Kurdistan Bloggers Union

"I'm a brainwashed individual who craves attention, I've kidnapped somebody and as soon as I discover what his nationality is I'll tell you what my reasons are"

This is exactly what all terrorist organizations message translate to.
While the rest of the world has reality TV to showcase their most desperate limelight-seeking manure, the ME has discovered that this is the shortest route to worldwide fame without doing jack. I mean c'mon who has heard of shows like superstar and miss lebanon outside the ME, no one. Terrorists on the other hand get much more airtime and are practically on every single global channel.

Like Reality TV they are just as generic, they also have a cult following & dim-witted groupies and make videos by the thousands.

Though I wonder how cheated that 'Islamic Army of Iraq' felt when they found out that France didn’t send an army to Iraq.

"3aweel you idiot, now what are we going to do with them, go wipe that foam of your chin and google france see what you can find"

"hmm cheese, stereotypes, amelie ah look says here they have a headscarf ban"

"sounds good to me, call up that jazeera fella and this time tell him to get that plain white on black background, none of that artsy flash effects"


I would seriously like to know when turbans became a substitute for brains, and why instead of spending years exploring theology we just need to put on some rags and suddenly change into purveyors of religion.

Of course for the next few days we'll get some cleric saying the usual "this is a religion of peace and doesn't accept these action etc..", I have to ask why are we telling the rest of the world this info isn't that targeting the wrong audience it would make more sense if they directed those speeches to the extremists for a change.

I made the Turkish zaman.com.tr webpage pop up to see what they have of more grudge against us and I was surprised by the headline that Sadr will get disarmed and sneak into the political race in Iraq.
so what were the crimes?
-challenged everyone, at the start the US appointed Iraqi Gove and US themselves(might be wrong at the latter one!)!
-made a horrible history
-He killed soldiers
-harmed people, religion, holy sites and more
-bla bla bla...more

what did he get?
-cleaned the allegations, I bet still the followers dont get it that it was all about HIS own interest!
-big support from some sides
-got known everywhere even globally!
-can challenge anyone anytime he likes..
-now he can call himeself someone at the level of sistani!
-oh surely more than what we (peshmarga) got from the US, oh well that is the natural way to deal with someone who is interested in trying arms and kill people!!THEY SPEAK ARMS!
-made people like me HATE HIM and some faces of Islam MORE AND MORE!

and who was the SuperMan to bring him to the peace path?
Grand Ayatolla Sistani?hmm well that is what the news says, but God(The one who doesnt belong neither to Muslims no the christians nor anyone in the world) knows who did this whole scenareo! look everyone (VIP ones) are safe and good, perhaps Sadr cut his hand while chopping cucumber to make salad or something!but NOT the Iraqi police, the bodies which were left at Muqtada's special court (court of what?).

what about the casualties? even if it was just ONE!
look, the whole world is concerned about the two FRENCH gentlemen!but when Iraqis are killed (including journalists just like the french) even God doesn't make the sky rain, HE even is silent! when 80000 barzanis during these days in 1980's were taken by saddam NO ONE SAID ANYTHING!!and later 182000 more Kurds and then 5000 with the gass attack on my town, still no one cried but Kurds!just because they are FRENCHE?
(I agreed with the explanation given by the Iraqi foootbal team coach refusing wearing black straps while playing Italy on the day of the execution of the Italian journalist,saying: tens are killed among Iraqis everyday, if we dont wear it for those, why should we wear it for occupiers ?and only a single man!)
Now if the world is unfair, well Sadr claims that Islam is fair and no one should get killed unfairly!so just like a killer he must be hedl responsible for the deaths!

I ask myself why am I making a big deal of this Muqtada thing? and a quick answer, from a patriotic Kurdish view is: we must know who exactly we have around us!
we must repeat the verse which says:
Dari Azadi baxwen awnadree qat barnagree.....
"unless the tree of freedom is watered with blood it never gives fruit, independence without struglle never prevails!" if we really want to be a nation, to have our flag, to have a country called United Kurdistan, we must understand that only power can get us up there!If we are not fully prepared for people like Muqtada, Sistani, Khamenaii, Asad and Erdogan we will be living anoter decade waiting for an angel or a Balfore treaty to buil us a country!

20 July 2004 - The Australian - By Nicolas Rothwell

In the busy, well-defended capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the verdict is unanimous: the days of a unified Iraq are over, and the Kurdish people should have their own, independent state.
The intensity of this popular desire, in the streets and souks of Suleimaniyah, is somewhat startling, given the subtle enthusiasm with which Kurdish political leaders have embraced their autonomy in the new Iraqi state crafted by the US-led coalition
(...read all...)

This is an idea which is supported by many Kurds around the globe and strongly supported by our fellow people inside south Kurdistan (North Iraq) for the up coming Iraqi and Kurdistan parliamentary election.
This idea is superb for the Iraqi election and by one single word I say: GREAT, it shows the world that we are united to win our cause doing our best for our peopl!
However for the Kurdistan election there are many positive sides of this idea and I actually agreed with most of them,e.g:
stronger kurdish unity
no chance of conflicts
no possiblity of any future clashs between them
a closer interaction between the two and ending the years of disagreement
and so on,
but hold on what does this tell you? is this "agree on disagreement?" I dont think so, I would say this is idea has many other side-effects which I dont know them all, but I can give some clarifications:
The normal procedure would be rally for your party and show the people that you are the best, participate in the presidential race and win the election, the other or others would then be in the opposition which would always help the goverment to make better decisions!
The other very important thing is the small parties then will be very reluctant to participate actively in the election as they would say: well we definitely know that they (PUK KDP) will secure 3/5 of the seats, why bother then? and this idea might tell them inside that "OK we unify these to hilarious illegitimate Governments and we will be winning the election so relax!" and this will make them feel they are on the top and no need to work harder or do any more reforms!
The true agree on disagreement is a aparliament with a proper rulers and oppositions, every one knows it is difficult but if we really mean it that is the best for the nation and for the sake of justice (i dont say democracy because they call Turkey democracy and we know what rubbish it is!)
this way we can say:"we are united against others but we can go our ways working for our nation's best interests!"
i might be wrong!

At least I am not the only one who thinks the whole najaf thing was a farce. 2 weeks of pointless bloodshed, even more pointless peace missions and bile-worthy amount of news coverage ended by a phone call from a bearded man with a heart problem.

And by end we mean, sadr walking away free, his militia handing over their malufnctioning wepaons while still holding on to the ones that actually work and another brave italian, Enzo Baldini (may you rest in peace) murdured.

Yet everbody news-wise seems to think that this is perfectly normal if not a success

Large amounts of evidence pointing towards Iranian fighters involved and tv pictures showing weapons made in Iran hardly makes a sound while Sistani arriving in his pimp mobile was covered everywhere. With all that build-up I was seriously expecting him to come out of his car with his cloak flyingin the air (like say...batman maybe) and telling sadr' Let my people go'. Instead he just goes home and makes a phone call...talk about anti-climax. I dont understand iran though are these ppl seriously in need of another 8 year war to get some sense knocked into them or what.

Though falloujah was slighty quiet till the last few days, ever notice how only one of those 2 monsters (muqty and zarqawi) rear their ugly head at a time. Never at the same time. I can almost imagine the conversation from zarqawi's end ' Listen muqty, can u take over from here, have some business back home, the wife u see, nagging that I'm a workaholic and not spending enough time with the kids, be back when school starts'

A family we know have recently returned from holiday so we were invited to lunch at their place, and the topic of conversation for most of the day was as u can guess Muqty , Iran ,najaf etc... Of course most of the names involved were preceeded with some swear word...like sagbab (son of a dog.. like SOB but directed at the father) ,though muqty's case its not his father fault really but sagbab for the sake of the conversation , and how the entire Iraq situation was a fsha (joke).
Then the conversation would change to how badly wahabbism has effected Iraq, like ppl were saying ever remember ppl covered head to toe in black when we were growing up? and how badly its spoiling the name of islam of course the reply to that would 'why does islam's name needed spoiling?' from the token atheist who's always present at these conversations. Then the women would reply saying ' no this isn't the islam we knew, where has this new form come from' etc... and how thankfully, for the time being, all these things were happening far away from kurdistan.
For about an hour or 2 there's no mention of any iraq-related news.. instead some random topics that range from which model of transport is easiest to sleep in (plane, ship or train in case you are interested) to these new restaurants that have opened in kurdistan (apparently there's some really expensive turkish one that has opened after that iranian restaurant) and an odd story thrown in about some loony relative. Then somebody would notice the scroll text on tv saying that police have 10-20 charred corpses in Muqty's courthouse and we would return back to the sagbab muqty and sagbab iranian conversation.

Though seriously how the hell did they manage to let him free twice. What kind of sick amnesty is this and what exactly made everyone change their stance from 'destroy the mehdi army' to 'you can have everything you want'. Though at the same time thinking... are these the type of ppl the coalition were planning to sell the kurds out for, how much of Amsterdam's finest could they have possibly been on to have made such a deal.

Language extends not only to electrics, this machine which I am using right now, but also to the out of control states of human being. There is a little joke saying (translation of jokes doesnt make much sense but i will come to my point):
"a mad guy climbs up to an electric pole (in our countries like light poles which holds electricity cables) and threatens the crowd below him that he will commit suicide!The crowd tries everything they can, they offer him everything they think of but he still refuses them, suddenly another crazy person passes by and says: what is up? they say to him'do u even understand, it is a mad one like u who says he will throw himself down' the mad guy says, I can get him down!
so they say go ahead u crazy! he gets a razor blade and tells the one on the pole...if u dont come down I will cut this pole you crazy b**'showing him the razor'... the mad man says HOLD ON I AM COMING DOWN...!!
when he comes down the crowd asks him: why u didnt listen to us but you came down when he threatened you with that little razor?? he replies: (HE IS MAD HE WOULD DO IT I KNOW HIM) "
with all my respects I am not being rude to his honour "Mr Sistani" by mentioning that joke,but I don't know what to say about this idea: if he is such a great man how come a stupid person like Al-Sadr listened to him and this huge conflict will be over by an intervention of a sick cleric? while they might have not even met (according to bbc)
I am now thinking about somthing else "are all these horrible events then a kind of a planned scenario by some parties?oh God forbid, I hope they are not encouraging peole to get killed for some stupid religious tactic!"
Another side of this language barrier is, lets say if this will really happen and what we hear is what is really happening on the ground then I was telling myself: Does Bush needs a stronger message that IRAQIS can understand IRAQIS and when in crisis IRANIANS hardly? but NEVER american Tanks and Military, REMEMBER Mr Bush the man you most hated and feard is now cleaning his cell YOU are now fighting the Iraqis!!!may be Saddam (given being a good friend of your defence secretary) was able to speak your language but THE PEOPLE DO NOT!!!

This is one of the best articles I’ve read yet. It’s from Sharq Alawsat a liberal Arabic newspaper, who generally have really good Arabic writers and thinkers. The author of this article is Adnan Hussein ,an Iraq Arab, and judging from the name probably Shia’a as well. But he expresses so well what most Kurds are thinking. To those who can read Arabic the article is available here. Below is my attempt at translating it. At least there was some use for taking a class I despised for 10 years.
I like the way he refers to nationalists (Qawmi) as Qawmachis.. nice Iraqi touch.


The Iraq of Nationalistss (Qawmachis) and Fundamentalists.
By Adnan Hussein

An aide to Masoud Barzani threatened to burn down the oil wells in northern iraq if the kurds didn’t get a federal state. While an aide to Jalal Talabani threatened bloodshed if his leaders life was threatened.

This of course didn’t happen last week or the week before, in fact if never
occured. Even since the first kurdish revolution in the history of modern Iraq
no kurdish leader has threatened burning iraq’s oil fields ,which were mostly in kurdish lands and laboured by kurds, nor has any Kurdish leader threatened to take one arab iraq life even after genocide by chemical weapons in their own land or murder and the mass graves in the deserts of western iraq. The kurds could have burned down all the oil wells and pipes in the north and then proceeded down to the south, they could have also burned factories and government agencies, and
cities as well, the could have also drowned iraq in a pool of blood the way Saddam did for example.
Iraqi kurds have never done that and in fact have never threatened to do so and that is a source of great pride to them.

However, the person who did threaten to burn the oil wells in the south was an aide
to the arabic(!) islamic (!) leader muqtada sadr and the people who confessed to doing it were his followers. And the person that threatened to dorown iraq into a pool of blood was another aide to the the arabic(!) islamic (!) leader.

Just imagine if these threats came from the aides of Barazani and Talabani. What would have the reactions of the nationalist(qawmachi) and fundamentalist arabs then
They would have shaken the earth, filled inner and outer space with screams and shouts of incitement against the kurds and the kurdish nationality. They would have mixed outrageous lies with doses of truth to prove that the kurdish race is the worse race to walk this earth. And any of the current losses and disasters that the arab world faces would be the result of kurds 'co-conspiring' with zionist, imperialists etc... and not the result of dangerous policies and fake nationalist
and fundamentalist beliefs

These nationalist (qawmachee) fundementalists didn't feel any anger while they
were hearing and watching muqtada sadr's aides threaten to blow up oilfields, the main resource of the iraqi people, and to transform iraq into a pool of blood. As if the iraqi ppl suddenly weren't arabs or muslims or iraq wasn't a muslim or arabic country -as they liked to call it as long as the threats, or in fact
the actions of murder, damage and destruction came from their own mould : saddam hussein before and muqtada sadr now.

One of the few times I ever talk about football and it just happened to be before an important match. Not only do they lose but they manage to miss most of the chances they get.
I kinda feel responsible now. Why Why Why. Though there's still a chance they may win a bronze, actually while they are at it can they also manage to wire emad muhammeds mouth shut, it doesn't matter if he scored that goal last time let him play without speaking. He never seems to say anyhting right everytime they interview him.
My short-lived interest in football was ok while it lasted.

The last time Iraq played, a lot of ppl got pissed off or annoyed. I mean the SI article for a start. Iraq being or even managing to get to the Olympics hardly took up any newsspace anywhere yet a guy from najaf and another from falloujah saying 'I hate america' became the third most important world news article that day.

If you read the comments on Kurdo's post that day, you would notice that most kurds were annoyed with the fact that the kurdish role was underplayed (i.e referring to the team an arabic team, no flags etc.) I personally would have liked to see hawar speak kurdish a little, but hey we can't have it all. So anyway at the end we reach this conclusion (and below is the photo that illustrates it)

How much more kurdishness do you need on the field when hawar is playing, I mean look at 2 unmistakable signs.. the nose and the head.

I mean u have to admire the size of that schnoz.. its not a nose anymore, it puts Gérard Depardieu to shame, this schnoz can provide enough shade for the rest of the team.

The head , I admit, isn't the standard kurdish flat head, it has a small curve (which sticks out a lot in this photo) but lets say the environment has had a role in changing its form. Point is its still the flattest one on the pitch.
Who needs a flag anymore.
Best of luck for the match today. 

Outrageous!!
I am reading from peyamner that Turkish intelligence (MIT) have provoked the turmkmen who are agents for the Turkish goverment to demonstrate against the return of the real people of Kirkuk, the Kurds who were expelled from the city by the Prisoner former Arab Dictator Saddam.

I had talked about our main Enemy and I promised I would talk about how we should treat a country like Turkey. This news and the previous article by a Hasib on the same site made me write this quick post, in which he (hasib) in a very chic way assimilates the visit by al-yawar to Turkey like a football game in which Iraq wins Turkey 4-0 politically. I now wonder if Iraq is really doing everything it can to protect its people "this time I mean Kurds". Ok I accept that there is fighting goin on in Najaf but the country has many capable people to investigate who are the Turkman Front? hwo they get support? how they run TERT stations in Kirkuk and Hawleer?
As usual we [kurds] we dont expect the goverment to protect us [in deed praying not to be oppresed by it!] so why the Kurdistan regional goverment is still silent?
Isn't TF [Turkman Front] doing enough trouble in and outside KRG area to be banned just like Ansar-al-Islam or are we implying the old kurdish saying, that we only fight our kinsmen (hin ba xalloi xoi fera!)
Isnt it time to bann TF from action, while they rally for a Turkman state in no where? while they are working everythign they can to be agianst the Kurds but KRG has given them everything they need to be in a much better situation than the Kurds in both Hawleer and Kirkuk?
I was educated in a Turkish school in Hawleer and I know [can provide proof] that they [the school, now 4 of them] together with TF they work together with MIT against the Kurds fullstop!in one of the schools they had told a student not to stick Kurdistan flag on his notebook as that is involving in politics, but the picture of the Cursed Turkish Leader (my personal enemy) Ataturk together with the Turkish flag was Ok to be even in the teachers bedrooms (i saw it, and I asked why, he said he is proud of it!)
I know what is wrong with us, we dont love each other, we have too many problems between each other to spare time to deal with traitors and agents who are working right in the heart of our land to deprive us from our basic rights!I just saw the Turkish program (Haftada bir) on Kurdsat and I HAVE NO IDEA WHOM THEY WANT TO TALK TO IN TURKISH?! on a chanel called KurdSAT or KurdistanTV while the Turks do not allow Leylazana to say hello in kurdish to the people who did everything to get her and her friends out of the damn Turkish jails!
Oh well, in 1997 one of our leaders went on LBC saying that he wishes one of those Turkish schools to be opened in each Kurdish village!!!! gues what? the next day the manager came to us saying: "hey guys, you shut up now, look what your leaders says about us!"
Turkmen Front is an agent for MIT and must be banned as it is a spy organisation nothing else, together witht the school that I atttended "Private Ishik College" and the 3 other schools!

Dilnareen(despite the last mail I write this little post) our leaders don't watch films I suppose (but they watch the Kurdish song contest programs for sure!!), but I will still follow your post!

Ok guys, you all laugh at me but only last night I had the chance to watch Fahrenheit 911 (they won't distribute it anymore!), by every word I heard from that documentary I was TOTALLY SHOCKED!!!!!
Michael recieved 6000 emails aday and still counting!! (just read some of them)
I heard Michael saying stuff which I never thought I would hear, forget about the company wars and the presendetial versus money equations in the US which I dont expect myself to even understand it for the next 3 years at least, may be never btw, and forget about the Saudi-Binladen things going on there, what was very touching for me was:
Zalmai Khaleelzad, former adviser of unocol, the company which ..... watch the film to learn more.
To be honest I am afraid to be questioned by one of the secret services for this just like the retired american guy at gym when he was accused of talking about politics by CIA.
now what I really really wonder is, do our leaders, and I mean Kurdish leaders know that Zalmai Khaleelzad the good guy who was in Iraq to get our leaders together had such a past? or do they really know that Saudi's are one of the major pawns in the middle-east game? or have they watched this evening's bbc alike programs ever? "oh yes they have!"
and if "they" know, what on earth makes them remain deaf and dumb? oh no, they are not deaf and dumb, they try to make the 1.7M signature owners dumb and deaf by ATTACHING US TO THE HORRIBLE DESTINY OF US 'iraq; never my country!'
God damn money, God damn oil...pump out the oil from Kirkuk and give it back to us!

I've just added a few more photolinks to the sidebar, one was from the Beth Hatefutsoth Exhibition sent by anonymous (ppl seriously get handles). And 2 from Medya (his current and previous site), we could have an aspiring photographer here they are really beautiful photos.

Finally got round to editing this one, I had no idea I hated that first movie so much. It’s very off topic but there wasn’t anything else to talk about, I think everyone’s fed up with the muqty-government see-saw. Btw tough luck Iraq at the Olympics, but we were qualified to the second round anyway plus they were using their second team (i.e without the key players) so it wasn’t too bad

Ok back on topic, there are a lot of movies that fall under that criteria, and I as connoisseur of tv/movie garbage can verify that. Once you've been faced with dialogue like 'don’t be an uncommon denominator’ there's really not much lower u can go. Even more recently I watched ‘dirty dancing havana nights’ if that wasn’t bad enough this movie even gave a cameo appearance to Patrick Swayze (the scariest man in the 80s to ever don a mullet)

I think we should have narrowed it down to ‘racist movies that shouldn't have been made' meaning that these movies weren’t content with just being eye compost.. no they also had to go the extra mile and add a racist factor to it

Not without my #$%^& daughter

What is it with sally field, why is it that every character she plays gives me a desire to inflict as much pain on her as possible. Even when she does guest stints like on ER , she still manages to annoy the hell out of me. The occasional ‘nice’ character she plays still makes me think c’mon who u fooling ure pure evil.
The only reason I watched this movie was cos’ we went to iran (to get to iraq) a long time ago and I thought maybe it would show things we’ve seen like the speed of how women throw their abayas and scarves off when they’re anywhere near home or the path between iran and iraq, instead I was faced with something I definitely wasn’t prepared for. Brief description of the movie: it's based on a ‘true’ story of an American woman who married a caring sensitive Iranian man who turns apeshit when they return to iran. Basically this is all u need to know and learn from the movie cos’ ure reminded of it every second, ok that and her silly daughter mehtob (the only characters name I remember) who he wants to keep in iran.
Note to director if u want a sympathetic character in the movie don’t use sally field. Anyway so their first scene in tehran involves women in abaya(black dress covering heads to foot) jumping out of tanks aiming klashinkovs at her because either her or her daughters headscarf falls off, and I’m thinking whoa wait a minute, when I went to iran they made me wear a headscarf (oh and a long jacket.. this in july mind u ) I was only about 8, they even had to add an extra photo in the passport of me in a headscarf (actually I kept that photo... I look so lost in it) anyway i didn’t know how to wear it cos it kept slipping off but at no point did ninja women fly out of tanks aiming to kill me cos' of it. Anyway I let that slip, still watched it but it just got more offending. Iran has suddenly all turned to sand (no green at all anywhere), Iranians don’t own furniture, Iranians mindlessly put more clothes on when they enter the house, all Iranians are evil oh wait except that one sympathetic character but she gets the crap beaten out of her, in case we forgot the ‘plot’ of the movie. If that wasn’t traumatic enough add to it sally fields incessant whining throughout the whole movie, which makes u wish she doesn’t get her daughter at the end. You even find yourself giving the husband pointers on where to hit her best when he's finally had enough of her and slaps her around (in case anyone starts complaining I do not support domestic abuse just domestic abuse against sally field).Anyway she finally does manage to escape and tries getting smuggled across the iran-iraq border with her daughter. At this point I was expecting the Nazi-esque checkpoint guards but no sign of them, instead we do get instead is a cameo by a kurd, a smuggler how original. And he doesn’t take her by car no no no by donkey. Now to get from Tehran to lets say diyarbakir in turkey, it would take a plane ride and a 20 hour car journey. But no superwoman here somehow manages to get their ON HER DONKEY with her smuggler almost overnight. Actually hold on, i think she does the rest on foot cos the kurdish smuggler ended up being a rapist as well (could we be any more lovable)add that to the fact that the 'kurdish areas' are again sand colored few mountains thrown in and no cities, at this point I'm thinking ok missy not only do I hope u lose ure daughter I also wish u lose her in such a hilarious way that no one sympathizes with u, like that donkey kicking her off a cliff or something.
The movie abruptly ends with her reaching the American embassy in turkey and watching the American flag waving in free air of turkey.

Midnight express:

A movie about turkey big whoop, ok this I didn’t watch fully, I had enough sense to switch the channel.
I mean u seriously expect us to sympathize with a guy who gets caught with drugs in turkey. Seriously are u mentally incompetent to go to a country that has 0 human rights tolerance and go indulge in drugs. You deserve all ure going to get just for sheer stupidity. And then we’re faced with high, yet open hearted, American faces unjust harsh sadistic turks and defies the odds. Click, switch off, I’d rather watch myself get gutted.

In case anyones asking did I as a kurd enjoy the demoniation of turks in that movie, let put it this way , only when headlines like this crop up

Generic anti-arab movies:
These movies would have made a little more sense if they were made after 9/11 or the iraq war as a lame attempt to get back at them , but these movies have been going on a long as there has been hollywood . I must say it is nice that Arabic language in these movies has moved on since ‘khalsha balasha flatasha’ and putting actual Arabic words in it. Also the throwing in on non-arabs (everything from indian to mexican) as arabs speaking a variety of languages, because either no one will notice and second they all look the same anyway.

You can think of these movies as lessons in how to dehumanise a race, just make everyone hairy (including women), change every feature to sand, throw away any form of civilization including housing (as everyone lives in tents anyway), use bad camera lighting when showing areas of that country (actually i think they did the same thing with mexico in traffic), make them eat weird types of food like camel eyeballs and throw in dialog like 'ill give u my daughter for 3 camels' at random times during the script or starting sentences with "EEEEE AAAAH KULULULU" , and voila a middle eastern masterpiece

I think 3 kings took it a step up, it was more along the lines of 'yes u are animals, but look we sympathise with u aren't we great' of course in this movie we even heard morrocan, jordanian and a little fus7a (ancient arabic) accents being spoken. The only 2 iraqis in that movie were 2 brothers who used to be in 'Ifta7 ya simsim' (arabic sesame street of the late 70's 80's).
But its funny now that we have arabs that are coming close to the ones portrayed in the movies, all hollywod movies are trying to show a humane politically correct version or arabs.


Tom and jerry:

As if there wasn’t enough propaganda on tv, we have this. Now I know this isn't movie and u may wonder why i included this. I'll tell u. This concoction represents all that is evil. I detested this cartoon as a kid and yet I still watched it, I think I’ve seen every single episode and not only once probably millions of times. Parents love it, the entire older generation i know would go as far as saying it’s the best cartoon ever made. We had it on video and this is how we spent most of the summer mornings as kid when there was nothing to do. It never occurred to me to switch it off…. Apparently I like pain, I mean even now when I see it on tv I would stop a bit to look at it, its like those abusive relationships where ppl still like their tormentors. The main thing I hated was jerry , that 'cute' little rodent that got away with everything cos he was so lovable. Yes I think the world is screwed because tv shows like this make ppl think you can get away with anything as long as you are cute, yes solely because of tom and jerry, I mean tom wasn’t exactly bright but jerry was a satans right hand. Damn u jerry, one day ill go sue MGM on behalf of all the children that were contaminated by this dirt.


I'm like a magnet to these movies.
In case u were wondering what the worst movie I ever watched was… johnny mnemonic (no comment) and boom (some Indian movie whose motto was the fashion world meets the underworld), a movie so bad my eyes were stinging at the end.


( Read More...)

Guess I was being too optimistic yesterday, this new Iraq is EXACTLY like the old Iraq.
Remember when I mentioned the Head of Najaf’s IP Ghaleb al-Jazaeri and how he spoke so courageously against muqtada and called him what he is…. A CRIMINAL. During that press conference he even said that he knew he has automatically made himself and his family targets but he was going to speak anyway..Well guess what happened, his father got tortured and kidnapped, his brother got tortured and 40 of his police force got murdered some through beheading

This was mentioned on Iraqiya tv and guess what it’s hardly mentioned anywhere else yes muqty’s fake sprained wrist is more important in all the world’s eyes than this brave mans ordeal.

What message is being conveyed here that certain people can rob, murder and violate you while you and you should keep your mouth shut, I can’t believe that there is not one reporter or one of those fatwa machine clerics with a shred of human decency to tell the world what’s going on in Najaf, this is exactly like how Saddams Iraq was to the world in the 70s and 80s. I mean seriously till when is everybody just going to side with whomever is stronger?
This man has shown more guts than all those countries, corporations, media and religious authorities put together.
To all these whiners that go on about why don't Iraqis stand up to these criminals, well this should show you exactly why. NO ONE will support us if we do. Instead criminals who do this get rewarded heavily and even manage to get a peace mission
Welcome to the old Iraq, good ppl who speak the truth get tortured and murdered while criminals get rewarded, this hairy obese pig in cleric garments get support and sympathy all across the world while this man gets nothing, not even sympathy. Another courageous casualty of war whose name no one will even remember.


UPDATE:

Correction, there are people concerned the story is also mentioned here in jeff's blog

UPDATE 2:
Just watched Sharqiya they inteviewed Al-Jazaeri again, this time from his home and he was saying 'my fathers over 80 years old how could they humiliate him like that' and that they haven't done anything wrong it was the sadr militia who started the chaos by attacking and killing IP's
In other news, muqty has refused to meet with the peace delegation, i hope that slap in the face is strong enough for some people to wake up.

Yes I know that sounds lame, but it makes more sense than saying there are people out there who enjoy watching Iraqis die. I mean look at it no matter who is in charge, Iraqis suffer. Ok lets look at modern Iraq for example, ever since its borders were carved out 80 years ago, Iraqis have been dying. After Saddam was thrown out everyone thought we have put an end to this dark area of our history. But there are those out there who want to make sure that this doesn't happen. It's always the innocent that pay for this, for example in the past few weeks I've heard of 2 funerals related to people we know. There was also the case of Zeyad from healing Iraq's cousin a while back and Babylonia from the yahoo message boards who occasionally posts here. Here's a short summary of his posts

'In Basrah, few thieves broke into a close friend's house, faced with a bunch of morons armed with AK47s he allowed them to take whatever they want, until they came to his daughters, he stood to protect his daughters... and boom, they shot him dead in the head.
Then they went and raped all his three teenage daughters.
Now we have a situation of three raped teenage girls with an unemployed mother. '

'In 30+ years of Saddam rule I lost two uncles and a cousin, but 1.5 year of Bush, I lost three friends, 3 raped girls and an improsned cousin (who was later released after they learned he was innocent).'

I have been reading babylonia's comments for a while now and I know for sure that he isn't some cleric supporter (or even into religion really) and he's extremly anti-saddam ,in fact he took part of the Shiite uprising in 91' that was crushed by saddam and has lost family there.

So what is it with Iraq, what has happened there? Think of it most Iraqis now have either lost family during saddam's regime, the iran-iraq war, the first gulf war, the sanctions, the second gulf war or the aftermath. And there are a lot of people out there who have lost family in all six cases.
When we were growing up our parents wouldn't tell us about death and torture but we used to eavesdrop on their conversations with relatives and friends, so there all types of horrible stories regarding what happened in Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq under Saddam, torture chambers, families who had to beg for the remains of their loved ones to bury them or some who weren't allowed to pray over the dead (because Islam wasn’t for dogs)
When we visited Kurdistan in the early 90s, it used to be really eerie going out at night because there were posters and monuments everywhere for people who executed under saddam and the reasons why, imagine the situation you are a kid the electricity's out and u walk out these are things u see, no need for ghost stories then.
For example we would see a picture of an old woman who was executed because her sons were peshmerga or a hospital will have a picture memorial for a doctor who helped the peshmerga. There was a time when almost everyone that was mentioned was followed 'may he rest in peace' or 'pity how he died' after a while it was a joke, we would just wait for a new name and the appropriate 'method of death' attached to it.
The worst one had to be when looking through a photo album and there was this old photo of a young couple with their son (who was around 4 or 5 yrs old) and being told that they were killed in the Anfal operation after they returned from Europe, believe me there is nothing scarier and more heartbreaking than seeing a picture of a happy family smiling at you then have someone tell u they were all butchered.
I mean Iraq was so messed up beyond repair that it looks almost hopeless to work out, I mean if Saddam stayed in power this would have gone on for at least a century, everyone over there has already become numb to what’s right and what’s wrong and Iraqis would have kept dying under the banner of arabic glory. That is why a lot of Iraqis supported the military intervention but my God what followed, a mixture of some arrogant planning and crap media have destroyed so many lives. Iraqis still live in fear (this time from the unknown), the countries that were benefiting from saddam are still cashing in on our tragedy, saddam is still a hero, and of course Kurds are still considered negligible and have a chance of getting kicked out whenever clerics or turkey starts wetting themselves. I don't even know who is to blame, should it be the coalition because it’s such a 'popular' thing to do and who we know if leave would lead to a large-scale slaughter, and a small hint guess who'll be the first to go.
Please who is going to help us then, those 'no to occupation' sheeple with their crocodile tears, have they done anything to help Iraq apart from screaming 'brave resistance', 'puppet' or 'western imperialism'. You know which ones I mean because I know that there are good intentioned people out there but they have been marginalized by others who have used the peace movement as a stage for terrorism and misery.
The amount of money spent on demonstrations (by activists) and conferences (by 'caring' countries) could have been used to re-build schools, hospitals trust funds or at east some good balanced coverage on the minor improvements happening in Iraq. Even the damn red cross are more concerned with saddam’s rectum than the situation of the rest of Iraq combined.
I mean the strongest supporters I saw in the beginning of the war are all mute now. Ok so at least the next generation may hopefully live freely but try telling that to someone who has lost family in the past year and a half, to them the future doesn't matter if their present has been shattered.
The media doesn't give a damn about Iraqi deaths not related to the coalition, while they still support criminals like sadr and those falloujah animals.
Yes the coalition share a great deal of responsibility for this chaos (i.e. not depending on Iraqis for intelligence at the beginning or the loose border control) but they don't have a monopoly on it and they are not the ones going about with the sole aim of killing as many Iraqis as possible and we definitely need them to stop this on-going insurgency.
I hope this doesn't become the old Iraq, where murderers get glorified and treated above the law and innocents continue dying without anyone giving a damn.
The chief najafi IP Ghaleb as Jazaeri, who btw deserves a cult following since he's the only one in Iraq who has openly spoken out against sadr(explained more in detail under Iraq the model's aug 9 post), said it best in his press conference last week saying why hasn’t anyone mentioned the prisons Sadr has to torture ppl ,or the women who come to his office begging him to do something to stop their property and themselves being violated or the 200 odd people sadr and his militia have killed. And I’m thinking exactly why is it only when sadr sprains his wrist (ya rite, wonder from what if it is true) that we get these bleeding heart activists.

Every good news that comes out of Iraq is accompanied by hundreds of bad ones. And most are hitting closer to home, everyone’s a target. So I am amazed and relieved when I hear people in Iraq and out there that are still optimistic. I've had discussions with people who've said 'it’s got to get worse before it can get better', 'its just a rough patch in history' , 'this situation can't last forever', 'the news is making it bigger than it is'. A lot of people are begging and hoping that this is true and want to believe it, it just looks so bleak now. At this point in time it looks like it would be a miracle if Iraq works out and the country does return to normal. The ones in charge have a huge job at hand they need all the support they can get.

(Read More..)

from peyamner.com
+300 Kurdish families threatened by the Arab brothers to leave the villages.
+Ammara province announces indepence from Iraq and becomes under the Cleric Rule.
+3000 japanese signatures against the decision of the japanese gov to return two kurdish refugee families to their main enemy land, Turkey.
+Nelson mandella has been invited to join the Volunteer lawyers to defend the dictator!!!
the previous french foreign affairs minister IS among them already, together with 60 Iraqi volunteer lawyers (baathis bastards)
+Saddam asked for apair of glasses, but he wasn't given them!!
now time to bed!

as soon as it started, powerful mortars exploded just near by
shia leaders shouted and protested, and some left the hall,
this difficult task can only be done by the neutral Kurds Mr President, let Dr Masoom handle it.
Aren't we given the tricky jobs?
I was talking to one of my close friends whom we share most of our views, and he said, "why the hell are we trying to get people together while they dont want it! while they cannot do it!"

Should the Kurds mediate between Arabs? and if so what do we call this?
A reward against their act, silence, pro, still continued arabisation process?
or the chemical attack on my town?
or the Anfal Campaign ?
or a reward for the Barzani mass-killing? or the endless atrocities we lived under their "tolerant" "islamic" and "arabic" laws??
I don't know what to say, but I just convince my self with "our leaders know much more that I know and that is why I should trust them", but do they?
well but I don't understand what do we get from leading the conference, if we put an ounce of effort or do the whole job we will stil be given the 20% by the superman G.W.Bush.
I mean it doesn't matter what we do, they will still have Falluja (I still dont knwo what is it about!!) and Najaf, that problem around those shrines have been there for over a 1000 year (i am very bad at history)
when an American is asked what are the prospects of the succes of this 3 day NC, (s)he said: look at what is going on in Najaf, what a "National" Conference, aparently Najaf is not Iraq or otherwise what?
but when a Kurd is asked the answer was: Oh, it will be alright, we are doing our best and we have been in contact with them, so and forth!
baraw 3iraqeeki nwee? it says: towards a new Iraq, the Iraq which is rebuild under occupation? or the Iraq which still Turkey decides what to do in one of the most important parts of it?
wait a second, what do we expect from a building with a corrupt foundation?
The map is wrong, nothing else!
Our leaders know that they need to hold on with Iraq to save our asses being kicked by the current international view, but we dont have to put it on the ground either, we can just stand back to the wall, hmm cant we? do we have to risk our lives by doing the most dangerous works? while Kurdistan needs a 1000 like Dr Masoom to look after it.
in fact the Kurds need a National Conference to end the internal differences.
Lets do it at home first then with the BROTHERS(who never opposed the regime even for a time for what he did to us)!

Let me start by saying i know jack about football (aka soccer to those across the pond), my only knowledge comes from the odd new clips and comments from fanatical football supporting brothers, but WOW wat a game. I started watching from the second half and I seriously was into the game, I've never supported any team/country so this was a cool try. By the way nice tough with the Iraq kurdish flag put together. But seriously Iraq played amazingly well they definitely made up for lost time. And cmon we can all agree the main dude was Hawar, nothing like a little self-glorification for an end note. But seriously congrats to all.. hawar, mehdi, qusay (munir not the decompoed hussein) and the entire football team.
Anyway don't want to take away from the pictures below (i cant get over the fact that i actually put some effort there.. its not going away too easy)and tell me what u think of them.

From left to right, Children shoe shiners in 1977 (taken from the fortune city site), Sulaimanya at night (from Messopotamia), Kurdish Village in Iran (from fortune city) and Gathering in Shaqlawa (from ankawa.com)
I have finally managed to get some changes done to the site. I am way too proud of myself now, I have finally put a stop to delaying albeit for a short while.
As you can see there are still some more work to be done and I can't guarantee that they would be done in this lifetime. As for the iraqi blogs I've only managed to add a few of them (what are they now 65 or something) so I only put the ones that I read frequently. It took me a while to get some photos on the net, there are many sites but they're mainly geocities and homestead sites with lots of broken links and enough pop-ups to put ure computer into a concussion. Aka kurdistan has the best old photos, Susan Meiselias (the photojournalist behind those pictures)still does exhibtions. Some photos of her exhibitions in France are shown on Sandrine's site and her report regarding the exhibition is available here . The fortune city site is pretty good as well, I was expecting a badly designed site with lots of pop ups but this was a nice surprise. Only problem is that there is no mention of the author/photographer
If you like the photos above then please visit the links on the sidebar 

I got this link from Bardaqani..
Was Abraham a Kurd by Gina Lennox.
+Do not laugh at that, coz in a minute u will believe the writer.
+ 800,000 (now around 1M population)East Timorese were given the independence but over a million of the signatures from the Kurdish referendum movement wasn't given any attention at all.
+Kurds will benefit economically and avoid the risk of the tension from the 3 other nations.
+we still have our at least 70000 peshmarga's to protect us.
and more....

I was 13 then, may 1992, just five months after we were sure that we will not be taken to Nogra-salman as happened in 1988 when we returned from Iran after Halabja massacre, we were longing so badly to see Halabja, and thank God despite the days I spent sitting on the floor at the destroyed town's new opened schools...this time it was safe to return from the refugee camps from Iran.]
my school was turned to one of the centres of voting, and at that time every one was full of excitement and joy and everyone was rallying for the party they used to support, what a great atmosphere it was!!I do remember every minute of it because it was the first kind of it in history; the book which I hated the most as there was not a WORD about my past or about my people!great year, great attempt, the whole world watched us, even our main enemies, on top of them the man who killed Halabja and Barzan.
I accept that it was almost impossible to be hold 4 years later, it was at the midst of the internal fightings and among all the reagional and global politics who were surprised by the 1992 experience (THE GUYS FROM THE MOUNTAINS HOLD AN ELECTION!!!!)
what about 2000? why not in 2000? well to be honest I dont think there was any specific external factor which would have failed the process if it had gone ahead. But I am sure it was the internal disputes which aborted the 4 year delayed election or at least unifying both of the Kurdistan Regional Goverments administrations (the one in Slemani and the one in Hawleer).
So what about 2004?I think if we had gone ahead despite our main problem of getting Kirkuk back to the shadow of KRG, we would have made the second democratic process in the history of the Kurds and thus we would have had a greater influence of the Kirkuk cause and the rest of the causes, we then would be free to hold an election together with the general elections or not! but we would definitely be abetter example for the world to look at us and say to us:
YES YOU [kurds] HAVE A NATIONAL CAUSE AND IT IS NOT ABOUT JUST GETTING RID OF SADDAM AND REBUILD IRAQ!
It is not late yet,
Let the nation decide that Kurds are all united and we have a greater cause than internal disputes!!
Yes, for the 8 year late due KRG ELECTION!

And I thought fat ppl were meant to be jolly, muqty’s father must be back-flipping in his grave. I mean so far I haven’t heard one person badmouth Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr yet and everyone respected him so how did he come up with this creation.
And he was rambling on about ‘how he will fight till his last drop of blood’, yeah sure u will, tubby, that’s why ure sneaking from house to mosque to house surrounded by masses of brainwashed followers. Thinking of it I have never seen him carry a weapon, wonder if he knows how to use one The only way he could possibly attack someone is he bumped into them while whizzing away in full speed.

Notable comments from the BBC regarding this:

From BBCArabic.com: I live in the area that witnessed the outbreak of fighting. The Mehdi Army fired 60mm mortar shells at my house. Maybe they thought my children were their master's enemy? How long will we be subjected to Moqtada's random shelling and false propositions? It is ironic that the United States will rid Iraq of Moqtada like it did Saddam. Maybe this is what they wanted after all?
Amer, Najaf, Iraq

From BBCArabic.com: I call on the whole world to come to Najaf to bear witness. The BBC should not call these people the Mehdi Army. They are unworthy of this holy name. They kill children because they shake hands with the American "infidels". How can they claim to be religious?
Benna, Najaf, Iraq


From BBCArabic.com: I am from Najaf and I did see a number of Iranians fighting there. A friend of mine saw lots of Iranian weapons in the hands of Al Sadr followers.
Haidar Mohammed, Najaf, Iraq

From BBCArabic.com: When I saw Muktada Al-Sadr speaking about resisting occupation, I asked myself a question I think it reverberates in many Iraqi minds: Where was Al-Mahdi Army when the Shiites were oppressed by Saddam Hussein? Why is their "resistance" so erratic, quivering between truce and fighting? The Sadr Movement is deeply rooted in the Iraqi political and religious arena, and what we are witnessing now does not - in any way - represent this movement. It is a coalition of the forces of evil and ignorance to achieve material gains.
Zaidoon Salman - Iraqi in Dubai

Semi- off topic, recently some family friends have returned from Kurdistan, and we were asking them about how things are over there , and they were like oh we were hearing the news the same the rest of the world was, just from the news. The rest of iraq seems so distant everyone here was just concerned about going out and sayran (picnics). One thing u must know us kurds love our sayran, in fact there were some families who could just spend all summer there. I mean las year when the news channels were showing destruction and looting down south, kurdsat was busy interviewing ppl on their picnics. I was trying to search for a photo about this, but this is the closest I could find.This is the salahaddin resort , so try imagining this picture but with more ppl and a lot of food.

I am going to have to add links and more info at some point, bear with me till I do.
Oh yeah just heard Iraq beat Portugal 4-2 and no incidents, in the last match the thing that annoyed most ppl was the behavior of the Iraqi players and how rude they were to Chinese. Even the commentator was annoyed, he said (and I paraphrase) the losing wasn’t bad it was the last 10 mins of fully blown attitude that spoiled it

Real sorry for having to push Hiwa's topics down, but couldn't help it after seeing the headline below.

Look at this
EU Mission Sees Abuses, But Not Genocide, in Darfur

I can't help but see the similarities with kurdistan in the 80s (actually to give this an all-inclusive feel... for non-kurds, please insert ure area where required)
As someone from a genocide-but-not-really race. Here is summarized list of things that may happen (note: some already have)

1)The arab league would declare the whole thing a hoax (almost getting there link)
2) You will be suffering for months while everyone decides whether to call it a genocide or not
3) UN will campaign for a while then find something more interesting to do (hey we tried)
4) The whole thing will eventually fizzle out and no one will hear from you again for a very long time
5) A few yrs down the line probably a decade there may be a small anniversary where some Z list diplomats show up and say they could have done more but didn’t know enough
6) If you are lucky the country that did this to you may piss off a bigger country and get attacked
7)You will be used as campaign poster for the war and have people abusing u from both sides
8) Perpetrator country loses badly as no one really knows how to or wants to fight
9) Hope for justice delayed as time is needed to gather 'evidence'
10) Media hoopla about the perpetrators, no mention of what actually happened.
11) Court case probably drags on and either:
a) defendant dies
b)judge dies
c)genocide mysteriously never happened
d) the whole thing gets blamed on another country (in which case move back to step 6)

just a quick follow up:
I just read in peyamner that the Chak has asked the Noble peace price committee to candidate Leyla Zana to be given the price,

Yes, we are peace lovers!

After the greate Kurdish uprising in 1991 we had alot to sort out between ourselves, as S.Laizer says in her book, peshmargas had to convert from mountain partisans to Urban police, governers, educators and more...
well I am one of those who critisied and still do the war between the different parties in Kurditsan throughout 1994-98 regardless of the fact that they were symptoms of the influence existed in our little area by the Turks in the first place, the Iranians and the rest of the world who were all agianst any democratic experience to be gained by a people who never had a proper map and had never had a goverment!
But..I think we managed to even hold an election less than a year later!!!
look at Iraq now, what is going on? Is Muqtada really fighting the US? I doubt that! so what is going on?
as far as I know the long history of the Holy shrines down in Najaf and the rest of Iraq is playing a great role, there is a famous saying : "Ahlu-l-3iraq, ahlunnifaq " means "people of Iraq, people of hypocrisy", well I dont know who has said that, but it is almost clear that it is an Iranian word.
Isn't the whole problem between Iraq and Iran (Shia and Sunni) is going back to when the Iranian empire was toppled by the Islamic Conqurors?
Well among Kurds we have even jews and on the other hand very devoute people living as neighbours in several cities!
PKK is announced to be a terrorist group, but we see how they hold the unilateral cease fire, but the Turkish gov went on killing and judging Kurds. We all see how the Iranian Opposition Kurdish parities listened to their brothers in Iraqi Kurdistan and stopped every activity which would use the Iraqi Kurdistan soil against a supporter (even for its own strategies) neighbour and occupier of our lands (Iran) so that the little part of Kurdistan have a chance to grow!
Even here in Europe I never witnessed any serious problesm between Kurds vs Turks or Arabs or Iranians despite the persecution we have lived! isnt it strange?
there are endless examples, I witnessed an English man telling a Kurdish&Iranian couple how come you are a couple? arent you supposed to fight each other??
or
After the fall of the dictator every body said Kirkuk will be a blood bath in the hands of the Kurds, but see if anyone saw any assault by the persecuted Kurds, by those who had their properties and belongings confiscated by others!Just because we mean peace!we want peace! we embraced who ever escaped Saddam with our little semi independence from Arabs, Turkoman, Sunnis or Shiites regardless of their view against Kurds in Salahaddin, Hawler and the rest of Kurdistan, we remained the best route to escape Iraq and most of the journeys were organised by Kurds...now u tell me it was done for money?? I tell u they could get the money and kill the man they hated!
Aren't the Kurds peace lovers?
Saddam had a single true saying (i think): KURDISTAN IS GOD'S HEAVEN ON EARTH!

I'm not even sure anymore if that is a good sign. They're still going to continue their spew-fest whether they are in Baghdad or not. Just after they were shut down, they got an expert analyst, abdul barry ‘part-primate’ atoine (sorry its late cant think of anything more creative) . He was going on about ‘I will never accept this government and they’re not legal (fill in the blanks with degratory comments) and something about Hoshyar Zebari which I didn’t quite catch but along the lines of puppet illegal Zionist and then moving on to say that jazeera should be proud they were kicked out. I really wish someone was in studio to say ‘ hold on a minute who cares what u think, who gave u this authority anyway’. What just cos’ he owns a newspaper in London, which I’m surprised is still published judging by its low turnout and the fact that hardly anyone wants to be caught advertising in it. I am still very annoyed at why he is considered expert opinion about iraq, he’s on every channel, I think they make him live underneath those newsdesk cos he pops up on command.
Another thing annoying me recently, muqtada sadr . Every single time iran gets bashed he’s there stirring up problems. And who the hell made him a Sayed or Za’eem (titles of 'respected' or 'great' leaders). I haven’t seen one Shiite take him seriously, everyone thinks of him as a shalati (more like dodgy street ppl).
Fuad Masoum invited him to the national conference and he turned it down, then he starts attacking and declaring juhad and then says ‘let’s be reasonable , why don’t we sit down and have a talk’.
Hmm what else oh yes Sistani, ok I know he doesn’t hope much for kurds, but putting that aside. I just have one thing to comment on, he says that Iraqis shouldn’t depend on others and learn to depend on themselves (which would be ok if we were fully on our feet) but he gets sick who does he turn to, the U.K. Could Iran or any other Islamic or Arabic country give you the treatment u are receiving now, I highly doubt it. Basically whether u like it or not u do need them. Its just a case of admitting it. This speaks for the rest of the country the aid iraq needs now will never be obtained if we keep going on ‘don’t accept anything from the enemy’. Maybe the forces should do something to show that military activities are separate to reconstruction. Or how about an Imam declaring a fatwa that makes reconstruction work ‘holy and sacred’ so at least these activities could move on.

I was searching for more details regarding the fight in Mosul yesterday and I came across this story Khalid Sido, the brother of Mullah Krekar, was killed during the clashes. To those who don't know, Mullah Krekar is a brand name of repellant. No seriously this guy is nauseating at best, he is one of the founders of Ansar al Islam trying to recreate his image as lovable old man (somehow I can only sense pedophile). He goes on about how democracy is evil and the usual drivel yet he lives in Norway. The only reason he is still alive is through some legal loophole that’s preventing his extradition. How he gets to stay and get such a strong defense is beyond me.
Compare that to the case of the Ay family they probably got every single form of immigration punishment there existed, their father was sent back to turkey via germany and never heard of again, the entire family (including 4 children) were kept in detention centres for over a year and later ended up getting kicked out of scotland to germany where they face extradition to Turkey. There was handful of real human rights supporters (who respect the definition of the word) who defended their cause but it didn't work. Yet scum like Krekar and Hamza are still allowed to stay in country and are offered state protection.

Moving to some brighter news, Fayrouz has discovered new-found hope in Iraq through a Kurdish owned restaurant in Dallas (the oddest combination that’s surpassed discovering there was an actor called Rip Torn). She’s decided that if anything may keep all the ethnicities of Iraq together it may as well be our obsession with food, her post even has a link to the restaurants website.

By the way can someone enlighten me who this Afifa Iskandar is, wat exactly is so special about her, and why the simple mention of her name makes ppl go ‘AAh her, remember’ (like I am hearing in the next room). I mean I know she was a singer but that’s about it, I think it’s cos everyone thought she was dead, she’s about a century old isn’t she? (this I’m gathering by the comments I’m hearing).

I begg you all to read this but all of it please! I know it takes u about 30 minutes!
quickly:
"Through l988, Iraq acquired more than $2.8 billion in U.S. agricultural products under the CCC credit-guarantee program. In l989, the year following the Reagan administration's public rebuke of Iraq for using chemical weapons against its Kurdish population, the Bush administration doubled the CCC program for Iraq, raising credits to a level exceeding one billion dollars in 1989. In addition to credit guarantees, the CCC program has also included some interest-free loans and some direct sales at prices subsidized by the U.S. government, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials."
I dont want to push my dear Dilnareen's HOT HOT HOT topic down!

I'm guessing there are ppl out there who just want some vile civil war to break out, cos if you want a ready made all out clash of religion and ethnicities Kirkuk is the answer and the sad thing is that it was, and still is, so easily avoidable. Let the original ppl back into their homes and give the newer ones (non-baathists of course) compensation for new homes. That way everyones happy. You hardly need to be a 'political analyser' or anthropologist to put these 2 factors together.
Wanted to see how news outlets desribed it today, nothing from reuters or AP, CNN thought it wasn't as important as this 'heartwarming' story
Saddam to grandson: be a man
and Kudos to the BBC for downplaying yet another tragedy
Iraq property disputes 'critical'
As if the argument was just over 1 or 2 houses not the 10s if not hundreds of thousands of kurds,assyrians and turkmen who were (and still are) displaced by the arabisation program. Nice touch with the quotes around critical as well, i can now visual an acne-ridden gimp doing the 2 finger quote thing as well.
I remember before people were saying 'wat human rights we have to be grateful if we get animal rights' so now just out of curiosity i went and searched the net to see wat happens to pets who don't have homes. And guess wat they were right, we're never going to get even close to the sophisticated program pets get. Don't believe me, heres the link from the RSPCA ,complete with 'cute' animal pictures, if you are into that kind of stuff.

Just in case everyone thought this civil war they want to create involves only shia and sunni muslims or arabs versus kurds, some idiot has decided to throw in another race/religion into it. The christians Three explosions have gone off close to two churches
What is that i hear another group of people who have done their best not to cause any problems are targetted, waytago jihad
Now im guessing these attacks go into categories depending on when these jihadists realise new races living in iraq.. i mean first the shia (in their mosques... but then again they are not 'true' muslims so thats ok) kurds (kafirs by default) then someones realised hey christians live in iraq.. lets attack them as well wat are they doing their polluting our 'poor feebke' minds. So are they planning to wittle their way down to sabeis,yezidis,marsh arabs (which are arabs but again beyond that narrow mentality to realise).
Lemme guess a few clerics will show up on tv to say 'no dont do anything its a mistake bla bla' even though we well know if it was the other way around the stinging scream of jihad will be heard everywhere and a tirade of conspiracy theories will follow.
It is obvious that targets like this one are chosen to get more and more ppl against each other and iraqis are doing their best to control themselves, but the question is how much longer.

I am seriously hoping these churches weren't specifically targetted and it's an exagerration on the news. Cos' iraq is still trying to get over the seeds of hate implanted from saddams regime not creating new ones.

"If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similiar to himself and most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate" (Orwells, 1984)

This pretty much sums up wat i think of all forms of media. I started writing this last night when i got really annoyed with some tv show but i didn’t expect to get this long and this off topic.Guess it really hit a nerve. So i decided to split this into 2 sections media(news) and media (movies).Be prepared for some venting galore. I think I have the authority to speak on all this cos’ I used to live on tv (and still do), in fact I can go as far as say that I doubt there exists a movie, news item, cartoon I haven’t come acorss whether it be kurdish (to be fair they're very few kurdish items out there), english, arabic even questionable french ones (for the sake of being artsy). Yes I am that sad and that addicted.

I definitely think media is grossly responsible for a lot of what is happening in iraq and the rest of the world. This works for both, movies and news, I think they’re competing for who misrepresents the world more award. Thinking of it I haven’t seen a news channel I liked or I can fully trust I always end up taking a little from each channel like a bit of mix and match.

CNN

This is the first news channel I came across, due to the first gulf war. I think it started ok, till it decided it did 2 things i really hate about news channels
First one is u know that thing where they wont tell u which side they support but ull inherently know it’s the side they got the worst representative to speak for. The late 90’s most intro could have just said “and now for an Arabic perspective lets get .. generic smelly man’. I used to wonder why don’t they at least get an arab who can put 2 english words together and whose vocab went beyond ‘death to america’. Now only when they want to specifically annoy me (like when defending saddam) do they get ppl who can actually speak english

The other thing I hated about it was this ‘welcome to the rest of the subhuman world outside ure borders’ programs this usually involves a leggy woman or man who would go to the worst area of a third world country and leave feeling good about him/herself for doing her bit for humanity. Something like ‘look at me feeding the poor’ ‘look at me shedding a tear for the ppl of this rubbish country’ ‘check me out ain’t I the greatest’. Or they would go something like get u the worst part of any city and call it modern. I remember once watching this program where the intro went something like 'the most modern country in the middle east' i was expecting something like bahrain or the uae, instead i see some clip of amman,jordan (u can imagine my delight) and not even the decent part of amman,no that horrible crowded street souq (of course complete with women covered in black and oriental music in the backgroumd) i mean cmon they have centres and malls why dont u show that.. if u wanna go on about the modern city show something modern about it.

Another time before the war I switched it on and they had an editorial over kurds, I was like great this must be good and i was expecting barham salih or someone like him to come on. Instead we had this one woman covered in layers of cloth with her like 8 or 9 kids ( I can’t remember how many they were but they didn’t fit on the screen at the same time), who for some reason was drinking water out of the sewers (we have mountain springs and rivers yet she was content drinking for the sewers)and living in a house that was made of tin, by the way this place was meant to be sulaymania what we consider to be one of the most advanced cities in Iraq. This sulaymania only consisted of a couple of tinhouses and no ppl. It really annoyed the hell out of me I went to sulaymania after the first gulf war and have no recollection of ppl drinking from sewers back then so I don’t see why they should be now, also there are other thigns than tin houses in sulaymania if the camera man bothered zooming out a bit. And I am really getting fed up of them hunting down ppl who cant speak English , u want to make news in English get ppl who can speak English for a change and in a city like sulaymania it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Jazeera

Aah where to start, I’m going to try not wasting too many words on this channel, but its difficult. When it came out in 96, believe it or not, it was actually a reasonable channel, ppl probably turned to it cos’ they got fed up of cnn and wanted more regional news, and I think they used that as factor in gaining an audience. They even had a handful of good reporters (Who surprisingly disappeared over the yrs) anyway so slowly they started slipping in their small doses of hate, it usually started with programs like “the other direction” where they got ppl who were on total opposite sides of the spectrum and ended up competing for who can scream highest. But then the leaders of these hate campaigns started showing up more the news channel and the reporters started having shady links. And by the time it was the Afghanistan war, that projectile diarrhea really hit the ceiling (to put it subtly). This is when hate was spewing left and right from the channel and continued to whirlwind out of course till now, hence iraq. I mean a news channel that has comfortable links with terrorist groups or presenters like ahmed mansour who was hanging out with the falloujah fighter in april. I remember reading either in elaph or sharqalawst the editor saying that he was seriously expecting that ahmed mansour to just drop the mic any second and pick up a klashinkov because of the way he was reporting. I’ve almost successfully boycotted jazeera for a long time now, I do however see it every now and then in passing and even those few minutes still manage to boil my blood, especially that version of an open forum they have that involves one guy who thinks differently from them and 6 guys and the mediator who will attack him whenever he opens his mouth

BBC

Ah my love-hate relationship channel. I mean they are so easy to hate but when they get things right they do that so well. So it’s more like an abusive relationship lets say.
I remember my dad saying how annoyed my grandfather was when they used to watch the news and the bbc used to always refer to the kurds when they were fighting for their lives as rebels or insurgents and how it was hardly ever mentioned wat the likes of saddam were doing to Iraq. But then in the mid 80s they showed that panorama program regarding saddams rule apparently that documentary was groundbreaking. And that followed with their coverage of Halabja. U see how they switch from total hate to total love. Back on the rubbish side of bbc.. during the war how many Iraqis did they get to give their opinion on the war… in my perspective 0 I was waiting for one Iraqi to come on and they didn’t show up until after april 9. Who were we blessed with during that time instead, abdul barry antwan, anyone who is familiar with him knows that he is the visual equivalent to stomach bile except more disgusting. And he was on ALL the time, who the hell qualified him to speak for the Iraqi ppl. This creature of the underworld who was living on saddams payroll and still has no shame in complimenting his heroism was put there to talk on behalf of us, I had to switch it off else I would have seriously damaged my tv set.
And to make it worse, every single time they needed a view on the war in iraq they would only ask jordanian or egyptians. Here's a simple lesson u see the word iraqi… wat is it close to? iraq or jordan? I notice there is a lot in common(the letter 'r') and it might seem like a slip of the tongue but look carefully not the same.
Anyway so how did they make up for this…john simpson… excellent reporter he was in Kurdistan during the war and he even got injured reporting due to ‘friendly fire’ (God I hate that word u die and its friendly… wat does it do? give u a little hug before it lets u go) anyway his translator a kurd called Kameran was killed, and he's talked about him alot when he can in fact when when they made a documentary regarding friendly fires he went to visit Kamarans family and thank them personally for the help Kamaran was to them.
Another comfort during the war was Stephen Sackur. I for one was really grateful for his few reports during the war honestly it did control my anger. He is one of the best reporters bbc has, he’s their european correspondent but the part of him thats relevant to this post is that he has an Iraqi wife who fled iraq with her mother in the early 80s and her father was executed by Saddam. So his few stories were about her asking him to search for her old home, him finding the house and the one link that I found somewhere else was their reaction to saddams capture (this was actually on a bbc's radio 4 but the transcript is available on normblog)

Urge u all to read these links:
Painful memories of home
Reclaiming the past
Hope of something better

Now see-sawing back to the hate stuff, a few months ago there was an explosion in damascus, syria, later ended up being staged either by syria itself or by some islamists. Anyway at the beginning we were watching bbc and the first thing they said was that it was the kurds full stop. Like they weren’t suffering enough already, this after the random jailing, torturing and murder syria was doing to the kurds at the time, which surprisingly got very little coverage. The last thing they needed was someone to push them to harm more kurds, I mean even the syrian government denied it was the kurds, so wat basis was the bbc getting for this info... that really annoyed me for a long time. But I am not sure why I still find myself using them as a trusted news source. I think they play both sides really well (not as bad as arabiyah though who i think are doing this just to look good to both sides)


Honestly I mean seriously if Salam didn’t start blogging which led to creating a spawn of other blogs would any of u know this much about iraq from ure news sources.

I'm fed up with all these channels becoming mini PR offices to whomever gives them the most money. Actually wait i take that back maybe I should open a genetic lab and create a race or a group of ppl so repulsive but loaded with money and I can prove to u that not only would they represent me (or the race I created)in a good light but I can also get them to fight to represent me. Maybe ill make them square off through some humiliating dance on this creeky table I have, and I wont just simply hand them the money no.. ill put the money up a bulls rectum and tell them to pull it out with their teeth.
Any takers?.(Read More..)

I was just about to post something else when I came across this news item that I had to comment on. This was up a few days ago, how did I miss it.
Lawyers fear for Saddam's health

Was is it from all the muffin eating or the excessive gardening? Actually wat are they doing feeding him muffins and giving him a garden. What kind of prison is this, all iraq has been wrecked because of him and he’s suddenly become some hairy version of alan titmarsh
And as usual here’s the extra poison that comes with every article that has to do with saddams lawyers
“Mr Rashdan - Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer - made it clear the lawyers plan to challenge the whole process, as well as denying all the allegations against their client.”
Ok someone please hand me a machete and a ticket to amman someone needs to put this degenerate out of his misery