I fought with her again, let’s hope I did leave too much mess and destruction to go back again this time..
pmpm ..
Our problems re-identify the meaning of deja vu

Jumping from one city to another, and from one country to another is not solving my problems anymore.
Anyway..

Word of the day: Privatizing
:”)
I remember myself giving a boring lecture about the socio-cultural changes in post-war Iraq, and since I’m such a bossy_ ego_ centric_ freak it didn’t bother me much to see most of the poor sleepy Italian kids moaning and begging for a break.
That was a couple of months ago. Or was it in October?
Whatever..
“I believe war had two main goals” Raed_in_Action “Destroying the political regime, and changing the economical system” go go go “Crushing the political structure is done, and changing the economical one is still in process” everybody say woooow
woooooooooooooooow
Everybody knew how stupid was the idea of inviting me to Italy, they sent me back to Baghdad on the next plain.

The first step in changing the socialist economical system was bombing some of the [public/governmental]-sector companies, and leaving the rest to be looted and burned in the weeks after. The second step of privatizing is happing at the time, started some weeks ago
but who can tell what’s happening?
No one.
Small companies and parts of the public sector are being sold, some governmental companies belonging to the ministry of industry, some furnaces, some warehouses and stores and some other small places that you can read advertisements about in our new daily newspapers.
but what else is being sold?
No one can tell.

Don’t I sound like a member of the conspiracy-theory-club?
NO I DON’T
I mean .. If you don’t give a heck about private and public crap, I’m sure many people here will care; Iraqis lived their life depending on the governmental sector, maybe they didn’t feel that .. mmm .. yet..

QUIZ OF THE DAY? (With multiple choice facilities)
How much money did an Iraqi spend to get each of the following:
1) (Free?) medical treatment, hospitals and pharmacies and drugs..
2) (Free?) food rations, food food food and food
3) (Free?) education, schools, universities including post-graduate studies..
4) (Free?) electricity, water, petrol, gasoline, loly-pops..

(PICK ONE ANSWER)
(A) nothing
(B) nothing
(C) nothing
(D) all mentioned above

(CONCLUSION)
Wow .. public sector rocks

ANOTHER QUIZ IN THE SAME DAY (its more a fun fact than a quiz, don’t panic)
How much money do Americanos spend every week when they change the security color code from yellow to orange?

(PICK ONE ANSWER)
(!) one BILLION USD / week

(CONCLUSION)
I don’t want to know how much they’ll spend on pink
Feel good .. real good

I met Jo yesterday, she was extremely hyper active and happy!
Unlike me
She was surrounded by a bunch of clowns whom were extremely happy too.
The strange thing that these clowns where real! I mean .. real real clowns as seen on TV, they are coming to Baghdad under the name “Circus to Iraq”. I think Iraqi children will freak out when they meet a clown with green nose and big red mouth.
:”)

How does it feel like when you know, admit and be happy of being a clown?
It seems I’ll have many questions to ask in the next press conference of the GC**.
(mmm .. am I “inflaming passions” against anyone?)
(If yes .. just put me in prison and let another Americana soldier kick me on sensitive places, or let Kilroy tell me more about life)
(bad taste as usual..)
(hohohe)

** mmm .. to de-code numbers of the CG picture.. plz go there
(not recommended)

You should all go read Zeyad's latest post NOW!
Go, what are you waiting for.

sometime between christmas and new year's I went for a walk in karrada and played a game with a tiny digital camera; a picture every 20 steps. some turned out bad and some ok.
click on small to see big.
---------------------------------------------

sat-dishes in Karrada, you can get them in any color you want, bright fiery orange (as in my blogs) seems to be a hit. You have to assemble the thing yourself, manual not included

tiny plasic christmas trees

and a christmas market

Mr. Shoe Shine

not very exciting hotdogs

the attack of persian plastics

The Hearts and Minds article by Hassan Fattah, link provided by Gila, thanks a million.
if that link didn't work try this
Now go read that it is the best thing you can do in the next 15 minutes.

He also has a blog. He is in Jerusalem now.

Back in Baghdad. The boredom of the 12 hour drive from Amman to Baghdad was alleviated by a black BMW which kept following us for almost 40 minutes. Raed and I were on the verge of freaking but kept trying to act as if it wasn’t as nasty as it looked. Getting picked as a target for a carjacking from all the masses of cars going thru the Iraqi-Jordanian border should make you feel special I guess. It is like getting a winning lottery card from Hell.
Anyway; between driving as fast as we can away from our probable carjacker and trying to keep clear of all the military convoys we arrived safely in Baghdad.
My brother and cousin decided to take me out for dinner but since they were worried about going to a restaurant in Arasat (where Nabil’s was bombed) we went to a newly opened place in Mansur. If you are in Baghdad it is worth checking out, it is called al-Samad and really is nice. We sat there for 10 minutes when we heard shooting outside, very close, followed by a police car which stopped to close to the restaurant and a lot of people running in all directions. It was time to ask if we could have our meals to go.

The day we left to Amman was pretty strange; raed said that it felt like one of these special effects in movies when the actors are running just ahead of a huge explosion. He was supposed to pick me up at eight; he was at the other end of Baghdad. While he was driving thru Karrada a bomb explodes in front of the Rahibat Hospital and he gets stuck there for an hour. As we are driving out of my neighborhood we see an Iraqi car run over by and American humvee, the 4 humvee-convoy has blocked the road and the owner of the car stands beside his wrecked car and has his hands on top of his head. Not exactly a great start for a trip. The 30th of December didn’t look good and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to hang around for the 31st. As we were driving out of Baghdad there was another halted convoy, a military car lay on the road flipped on its back, soldiers stood around pointing their guns at passing cars. Do you see what raed was talking about, we just kept going faster.

-------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow the sixth is [the day of the army] a national holiday celebrating the formation of the Iraqi Army, funnily enough this holiday was abolished just a couple of months ago at the first press conference the Iraqi Governing Council gave.
But just as so many things that were done in haste and in the non-existence of a Plan they have brought it back. The ministry of defense was closed down, and everybody thrown out only to be brought back a couple of months later when they [ie CPA] realized that this wasn’t exactly a very clever move. The Mukhabarat was quickly put apart as one of worst instruments the Saddam regime had, and rightly so, only to be put back together first secretly and now not so secretly. The one thing I am still waiting to come back after being thrown out is the “road map” for and Iraqi constitution, but it seems that is ignored.

-------------------------------------------------
There is a great article in this month’s Prospect by Hassan Fattah [editor of Iraq Today]. It is called Hearts and Minds and in it he gives a ten point “bluffer’s guide for the reconstruction of the reconstruction of Iraq”. Absolutely brilliant. You should buy, steal or borrow a copy today.

-------------------------------------------------
Have you been noticing all the talk about Iraq as a federal country lately? Something made me itch every time I heard and Iraqi or CPA official talk about it, first I couldn’t figure out was bothering me, but during the long long drive to Amman I was finally able to put my finger on it. No one asked us what we thought of the idea.
I remember almost a month ago when Zibari (our minister for foreign affairs) talked about federalism and I thought “that’s nice we are starting the discussion finally”. I was wrong it was not a discussion; it was a done and made deal. It got so silly that Kurds and Arabs are having real trouble about the issue, the Kirkuk incident was . I can’t remember anyone asking me what I thought about the whole issue, neither was it put to debate openly. Someone high and mighty suddenly decided that is what’s good for you, and we are going thru the process of trying to fit into that prêt-a-porter federalism. “The Officials” are not discussing whether that system is good for us or not they are way beyond that point, they are discussing into how many pieces Iraq is going to be cut up. Along “ethnic” lines or by governorates.
Have I mentioned already that we were not asked?
Our new temporary head of state, Mr. Pachachi, promises the Kurds that they will get what they want. Which means that they will cut up Iraq into three parts and making sure that instead making sure we all here live together peacefully our ethnic and religious differences get even more accentuated. Yes I know identity is important but you see my father is Sunni, my mother Shia and our neighbors for years Kurds. There are no lines and none should exist, the situation in Kirkuk does create lines and make people choose sides. Although I find the idea of an independent state of Baghdad or Samaweh or Basra a bit funny; it is all one Iraq for me, but I think if we were force fed this federalism without being asked I hope they won’t go for a federal state consisting of Kurdistan in the north, Sunni-stan in the middle and Shia-stan in the south.

Hope you all had a great new year with as few bangs as possible, as you all know ours was quite loud. I am not in Baghdad again, and my mom tells me that new year's eve was like war because of all the explosions.

OK announcement number one: THE MIRROR SITE TO THIS ONE, THE ONE CALLED [dearraed.blogspot.com ie the one without the underscore between dear and raed] HAS BEEN HACKED. THE MIRROR WAS CREATED BY GOOGLE/BLOGGER AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO CONTROL IT, NEITHER HAVE I FOUND A CONTACT US LINK TO WRITE TO BLOGGER, THE BLOGGER FORUM IS TRYING TO HELP.

announcement number two: concerning Faiza's blogs, would you guys please give me a break. she writes too much and too fast and I am supposed to translate all, she has 4 untranslated blogs and she called me today saying there are 8 more waiting to be posted and translated. please have mercy. and some patience

It is going to be a great year, no question. Go get drunk and promise you will not watch the news for the next three days, it's all bad anyway.
Peace, out!

More from Faiza. here and here (look for the bits where it says "translation").
You really should go read what she writes. try to imagining a nasal whine and words thrown at you at machine gun speed, it will help visualize how Faiza would talk to you. There was a time when I spent more time in Raed's house than at my parents and Faiza is almost like one of my mom's sisters to me. She has a very evolved sense of rightousness, you better have a good explantion for your actions, you would get a lecture otherwise.

and please tip the translator, ahem ahem.

Tonight the daily thuds started a bit earlier. It was around 10 and MBC2 was showing [Sleepless in Seattle], I am a bit embarrassed to say this, but I am a sucker for a Meg Ryan movie. The only problem was the sound of the explosions was a bit too close, it wasn’t just the thud we got used to the last two days but a very deep rumble as well, My mother couldn’t stand it any longer after a while and decided to go hide under her bed pillow instead of exchanging glances after each round of explosions and trying hard to guess where that is. It is the third night now, can anyone please tell me what is going on?

There is a lot that is not being reported and I am not talking about International media, they take what they like and leave. I am talking about the local Iraqia TV, I would have thought that the attacks and explosions are worth a report in the local news, but it seems al Iraqia is just not interested.
The day before yesterday a mine exploded in the Jamia underpass, three Iraqis died and the road was blocked for a number of hours. Does al-Iraqia report? Of course it doesn’t. Today me an my cousins went to get sandwiches from Harthiya street, all the talk in the fast food place was about an explosion just an hour earlier, as we drive away we see a Humvee in the middle of the road, we have to turn back the street is blocked because of the mentioned explosion, The ministry of oil was attacked, SOMO (the sales department in the Ministry of Oil) had a car bomb put in front of it. Does al-Iraqia report? No it doesn’t. The editors there don’t seem to get it, for the foreign media it might be easy to hide part of the picture because their viewers don’t live here. But for Iraqia, turning itself into the good news channel only makes it lose any hope of credibility. Think of it, they don’t have it to lose it.

The other day my uncle, after taking a bottle of nice Lebanese wine I bought for myself, gave me a summary of the policies of various arab media organizations from his point of view.
Want the good news only? Read al-sabah, the lovey-dovey-oh-no-problem-in-this-world paper sponsored by the coalition.
Want the horrible, disturbing version of the news? Read azzaman, news of deaths and assassinations galore.
Want to get your blood pressure up? Watch the arab news networks.
He, and so do we, read all of them. Somewhere in that mess is what is really happening but you need to read the whole lot.

Oh and here is the link to our THIRD film for newsnight.

OK!!
I mean .. Don't freak out!
anyone can translate whatever he wants
anyone can say whatever he wants
I mean .. unless its pro-saddam or anti-bush or pro-terrorism or ..
whatever..
:")

Explosions didn't stop yesterday, nothing new, but .. mmm.. did anyone else hear the sirens? or was it just another nightmare?
usually my nightmares have either Italian girls dumping me, or American soldiers stopping me on check points. But this one was really genuine.

After investigating Abu-Hasan (the night guard), unfortunately it appeared NOT to be a nightmare
(ouch! .. I just started to trust my imagination again)

OK!!
FREAK OUT NOW
sirens explosions sirens explosions sirens explosions
weeo booom bom bom weeo wouou bmbm

Fairy tale of the day?
I met a Santa Claus with plastic face and dirty-soldier-shoes at the convention center, I went there with Hamsa and Jo to register(?) Emaar and the red-plastic-face decided to attack us and say "Muarreeeeeeeeeee Christmaaaaaasssss"
"mmmm .. What?" is all that i could say.

sirens explosions sirens explosions sirens Xmas

oh dear, now this was not meant to happen.
A certain site Raed has linked to, a site we do not aprove of neither support ideologically, has translated the last blog I and Raed wrote and decided to use it as proof of certain weapons used in a recent incident. Neither I nor Raed are weapons experts and we have not been asked for permission by the person who translated to arabic or the persons who operate that site. We have nothing to do with them. I would even say it is regretable that we are quoted on that site.
We went thru this talk yesterday, me and raed, and were not sure whether to link to it or not, and this is what came out of it.
I repeat, we don't know them and I don't think they would like us if they met us. Now please don't plant a bomb at our door, let's keep this civil.

The same thing exactly happened last night, at around eleven the battle starts. You hear distant thuds, it sounds like someone jumping on the floor above you. When i go out i can't see any flashes but the thuds are very numerous like a proper battle, and you can also hear the sound of distant helicopters. it went on until 1am last night. Tonight it has just started 10 minutes ago. I am more than glad I am no where near where that is happening.
You kind of listen carefully for a while wondering whether it will come closer or not. Thankfully it is only the sound of helicopters going by that gets closer.

I spent last night in my family's house.
Everyone looked very moody and grumpy, Khaled was having problems with uni_girls, Majed was studying for his religion examination, mom was typing more and more diaries on her PC, and my father was reading something.
The boom boom boom thing happened at midnight, and no one had enough energy even to wonder what was happening, but the breaking news at Al-Jazeera tv said American fighters were bombing AdDora, where one of my uncles lives.
My father decided to call them and see what happened, but they were sleeping! my cousin said: "they are using cluster bombs, and we can hear the sound of a 57 (an Iraqi anti-craft gun) shooting back, but everyone here is sleeping"
lol
lol
lol!!
:")
What?? where did the 57 come back from!!

Today some street fighting happened at AdDora too. Naseem - the guy working in the internet cafe` - was telling me about Fedayeen attacking American troops, "there were dozens of them", and he added with a smile "I'm sure it was a 57 yesterday"

I was surprised to discover some sites putting pictures and speeches about the resistance!
neither me nor Salam expected to see such organized "resistance" signs.

Sometimes I feel completely lost, I can't see the whole picture.
No one can say what is going on.

Reema, the young sister of Hamsa, was telling me about the demonstrations happening in her college. "Some of them were pro-Saddam, others were anti-Saddam. But an hour later it started being more complicated, stupid people were shouting strange things about Shi'aa and Sunna"

What Shi'aa?? What Sunna!!
That doesn't sound very funny!
brrrrrrrrr

Tara emailed me form Canada, she's coming back to Baghdad in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if my offer of exchanging-worlds would really work.
I can't see myself having a "normal" life.
How boring..
Blah..

Iraq Blog Count. an excellent idea.
More Iraqis online than you would have thought eh?

S/He calls the family in baghdad blog a [Blog Sitcom]. I have just translated Faiza's (the mom) post and sent it to raed but until it is posted on the site I know Faiza will not mind having the translation here.

Take it away Faiza

it is five in the evening.
Electricity just came back, it has been off since five in the morning. I wonder always how families who do not own an electricity generator or have a subscription with a neighborhood one manage washing their clothes or heating their houses since the alternatives are also scarce in the markets. Kerosene and cooking gas are almost totally unavailable on the market and if you find them they are expansive. And when it comes to gasoline, the lines in front of gas stations are so long they go on for kilometers and are amazing and funny.
Life feels harsh and gloomy. Before the war we were for years under sanctions and we got used slowly to the situation. How to survive and manage in our reality. And although we were cut off from the rest of the world (no sat TV, no communication and no internet) everything was banned, prohibited or very regulated, but we were happier than we are now.
I do not know exactly why, but we were like a family living its troubles and secrets, the good ones and the bad ones, in a house that had closed doors and windows. The people abroad would wonder about us, some like us some hate us but we didn’t care much because like many other people each one of us was living his life with its infinite details and sorrows, and having ambitions for a better tomorrow.
And Today, the doors have been pulled out, noise and chaos rule the big house and the people who live in are killing each other, they are stealing from each other and hurting each other. I ask myself where did all this hate hide for so long?
And then a lot of strangers came, looking at us, a few want to help but many more want harm for their own announced or hidden reasons. It doesn’t matter, the result stays the same.

and there is more

How do I start my day? I driver comes to drive me to my work place since I was denied the driving of my own car, it stands there covered in the garage since almost 6 months because of all the incidents.
On my way I go thru the airport highway where all the trees have been cut down for fear of people hiding amongst them attacking the American forces the road looks sad and deserted now, then suddenly speeding convoys of Humvees go by the end of the convoy is an open car with American soldiers standing pointing their rifles at our civilian cars, afraid of a terrorist act!
I tell the driver to slow down and to try to stay away from them as good as he can, just so that we do not become the victims of a stray bullet coming out of the gun of a soldier who came to liberate Iraq

FlyingChair.net is doing an Asia Blog Award thingy and has a Best Iraqi Blog Category. Go on vote for MeMeMeMe.

As Mr. Raed (who I am not sure whether I am speaking with or not, it depends on the state of my cold) as he clearly demonstrated in the previous blog, Mullah Bremer's Fatwa prohibiting the buying and selling of Gasoline on the black market has become just another excuse for the gas sharks to get even more money out of us.

The renamed Iraqi TV Channel [al-iraqia] is trying to do an awarness capaign thing about the evils of selling gasoline on the black market, I guess the only evil being floating it's price properly and getting the true value for it, since it is so scarce. They have an actor doing a gas station ward refusing to sell even one single litre of gas if it wasn't your day (we have now the odd/even rule, certain days for cars with odd numbers and others for cars with even numbers). The truth in the gas station is that the guy who is holding the gas-hose-thingy will ask you just as he gets close to your prescribed 30 litres (yes you get 30 only and you are supposed to be happy with that for two days) he will ask whether you are prepared to pay an extra 10,000 to get another 30. I suspect Mullah Bremer has close gas station owner friends and he just wanted to make them richer with his new rule. The black market has gone insane with prices and you buy it like you are buying hard drugs, in a hurry and in constant fear of being caught.
The all-new Iraqi Police in their ham fisted ways have already managed to kill a guy selling gasoline. Idiots you are supposed to stop them selling gasoline not stop them breathing, they shot him dead, bang bang, just like that and all he did was sell gasoline on the side of the street. Oh god how criminal, he should have ran to a Fundi sheikh and get paid for throwing hangrenades in the streets. New Iraqi Police indeed.
We are off the subject; I CAN NOT see any sense in the new gasoline rules, none at all. It is so ironic that after filling our heads with " you are a rich nation, lotsa oil and shit" talk we have to import gasoline, there is even gasoline coming in from fucking Jordan. Jordan, for fuck's sake, is D.R.Y. we used to give them oil for free and now we have to buy it back. The lord does surely move in mysterious ways, specially when he has the american administration next to him.

hmmm, I am rambling....maybe should check my temperature.

Since I am confined to my mom's I sit watching the News on the Iraqi TV channel. [al-Iraqia] lives in La La Land, the reporters and anchors smile at each other idiotically like they are on some super-nice drug, the footage they show has nothing to do with the news they are reading. The one bit of news which did get my attention was that the Iraqi Police caught three poeple trying to sell forged Iraqi currency, new 25,000 dinar bills. The ones we were told were impossible to forge. I am glad that not too many Iraqis watch that channel because we would have had the same panic we had after the war when al-Jazeera reported that there are tons of forged 10,000 dinar bills circulating.
Highlight of al-Iraqia's broadcast this morning was the Haj Lottery, the pilgrimage to Mecca is soon and in baghdad alone 40,000 have applied to go but only 7,000 are going to be given permits by the Saudis (it will be a total of 30,000 pilgrims from all of Iraq). even al-Jaafari, a GC member whom I respect a lot, was there overseeing this all important lottery.

Today's weather report: Rain, Cold, Wet, Gray, Mud puddles, cars spraying dirty water on you when you walk, people looking grumpy because they can't find kerosene to work the heaters nor is there enough electricity to keep houses warm. Mmmmmmm, much better than sunny yesterday.

Yeah .. that "thing from the opposite sex"'s name is Hamsa (i.e. whisper) and she will eat you alive after reading your post :") (She's more a storm than a whisper..)
We went to an expensive restaurant, food was ok but their wine was very bad, it tasted like vinegar. So I did a small "drama queen" thing and they opened a new bottle of vino rosso for us.

In fact the interesting thing happened before we went to lunch, I went to pick Hamsa from her place and told her that we need to get some petrol for the car first.
She called her father, and the old man came with us to his relative's house, just near by. We knocked the door,
Abu-Hamsa said: we want some petrol
and immediately everyone started acting in a very professional way, the son came outside and led us to the back door, the daughter went to watch the street, and the father came with 30 liters of petrol, looked as her son and daughter and gave them instructions: keep your eyes opened.
I mean! it looked so funny! just if I was buying drugs or something.
"don't give me the money now .. later .. later".
later .. I gave him 15,000 ID and disappeared.
Fun fact: I would have paid 600 ID to get the same "stuff" before the war.
But the man at least gave us "clean stuff", last time I had a problem for a couple of days because of the petrol mixed with I_don't_know_what..

whatever..
:")

umm.. did u receive that email telling us "your blog is #1 this week in Blogger Forum's weekly Top Ten list". Jo says I'm the biggest "ego freak" she has ever met.

Listen, I must find a new house before the end of the month. Maybe Jo will keep on being my house-mate. (poor girl)
Do u want to start our "raed vs pax" pub or not? we can start having a pub in the same house I'm living in.
wooo!! :")

call me if u didn't die today

I am not only sick I am slowly dying. I think I had 40 degree fever two days ago and I still can't stand straight and I am very bitchy.

Raed calls me once and never does again as if he is going to catch a bug thru the phone, G. calls me just to tell me he might be going on a trip to Syria and say "go go" the moment he hears my cough, my brother doesn't let me use his internet account and the whole world is out to get me. I crawled out of bed wearing a hundred layers of clothing to get to an internet place because I got sick of reading in bed ("all tommorow's parties" and a book called "1000 classic italian recepies"........... don't say a word!). and what does the world look like outside? nice and sunny with wispy clouds in the sky, I told you everything sucks.

The reason I am in such bad health is because of a third Newsnight thing which did not get shown in the end. and although Raed knew I had a very high fever and could barely stand straight his hormones decided that he had to go have lunch with someone form the opposite sex instead of helping with the edit and never came back. I really hope they show it before they go off air for the holidays. and I sure hope Raed didn't enjoy his lunch with her.
grrrrrrrrrrrr.
too concerned with my own miseries to care about the miseries in the world around me, sorry.

The little cartoon on the left of this page made me laugh, it's the Guardian Unlimited Blogging software review thingy. The reviwer isn't exactly a Blogger fan.

It was hilarious listening to the son of Gaddafi yesterday, his name is "Sayf el Eslam" (i.e. the sword of Islam), and he looks like the Libyan version of Uday Saddam Husein.
maybe not that bad ..
whatever ..

He was giving us a classic piece of Arabic speech making, but it sounded more rhythmic than usual.

"Arabs" he said "proved they cannot be trusted"
cool man! go on!
"If we take a look at what happened in Iraq, who was responsible for the entire game? who destroyed Iraq? HIS NEIGHBORS .. they were the spear head"
Didn't everyone enjoy the "spear head" part?
"Why do you think we started these weapons programmes in the first place? do u believe they were for us? for Libya? Naaaah.. they were for the Arabs.. we wanted to defend them" ..
umm?? so?? what happened now dude?
"but now .. you know .. we prefer to think about our country, and about our AFRICAN neighbors"
So Africa is the new trend.

And .. it seems that all other missiles were there to defend Arabs, that's the only reason why Gaddafi and his son decided to destroy them all.

The wisdom of the day?
Cut your nails before we cut off your hands

:")

One day .. TWO MASKS ..

THE FIRST MASK:
The Iraqi translator, coming to a secondary school at AlAmryya to help "them" arrest students. Students don't have the right to go on demonstrations.
Americans came with pictures of pupils, a list of their names, and arrested them FROM THEIR CLASSES. The headmaster couldn't speak a word.

THE SECOND MASK:
The Iraqi Fedayi (one of the fedyeen) running after journalists on one of the demonstrations that happened at Adamyya in Baghdad, preventing anyone from taking pictures of people marching there ...
He shot one of my friends .. Wasif .. in his foot.

Too many things happening the last couple of days, it looks that the capture of Saddam started something.