The American public has no idea just how terrible we've made conditions in Iraq.
Over the years every time I meet someone who is interested in knowing about Iraq, I tend to be very optimistic about their quest for information, but with many many many people turn out to be those who have a judgment and only want to get information from you that support their prejudgment. so I decided to stop being nice and just tell them in their face, if you want to support your prejudgment I am sure you can find a lot of it in your sources and an Internet search that can get you a lot.
this article take you through the damage to ordinary people that happened in the last few years
U.S. Occupation of Iraq More Than Doubles Poverty, Sickness -- Leaves Country a Total Disaster
Supporting the Lawsuit by Representatives of Civil Society Organizations in Iraq at the Federal Supreme Court
أمر تشريعي لمجلس محافظة كربلاءA precedent legislation issued lately by Kerbala Provincial Council banning all public music playing and dance including mobiles and CD players
Revealing photos of women, books, magazines, and newspapers and posters,
Window shops maniquin wearing revealing clothes,
Music in public or mobile phones or CDs,
No public singing and dancing, only in closed halls with permission
الأعزاء جميعاً
تحية طيبة
أرفق لكم طياُ الأمر التشريعي رقم 4 لسنة 2010 الصادر من مجلس محافظة كربلاء تحت عنوان (حفظ حرمة وقدسية محافظة كربلاء)، وهو محاولة أخرى للالتفاف على الحريات الشخصية والمدنية التي كفلها الدستور بحجة منع الأفعال المخالفة والمنافية للأداب العامة.
فهل من تعليق؟
من الواضح ان مجالس المحافظات يتخبطون بفهم مسؤولياتهم ، وبدلاً من العمل الجدي للاهتمام بخدمات المواطنين وتحسين أوضاع المحافظات ، فإنهم ينغمرون في استخدام سلطتهم للتهديد والوعيد وأسلوب الرصد وكتابة التقارير !!
مع المودة
Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions
In Rewriting Its History, Iraq Treads Cautiously
Looking back at Iraq and all the mess that we went through, its very hard to take sides or be objective and academic about this because in every level you can have 2 opposing views that make sense.
Source NYtimes:
Iraq’s cultural history stretches back thousands of years, and its land comprises much of ancient Mesopotamia. But its historical memory has been clouded by its upheavals.
“They removed any mention of the Saddam era in the history books, but the result has been that these books became worse than before,” said Mohammed Kamil, the chairman of the history department at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.
Even at the college level, Mr. Kamil said, Mr. Hussein or the Baath Party is not part of history.
While the 20th-century Iraqi history that was taught under Mr. Hussein may have been mere propaganda — the dictator’s picture adorned every book — some teachers say that the ancient history taught before was much deeper than that taught under the new curriculum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Sex slave girls face cruel justice in Iraq
Iraq have been going through this for a while, since the installation of the sanctions in early 1990, this started to happen, but these days it went into higher scale. and now its a major issue in Iraq.
Source: CNN
Fifteen-year-old Zeina's sad journey to prison began two years ago when she says was sold into sex slavery. "My father came and took me to go visit my grandfather in Syria," says Zeina, "and I went with him."
The family trip turned out to be a cover story, and Zeina found herself faced with the most horrific possible reality. She says she was then forcefully taken from Syria to the United Arab Emirates and sold into sexual slavery.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.women.prisons/index.html
HRW presses Iraqi Kurds to ban female circumcision
This is something we grow up hearing about it happening in another countries not Iraq, Its heartbreaking to see Iraq move backword in that sense.
Source BBC:
Human Rights Watch has called on authorities in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan to ban the practice of female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM).
A report issued by the group on Wednesday said the practice was widespread in Iraqi Kurdistan, and was having a harmful effect on the physical and emotional health of many women.
Iraq’s ancient Uruk loses grandeur
Iraq’s largest archaeological site is in danger and may be lost forever, an Iraqi scientist says. Hadiya Jwan al-Khalidi, head of Muthana University’s History Department, urged the authorities to move quickly to save Uruk before it was too late. She said Uruk was not “an ordinary archaeological site. I am really sad to see what has become of this treasure.” Situated east of the present course of the Euphrates, the site was known to the Sumerians as Unu. The Akkadians called it Uruk.
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-05-21\kurd.htm
The Iraq War and the Limits of International Law
After so many years of silencing the world view about how much damage this war have brought to Iraqis even with the removal of Saddam as a positive part of it, we can not ignore all the excuses used to justify it.
Source: Open Democracy
In the wake of the British parliamentary election, and as the Chilcot Inquiry continues its assessment of the decision to invade Iraq, an opportune moment arises for commentators and policymakers to reconsider how international law regulates the initial decision by states to go to war. This opportunity should be taken since, while the media has considered the question of whether the Iraq war was illegal in depth, the underlying issues of what illegality means in the context of international law, and why public officials frequently differ in their interpretation of it, are seldom addressed. Seven years after the invasion of Iraq, the debate over its legality should be framed in these wider terms.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-wooding/iraq-war-and-limits-of-international-law
