No Replacement For Displacement

This has been a long time coming

There has been an Iraqi blog, Dear Raed, who is an Iraqi living in Baghdad. His name is Salam, not Raed who is the guy he communicates with via the blog (mainly because blogging is supposedly more reliable than e-mail). I worry about this guy a lot. Even though I am emphatically in favor of using any means necessary to remove Saddam, and give him a 9mm enema, that doesn't mean that my sentiment extends beyond Saddam and his Baathist minions. The average Iraqi in this war is not much different than that of the average Afghan a year and half ago: some poor schmuck trying to live as best as he can in a land controlled by people who have too many guns and too little respect for life or freedom. In his blog there are lots of little tidbits of life in pre-war Iraq. A trench dug here. Sandbags over there. This website blocked. These emails hacked by the US. I've come to the point when he doesn't post for a couple of days, I get very worried. For example, when you read the phrase:

Door bells are ringing have to go now.

on anyone else's blog, I pay it no mind. On his blog, that sentence gives me a chill.(He did show up later in the comments section of his site, to my relief). In any event, I wish him well, and hope he comes out of this OK.

Posted by John Bono at February 8, 2003 01:36 AM | TrackBack