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15 March 2006
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My War Diaries

A Month That Changed The World
15 March 2003 - 15 April 2003

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The Ancient Palace

It's Samarra, again...



As i mentioned before, Samarra is an open-air museum, with the Islamic sites dominating the scene since they are more recently build, and don't need that much excavation and all.



Samarra was the capital city of the Muslim Empire for 70 years, in the 9th Century AD. Baghdad was before that, and returned afterwards as the capital.



A city like this, would have many ancient palaces and buildings, of course, that are wonderfully built, and luckily safe kept until these days... But would they be safe kept to the future generations? There are doubts.



Yesterday, it was announced that one of these ancient palaces, was blown up.



Imagine... Built in the 9th century AD, and blown up today.



I rest my case.

Really?!

Hmmm, interesting, very interesting!

It seems, that Microsoft are going to hand away, free domain names!

More on this story at:

http://officelive.microsoft.com/OfficeLiveBasic.aspx

Check it out!

Don't you just love it when all the big companies compete to create the good stuff, and we get to benefit!

Cool! But i still cheer Google.

:)

Of Curfews and Ads

The Gov't have announced that today, Friday 3 March 2006, would again be a car curfew day. That is -again- a good idea, so that no freak would slam his car into a mosque on Friday cermon time.

Today i also saw an ad on Iraqi TV, that i really liked. It shows Iraqi Sunni and Shiite Muslims, standing together to pray in a mosque, while masked terrorists are preparing a bomb to be blown next to the mosque. When the prayer ended, one of the people in the mosque sees the gang, and throws his slipper at them, before you know it, everybody in the mosque is chasing the gang, and everybody is throwing slippers and shoes at them.

An ad that means a lot for sure, and to tell you the truth, one cannot stop wishing things were this easy... To revive Iraq by throwing shoes at its enemies, all of them!

"Hold Your Fire..."

The last night of February wasn't different from this turbulant month at all. The apple didn't fall far from the tree as they say.

Just around midnight, as we entered 1 March, heavy gunshots errupted all around the neighborhood. It wasn't clear whether they were an answer to a direct threat, or a show of force to cast away any possible threat.

The neighborhood guys, shot in the air, and were too nervous to the extent, they almost shot one of them, by friendly fire.

After some shooting, one of them, had a good military mind of sorts, and i heard him shout: "What the hell are you shooting for?! Hold you fire... Save your ammo... If there's somebody coming, let them come, and then we'll see!"

Of course, he had a very good point, since the shooters, accidentally hit a power line, thus cutting electricity from the neighborhood, but the local generators' operators were diligent enough to start their engines right away.

Saturday Night...

The Curfew have been imposed for two days now, and it was a good idea to say the least... So that nobody moves around, and fools around with peoples lives.

Tonight, however, witnessed the first somewhat close and significant threat to our region of Baghdad. At around 9:15 pm, some 2 hours after Isha (Night) prayers, gun shots back and forth were heard near a mosque in our area, the mosque began to call "Allahu Akbar", and gun shots ripped the air all over, a signal to the attackers that there would be no chance for them to make it, because the whole region would fight them back, a region of some 10,000 or more.

The battle continued for some 20 minutes, and the Iraqi National Guards were quickly deployed in the area to protect it. People were asked not to go out of their homes. There was a high degree of cooperation between the army, the mosques and the citizens.

Curfew was to go on for Sunday as well, but only for cars. If you want to walk, then walk.

Atwar...

Atwar Bahjat...
From Iraq...

Even with the necklace she was wearing, the last time she was seen alive, the last time she had seen the setting sun outside Samarra, the city that saw her coming to this world 30 years ago; and saw her departing it...

She lived a life looking for the Truth, and she is now in Heaven, where the utmost truth is. She was killed with 2 other colleagues, after trying and failing to enter Samarra all day long on the 23 Feb. 2006.

Her last time on the air was shortly after 3 pm GMT, from a place on the northern outskirts of Samarra.

Another sad day, not only for an Iraqi mother and a younger sister; not only for colleagues; but for viewers in a sad country, in a sad part of the world; which seems to get sadder, i am afraid.

God bless your soul, Atwar Bahjat of Al-Arabiya, as well as your colleagues, Adnan & Khalid, you have all been couragous, you have been Iraqis.

Samarra...

Once again, Iraq and sadness become one.
Once again, madness beats wisdom.
Once again, craziness has its best day.

It was a partly cloudy winter morning over Samarra, a city that is truly an open-air museum, some 120 kms (80 miles) to the north of Baghdad, a city which is unique in everything; and on 22 Feb. 2006, it was destined to re-define the Iraqi on-going, ever-lasting sorrow.

The shrine of the 10th and 11th Shiite Imams (or as the Western media calls them as "Saints"), is the jewel on Samarra's necklace of history. The eternal pride of Samarra, and Samarrans, who are also defined as Sunnis, but have never ever failed to be the best of hosts to one of the 4 Shiite most Holy Sites in Iraq; Samarrans who are proud of these two Shiite Imams being their ancestors and forefathers.

On the sad morning of 22 Feb. 2006; which could be brought closer to Westerners' imagination if described as the same as the morning of 11 Sep. 2001, minus the human casualties, plus the shrine's sanctity; the golden dome that stood high above the shrine of 4: the 2 Imams, one of the Imam's sister, and one of the Imam's wife; was blown up.

With it, i am sad to say; the sanity thread in Iraq was cut, and the voice of reason was harshly told to shut up.

Samarra, and Samarrans, as well as the whole world, woke up to a seen they never imagined. A seen so devastated, and yet so devastating. The 4 graves engulfed by a silver/golden structure of enamel and Quranic writings under the golden dome, destroyed by the huge and massive explosion, were there no more.

Despite calls by the highest of religious authorities, some groups went to "retaliate", but retaliation went against the wrong people.

It is neither of faith, nor of common wisdom, to accuse Sunnis, of which are the Samarrans, who are very proud that the Shiite Imams are their ancestors.

It is neither of faith, nor of common wisdom, to attack Sunni mosques, or to drag completely innocent Sunni people from their homes, to an unknown fate, or rather to a later known fate in Baghdad's Central Morgue.

This is definitely not what the Imam's would have wanted, and this definitely not what Islam (whatever the sect is) calls for. The act of "retaliation" is as condemned and as ugly as the original act of destroying the Holy Site.

If any person wanted to "retaliate", then "retaliate" from those who would be proven guilty, or caught red-handed, as we heard from Al-Iraqiya state-run TV as well as other channels, that 10 people were arrested, and "seem" connected to the aggression.

To destroy your brother's house, is to destroy your own house.

To destroy your brother's mosque or shrine, is to destroy your own mosque or shrine.

To kill your brother, is suicide.

Going through the media on such a sad, sad day; i have seen the worse channels, and they were Al-Forat TV (which is so Shiite), and Baghdad TV (which is so Sunni). It was like this one brought benzine to the fire, and this one brought kerosene to the fire; and i am very afraid that they would bring explosives to the fire that is not getting any smaller, and they would.

I pray, sincerely, that people, with wisdom as big as the Iraqi sorrow; would rise up from the rubble left after Samarra blast; and the ashes left after a Sunni mosque burning; and come together, to stop the bloodshed; because if bloodshed ever started on a large(r) scale, then there would be no Iraqis to live in Iraq.

Wisdom is priceless in times of madness.

God preserve Iraq, and Iraqis without exception, and give them wisdom, leading to peace.

The Birds

Hello Again,

Long time no write... Whenever the time gap between posting and the other goes longer i get sadder .

I wanted this to be of more frequency, but what to do, you just don't always get what you want now, do you?

Today we are going to talk about birds. Seeing the title, which is not by any means relevent to Alfred Hitchcook's famous classic movie The Birds, but rather relevent to the Bird Flu (Avian Flu) issue that is causing more and more concern in Iraq and elsewhere.

Of course, the situation is extremely serious, not only serious but very dangerous especially here in Iraq, where everything is either unorganized, or needs great efforts to organize, in the midst of all the challanges facing the people here.

For example, when the first case appeared in Turkey, a group of people, that nobody knows from where they are, or who sent them, reportedly and allegedly started touring areas of Baghdad claiming to give Anti-Flu vaccines, which were in fact, fatal or dangerous materials. Ministry of Health said that there are no groups from them whatsoever.

Then, with the unstable situation facing the nation, especially in areas around Samarra (110 KM = 70 miles north of Baghdad), it wasn't enough for the people there to live the common daily difficulties of Iraqi life; but in addition to all that, migrant birds, who usually land in the huge Thirthar Lake west of Samarra started falling dead from the sky last week, on peoples' homes and farms. According to people living there who spoke to AFP, birds looked extremely skinny, and looked as if they had runny noses.

Chickens are being killed everywhere, in the north, in the center and south of Iraq. Cases have been heard of in the north, and south. Wherever there are lakes, where migrant birds may touch down, the infection is probably to spread.

The only positive thing to this is that prices of eggs, and even imported chicken has gone down in the local market, a temptation for those who'd take the risk, and many would.

I have seen a chicken about a month ago, so i took a photo of her with my mobile, because who knows how much time would pass before one would see a live chicken again, or would the poor creatures go to the brink of extinction... A bad idea many of us would hate to think of.

I honestly pray that things go well with this matter here and elsewhere. Everybody in the house say:Amen!

I Heard This Name Before!

Hello Friends,

So, while i was side-surfing (= Working on one window, Googling on the other), i found this nice website i thought i'd share with you.

It enables you to find out if your name, or anybody else's is frequent/commonly used or not. If you are expecting a baby, it would help you in checking out the general mood of picking a name for the bambino. If you were to adopt a pet, and would like to name the pet a human name (not just Fluffy or Meow!), this would be a useful website too. It requires Java to run.

Just so you know, according to this website, and girls-wise, the top 3 names of 2004 were: Emily, Emma and Madison.

Before i wrap up, let us go back to pets' names. The two cats that i have; the good cat (Nancy) with her name as the 289th name in 2004. And the bad cat (Elissa) and her name stands at the 884th rank.

Tom is not in the top 1000 names in 2004, while Jerry is no. 293. :)

Enjoy your time with:

http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html