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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (13355)	10/23/2003 6:35:50 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793587

Read today's Blog from Zayed and tell me if you still think he is bogus. Doesn't read like it to me. Too many minor details. ___________________________________________ Wednesday, October 22, 2003 False alarms The latest fashion of Jihad in Baghdad today is fake bombs and false alarms. I returned from work yesterday to find our street blocked on both ends by Iraqi police and Americans. Oh no, not again, I thought. They didn't allow the taxi to pass, so I got out and asked some bystanders what was going on. They said a team was trying to dismantle a bomb placed on the road about 3 blocks away. Uh oh. Our street was literally swarming with soldiers and police. I stood by expecting an explosion any second and ogling a beautiful blonde thinking how sexy she looked in that military outfit. I asked a sergeant if it was okay for me to walk home and I pointed out our house to him. He motioned to the others and said okay. I treaded slowly and carefully hoping I wouldn't get shot by some scared idiot. I got to the house and went in, checking if everything was okay, opening the windows just in case the bomb went off. I later went out again to find everyone in the street grinning foolishly. What the f*ck is this? I thought. The guy who runs a store across the street beckoned me. He told me that the bomb was actually a couple of bricks wrapped in aluminum foil in a black nylon bag. I wasn't as amused as the others by this fact. What could it mean? I suspected that we would suddenly hear a large explosion somewhere nearby and that this was just a decoy or something. But nothing happened. Today the same scene took place again just a few hours ago. A similar bag was found at the exact same location. I was asleep but my brother told me all about it because he was so stupidly standing there, chatting with some of the younger Americans about wrestling and sports stuff. I always warn him not to do this, it's still very dangerous to hang around them and shite happens. It also brings him unwanted attention. But it's no talking. There have been reported incidents like this at some schools and colleges in Baghdad. I'm just hoping that some jokers are behind it and nothing more serious than that. We'll see. # posted by zeyad : 8:02 PM Threatening children I heard some very distressful news today. Someone has been writing graffiti all over Baghdad threatening to kill children who accept the new schoolbags that are to be gifted to them by UNESCO for the new school season. Also warning that any hand waving to the infidel Americans will be cut. Are these people sane? I mean what are they thinking? Is this our latest form of 'resistance'? Threatening our own children for getting some shiny new schoolbags. I am trying very hard to understand. This so called resistance is getting hated more and more by Iraqis everywhere. I'm sure this will only add to that scorn exponentially. They are losing any sympathy they may have had earlier. The terrorists have turned out to be MUCH dumber than I thought. # posted by zeyad : 8:02 PM Alone in the dark Electric power has been terrible the last couple of days. Power outages for 4 or 5 hours after which we get 2 hours of electric bliss and so on. I wasn't able to blog yesterday, due to the fact that I usually write at home in a word file, then I post the entries at the Internet cafe across the street later just to save some valuable online time. Three or four weeks ago, the minister of electricity(we didn't have that one before) announced that electric power stations have finally been fixed, reaching pre-war production levels. The following days we were delighted to have 10, 12 hours (or even a full day!) of continous electricity. It was a convenience we had forgot for months. However the outage scheduling returned about a week ago. We had either 3 hours of alternating blackouts for every 3, or 2 hours of blackouts after every 4. This we were able to cope with, especially that the heat is endurable now, not anything even close to the nightmares of last July and August. And we are having some cool nights. But the last two days something apparently went wrong. There isn't any official statement about it yet, but we heard that Al Musayab power substation south of Baghdad was down and they are trying hard to fix things. Someone from the ministry of electricity stated yesterday that outage scheduling will remain in effect through the whole of winter. Bad news I guess. I just hope it will be fully restored until next summer. I'm not very enthusiastic about spending another summer like the last one. It was like Hell. Iraq had the most sophisticated power grid in the middle east during the eighties. It was damaged heavily during the first Gulf war. After which Saddam ordered that electricity be restored in Baghdad before his birthday on April 28. Which it was. However high-pressure cables throughout Iraq were beyond any repair. They worked around this by linking the two largest Power stations in Baiji and Nasiriyah to supply Baghdad's substations. And Baghdad's problem was solved. Other provinces had to suffer 12-16 hours of outage just to supply the capital. It remained that way throughout the whole of the nineties. A few minor fixes and maintenances were done here and there, but it was mainly still the same. The regime simply refused to maintain or upgrade the power grid and blamed the UN embargo on this. Although it was allowable for Iraq to import necessary supplies and spare parts for restoring power according to the Oil-For-Food program. The regime alleged otherwise to Iraqis. After April 9. The coalition authority attempted to balance the situation. They ordered that power be supplied to all provinces even if doing so on the expense of the capital. Which resulted in the electricity problems you have all probably heard about and the widespread indignation among Baghdadi's. The looting of copper used in high-pressure cables and attacks against stations didn't help too. A friend of mine who is an electric engineer explained all this to me. A large number of Iraqis however do not believe that this is the case. They say that its all just a plot by Americans, some sort of psychological warfare to wear them down. This is accepted as wisdom in Iraq, and anyone who argues with this logic might be accused as a 'collaborator'. Many attacks against substations in Baghdad followed. A woman who was the manager of Baghdad's electricity was shot and killed in cold blood at her house in front of her two daughters three months ago. healingiraq.blogspot.com