Dear friends
I just wanted to clear one point for Mr. or Miss Shanti….Baghdad airport is really in a desert-like area and it is located in an unresidencial area.Hay aljihad and other sectors are neither too far nor sooo near.

Thanks for the clarification, Mina. I really appreciate it.

Shanti

What possible difference does it make how far the airport is from town? . Talk about “bitch[ing] about something for the sake of bitching about it”.

I have followed BaghdadBurning for over a year now & I have seen no indication that Riverbend is anything other than a credible reporter of life as she’s attempting to live it in an occupied country. Given that her fellow Iraqis continue to be killed & mistreated daily in this vile illegal war, she has every right to speak her mind however she sees fit.

Andrew, no body here is sayiong she should stop talking. If picking apart some of the points she is trying to fudge to make her story seem credible amounts to that, then so be it. I have been reading the other Iraqi blogs where they actually put their names out and back everything they say with their reputations. I find them very credible too. It is entirely possible for two people to see the same situation and come to different conclusions - trying to fudge facts to make a point is not too nice.

The levels of delusion and arrogance inside American heads who defend at the very least incompetent, at worst criminal, policy makers, on the incredible excuse that Saddam was worse , is really beginning to wear a little thin even on Republican voters such as myself.

No water, no electricity,no security, no jobs, and, i might add, no dignity, …these are hard, tangible facts for iraqui families, and the bottom line is that regardless of where the damn airport is, for reasons that have to do more with stupidity and unspeakable arrogance, we have not been able to produce the results we promised to deliver to the Iraqui people when we invaded their country.

River Bend is a painful reminder of these facts of life, and playing semantic cute games on other irrelevant data to distract or avoid our overall responsibility in that country, does very little to distract my attention from this painful reality.

Arjuna Rai, you don’t come across as an American (notice your use of derogatory terms for Americans) leave alone a Republican voter to me. Leaving that irrelevant point alone, may I point you to Winds of Change and their reports on Iraq for underreported news of good deeds in Iraq?

Arjuna Rai, you don’t come across as an American

Oh, come on! Can’t you see that he has an @aol address?

::ducks::

Yup, I’ll be here all day! =)

Speaking of “Riverbend,” has anyone any idea what has become of her? Her last post was on August 5. I have followed her blog since the beginning and I am very concerned about her. I know there are often gaps in her entries due to the lack of electricity there (and many other reasons, I’m sure) but this has been the longest gap I’ve seen and I know things are continuing to get worse and worse there. That’s one reason she has not used her name. Even in the US, those of us who stand or march with “Peace” signs now have to be concerned about reprisal!

Oh come on, Grammy! What reprisals exactly have you faced so far?

The U.S. has plenty of recent history to make rational people nervous about speaking out against hardline administrations. Anyway, I don’t know what Grammybonnie may have experienced, but things do happen. My husband was at a bar to watch a football game (American, not soccer) and some ignorant fool tried to punch him out over Iraq and 9/11! They were all there to watch football. Nobody was talking politics. My husband’s offense was simply to have an Arabic name. That sort of junk NEVER happened until recently. Last October, we attended a walk to protest the war. It was supposed to be calm and orderly. Nonetheless, supporters of the war still showed up and got rowdy. I was trying to get out of the way but one of them crashed into me and my 11-month-old daughter. I think pushing a mother and infant down in the street qualifies as a reprisal. I don’t know where Grammybonnie is, but this is Boston, so I can just imagine how uncomfortable it is to protest in, say, Texas. I’m not comparing it to what it must feel like to protest in a more restrictive country, but for this nation, whose citizens think they believe in free speech, it’s pathetic!

Give me a break, Jen! Sure, there are retards trying to pick up fights everywhere - there are tons of instances of war protestors attacking pro-war people if you look around in the right-wing blogs. Does that mean there is somehow a system of reprisals against war supporters?

How exactly is Michael Moore making any money in this country full of reprisals for administration critics, I wonder!

For Shanti and others who feel there are no reprisals in America for speaking out about the Iraq war, let me remind you about what happened during the McCarthy era. It’s absolutely no different today. People back in the 50s sad, “oh, don’t be silly, the government wouldn’t do anything like that,” and yet they did, as we now know. Inforamtion is being gathered and lists made, and of that I’m sure. Maybe any of you out there who still believe that we have a benevolent goverrment and a democracy should watch “Good Night and Good Luck” about the McCarthy era. History repeats itself, and we are yet again in a similar situation, only this time it’s not about the “commies.” It’s about running—and profiting—from an illegal war. It’s time to pull your heads out of the sand and take a good, hard look at our government.

As for Riverbend, I’ve been reading her blog and can only imagine how horrible it must be for anyone living in Iraq! I worry about her and pray for her survival. She has been our ears and eyes, and tells it like it is. Wish we could say the same thing for our own newspapers and government!

Cara, have you seen the lists? People have been protesting for 5 years now - has anyone you know disappeared yet? Do you know how paranoid and strange you sound right now?

I never thought I’d see habeus corpus suspended in our country for American citizens either. That law was just passed in our Congress, much to our country’s shame. It is a slippery slope that we are on and everyone should be vigilant that freedoms can be eroded here in our country. People are not that different anywhere and at anytime. Our country’s founders tried to warn us about just such a set of circumstances. Don’t be lulled into denial.

Try Google Earth to look at Baghdad. You will see that the airport is located outside the city in a desert type area with what look like farms or??.

I don’t know about 20 minutes (driving?) as there are some blocks of houses within a short distance to the west of the airport. But this housing may not be part of Baghdad proper. And how fast you can drive would make a difference.

If the city of Baghdad is roughly square with an area of 81 sq miles (per my atlas) then the maximum distance is about 20 Km or so. So apparently Riverbend lives there and knows what she is talking about.