Nice Bombs

It's official. K and I purchased our tickets today. We hope to arrive in Amman, Jordan by Jan.27 and after spending some time with my father and my step-mother we will head out to Baghdad. I'm leaving the transportation up to my father and I hope all will go well. I just don't want to draw too much attention with our video and photo equipment.

But K and I are excited. At first when the prospect of me going alone was a reality we were a bit moody and emotional about the whole trip. But now, with K coming along we are optimistic and eager to get this project moving along.

24 years ago I left Basrah with no intention of ever returning. War can have that effect.

I am upset about some of the headlines and information that is coming from Iraq. Soldiers behaving badly. Contracts and decision made for the Iraqis without their consent. You remove a brutal dictator and you replace him with a fantasy of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Yes, Iraqis are grateful, but so what?

When were the Americans when Saddam gassed the Kurds? Or how about the chemical weapons he used on Iranians that the US helped by supplying him with satellite pictures of the Persian landscape.

Lets stop hallucinating. Americans were terrified over the attacks on 9-11 and had no idea what the hell was going on. They trusted the US government when it said it had credible evidence that Saddam was harboring weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them on the USA. Powell got up there with his charts and some distorted radio-messages which proved that Saddam was hiding WMD(?)
yeah, okay...
and the public in the USA still shaken up by 9-11 and terrified of those 'terrorists' went along with the lie.
and now?
Back in early 2003, when there were many anti-war demonstration going on it was really difficult for me to be completely against the US lead invasion into Iraq. I knew that the reasons, the WMD and the Al-Qaida links with Saddam, was a lie. I suspect most Arabs knew exactly what was going on.
But I was not against toppling Saddam and only the US can be audacious enough to do something like that.

Okay, enough complaining. Let us look forward to a better Iraq. The people in Iraq have to be involved in the political discussion that will lead to a democratic country with full rights for everyone.