Salon.com > Baghdad

Empathy for Boston, from Iraqi children

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:29:00 +0000

On April 15, 2013, in Boston, three people were killed when two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. Over 144 were wounded. Doctors performed at least 10 amputations on those injured.

The same day, in the cities of Baghdad, Fallujah and Kirkuk in Iraq, there were “serial blasts.” Fourteen car bombs and three roadside bombs went off. Thirty-three people were killed and over 160 were wounded.

The two boys understand far too well what it is like in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack. In their lives, there has been numerous acts of violence as a result of terrorism and U.S. forces waging war and occupation.

The boys not only stand in solidarity with the victims of the Boston explosions, but they also empathize because this is what they’ve experienced. Part of this message is being shared with Americans because they want them to know they understand the pain Americans are going through.

The Boston explosions received far greater attention than the attacks in Iraq yesterday. They continue to receive much more attention than the car bombs that went off in Iraq today.

British personnel reveal abuses at U.S. Baghdad base

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:50:00 +0000

Ten years since the Iraq invasion, British military personnel have spoken out anonymously about human rights abuses witnessed at the little-known Camp Nama at Baghdad International Airport -- a secret U.S. detention center. As the Guardian noted, many of the detainees were brought to the facility by snatch squads formed from British Special Air Service and Special Boat Service squadrons. General Stanley McChrystal, then commander of U.S. Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq, reportedly visited the site on numerous occasions.

Via the Guardian:

My country has no future

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:45:00 +0000

Back then, everybody was writing about Iraq, but it’s surprising how few Americans, including reporters, paid much attention to the suffering of Iraqis. Today, Iraq is in the news again. The words, the memorials, the retrospectives are pouring out, and again the suffering of Iraqis isn’t what’s on anyone’s mind. This was why I returned to that country before the recent 10th anniversary of the Bush administration’s invasion and why I feel compelled to write a few grim words about Iraqis today.

But let’s start with then. It’s April 8, 2004, to be exact, and I’m inside a makeshift medical center in the heart of Fallujah while that predominantly Sunni city is under siege by American forces. I’m alternating between scribbling brief observations in my notebook and taking photographs of the wounded and dying women and children being brought into the clinic.

A woman suddenly arrives, slapping her chest and face in grief, wailing hysterically as her husband carries in the limp body of their little boy. Blood is trickling down one of his dangling arms. In a few minutes, he’ll be dead. This sort of thing happens again and again.

Baghdad bombings kill at least 56 on Iraq War anniversary

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:24:00 +0000

A wave of bombings tore through Baghdad on Tuesday morning, killing at least 56 people in a spasm of violence on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.

The attacks show how dangerous and unstable Iraq remains a decade after the war — a country where sectarian violence can explode at any time. And though attacks have ebbed since the peak of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007, tensions simmer and militants remain a potent threat to Iraq's security forces.

Tuesday's attacks were mostly by car bombs and targeted mainly Shiite areas, small restaurants, day laborers and bus stops in the Iraqi capital and nearby towns over a span of more than two hours.

Along with 56 killed, over 200 people were wounded in the attacks, officials said.

The bombings came 10 years to the day that Washington announced the start of the invasion on March 19, 2003 — though by that time it was already the following morning in Iraq.

Also on Tuesday, Iraq's Cabinet decided to postpone upcoming provincial elections in two provinces dominated by the country's minority Sunnis for up to six months. The decision followed requests from the political blocs in the provinces, according to the prime minister's spokesman, Ali al-Moussawi.

Poll: Majority see Iraq War as a mistake

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:08:00 +0000

A new Gallup poll finds that on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, the majority of those surveyed see the invastion as a mistake. 53 percent said the U.S. "made a mistake sending troops to fight in Iraq," while 42 percent said it was not a mistake.

Americans' negative view of the war reached its high point in 2008, when 63 percent said it was a mistake.

From Gallup:

Americans initially supported the war, with substantial majorities in 2003 saying the U.S. decision to get involved in Iraq was not a mistake. However, attitudes changed relatively quickly, and by the summer of 2004, a majority of Americans called the war a mistake.

Opinions fluctuated somewhat thereafter but, with one exception, since August 2005, a majority has said the war was a mistake each time Gallup has asked the question -- and at several points, more than 60% said so. The last time Gallup asked this question, in August 2010, 55% called the war a mistake.

EXCLUSIVE: Folk singer Erin McKeown collaborates with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

When singer-songwriter Erin McKeown met MSNBC's Rachel Maddow years ago, the two became quick friends. As Maddow says in a press release, "The first time I interviewed Erin McKeown, I botched it — I kept jumping in to finish her sentences, and to quote her own lyrics back to her (as if she didn’t know them already). Erin played a song in studio that day, and at one point she stopped short in the middle of a line, and I took it upon myself to scream the rest of it out loud from across the room. This does not constitute a good interview technique! But it did start a very fun friendship."

The friendship has produced an unlikely collaboration: a twangy folk track called "Baghdad to the Bayou," which appears on McKeown's new album, "Manifestra." McKeown has released the track exclusively on Salon and told us how she and Maddow paired up to write it.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did the collaboration with Rachel Maddow come about?

Iraqi civil war plays out in Syria

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:41:00 +0000

DAMASCUS, Syria — Divided by history, geography and God, Abu Mohammed and Abu Hamza both smoke Marlboro cigarettes and agree on one point: The war for Syria is also a war for Iraq.

Driven from their homes by the 2003 US-led war in Iraq, both men, now in their 40s, found refuge for themselves and their families in neighboring Syria.

Nearly a decade later, both are back in the country that once sheltered them.

But this time their wives and children are no longer with them. The men are not in Syria to flee a war, but to fight one. Abu Mohammed, a Sunni, is training rebels in Aleppo. Abu Hamza, a Shiite, is battling alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Damascus.

For the war for Syria is morphing into an extension of the relentless struggle between the rival branches of Islam that was so violently unleashed when Washington toppled Saddam Hussein, a secular Baathist dictator, in Baghdad.