david's doodles

Riverbend - from Blog to Book

Several times in these doodles you may come across quotations from Baghdad Burning, the web log written by a 20-something Iraqi woman. In a somewhat unusual move, a year of her writing has been produced as a book.

“

I didn’t want it confirmed because confirming the atrocities that occurred in Falloojeh means verifying how really lost we are as Iraqis under American occupation

”

 -- Baghdad Burning 17 November 2005

It was published earlier this year by the Feminist Press in the U.S., and by Marion Boyars Publishers in the U. K. It has since been translated into Spanish and Japanese. Then, in October, the book won third prize of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage.

For a taste of the kind of thoughtful and personal writing she does, here are some extracts from recent posts. All were written in November, subjects ranging from broken dreams to torture and assassinations. They give a rare insight as to what the invasion and occupation looks like to the citizens of Iraq.

On November 6, she wrote on Movies and Dreams. Recalling two movies she had seen as a child - one, a fictional account of the Holocaust, the other news footage of atrocities during the Iran-Iraq war - she continues:

The agony of the long war with Iran is what makes the current situation in Iraq so difficult to bear- especially this last year. The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.

It began, of course, with Badir’s Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
...

Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq. This shift of power should have been obvious to the world when My-Loyalty-to-the-Highest-Bidder-Chalabi sold his allegiance to Iran last year. American and British sons and daughters and husbands and wives are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years.

What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?

About the news of the use of white phosphorous by Americans during last year’s invasion of Falloojeh, she writes of a film she saw about the evidence for the story. On November 17, she wrote:

Few Iraqis ever doubted the American use of chemical weapons in Falloojeh. We’ve been hearing the terrifying stories of people burnt to the bone for well over a year now. I just didn’t want it confirmed.

I didn’t want it confirmed because confirming the atrocities that occurred in Falloojeh means verifying how really lost we are as Iraqis under American occupation and how incredibly useless the world is in general- the UN, Kofi Annan, humanitarian organizations, clerics, the Pope, journalists… you name it- we’ve lost faith in it.

About the House of Horrors - the torture house recently “discovered” in Baghdad - she has this to say:

These torture houses have existed since the beginning of the occupation. While it is generally known that SCIRI is behind them, other religious parties are not innocent. The Americans know they exist- why the sudden shock and outrage? This is hardly news for Americans in the Green Zone. The timing is quite interesting- it shouldn’t matter that this raid came immediately after the whole white phosphorous story came out, but the Pentagon and American military have proven to be the ultimate masters of diversion.
...

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr (SCIRI Thug-Made-Government-Official-In-Italian-Suits) is mollifying Iraqis with this little gem,

...the group included Shiites as well as Sunnis...?

I’m sure we can all sleep better at night with the knowledge that SCIRI/Da‘awa torturers don’t discriminate according to religious sect- under the new constitution, American military guidance, and the blessings of the Pentagon- all Iraqis will be tortured equally.

About the assassinations of tribal leaders and professionals, Riverbend concluded:

Whoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country.

The problem with this situation is not just major brain drain- it’s the fact that this diminishing educated class is also Iraq’s secular class ...

This is reporting from ground zero. You won’t find anything like it from Western reporters holed up in their hotels in Baghdad’s Green Zone, or those embedded in the military. If you want to understand what is going on in our name and with our tax money (and our children’s futures) you could do much worse that visit Riverbend’s web log.