Sunday, July 15, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
A Richard Engel Presentation
Here is a very informative presentation by Richard Engel, NBC Middle East Correspondent/Beirut Bureau Chief. In it, he describes the geopolitical situation responsible for much of the violence in the Middle East.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17722026/
I will update more on Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17722026/
I will update more on Tuesday.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Games in Washington and the Dangers of Withdrawal
American foreign policy is very relevant to events in the Middle East. As such, I will be commenting on developments in Washington politics and their effect on the Middle East. I will try not to be political in my commentary; but, rather judge politics in context of the situation at hand. Again, I am not an authority on any of these matters; I am only a concerned American Muslim. If you have any qualms about anything I say, please feel free to state them. I am always willing to learn from you.
The District has been playing games with the American people for the past few weeks. I think this is unfair to both the Iraqi people and the American troops. The Congress, controlled by Democrats, is trying to usurp the power that President Bush has amassed for the office of Chief Executive over the last 6 years.
We see this in powers removed from the Department of Justice. The Congress feels that the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has abused its powers by unduly firing attorneys based on political affiliation. Although I believe that this issue is a legitimate one for Congress to investigate, I will not elaborate because it does not directly affect the State of the Muslim Ummah.
We also see this in Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria. The Constitution gives the President the sole right to conduct affairs with foreign diplomats. However, during the past month, many elected officials have visited Syria, such as Republican Congressman Frank Wolf. This is not unusual because American officials often go abroad to learn more about foreign affairs. To me, Ms Pelosi's high-profile visit to Syria seems like an official visit by a head of state, which she is not. Ms. Pelosi claims that her visit to Syria was only to reinforce the President's policy. However, she went without the President's permission. I believe that her trip might have been more successful had she gone with the President's support. For example, Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the Democratic nomination to the Office of President, is in North Korea now (with the permission of President Bush) in order to negotiate the return of remains of US soldiers fighting during the Korean War. I hope that the United States does open negotiations with Syria and Iran, but Syria must discontinue its support of terrorism and Iran must allow more openness in its development of nuclear technology. Ms. Pelosi's visit can only be judged as successful if the United States is more open with Syria and Iran in the near future. Otherwise, it will be judged as an attempt to sabotage and embarrass the President.
The Congress has taken a recess without passing a war funding bill. This will have great consequences to the events in Iraq. I called Maryland Representative and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to express my concern over the war funding bill. I believe that this bill was a mistake for two reasons, which have been reiterated by President Bush today in his weekly radio address. First, the bill has too much pork, too many projects not concerned with the War in Iraq. The war is too important to be grouped with other spending items. It is unfair for Democratic lawmakers to group them in this way. It has been reported in many media outlets that the reason for these extra items was to "bribe" lawmakers to vote in favor of the war spending bill. Democratic leaders have denounced this claim, asserting that the bill appropriates money for general spending. Although I do not claim that the extra spending in the bill is unneeded, I believe that there should be a separate bill with spending for these extra items.
Second, the bill contains a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. Not withstanding the appropriateness of withdrawal, I believe it is unconstitutional for Congress to legislate a war. Even if Congress overturned the President's soon-to-be veto of the bill (which is unrealistic to imagine), I believe the President would be within his rights to question the constitutionality of the bill in the Supreme Court. (I also believe he would win, with Justice Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Stevens voting in favor of the President).
Only history can decide whether or not the War in Iraq is a mistake. I am still very insecure on the morality of this war, especially because of the havoc it has wrecked on the people of Iraq. Nonetheless, there has been some progress. Iraq has a Constitution, a functioning legislature and an independent judiciary. The American military and politicians overestimated the the effort it would take to restore security in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Instead of becoming a model of democracy and freedom, Iraq has become a haven for terrorism, much to the deterioration of the Iraqi people, and furthermore to Muslims around the world. I believe that this war has been bungled and mismanaged by the President. But I still don't believe that withdrawal is the best solution. The bill in Congress now creates an artificial and ambiguous date of withdrawal. Troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within the next few months (with a nonbinding date of March 2008), and sooner if certain deadlines of security are not met by the Iraqi government. Senator and candidate for the Republican nomination to the Presidency John McCain claimed that life in Iraq has gotten better. He later took back this statement, but still believes that the United States is on the right track in Iraq (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970430/) . Withdrawing from Iraq would create a vacuum in the region. Iran would move in, alerting Sunni nations bordering Iraq. There would be a Civil War. But maybe an all-out Civil War is inevitable and the US military is only delaying the process. I do not believe that this is the case. If the United States is able to restore security in the region, any Civil War will be thwarted. Shiite and Sunni extremists will slowly lose influence if they are prosecuted and incarcerated. I think that it is right for the United States to fix the problem it has created in the region, whether or not these problems were unintentionally created.
The District has been playing games with the American people for the past few weeks. I think this is unfair to both the Iraqi people and the American troops. The Congress, controlled by Democrats, is trying to usurp the power that President Bush has amassed for the office of Chief Executive over the last 6 years.
We see this in powers removed from the Department of Justice. The Congress feels that the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has abused its powers by unduly firing attorneys based on political affiliation. Although I believe that this issue is a legitimate one for Congress to investigate, I will not elaborate because it does not directly affect the State of the Muslim Ummah.
We also see this in Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria. The Constitution gives the President the sole right to conduct affairs with foreign diplomats. However, during the past month, many elected officials have visited Syria, such as Republican Congressman Frank Wolf. This is not unusual because American officials often go abroad to learn more about foreign affairs. To me, Ms Pelosi's high-profile visit to Syria seems like an official visit by a head of state, which she is not. Ms. Pelosi claims that her visit to Syria was only to reinforce the President's policy. However, she went without the President's permission. I believe that her trip might have been more successful had she gone with the President's support. For example, Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the Democratic nomination to the Office of President, is in North Korea now (with the permission of President Bush) in order to negotiate the return of remains of US soldiers fighting during the Korean War. I hope that the United States does open negotiations with Syria and Iran, but Syria must discontinue its support of terrorism and Iran must allow more openness in its development of nuclear technology. Ms. Pelosi's visit can only be judged as successful if the United States is more open with Syria and Iran in the near future. Otherwise, it will be judged as an attempt to sabotage and embarrass the President.
The Congress has taken a recess without passing a war funding bill. This will have great consequences to the events in Iraq. I called Maryland Representative and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to express my concern over the war funding bill. I believe that this bill was a mistake for two reasons, which have been reiterated by President Bush today in his weekly radio address. First, the bill has too much pork, too many projects not concerned with the War in Iraq. The war is too important to be grouped with other spending items. It is unfair for Democratic lawmakers to group them in this way. It has been reported in many media outlets that the reason for these extra items was to "bribe" lawmakers to vote in favor of the war spending bill. Democratic leaders have denounced this claim, asserting that the bill appropriates money for general spending. Although I do not claim that the extra spending in the bill is unneeded, I believe that there should be a separate bill with spending for these extra items.
Second, the bill contains a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. Not withstanding the appropriateness of withdrawal, I believe it is unconstitutional for Congress to legislate a war. Even if Congress overturned the President's soon-to-be veto of the bill (which is unrealistic to imagine), I believe the President would be within his rights to question the constitutionality of the bill in the Supreme Court. (I also believe he would win, with Justice Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Stevens voting in favor of the President).
Only history can decide whether or not the War in Iraq is a mistake. I am still very insecure on the morality of this war, especially because of the havoc it has wrecked on the people of Iraq. Nonetheless, there has been some progress. Iraq has a Constitution, a functioning legislature and an independent judiciary. The American military and politicians overestimated the the effort it would take to restore security in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Instead of becoming a model of democracy and freedom, Iraq has become a haven for terrorism, much to the deterioration of the Iraqi people, and furthermore to Muslims around the world. I believe that this war has been bungled and mismanaged by the President. But I still don't believe that withdrawal is the best solution. The bill in Congress now creates an artificial and ambiguous date of withdrawal. Troops will be withdrawn from Iraq within the next few months (with a nonbinding date of March 2008), and sooner if certain deadlines of security are not met by the Iraqi government. Senator and candidate for the Republican nomination to the Presidency John McCain claimed that life in Iraq has gotten better. He later took back this statement, but still believes that the United States is on the right track in Iraq (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970430/) . Withdrawing from Iraq would create a vacuum in the region. Iran would move in, alerting Sunni nations bordering Iraq. There would be a Civil War. But maybe an all-out Civil War is inevitable and the US military is only delaying the process. I do not believe that this is the case. If the United States is able to restore security in the region, any Civil War will be thwarted. Shiite and Sunni extremists will slowly lose influence if they are prosecuted and incarcerated. I think that it is right for the United States to fix the problem it has created in the region, whether or not these problems were unintentionally created.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Consternation and Contemplation
I find it sad that when I turn on the television or read an article, and learn of the bombings in Baghdad, I am almost immune to feelings of compassion or anger. These events have become so commonplace, and I have become too tolerant, too accepting of them. I started this blog to attempt to come to some sort of understanding or conclusion about the state of the Muslim Ummah. It is, to say the least, disheartening. I honestly do not understand the Sunni-Shiite tensions that are responsible for so much violence, despair, and sadness. These tensions are centuries old and I do not claim that they are unfounded. But I do hope that the wounds inflicted by these tensions are not so deep that we cannot find some path of reconciliation. And I do believe that the Prophet Muhammed (s.a.w) would not have wanted a split so wide that divided the Muslim Ummah. I read an article today that had a profound impact on me. It told stories of families whose lives have been torn apart by the war in Iraq. I want the violence to end; I want the Iraqi people to have security and prosperity; I want the Iraqi refugees to be able to return home; and if it is possible, I want there to be justice brought to those who have lost everything in this struggle. This may be too idealistic or too premature to envision, but I say it with the utmost sincerety. Please feel free to leave comments, positive or negative or anything else. I am always willing to learn from others. I will leave you with the article I read today:
Daily life in Baghdad often traumatic By BUSHRA JUHI and DEBORAH HASTINGS, Associated Press Writers
Fri Apr 6, 3:00 PM ET
In 2003, when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, a woman named Hamdiyah al-Dulaimi had three handsome sons. They had grown into good men with wives and families. They were the shining accomplishments of her life.
In hindsight, it was a much better life than she realized at the time. Most certainly better than it is now, four years after the fall of Baghdad.
On April 9, 2003, the people of the city cheered invading U.S. soldiers in the city square. Leaders of the coalition troops promised liberty, freedom and life without tyranny.
But Baghdad still has none of those things. And al-Dulaimi has no sons.
One day last spring, a dozen men in black uniforms knocked down her door with machine guns. They screamed "Filthy Sunnis!" and they handcuffed her sons: Haqqi, 39, Qais, 37, Ali, 31.
"Why? What did my boys do?" the mother cried. She got no answers. The dozen gunmen dragged their new prisoners across the floor, pummeling heads with their rifle butts.
Al-Dulaimi dropped to her knees, clinging to the ankles of a kidnapper. She begged, kissing his shoes. Then she bargained: "At least leave me one. Take the other two. Leave me one."
They beat her head with their gun stocks until she passed out. Then they took her sons.
The next day, their corpses were on the sidewalk. Haqqi's body was headless. The bodies of Qais and Ali had been mutilated; some parts were missing.
Like so many others, their grieving mother fled — to Syria, in her case.
She left behind deprivation and corruption, mayhem and madness; a city that is hemorrhaging many of its best and brightest, while many of those left behind are brutalized and traumatized.
Not withstanding Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s stroll through a city market last week — "Things are better," he insisted — Iraqis wonder: Can a place where men blow themselves up in street markets, cars implode at traffic lights and kidnappings occur in broad daylight ever recover?
There is a way out, say historians and sociologists. South Africa went on, after the horrors of apartheid, in large part because of reconciliation hearings headed by Nobel-prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who gathered victims and perpetrators in the 1990s and led them through extraordinary meetings of shared memories that led to forgiveness.
In the same way, Rwanda tried to reach beyond the machetes that hacked to death 800,000 Tutsis, putting the Hutus who wielded them in the same room with their victims' families.
Such methods take years, and nothing can be done until the fighting stops.
"It's one of those terrible situations where you are at first aghast that such things could happen," said Jack Goldstone, a sociologist at George Mason University in Virginia, who specializes in international conflict. "And then you realize that people are people and they've been doing this kind of thing forever and it's not the end of the world. People do go on."
But, "for any of this to occur, there has to be a settlement that provides security for the people of Iraq," he cautioned. "And we're a long way from that."
___
Gone missing are the simple things that feed body and soul: drinkable water that flows from a tap, electricity that stays on, movie theaters that open, booksellers with new books.
Also missing are an ever-growing number of doctors, professors and teachers — "the brain of Baghdad," as the Iraqis say.
There is no official record of the number of professionals who have fled. There are only anecdotes — an Iraqi doctor now living in Jordan who says 80 percent of his colleagues ran for their lives, based on what he saw at his hospital. An architect in Baghdad who must now work at home, who says 30 percent of her fellow designers are gone.
Dr. Haidr al-Maliki, a specialist in child psychology, is a guarded but compassionate man. For him, leaving Iraq is not an honorable option. "If I leave and all the other doctors leave, all the hospitals would be closed," he said. "We have to take care of our people. Death can come in any country."
It has already come calling for al-Maliki, but the visit was unsuccessful. A 16-year-old, "fine looking boy" walked into his clinic in 2005 and asked, "Are you Dr. Haidr?"
"Yes," said al-Maliki. With that, the teenager produced a pistol and opened fire. The doctor dove under his desk; he was shot twice, in the hand and shoulder.
He said the attack was part of an insurgent campaign against doctors. Six others were attacked in the city, and four died.
The doctor never returned to his clinic. Instead, he now works out of a hospital in central Baghdad. The flashbacks he suffers from the shooting are horrible, he says, but sometimes they help him empathize with his young patients, who are more traumatized than their parents.
They have no coping mechanisms, and no way to process what is happening around them.
There is the 16-year-old girl who was abducted in February outside her school in a Sunni neighborhood. She was beaten and kept in a room for nine days with about 20 other kidnapped girls. She was forced to sleep next to the corpse of another victim, a girl who was killed when her parents couldn't pay.
The parents of al-Maliki's patient paid $20,000 — the going rate in ransom negotiations — for her safe return. She is seriously damaged — terrified of darkness and the nightmares that come with sleep; hostile and aggressive when she is awake.
There are the sister and brother haunted by the recurring images of gunmen who invaded their house, tied up their parents, and beat them before their eyes. The children cannot function at school and now remain at home. Their fear has made it impossible for them to concentrate.
There is little al-Maliki can do except listen and offer words of calm comfort.
___
Faiza al-Arji last visited Baghdad in November. She stayed for a week. She had planned to stay longer, but her friends begged her to leave. It's too dangerous, they said. Maybe someone will shoot you. Maybe there will be a bomb in the road. Who knows where death comes from?
But she remembers a night when she and her friends had gathered for dinner. There was laughter at the table. Al-Arji could not join in. She couldn't even eat. She sat there, bewildered by the revelry, astonished that her friends could make light of such darkness.
"Faiza, relax," they told her. "It's OK to have fun. We have to go on. We cannot give up."
Al-Arji gave up on life in Baghdad long ago. She now lives in Jordan, which has become home to roughly 700,000 Iraq refugees — a staggering number for a small country whose population is 5.6 million. Another estimated 1 million are scattered in Syria, Lebanon and other countries.
Al-Arji is lucky. She and her husband have money and can afford to live in the expensive city of Amman. Both are civil engineers. They left in 2005, even though she vowed after the invasion that she would never leave.
She endured having guns shoved in her face and her car stolen. She reported it to the Iraqi police, who said, "My sister, I understand. But what can I do? The police are weak."
But when they kidnapped one of her three grown sons, that was the end. He was abducted by security guards at his university, who considered him a terrorist because "he had a beard on his face," said his mother. The kidnappers demanded $20,000. Her husband paid it. They fled.
Still, she maintains her ties to her homeland. She works with aid agencies, navigating a rabbit warren of bureaucracy and logistics, sending water filtration kits to hospitals in Iraq. She often hears horror stories from loved ones left behind.
An aunt was standing in her garden last year. A missile fell, and she was killed. A neighbor was standing outside his door when a roadside bomb erupted. He was killed. "I loved him like he was my son," al-Arji said.
Just the other day, she spoke to her sister in Baghdad. On the walls of the houses on her street, someone had scrawled, 'All Shia must leave.'
Her sister wasted no time. The family abandoned their house and most of their belongings. They are staying with friends in another neighborhood, hoping the invaders will someday leave.
"It is hell," al-Arji said. "It is a war zone. It is not a city anymore."
She cannot understand the insurgents. "Who are these people?" she cries on the phone from her home in Amman. "Who is funding them? How can they do this?"
They are simple questions with no answers, sensible thoughts for an insensible city.
"You can't walk in the street. You can't go to buy a book. Everything has been canceled. They have lost the meaning of life."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/baghdad_in_agony
Daily life in Baghdad often traumatic By BUSHRA JUHI and DEBORAH HASTINGS, Associated Press Writers
Fri Apr 6, 3:00 PM ET
In 2003, when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, a woman named Hamdiyah al-Dulaimi had three handsome sons. They had grown into good men with wives and families. They were the shining accomplishments of her life.
In hindsight, it was a much better life than she realized at the time. Most certainly better than it is now, four years after the fall of Baghdad.
On April 9, 2003, the people of the city cheered invading U.S. soldiers in the city square. Leaders of the coalition troops promised liberty, freedom and life without tyranny.
But Baghdad still has none of those things. And al-Dulaimi has no sons.
One day last spring, a dozen men in black uniforms knocked down her door with machine guns. They screamed "Filthy Sunnis!" and they handcuffed her sons: Haqqi, 39, Qais, 37, Ali, 31.
"Why? What did my boys do?" the mother cried. She got no answers. The dozen gunmen dragged their new prisoners across the floor, pummeling heads with their rifle butts.
Al-Dulaimi dropped to her knees, clinging to the ankles of a kidnapper. She begged, kissing his shoes. Then she bargained: "At least leave me one. Take the other two. Leave me one."
They beat her head with their gun stocks until she passed out. Then they took her sons.
The next day, their corpses were on the sidewalk. Haqqi's body was headless. The bodies of Qais and Ali had been mutilated; some parts were missing.
Like so many others, their grieving mother fled — to Syria, in her case.
She left behind deprivation and corruption, mayhem and madness; a city that is hemorrhaging many of its best and brightest, while many of those left behind are brutalized and traumatized.
Not withstanding Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s stroll through a city market last week — "Things are better," he insisted — Iraqis wonder: Can a place where men blow themselves up in street markets, cars implode at traffic lights and kidnappings occur in broad daylight ever recover?
There is a way out, say historians and sociologists. South Africa went on, after the horrors of apartheid, in large part because of reconciliation hearings headed by Nobel-prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who gathered victims and perpetrators in the 1990s and led them through extraordinary meetings of shared memories that led to forgiveness.
In the same way, Rwanda tried to reach beyond the machetes that hacked to death 800,000 Tutsis, putting the Hutus who wielded them in the same room with their victims' families.
Such methods take years, and nothing can be done until the fighting stops.
"It's one of those terrible situations where you are at first aghast that such things could happen," said Jack Goldstone, a sociologist at George Mason University in Virginia, who specializes in international conflict. "And then you realize that people are people and they've been doing this kind of thing forever and it's not the end of the world. People do go on."
But, "for any of this to occur, there has to be a settlement that provides security for the people of Iraq," he cautioned. "And we're a long way from that."
___
Gone missing are the simple things that feed body and soul: drinkable water that flows from a tap, electricity that stays on, movie theaters that open, booksellers with new books.
Also missing are an ever-growing number of doctors, professors and teachers — "the brain of Baghdad," as the Iraqis say.
There is no official record of the number of professionals who have fled. There are only anecdotes — an Iraqi doctor now living in Jordan who says 80 percent of his colleagues ran for their lives, based on what he saw at his hospital. An architect in Baghdad who must now work at home, who says 30 percent of her fellow designers are gone.
Dr. Haidr al-Maliki, a specialist in child psychology, is a guarded but compassionate man. For him, leaving Iraq is not an honorable option. "If I leave and all the other doctors leave, all the hospitals would be closed," he said. "We have to take care of our people. Death can come in any country."
It has already come calling for al-Maliki, but the visit was unsuccessful. A 16-year-old, "fine looking boy" walked into his clinic in 2005 and asked, "Are you Dr. Haidr?"
"Yes," said al-Maliki. With that, the teenager produced a pistol and opened fire. The doctor dove under his desk; he was shot twice, in the hand and shoulder.
He said the attack was part of an insurgent campaign against doctors. Six others were attacked in the city, and four died.
The doctor never returned to his clinic. Instead, he now works out of a hospital in central Baghdad. The flashbacks he suffers from the shooting are horrible, he says, but sometimes they help him empathize with his young patients, who are more traumatized than their parents.
They have no coping mechanisms, and no way to process what is happening around them.
There is the 16-year-old girl who was abducted in February outside her school in a Sunni neighborhood. She was beaten and kept in a room for nine days with about 20 other kidnapped girls. She was forced to sleep next to the corpse of another victim, a girl who was killed when her parents couldn't pay.
The parents of al-Maliki's patient paid $20,000 — the going rate in ransom negotiations — for her safe return. She is seriously damaged — terrified of darkness and the nightmares that come with sleep; hostile and aggressive when she is awake.
There are the sister and brother haunted by the recurring images of gunmen who invaded their house, tied up their parents, and beat them before their eyes. The children cannot function at school and now remain at home. Their fear has made it impossible for them to concentrate.
There is little al-Maliki can do except listen and offer words of calm comfort.
___
Faiza al-Arji last visited Baghdad in November. She stayed for a week. She had planned to stay longer, but her friends begged her to leave. It's too dangerous, they said. Maybe someone will shoot you. Maybe there will be a bomb in the road. Who knows where death comes from?
But she remembers a night when she and her friends had gathered for dinner. There was laughter at the table. Al-Arji could not join in. She couldn't even eat. She sat there, bewildered by the revelry, astonished that her friends could make light of such darkness.
"Faiza, relax," they told her. "It's OK to have fun. We have to go on. We cannot give up."
Al-Arji gave up on life in Baghdad long ago. She now lives in Jordan, which has become home to roughly 700,000 Iraq refugees — a staggering number for a small country whose population is 5.6 million. Another estimated 1 million are scattered in Syria, Lebanon and other countries.
Al-Arji is lucky. She and her husband have money and can afford to live in the expensive city of Amman. Both are civil engineers. They left in 2005, even though she vowed after the invasion that she would never leave.
She endured having guns shoved in her face and her car stolen. She reported it to the Iraqi police, who said, "My sister, I understand. But what can I do? The police are weak."
But when they kidnapped one of her three grown sons, that was the end. He was abducted by security guards at his university, who considered him a terrorist because "he had a beard on his face," said his mother. The kidnappers demanded $20,000. Her husband paid it. They fled.
Still, she maintains her ties to her homeland. She works with aid agencies, navigating a rabbit warren of bureaucracy and logistics, sending water filtration kits to hospitals in Iraq. She often hears horror stories from loved ones left behind.
An aunt was standing in her garden last year. A missile fell, and she was killed. A neighbor was standing outside his door when a roadside bomb erupted. He was killed. "I loved him like he was my son," al-Arji said.
Just the other day, she spoke to her sister in Baghdad. On the walls of the houses on her street, someone had scrawled, 'All Shia must leave.'
Her sister wasted no time. The family abandoned their house and most of their belongings. They are staying with friends in another neighborhood, hoping the invaders will someday leave.
"It is hell," al-Arji said. "It is a war zone. It is not a city anymore."
She cannot understand the insurgents. "Who are these people?" she cries on the phone from her home in Amman. "Who is funding them? How can they do this?"
They are simple questions with no answers, sensible thoughts for an insensible city.
"You can't walk in the street. You can't go to buy a book. Everything has been canceled. They have lost the meaning of life."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/baghdad_in_agony
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