Iraq waits blissfully for the bombs to drop
"They visited Basra, where they saw the effects of depleted uranium on human lives and witnessed deformed newborn babies radioactivity. This was all the result of US bombing in the last Gulf War in 1991; but today, said Trish, nobody in the West even cares."
Iraq waits blissfully for the bombs to drop
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
atimes.com
BAGHDAD - Travelling from Amman in Jordan to Baghdad, there is not much to suggest that one is entering a land threatened by imminent invasion by the most powerful nation the world has known. From first contact at the immigration counter to the last conversation with a vendor on the street, there are only the smallest of suggestions that this is a city on the brink of destruction.
Not that Baghdad is a normal city, however. Far from it. For one thing, in the era of globalization, Baghdad is a land cut off from the rest of the world.
Mohammed sits idle and worried in his Royal Jordanian Airlines office, where continuous Internet disruptions have kept him out of touch with company headquarters, as well as the rest of the world. He tells this correspondent that this has been the routine for the past several weeks.
Ditto a local businessmen named Saad, who says that his only contact with the outside world lately has been by telephone. He hasn't received an email for at least two weeks because the government checks every email at the local server and blocks whatever it finds suspicious - and some things that it doesn't.
Most ordinary Iraqis seem unconcerned with the imminent war. Apparently, there are two reasons for this strange-seeming nonchalance. First, there is virtually no satellite transmission for general Iraqi people. Mobile telephones are banned. The government has banned email websites such as Hotmail and Yahoo. The only access to email servers is through local services that are heavily monitored. Quick action is taken against any suspect.
The media are bound at every step to ask and receive permission to use email; otherwise, authorities spare no time in deporting them. These extraordinary actions are not meant to be rude, say officials at the Iraqi Media Relations Ministry, which is responsible for enforcing them; they are merely reflections of the national emergency that prevails in the country.
For the foreign press in Iraq, there is not much to report beyond the occasional handout from Saddam's presidential palace. There are few official events or attractions.
One showcase for the foreign press is the 15-member US team sponsored by the non-governmental organization Global Exchange that has come to Baghdad to act as a human shield against bombing. A woman named Trish, along with other 15 other activists, tried to draw the attention of dozens of reporters all over the world in Baghdad when they displayed a banner saying, "WE HAVE FOUND THE SMOKING GUN" along with a drawing of a petrol pump nozzle.
"Had the US been sincere in a desire to take action against chemical weapons, it should have taken North Korea first," Trish said. "But as North Korea is not sitting on huge oil reserve, the US doesn't bother."
She mentioned that group members come from all over the US and every segment of society, from costume designers to church ministers. She said that they had stayed in Iraq for the past 10 days at their own cost. They visited Basra, where they saw the effects of depleted uranium on human lives and witnessed deformed newborn babies radioactivity. This was all the result of US bombing in the last Gulf War in 1991; but today, said Trish, nobody in the West even cares. |
