BlogIraq

France 24 TV channel aired a good report from Iraq two days ago. They went to few places in Baghdad and Falluja. I think it was worth to watch so here is the link.

The Information Technology and Telecommunications Center in University of Technology, in Baghdad have produced, with the aid of computer science students in the university, the first %100 Iraqi-made computer game.

The game named "Gilgamish" is inspired by the story of the King that fights the evil that hits the kings of Mesopotamia to liberate them from the evil god "Khumbaba".

The five stages game, Giglamish the Brave King, is of a 200Mbytes size and works on virtually any PC and does not require high resolution video card. Dr.Mazin Sameer, the head of the center said that 5000 copies of the game will be distributed to the students of the university and later on will be released to the markets.

Way to go guys. 

"Khan Jghan" is an Iraqi phrase describing a place where everyone gets in and out whenever the feel like it. The origin of these words is Turkish by the way.

Turkey army has launched land offensive into Iraq last night. Turkish television reported, without citing sources, that 10,000 troops had entered Iraqi territory and moved 10 km (6 miles) inside Iraq.

I believe that the Iraqi government did not handle the PKK issue in the proper way. But this does not entitle Turkey to do such a military operation inside Iraq. I think the Iraqi government should have asked the PKK to move out of Iraq whether in Turkey or any where in the world to avoid being in this position.

This action by Turkey shows the world how Turkey does not take the Iraqi government seriously and do not give the space for peaceful solutions to take place. I have before admired the Turkish parliament for not letting the US attack Iraq from the Turkish land in 2003. And I though that this was much braver than the action of any "Arab" land. But this is off the limit now.

And of course the US did not mind that. The US was informed about this attack and, according to Zebari, the Iraqi government was not. This just shows how much the US and Turkey trust the Iraqi Government. They did not inform the Iraqis so the information would not be leaked to the PKK fighters. Thats a lot of trust here, although the Turkish side say that they have informed Washington and Baghdad.

I hope that this operation is periodically as short as the Turkish claimed it would be. And I hope no Iraqi gets hurt in this operation. I mean Iraq has enough turbulences of its own, and we don't need people fighting their own battles on our land (kind of reminds me of Americas fight against Al-Qaeda). 

God bless your soul Raheem Al-Maliki. He wrote this poem few months before he was assassinated and he read it in the convention palace in Baghdad. I think once you hear the poem, you will know why he was killed. May he rest in peace.

You can download the audio file of this poem here. 

So, you are free to say whatever you want in Iraq, but you will pay for it.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) approved giving the Syrian Kurds residing in the Iraqi Kurdistan region for four years now the "refugee" status, the region's coordinator with the UN said on Sunday.

Are you kidding me?

Iraqis are not allowed to enter Kurdistan unless accompanied by a Kurdish sponsor to take responsibility of this Iraqi person and guarantee that this Iraqi person will not stay too long in the Iraqi land of Kurdistan. And now they are giving asylum to Syrians??

Isn't this a bit over the edge?

I mean who is more entitled to enjoy the safety and prosperity of the Iraqi land of Kurdistan, the syrian kurds or the Iraqis who had to leave their homes and seek safety somewhere else?

And ironically the UNHCR approved that. 

"If it happens that an individual or some individuals were repatriated independently, then is nothing wrong with that but if this repatriation took the form of groups, this would not be allowed," stressed Guterres

Its nice of the UNHCR to forbid the Kurdish government from kicking Iraqis out of their land, unless they break the law. And on the other hand, the Kurdish government makes laws to forbid Iraqis from staying in Kurdistan unless they have a job. Or, they can stay for a short amount of time with the exoistence of a kurdish sponsor.

According to this piece of news,

" According to Kurdish estimates, there are about 3,500 Iranian Kurds, 500 Syrian Kurds and 6,000 Turkish Kurds seeking asylum in the autonomous region,www.ekurd.net in addition to about 160,000 displaced persons who fled security unrest in the Iraqi provinces."

And even if these people do not get the legal right of asylum, still they stay in Kurdistan for an indefinite period of time.

One more small observation, the person making the announcement with Guterres is Dr Dindar Zebari, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Coordinator to the United Nations. This person attends all the meetings that the Iraq representative in the UN attends to represent kurdistan. I wounder if each state in the US has its own representative in the UN, or the each emirate in the UAE has its own representative in the UN? 

Earlier today, the Iraqi parliament approved a new flag for Iraq. The one shown below:

164 Parliament members attended the session of which 50% voted for this flag out of four options that were given in this session. Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, the head of the parliament, said that "this is a temporary flag until a flag is chosen by the Iraqi people". It seems like the parliament does not represent the Iraqi people anyway.

Way to go Kurds. You've made it through an f*cked up the flag. Its the flag that the evil army of Saddam killed the Kurds under. The army that Maoud Al-Barazani asked for Saddam's help against Jalal Al-Talibani under. o you cannot tolerate its existence anymore.

This brings me to an interesting reading I came across today. Masoud Barzani is trying to press charges against Michael Rubin how said that the Kurds are assisting Iranian to come into Iraq in a deal that involves money and guarantees that no terrorism act will take place on the lands of Kurdistan.

"During the first week in July 2003, an American military unit patrolling the mountains of northeastern Iraq approximately thirty miles from the Iranian border came across an unauthorized KDP checkpoint from which they confiscated a cache of Iranian passports and money. KDP officials had used the checkpoint to facilitate Iranian infiltration–allowing Iranian operatives to swap Iranian passports for local Kurdish identity papers–in exchange for cash. Kurdish officials privately acknowledge that this case was not unique. At the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency in April 2004, Iraqi Kurdistan became a transit point for Ansar al-Sunna: its members entered Iraqi Kurdistan from Iran and received safe passage to Mosul in exchange for an agreement not to conduct operations in the three northern governorates–and perhaps payment as well."

Everyone in Kurdistan knows what happened after Saddam lost control over Kurdistan in 1991. Talbani and Barzani disassembled and sold all the facilities in Kurdistan and sold it through smugglers to Iran and Turkey. This includes water and electricity facilities and even school seats.  Afterwards, Talbani and Barzani started to ask for money to help and support the poor kurdish people. And they took the shares of Food-for-Oil program into their on pockets through fake companies and contracts.

People who do such things, are very likely to smuggle terrorism into Iraq for money. And also, having the whole country f*cked up would lead more investments into Kurdistan. An apartment in Sulaymaniya and and even Arbil now cost more than an apartment in Paris. The rents are very high and the living costs are going though the roof. And by the end of the day, a piece of everything goes into the pockets of the good old Talbani and Barzani.

If the kurdish people are willing to hold the silence for a long time, maybe it better for Iraq to let Kurdistan be an independent country of its own. 

Right after I write the title of this post, I recognized how wrong it is. Its not that everyone is above the law, its like there is no law at all. You can get killed for no reason and have the full faith that whoever killed you will not be punished for it whatsoever.

NY Times published an article a couple of days ago about the difficulties the justice department is facing in putting up a case against BlackWater for murdering "at least" 17 Iraqi in Nissour Square last September. This is only as good as slaughtering Shiites and joining the "Awakening" forces afterwards to become hero and a savior. And only as good as slaughtering the Sunnis and joining the Iraqi Security Forces afterwards and become a hero an a savior.

Its not only the lives of the 17 dead Iraqis we are talking about here. We are talking about setting an example. And this way, the example is put simply: kill the Iraqis as much as you can, no one will give a rat's ass..!!!

The US army are above the law. Blackwater are above the law. The criminals in the Iraqi government are above the law. The criminals in the Iraqi Parliament are above the law. Militias are above the law. Awakening forces are above the law. And basically every motherf***ing criminal on the Iraqi soil is above the law.

How many of the soldiers involved in Abu-Ghraib rapes and humiliations were actually thrown into jail?

How many of the Blackwater assassins was thrown in jail or even brought to trail?

How many stealing ministers or ex-ministers were brought to trail?

What happened to ex-minister of electricity Ayham Al-Samirrae after an arrest warren was issued for him? Oh let me answer that one for you. He was "helped" to travel outside Iraq.

What happened to the arrest warren of Muqtada Al-Sadr that was issued in 2004?

What happened in the "parliamentary" investigation conducted for the incident of finding guns and explosive in Adnan Al-Dulaimi's house in in his guards houses?

How on earth, at the end of 2007, the ministry of finance sends to the parliament the closures of the ministries spendings for 2004? Yes that is 2004. And by the way, this means that the accounts and auditing of 2005, 2006, and 2007 are not submitted yet.

How many Iraqi people are held in jails with no evidence, trail, or sometimes even without investigation?

I would really love to know if there is any law that is being applied in Iraq at all. I mean not even the traffic law are being applied for God's sake.

The nice thing about law in Iraq, is that every political party and basically every country who is involved in Iraq is pushing hard on the Iraqi parliament to pass legislations. What for people?? Its not going to be applied anyway. 

A good piece was published in the Economist few days ago. Although I don't with some points in that article, but its worth to read.

"IT IS not easy to be an Arab these days. If you are old, the place where you live is likely to have changed so much that little seems friendly and familiar. If you are young, years of rote learning in dreary state schools did not prepare you well for this new world. In your own country you have few rights. Travel abroad and they take you for a terrorist. Even your leaders don't count for much in the wider world. Some are big on money, others on bombast, but few are inspiring or visionary.

These are gross generalizations, of course. Huge differences persist among 300m-odd Arabic speakers and 22 countries of the Arab League. With oil prices touching record highs, some Arab economies are booming. The gulf between a Darfuri refugee and a Porsche-driving financier in Dubai is as great as between any two people on earth. Yet to travel through the Arab world right now is to experience a peculiar sameness of spirit. Particularly among people under 30, who make up the vast majority of Arabs, the mood is one of disgruntlement and doubt."

And here is the link to the rest of the article:

http://www.economist.com/world/africa/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=10499063

While having a discussion at 24Step blog, I managed to gather up some ideas in the form of definite steps to take Iraq out of the violence.

It sounds more like a dream to me than a true applicable agenda. Despite that, I would like to share these steps with you because I see it as a non-violent way out.

1. The rise of public awareness in Iraq about the importance of voting in a non-sectarian, non-tribal, objective way. This can occur through non-biased media, which is very rare.

2. Protests against the current electoral committee and demand its change with a one that is FULLY controlled and run by the UN. And the new committee should participate in the electoral education of people.

3. Cut-out all the bad guys off the Iraqi Police and Army. This can happen by appointing non-sectarian ministers and giving them full authority over their ministries. And a better solution would be the one I mentioned before.

I have a wild suggestion although most people won't like it and I would really like to see the Americans leave Iraq.
My suggestion is to hand the ministry of defense and the ministry of interior to the Americans. And the Americans should have secular consultants that run the whole show behind the curtains. Maybe six months would be enough to eliminate all the bad apples there. And add the right "Awakening" guys to the security forces in a balanced way.
I know its not going to happen. But I believe its a good way out. If this handover period is run in the right manner, we will not have the battle over power anymore.
Once the Iraqi forces are clean, there will be a real fight of all Iraqi people against terrorism, not a hidden war of sects. And this step would regain the trust of the public in the security forces. Afterwards, when a decision is made to disarm everyone but the government security forces, people would cooperate.

4. When a new non-sectarian government takes over (yeah sure), they should bring to court of justice each and every corrupted official since 2003 until now. And they should be punished with the law's maximum punishment for their crimes. This way, no government official would think that he's above the law.

5. Follow the law. It drives me crazy that the same government that passed many laws since they came in power are not abiding the very same laws. Many laws governing the financial and managerial aspects of the government are being violated everyday. The government, before the public, need to learn to abide the law.

6. Boycott ALL sectarian media. Each and every media mentioned that this person who got killed or kidnapped is Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Christian, or whatsoever need to be boycotted. This will lead to de-attach the hatred emotions related to a certain wrong doing to a certain sect. People need to understand that there are good people and bad people, and there is no such thing as a good sect, relegion or ethnic group and a bad one.

7. If the parliament is seriously honest to find a solution, they should call for an early elections within the next few months.

I have much more in my dream, but its just a dream after all. And nothing will really happen. 

It seems like the sectarian violence is not enough. So, a new war need to be started. During the last 48 hours, six explosive attacks targeted churches in Baghdad and Mosul. These attacks happened in the same time and in different shapes; bombed cars, road side bombs, and mortars.

Things just seem to be getting worse no matter how much the media brags about the "improvements" in the security situation. Al-Qaeda maniacs just can't let go. These attacks are aimed to drag Iraqis into the rock bottom of a civil war. With Al-Qaeda on one side, and the Shiite militias on the other, no way violence will come to a closure in Iraq.

Thank God no one died in the churches attacks,although few guards were wounded and parts of the churches were destroyed. Non-official reports say that the number of christians in Iraq degraded from 1.5 Million before 2003 to 750,000 in 2007. This is cause by all the "imrpovement" in the security. They just can not live in a calm country as Iraq, they had to go to more wild countries in Europe and all over the globe.

On another "improvement", the leader of Adhamiya Awakening Force was killed today. For a few days now, the situation in Adhamiya has been so edgy. Some clashes to place between the Awakening forces and the American and Iraqi Army a couple of days ago. Although Al-Qaeda is the number one suspect in this assassination, something smells fishy.

Some guys I know in Adhamiya said that there have been some inside disturbance in the Adhamiya awakening force. These disturbances were caused by some misuse of power done by some low level soldiers in the force. And this cause the discrepancies between the leaders of the force on who should be the big guy there. Of course all of this remains unclear. And I'd still point the accusation finger on Al-Qaeda, because the said they will kill the leaders of the awakening forces, maybe they have started.

Its kind of a funny fact that Al-Qaeda propaganda seem to be more accurate than the American and the Iraqi ones. Time after time we have heard Gen. Petraius, Jawad Al-Bolani, Abdul-Qader Al-Ubaidy, and the butt head talking about how Al-Qaeda is becoming weaker. Well guys, at least they did what they said they would do.