Guardian: Salam Pax, Baghdad Blogger (MUST READ!)

As you go into Baghdad from the west there is graffiti on the walls that says "Welcome to the Republic of Darkness and Unemployment".

Baghdad had no electricity for a whole day. Call me the master of all whiners but do you have any idea what it feels like to sleep in 50C?

-- much more --

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1017329,00.html

since even before the war began. Interesting perspective.

"Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived. His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves. "

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

...Keep this image in your head: an American officer stopping you, an Iraqi, from attending the press conference your government is holding.

Earlier in the day I got frisked and the car I was in searched because the colonel or something who has just passed by thought that he didn't like the people who are standing by the car (me) and that I was giving him dirty looks. Habibi, you have no idea how dirty my looks can get, you didn't get one. What you saw was the I-have-been-standing-for-a-whole-hour-in-the-sun. But because you have the power to decide what a look means I got searched. You really should have looked more carefully before you shot the nine-year-old kid in Ramadi only to find out later that it was a water gun he had in his hands. Dirty looks - yeah, totally justified frisking me.