Fear Invades a Once-Comfortable Iraqi Enclave

Barrett808

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Sat Jun-24-06 11:36 AM
Original message

Fear Invades a Once-Comfortable Iraqi Enclave

Edited on Sat Jun-24-06 11:40 AM by Barrett808

Fear Invades a Once-Comfortable Iraqi Enclave
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
New York Times
Published June 24, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 23 Mansour is Baghdad's Upper East Side. It has fancy pastry shops, jewelry stores, a designer furniture boutique and an elite social club.

But it is no longer the address everyone wants.

In the past two months, insurgents have come to Mansour to gun down a city councilman, kidnap four Russian Embassy workers, shoot a tailor dead in his shop and bomb a pastry shop.

Now, Mansour, a religiously mixed area just three miles from the fortified Green Zone, feels more like wartime Beirut than Park Avenue, and its affluent residents worry that the wave of violence that has devoured large swaths of Baghdad has begun encroaching on them.

"It's falling to the terrorists," said Hasaneen F. Mualla, director of the Hunting Club, Mansour's social center. "They are coming nearer to us now. No one is stopping them."

(more)

http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060624/ZNYT/606240341/1051/NEWS01

Last week's dire memo from Ambassador Khalizad called Mansour "an unrecognizable ghost town."

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annabanana

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Sat Jun-24-06 11:40 AM
Response to Original message

1. Whatever made them think they were immune?

Did they think that the Bush machine is interested in their welfare at all?

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NanceGreggs

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Sat Jun-24-06 11:46 AM
Response to Reply #1

2. They probably DID think Bush would protect them ...

... after all, they have MONEY. They've undoubtedly seen how wealthy Americans are treated by this Administration, so they figured that applied to them as well.

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annabanana

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Sat Jun-24-06 11:58 AM
Response to Reply #2

4. They are "brown".

And they are Muslims. And they are not the right Royal Family. I guess they didn't know that it disqualified them for "the good life".

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NanceGreggs

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Sat Jun-24-06 12:02 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. Yeah, they're not unlike the middle-class Americans ...

... who voted for Bush. They expected the 'good life', too - and all they got was higher prices, lower wages, outsourced jobs, cancellation of their medical coverage, wiped-out pension funds, etc.

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Benhurst

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Sat Jun-24-06 11:48 AM
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3. Coming soon: The Green Zone, Khartoum II at a theater near you. NT

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lumpy

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Sat Jun-24-06 12:03 PM
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6. How much sweeter life would be

if Iraq had not been invaded and torn assunder. Sweeter for the Iraqi people and the whole world. Saddam's war machine was being effectively contained through UN efforts. The US would still have the means for a vital defense and faith in leadership. The installment of an incompetent and conniving 'neo-conservative' regime has been worst thing that has ever happened in the US.

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AlamoDemoc

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Sat Jun-24-06 01:57 PM
Response to Original message

7. NY Times strikes again finding Iraqis that belong to Hunting Clubs

"It's falling to the terrorists," said Hasaneen F. Mualla, director of the Hunting Club, Mansour's social center. "They are coming nearer to us now. No one is stopping them."

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daleo

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Sat Jun-24-06 04:20 PM
Response to Original message

8. You know things are very bad if the rich are getting killed too. n/t

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TacticalPeek

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Sat Jun-24-06 07:26 PM
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9. That's where Saddam Hussein was killed.

http://www.acsa2000.net/Baghdad/

Or maybe it was Saddam's sons.

Or maybe just dozens of restaurant workers and diners. The press reports so many things, sometimes it's hard just keeping it all straight.

:evilgrin:

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truedelphi

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Tue Jun-27-06 02:30 AM
Response to Original message

10. Are you guys suggesting it's good they are dying since they are rich?

Hey I aspire to be rich.
and surely one or two of you have bought a lottery ticket lately?
bagdad is falling apart. at first it was just the car bombs - now sectarian violence.
Shia'a against Sunni, Sunni against Shia'a. the words "ethnic cleansing" are being used.
It's all a mess and it's just as sad that it is happening to a rich neighborhood as to a poor neighborhood
(Consider too that the rich have the means to get out and go else where - they must have feelings for
their country to stay and deal with all that has happened there)

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