and it’s led me to:

If I chose Dentistry College I will be called a doctor, I will have a future job outside Iraq. Dentistry College is easier to study than Pharmacy College, the building of dentistry college loohs great, but in the other hand, I will be hated by all children and I am not sure if I will not hate myself too. I can’t imagine myself putting my hand in someone’s mouth. I can’t stand the smell of the mouths. At the end, I asked my dentist for advice and he said that pharmacy is more suitable for women.

Although, Pharmacy is very hard college, may not have a good future as a job, the building of pharmacy’s college look like a Gail and pharmacist are called chemists in some other countries; but I am very much like chemistry and I am in love with everything associated with it. Pharmacy was always the college I dreamed of. So I took my options and write:

Mosul University, the college of pharmacy as the first option

Mosul University, the college of dentistry as the second option

Usually, Medicine College is the college number one which needs the highest marks; the dentistry college is the college number two and then pharmacy college. Although my marks are high enough to go to Medicine College, but I never think to be a doctor. It’s a hard job in Iraq especially after the war. Doctors are in danger to be kidnapped and to be murder plus they have to sleep in the hospitals. And I am completely surrounded by doctor, my father, my uncle, my sister and my brother in law. I don’t think I am going to be good on that, seeing blood, seeing injured people. I have a weak heart, I know I can’t stand all that.

Anyway, although I chose Pharmacy College but I have to take an exam and then my mark will lead me to one of the two colleges: pharmacy or dentistry.

I am eager to go to college but the problem is, I am not studying. I tried and tried but I got nothing. I can’t focus in what I am reading; in fact I read the book and my mind in something else. I can’t help it… But my position is still good, even if I'll get zero.

:)

see you later,

The girl who was H.N.K

The truth will prevail

Salam all,

First I have an announcement:

If you want to make a visit to my house, you are welcome. You can find me in there anytime. I am not going anywhere; I don't intend to go to anywhere. I am not going to lie and say that I don't like going out and making visits but you are a very dear guest. * If you lied once you can make another lie*.

I am spending my holiday in my house. Don't think it's a boring holiday. I am doing all the sort of things that you do.

I sometime go for a walk. Taking some steps from one room to another. From kitchen to guest room, from bedroom to bathroom, and some time I make progress and go to our backyard just for a walk in the garden. You know walking is a good sport.

There is something you don't know about me; it's how much I love music. I think I have a musician ears. I like music, je l'aime.

It seem like the pilots of the American airplanes heard about my interest in the sound of the warplane and military airplane ( not true) but they really seem like they have an order not to let anyone sleep. I am so sorry for disappointing them. I woke up one day and I found myself in love with the sound they make. It's not like other sounds; these sounds are special and they are a natural sound. They are like bed's song . They are not merely an annoying, ugly, awful, hideous sounds and impossible to hear. They help mothers to hush their babies. They help the community to discover the valuable of silence.

If speech was made from silver, then silent is made from gold.

I am not a bookish girl; I never will be. But the situation in Mosul gave me an unwanted present. It's a space time. Therefore I found myself ending reading one book and start to read another. I don't know why I didn't do that ages ago!! Reading is really amusing and a useful habit. I read a police story written by Agatha Kristy. And I read two books of Harry Potter's series and some other stories and useful books. Reading a book is much easier than writing a book, don't you think?

I am still holding tightly what hope I have remaining especially after I survived last night.

At about 1 A.M I went out of my room. I was half asleep and my eyes were nearly closed and there was creature with green evil eyes looking at me. It seemed like it had an invitation to enter my room. It was walking towards me and my room when my brain finally receives a call that this creature is a cat.

"CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!", I shouted loudly and pushed my way back into my room and closed the door behind me and I began to scream and yell for help. " There is a cat in the house!", I shouted and Najma (My sister who knows very well how much I hate cats and how much I am afraid from the sight of them) woke up my father and told him the story.

My father went upstairs where my room is and he saw the cat running from the warehouse's window. He told me that the cat left and that I am safe now, but I insisted that he walk downstairs with me hand-in-hand. My father was very furious and he said to me "You are lucky, the cat didn't eat you".

I don't expect him to be proud of my brave behavior because I was really shaking and full of fears. Anyway, I survived and the cat didn't eat me.

Najma as usual didn't stop giggling at me. Hmm, I miss the old times when I was the brave girl and she was the one who don't have the courage to enter the kitchen without the company of someone. I invented the story that there is a ghost named Shahrurah living in the kitchen and since then, she didn't enter the kitchen alone.

I don't know what the reason that makes the people here feel bored and wishing that they could leave Iraq. Najma, for example, is reading a book called Faster Than The Speed of Light and she is reading something about transport across time !! (I told you she is weird, But you didn't listen!) She wants to live the future without living the present!! *yuk*

Why did anybody want to live in the future since everything is going to worse? why does anybody want to live another second, another hour, and another day?

Who said she will find herself in the future anyway? Who said she will be alive? Who said there will be a life?

It's very difficult to understand the incentives and the reasons that make her think that there will be a better future.

You friend from present,

H.N.K (The survivor)

The first of October

Remember remember the first of October the Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why the gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Remember remember the first of October
The date of disaster, the date of …
ANOTHER DISASTER


The first of November was the first day of going to university after the summer holiday.

Najma (my sister) was so eager to start her second year in her college * what can I say! She is so weird*

My sister, my mother went to Mosul University and my mother planned with Najma that If her lessons end early, she will go to my mother college and they will go back home together and if not, Najma will be waiting for my dad near Najma’s college.

Although Najma is not a good listen girl, she followed the instructions.

At about 1 PM bomb car exploded in the same place where Najma and my dad arrange to meet.

I was in the house numbering the walls in each chamber of it, and guess what? In each chamber, there are 4 walls, not more not less.

I didn’t hear the an explosion but I hear my cell phone ringing (my mobile) and it was my dad who was calling me

- Alo - WHERE ARE YOU?
- Dad, I am hnk. Is there any place I could be in except home!
- I thought I called your mom... CLOSE THE PHONE
- Ok * It’s not my fault, is it?*

I thought that my mother didn’t meet my father in the place they planned to meet (as usual).

Frankly speaking, my father was calling my mother after he saw a fire and a bomb car in the place where he should meet Najma. So he called my mother to see whether Najma went to my mother’s college and survive or not?

Did she die or did she not? This is the question

She did finish her lessons soon and went to my mother’s college and remain there .There, is where she heard the explosion of the bomb car, there is where my mother sat shocked because she was so close to lose a daughter and there is where Najma found a new and another reason to say when we ask her to do some of house work
-“I was going to die today, and you want me to wash the dishes?? “

They met my dad and ran back home before the police closed the streets.

And while I was studying the theory that says “All chambers have but only one roof”, my cell phone rang again.
She was my mom and she said :
“we are going to see your cousin, bomb car took place near the university and your cousin was injured “

Suddenly and before any warning the tears fell down and my shaking voice said “how is he??”

My mother assured me that he is fine; she said that they didn’t see him yet, but he drove his car by himself and went to his house.

My cousin told them the whole story. He was shopping in front of the university, buying watermelon, and a car in the next street exploded. He said that the sound was so loud. that he couldn't belive that he still can hear.

After the explosion he found him self lying on the ground far away from the place he was standing and the shop keeper was also lying in the ground but in another side which is also away from where he was.
He said that there was money and watermelons every where. His clothes had tears and he was injured in his legs.

The situation was so crowded at that moment, there were 6 injured people (4 of them are student) and there was one dead man (he was a teacher in the university) this is the information I heard in the news (of course there were more injured people that are not count (the news couldn’t cover everything) such as my cousin.


My cousin left the place and drove his car to his house before his mother and wife heard the news.

He left the watermelon he bought and his money in the ground as a sign, sign talks and said :

Here is where a man was lying…
Here is where a man left his belonging stuff and took his soul to his child and family. A soul which is maybe a reason of the life of some people.

At the end I could improve the theory: The chamber has but only one roof

Iraqi Poem

يا صبر أيوب
للشاعر العراقي عبد الرزاق عبد الواحد
(من مأثور حكاياتنا الشعبية، أن مخرزاً نسي تحت الحمولة على ظهر جمل..)

قالوا وظلَّ.. ولم تشعر به الإبلُ
يمشي، وحاديهِ يحدو.. وهو يحتملُ..
ومخرزُ الموتِ في جنبيه ينشتلُ
حتى أناخ َ ببابِ الدار إذ وصلوا
وعندما أبصروا فيضَ الدم جَفلوا
صبرَ العراق صبورٌ أنت يا جملُ!

وصبرَ كل العراقيين يا جملُ
صبرَ العراق وفي جَنبيهِ مِخرزهُ
يغوصُ حتى شغاف القلب ينسملُ

ما هدموا.. ما استفزوا من مَحارمهِ
ما أجرموا.. ما أبادوا فيه.. ما قتلوا
وطوقـُهم حولهُ.. يمشي مكابرةً
ومخرزُ الطوق في أحشائه يَغـِلُ
يا صبر أيوب.. حتى صبرُه يصلُ
إلى حُدودٍ، وهذا الصبرُ لا يصلُ!

يا صبر أيوب، لا ثوبٌ فنخلعُهُ
إن ضاق عنا.. ولا دارٌ فننتقلُ
لكنه وطنٌ، أدنى مكارمه
يا صبر أيوب، أنا فيه نكتملُ
وأنه غُرَّةُ الأوطان أجمعِها
فأين عن غرة الأوطان نرتحلُ؟!
أم أنهم أزمعوا ألا يُظلّلنا
في أرضنا نحن لا سفحٌ، ولا جبلُ
إلا بيارق أمريكا وجحفلـُها
وهل لحرٍ على أمثالها قَبـَلُ؟

واضيعة الأرض إن ظلت شوامخُها
تهوي، ويعلو عليها الدونُ والسفلُ!

وكان ما كان يا أيوبُ.. ما فعلتْ
مسعورة ً في ديار الناس ما فعلوا
ما خربت يد أقسى المجرمين يداً
ما خرّبت واستباحت هذه الدولُ
هذي التي المثل العليا على فمها
وعند كل امتحان تبصقُ المُثُلُ!

يا صبر أيوب، ماذا أنت فاعلهُ
إن كان خصمُكَ لا خوفٌ، ولا خجلُ؟
ولا حياءٌ، ولا ماءٌ، ولا سِمةٌ
في وجهه.. وهو لا يقضي، ولا يكِلُ
أبعد هذا الذي قد خلفوه لنا
هذا الفناءُ.. وهذا الشاخصُ الجـَلـَلُ
هذا الخرابُ.. وهذا الضيقُ.. لقمتُنا
صارت زُعافاً، وحتى ماؤنا وشِلُ

يا صبر أيوب.. إنا معشرٌ صُبًُرُ
نُغضي إلى حد ثوب الصبر ينبزلُ
لكننا حين يُستعدى على دمنا
وحين تُقطعُ عن أطفالنا السبلُ
نضجُّ، لا حي إلا اللهَ يعلمُ ما
قد يفعل الغيض فينا حين يشتعلُ!

يا سيدي.. يا عراق الأرض.. يا وطناً
تبقى بمرآهُ عينُ اللهِ تكتحلُ
لم تُشرق الشمسُ إلا من مشارقه
ولم تَغِب عنه إلا وهي تبتهلُ
يا أجملَ الأرضِ.. يا من في شواطئه
تغفو وتستيقظ الآبادُ والأزلُ

يا حافظاً لمسار الأرضِ دورته
وآمراً كفةَ الميزان تعتدلُ
مُذ كوّرت شعشعت فيها مسلّته
ودار دولابه، والأحرُفُ الرسلُ
حملن للكون مسرى أبجديّته
وعنه كل الذين استكبروا نقلوا!

يا سيدي.. أنت من يلوون شِعفتَه
ويخسئون، فلا والله، لن يصلوا
يضاعفون أسانا قدر ما قدِروا
وصبرُنا، والأسى، كل له أجلُ

لكنهم، ما تمادوا في دناءتهم
وما لهم جوقةُ الأقزامِ تمتثل
لن يجرحوا منكِ يا بغداد أنمُلةً
ما دام ثديُك رضاعوه ما نَذلوا!

بغدادُ.. أهلُك رغم الجُرحِ، صبرهمو
صبرُ الكريم، وإن جاعوا، وإن ثـَكِلوا
قد يأكلون لفرط الجوع أنفسهم
لكنهم من قدور الغير ما أكلوا!
شكراً لكل الذين استبدلوا دمنا
بلقمة الخبز.. شكراً للذي بذلوا
شكراً لإحسانهم.. شكراً لنخوتهم
شكراً لما تعبوا.. شكراً لما انشغلوا
شكراً لهم أنهم بالزاد ما بَخَلوا
لو كان للزاد أكّالون يا جَملُ!

لكن أهلي العراقيين مغلقةٌ
أفواههم بدماهم فرط ما خُذِلوا
دماً يمجّون إمّا استنطقوا، ودماً
إذ يسكتون، بجوف الروح، ينهملُ!

يا سيدي.. أين أنت الآن؟ خذ بيدي
إني إلى صبرك الجبارِ أبتهلُ
أيا هذا العراق الخصيبُ دما
وما يزال يلالي ملأه الأملُ
قل لي، ومعذرةً، من أي مبهمةٍ
أعصابُك الصمُ قُدت أيها الرجلُ؟!

ما زلت تؤمن أن الأرض دائرةٌ

وأن فيها كراماً بعدُ ما رحلوا

لقد نظرت إلى الدنيا، وكان دمي

يجري.. وبغدادُ ملءَ العين تشتعلُ

ما كان إلا دمي يجري.. وأكبرُ ما

سمعتُهُ صيحة ً باسمي.. وما وصلوا!

وأنت يا سيدي ما زلت تومئ لي

أن الطريق بهذا الجبِّ يتصلُ

إذن فباسمك أنت الآن أسألُهم

إلى متى هذه الأرحام تقتتل؟

إلى متى تترعُ الأثداء في وطني

قيحاً من الأهل للأطفال ينتقلُ؟

إلى متى يا بني عمي؟.. وثابتةٌ

هذي الديارُ.. وما عن أهلها بَدَلُ؟

بلى... لقد وجد الأعرابُ منتـَسَباً

ومائة ملةً في دينها دخلوا!

وقايضوا أصلهم.. واستبدلوا دمهم

وسُوّي الأمر.. لا عتبٌ، ولا زعلُ!


لقد غدا كُلُ صوت في منازلنا

يبكي إذا لم يجد أهلاً لهم يصلُ!

يا أيها العالم المسعورُ.. ألفُ دمٍ

وألفُ طفل ٍ لنا في اليوم ينجدل

وأنت تُحكِمُ طوقَ الموت مبتهجاً

من حول أعناقهم.. والموت منذهلُ!

أليس فيك أبٌ؟.. أمّ ٌ يصيح بها

رضيعُها؟؟ طفلةٌ تبكي؟ أخٌ وجِلُ؟

يصيح رعباً، فينزو من توجّعه

هذا الضميرُ الذي أزرى به الشلل؟



وأنت يا مرفأ الأوجاع أجمعها

ومعقلَ الصبر حين الصبرُ يُعتقلُ

لأنك القلب مما نحن، والمُقـَلُ

لأن بغيرك لا زهوٌ، ولا أمل

لأنهم ما رأوا إلاّك مسبَعةً

على الطريق إلينا حيثما دخلوا!

لأنك الفارع العملاقُ يا رجلُ

لأن أصدق قول فيك: يا رجلُ!

يقودني ألفُ حب.. لا مناسبةٌ

ولا احتفالٌ.. فهذي كلها عللُ!

لكي أناجيك يا أعلى شوامخها

ولن أرددَ ما قالوا، وما سألوا

لكن سأستغفر التاريخَ إن جرحت

أوجاعُـنا فيه جرحاً ليس يندمل

وسوف أطوي لمن يأتون صفحته

هذي، لينشرها مستنفرٌ بطلُ

إذا تلاها تلاها غيرَ ناقصة

حرفاً... وإذ ذاك يبدو وجهك الجـَذِلُ!

يا سيدي؟؟ يا عراقَ الأرض.. يا وطني

وكلما قلتها تغرورقُ المقل!

حتى أغصّّ بصوتي، ثم تطلقه

هذي الأبوة في عينيك والنـُبـُلُ!

يا منجمَ العمر.. يا بدئي وخاتمتي

وخيرُ ما فيّ أني فيك أكتهلُ!

أقول: ها شيبُ رأسي.. هل تكرمُني

فأنتهي وهو في شطيك منسدلُ؟!

ويغتدي كلّ شعري فيك أجنحة

مرفرفاتٍ على الأنهار تغتسلُ!

وتغتدي أحرفي فوق النخيل لها

صوتُ الحمائم إن دمع ٌ، وإن غـَزََلُ

وحين أغفو... وهذي الأرض تغمرُني

بطينها... وعظامي كلُها بلل

ستورق الأرضُ من فوقي، وأسمعُها

لها غناءٌ على أشجارها ثملُ

يصيح بي: أيها الغافي هنا أبداً

إن العراق معافى أيها الجملُ!

.

Paris

Robbery_not_reconstruction_in_Iraq

Robbery_not_reconstruction_in_Iraq - The Boston Globe: "Robbery, not reconstruction, in Iraq
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | April 18, 2006
The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out the nation.

Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.
Halliburton and its hundreds of millions of dollars of overcharges or baseless costs are well known. But millions more were taken by companies that promised to build or restore libraries or police facilities, or deliver trucks and construction equipment. Money was given to the puppet government with no follow-up. US government investigators can account for only a third of the $1.5 billion given by the CPA to the interim government and it appears that a substantial portion of the $8 billion given to Iraqi ministries went to ''ghost employees.''
Because of the way the United States set things up after the invasion, contractors are immune from prosecution by Iraqis. And even when firms are prosecuted, the millions of dollars in fines go to the US Treasury, not the Iraqi people. It amounts to two invasions. First the bombs. Then the banks.

This is robbery, not reconstruction.

It also amounts to yet another slow-motion lie by the Bush administration. The magnitude of the corruption brings into sharper relief the claims made by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz a month before the war.

The claims came from the same infamous testimony before the House Budget Committee where Wolfowitz said Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki was ''wildly off the mark'' for saying several hundred thousand troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq. Wolfowitz told the committee that the administration was ''doing everything possible in our planning now to make post-war recovery smoother and less expensive.''

Besides pooh-poohing Shinseki's estimates, Wolfowitz said a Washington Post story that quoted administration officials as saying the initial invasion would cost $60 billion to $95 billion was also way off the mark. Speaking about such administration officials, Wolfowitz said, ''I don't think he knows what he's talking - he or she knows what they're talking about. I mean, I think the idea that it's going to be eclipsed by these monstrous future costs ignores the nature of the country we're dealing with.''

''It's got already, I believe, on the order of $15 billion to $20 billion a year in oil exports, which can finally - might finally be turned to a good use instead of building Saddam's palaces. It has one of the most valuable undeveloped sources of natural resources in the world. And let me emphasize, if we liberate Iraq, those resources will belong to the Iraqi people, that they will be able to develop them and borrow against them.''

''It is a country that has somewhere between, I believe, over $10 billion -- let me not put a number on it - in an escrow account run by the United Nations. It's a country that has $10 billion to $20 billion in frozen assets from the Gulf War, and I don't know how many billions that are closeted away by Saddam and his henchmen. But there's a lot of money there and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.''

Wolfowitz was wrong on nearly every point, except for the idea that there was about $20 billion floating around Iraq to seize. It has been three years and all Iraq has become is a ''free-fraud zone,'' according to one of the attorneys for whistleblowers in Iraqi swindles. Recently, the Army found that Halliburton had $263 million of exaggerated or unexplainable costs on a $2.4 billion no-bid contract, yet still paid Halliburton $253 million of the $263 million.

Halliburton is in 103rd place in the Fortune 500 with $21 billion in revenues and just under $2.4 billion in profits. Halliburton gets its $2.4 billion no-bid contract nearly paid in full while the Iraqi people are out of much of their $21 billion. We liberated Iraq. The resources belong to American contractors."

Albright warns of Iraq disaster

Aljazeera.Net - Albright warns of Iraq disaster: "Albright warns of Iraq disaster

Sunday 23 April 2006, 22:29 Makka Time, 19:29 GMT



Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, has warned that the invasion of Iraq may end up as one of the worst disasters in American foreign policy.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday, Albright said she did not think Saddam Hussein had been an imminent threat to the United States.

'You can't go to war with everybody you dislike,' she said.

'I think Iraq may end up being one of the worst disasters in American foreign policy.'

Asked what she would consider the greatest mistake of the Bush administration, she said what troubles her is that democracy is getting a bad name 'because it is identified with imposition and occupation'.

She said much of what she had worked for during her tenure under Bill Clinton's presidency, has unraveled.

'I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy and it has to come up from below,' she said."

I blame the decision-makers

The Enterprise news paper published this article on Thursday March 16

By Cory Golden/Enterprise staff write:

There had been close calls before for Fadhil Al-Kazily’s family in Iraq.
A car bomb exploded near the home of the 70-year-old Davis civil engineer’s brother, blowing out all its windows, the shrapnel slicing a rooftop water tank in two. But it hurt no one in the family.
Another relative survived a carjacking.
A rocket leveled a clinic in Baghdad, killing everyone inside. Fadhil’s eldest brother, a doctor, happened to be away from the building.
But then, nine days ago, an e-mail message from a cousin in Australia:
A U.S. solider had shot and killed Fadhil’s 81-year-old uncle, Saadi Al-Tahi, as he drove through an intersection in Mosul, Iraq.
“He was not a political person,”
Fadhil said Wednesday. “He was just an old man. He was very gentle, very kind and loving.”
On Sunday, Fadhil will speak during a Davis community vigil for peace marking the third anniversary of the American invasion.
Other speakers at the event, sponsored by more than a dozen local organizations, will include Pat Sheehan and his daughter Carly of Vacaville. The story of Pat’s son, 24-year-old Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, who died almost two years ago, on April 4, 2004, became internationally known when his mother Cindy staged a sit-in near President Bush’s Texas estate.
————
The news of his uncle’s death devastated Fadhil, a private person by nature who nonetheless has worked up the courage to repeatedly speak out against the war. When he has, he often explains it as though one part of his body, America, his home since 1964, has attacked another, his homeland; yet he feels powerless to stop it.
Now, his worst fears have been realized.
“I am absolutely terrified to call my family,” he said. “I make five calls (to relatives in Iraq) every Sunday. Now every time I pick up the phone, my heart starts beating fast.”
On March 6, Saadi Al-Tahi posed for pictures with one of his two daughters, Arjwan. An obstetrician in Dubai, Arjwan hadn’t seen her father for 12 years, but she had decided to needed to visit home in spite of the danger.
A day later Saadi steered his car toward his mother-in-law’s home, to pick up his wife. He drove slowly, because of his age.
As his car crossed an intersection, an armored vehicle opened fire from a side street.
The coroner later ruled that the shooting had been intentional. He told Saadi’s family that the bullets pierced the elderly man’s arm, shoulder and neck, likely killing him instantly.
Others told the family that anyone driving through that intersection at that time of day surely would have been shot.
But Saadi was not anyone.
For decades he had been both Fadhil’s favorite uncle and a friend.
A botched kidney surgery ended Saadi’s military career with the Iraqi Royal Army when he was a young major. He lost his first wife to cancer.
Then, though it’s unusual in Iraq, he raised two daughters and a son as a single dad. Saadi refused to bow to family pressure to remarry, until his children were grown and graduated from college.
He taught himself to play the violin and the oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument popular in Islamic music, and liked to entertain others.
“He could not read music, yet he could make an instrument talk (like a person),” Fadhil said. “He would say, ‘Guess what I’m playing?’ and we could say it in words.”
When Fadhil earned a scholarship to Liverpool University, he wrote home from England only to his parents and to his uncle. They stayed close as both men grew older.
————
After speaking to his family in Iraq, Fadhil typed up a few lines telling his friends of his uncle’s death.
Among those who received Fadhil’s short e-mail message that night were Laurie and Russell Loving of Davis. Their son is a 21-year-old corporal serving in the U.S. Army — in Mosul.
“My heart stopped,” said Laurie, who will also speak Sunday as a representative of Military Families Speak Out. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what if my son killed him?’ Then I decided it was unlikely. But I still felt terrible and responsible somehow.”
The next morning, Laurie spoke on the phone to her son, whose name she prefers not to use for fear of reprisals against him because she is an anti-war activist. Her son said he didn’t know about the shooting.
When next Laurie saw Fadhil, she hugged him. They cried together.
“She’s a good person,” he said. “I hope her son comes home unscathed, both mentally and physically. My family has no choice but to be where they are, and her son has his orders. He has to defend himself to survive.
“I cannot blame any young soldier. I blame the decision-makers who put us in this situation.”
At Sunday’s vigil local members of Code Pink: Women for Peace will make a memorial quilt panel for Fadhil’s uncle and three others. Across the country panels are being made for the more than 2,314 Americans and more than 33,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the war began.
Fifteen finished panels also will be on display, including one for Casey Sheehan.
Natalie Wormeli of Code Pink said having a friend lose a close relative will make this vigil, and its message, “profoundly personal” for her.
“When you’re talking about a grown man who is afraid to answer the phone because he might lose a family member or who breaks into tears during a meeting — I know there’s isn’t anything I can do to console him,” she said.
“But we can show him and others we care.”
————
Fadhil holds close a favorite memory of his uncle.
It comes from after Saadi at last remarried. Fadhil wrote to him, asking for a photo of him and his new wife, Muma.
Time passed. No photo turned up in the mail.
It seemed so out of character for his uncle that Fadhil asked his brother about it.
He explained that Saadi, though he cared for Muma, felt a deep sense of loyalty to his first wife. Out of respect for her, he’d decided against being photographed with his new bride.
Then, in 2000, Fadhil visited his family in Mosul.
He asked his uncle, “May I take your picture with your wife?”
Saadi’s eyes filled with tears. He said, “It will be the first one. But, yes, you can do it.”
“I took their picture,” Fadhil remembered. “Then I had my brother take another, with me and him and his wife together. I still have that picture. And that, of course, can never be forgotten.”

— Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net or 747-8046.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

قصيدة من الانترنيت لا اعرف قائلها

شلون زمن؟

كالولنه راح صدام كلنا راح نرتاح........ ولو هو جان قافل علينه بالمفتاح

شو هوه راح شيطان جوي بمكانه........ كل واحد بيهم ابليس وجايب اخوانه

شفت ابليس اليوم كاعد ديبجي........ كتله انته شبيك لك فدوة احجي

كال ما بقيت ابليس من ضاع دفتري........ بيه جدول الاعمال وباكه الجعفري

لا شفنا منهم شي ولا حملة اعمار........ تالي متالي بهالزمن يحكمنا واحد عار ؟؟؟

هم جان اكو بانزين وحصه تموينية........ وجنا بس انخاف من العسكرية

الحصه صارت صابونه كل خمسة شهور........ شنسوي بيها احنا والبوري مكسور ؟

النفط جان صدام يوزعه بمزاجه........ هسه النفط يا ناس ما عاد له حاجه

ابحرك الاعصاب احنا اندفي البيوت........ بدل ما نحرك خشب انسوي بيه تابوت

كبل اللي يموت يا ناس جثته يدفنوها........ وهسه ليموت جثته بشارع يذبوها

كلشي ما زاد بها البلد بس زادت الكبور........ لهسه ما شفنا اللحم بس راوونه ساطور

والكهرباء يا عيني ما ينذكر طاريها........ وابحجة الازمات اللمبة كاز ما بيها

المبرده اليوم صارت قفص طيور........ وسويت الثلاجه لهدومي كنتور

صبرنا وصبرنا طال والصبر لله........ كافي ضحك علناس مصخوها مو بله ؟

ما ننتظر منكم شي لأنكم غربان........ حمدا لله والشكر ربنا الرحمن

Is this war worth the price?

Sally kalson write an article in pittsburgh post-gazette

Under the title of:

Is this war worth the price?

Look closely at the face of collateral damage in Iraq before you answer

Sunday, February 26, 2006
By Sally Kalson

Pittsburghers were captivated this week by the 7-year-old Iraqi boy who arrived here for reconstructive facial surgery at Children's Hospital, having been badly disfigured in an American bombing raid in 2004.

On a shoestring budget, the American group No More Victims arranged for his medical care, got visas for the child and his father, paid their expenses in Jordan until the documents came through, and is still trying to raise the cash to cover the travel. A Massachusetts philanthropist kicked in $50,000 for the hospital bill. A single mom in Banksville has taken father and son into her home during their stay.

It's a story that bores right through peoples' defenses without regard to politics, position on the war, religious beliefs or lack thereof (the family is Muslim; the U.S. Army veteran who spent six weeks in Jordan working on their visas is an atheist; the host family is Catholic; the philanthropist is Jewish).

No one with a beating heart could look at Abdul Hakim Ismael's scarred face and the happy, excited, nervous child behind it, and not be moved. No one could look at the many people who've stepped up to help and not be inspired.

But this story does not begin and end with an injured little boy, or the other wounded children that the group is helping. It begins with the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war, and the thousands of innocent civilians it is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of its unintelligible goals. Where it ends, no one knows.

This is not to say the Pentagon is intentionally creating such victims. It is to say that despite its best efforts to minimize the damage, a bomb dropped on a child does the same damage accidentally as it does on purpose, and that, by definition, hundreds of bombs dropped on hundreds of villages have created countless Abdul Hakims already and are going to keep creating more.

Yes, war is hell, and that's true for American soldiers as well as the Iraqis. The question for the American public is how much more hell we are willing to inflict in the name of this particular war.

There's only one honest way to answer this question, and that is with the human results of U.S. policy right before our eyes. Americans need to see these shattered kids and families up close. Likewise, the U.S. veterans coming home maimed, traumatized or dead. Only then can citizens make an informed decision as to whether this war is worth its weight in carnage, not to mention $200 billion-plus.

U.S. Army Capt. Chad Hetman, 34, doesn't think it is. He is the aforementioned veteran who stayed with Abdul Hakim and his dad in Jordan and brought them to Pittsburgh.

The New Jersey native entered the Army through the ROTC program at Rutgers University in 1993. He served in the National Guard, was a 2nd lieutenant in the infantry, served in Korea and trained other soldiers in counter-guerilla warfare. Disenchanted with the military, he left active duty as a captain in 2002 and still holds that rank in the Individual Ready Reserves. Since then he's been an activist with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and other organizations.

"I got out of the Army before Iraq but I still feel that as a U.S. citizen, I'm an accomplice," he said. "Friends of mine have been hurt or killed over there. Soldiers are coming back in bad shape and not getting the treatment they need. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been hurt. I was feeling helpless, but helping this child has been the greatest medicine for that”.

Cole Miller, co-founder of No More Victims, said it's critical for Americans to show the world they care about the human suffering caused by the war. And, he added, it's no coincidence that so many Americans never saw a badly injured Iraqi child until one arrived in their midst, or that the administration has blacked out coverage of flag-draped coffins arriving home.

"That's a tactical decision," he said. "They know that if the American people see what's really going on, they won't support it and might even try to stop it."

That's the lesson the Pentagon learned from Vietnam, he said, when searing images like that of the 9-year-old girl running naked and crying after a napalm attack on her village helped turn Americans against the war.

"When Gen. Tommy Franks said we don't count Iraqi casualties, the message is that Iraqis don't count. I believe they do count, and so do many other Americans. The response to Abdul Hakim and the others proves it. Given the chance to step up, people will do amazing things."There's going to be a lot more killing and maiming of innocents in Iraq, especially now that civil war seems increasingly likely if not already under way. What the United States can do about that is an open question.

The growing dilemmas of this war are far too heavy a burden for one little boy. He's here to be healed, and that's an act of kindness, generosity and hope. At some point he'll go home. To what, one fears to ask. But the fact of his presence has done more to inform the citizenry than a thousand presidential speeches. From this point on, we can't say we didn't know.

This Happened to Me

Day to Day in Iraq - NYT Web Journal:

"This Happened to Me

A cowboy on his steel horse shot at me.

The four days of the Eid al-Adha holiday were calm and peaceful – no explosions, no roadside bombs, no clashes in the streets. But all that changed on Saturday, January 14th, the first day after the holiday.

I was driving home from my clinic around 5:15 p.m., the time I usually return home, because it's not safe to be out past sunset. I was 50 meters away from my house – which is located on a service road parallel to a main street. The street and the service road are separated by a curb two meters wide.

While I was driving slowly on the service road, an American patrol, which consisted of three armored-car Strykers, passed by on the main street, moving in the same direction as I was. When the first Stryker passed me, a soldier riding on top fired two shots in my direction. One bullet came in through the half-opened driver's window and hit the window of the opposite door, smashing it to pieces. Thank God, somehow it missed me.

I stopped the car and got out, thinking that the soldiers might stop and explain why they had shot at me. But they didn't. They kept on driving. There were no other people in the vicinity, except a neighbor at a shop nearby, who saw the whole thing. The next morning I went to replace the broken window. Nearly every person I met in the repair shop had a similar tale to tell.
I wonder now, if the shot had had killed me, how would the troops have explained it? Would I have become a terrorist killed while trying to explode himself near an American patrol? Or perhaps I would only be collateral damage, killed while soldiers chased a terrorist? Or maybe a terrorist had killed me, and the Americans chased him, though he managed to escape.
I will leave you to decide. In the chaos of this occupation, innocents are killed by all sides. But don’t we have the right to hate the people who are now occupying our country. Shall we celebrate the freedom and democracy brought to us by the occupation in spite of the perils our citizens face?
Questions need answers. Who will answer them?"

The King of the kings

Natural colors