01 Sep 04:
"Went to Sadr City again today. I don't really like going there very much, it depresses me. It looks bad, it smells bad and there are no happy faces just worried old faces and frowning young ones. and I seem to have slept on the wrong side of the bed; I woke up in a lousy mood. What I saw there can only be described as a provocation. Sadr City is not just surrounded by American tanks but they seem to have cut it off the rest of the city."Very few shops were open on the street, a guy who was just closing told me why. Mahdi Army was on the attack just further down the street. They have had a difficult night here and he showed me where a mortar fell and damaged his shop and by the sound of it they were still at it.
"Why do I think the American presence today is like poking a stick into a hornets nest? because many of the Mahdi guys will be coming back whipped and feeling they have wasted three weeks and what do they find when they get home? More Americans at their doorsteps. Not just a couple of tanks, but totally surrounding the center of the district. Am I surprised that there was a fire exchange?"
27 Aug 04
"[Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani. Does he need a Queer eye for the straight guy makeover? I mean look at the beard! he is trying to throw his weight around these days and he really needs to work on his image. Ungroomed facial hair will not get you very far habibi."
More Salam Pax entries in the run-up, during and after the war:
09 Mar 03:
"A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market ends his report with: "It looks like Iraqis are putting on an air of normality". Look, what are you supposed to do then? Run around in the streets wailing? War is at the door eeeeeeeeeeeee!"In order not to disappoint the BBC; me, Raed and G. put on our "normal" faces and went to buy CDs from Arassat Street in a demonstration of normality. After going first into Sandra’s fruit juice shop and getting what people from foreign would probably call a poor imitation of a banana and apple smoothie, we spent half an hour contemplating the CD racks at music shop. Raed being the master of talk-and-slurp-at-the-same-time technique was trying to steal away my "normality" by reminding me that I will be wasting my 10,000 Dinars because there will be no electricity for the CD player."
"Other normal stuff we did this week:- Finished taping all the windows in the house, actually a very relaxing exercise if you forget why you are doing it in the first place.
- Prepared one room for emergency nasty attacks and bought "particle masks" - that’s what it says on the box - for use if they light those oil trenches, the masks just might stop our lungs from becoming tar pits. They are very hot items since the word on the trenches spread, you can buy one for 250 Dinars and they are selling faster than the hot cakes of bab-al-agha."
11 Mar 03:
Riverbend (a young woman living in Baghdad and contributing to Salam's blog):
"Salam, you've reminded me that we have to get to duct-taping the windows (did you use an 'X' pattern or the traditional '*'?). [Salam: the * star is good but with particularly big windows I have been using a plus and Xs in each quadrant].We've all been talking about the war, discussing the possibilities, implications, etc. but it really hit me yesterday when I got home and 'lo and behold! There were no pictures or paintings on the walls! So I asked, stupidly, "Where are all the pictures?" I was told that they've been 'put away' because who knew what might come tumbling down if a bomb fell particularly close... Otherwise, yes, we are living normally- going to work, cleaning house, eating, drinking. Life doesn't stand still every time America threatens war."
16 Mar 03:
"How could "support democracy in Iraq" become to mean "bomb the hell out of Iraq"? why did it end up that democracy won’t happen unless we go thru war? Nobody minded an un-democratic Iraq for a very long time, now people have decided to bomb us to democracy? Well, thank you! how thoughtful. [...] Do support democracy in Iraq. But don’t equate it with war."
"Do you know when the sight of women veiled from top to bottom became common in cities in Iraq? Do you know when the question of segregation between boys and girls became red hot? When tribal law replaced THE LAW? When Wahabi became part of our vocabulary? It only happened after the Gulf War. I think it was Cheney or Albright who said they will bomb Iraq back to the stone age, well you did."
22 Mar 03:
"Today the third [day] in the war, we had quite a number of attacks during daytime. Some without air-raid sirens. They probably just gave up on being able to be on time to sound the sirens. Last night, after waves after waves of attacks, they would sound the all-clear siren only to start another raid siren 30 minutes later."
23 Mar 03:
"There are no waving masses of people welcoming the Americans nor are they surrendering by the thousands. People are [d]oing what all of us are, sitting in their homes hoping that a bomb doesn’t fall on them and keeping their doors shut."
02 Apr 03:
"Actually too tired, scared and burnt out to write anything. Yes we did go out again to see what was hit. Yes everything just hurts. Conversations invariably use the sentence "what’s wrong with them? Have they gone mad?" I can’t stand the TV or the lies on the news any more. No good news wherever you look."Baghdad is looking scarier by the minute. There are now army people everywhere. My uncle will have to move out of his house because there is going to be an anti aircraft battery installed too close to it, the area where we live does not look too good either, we are surrounded by every sort of military outfit there is. Every school in the area is now an army or party center. I avoid walking in front of the school in our neighborhood, I try the ostrich maneuver; see no evil = evil has vamoosed out of existence."
22 May 03:
"So the "interim Iraqi government" got screwed. Quelle surprise!! Not too hot about any of them anyway and this way we get to blame the Americans for the screwing up of our future. They have been involved in creating the mess we are in now, they should take responsibility in helping us clear it up. Ummm, let’s put it this way so no one gets pissed off: Pretty please with sugar on top, don’t leave now and let the loony mullahs stick me on a pole and leave me in the sun to think about my "Sins"."
23 May 03:
"Pool side at Hamra hotel. Where every journalist wishes he had a room reserved. If they sit long enough there they could just forget that there was a war going on outside the hotel fences. Jennifer Lopez squeaking out of the speakers and cool $5 beers with over priced burgers and salads. [...] They come in carrying cameras, sound gear or big folders with a red cross on them. Minutes later they are sipping on a beer wearing as little as they can."Raed simply refused to get out of the water, he kept telling me that the moment I would walk out of the hotel doors I will be back in Baghdad: no electricity, lines at gas stations, prices as burning hot as the weather and a life that looks as if it will never return to normal. You couldn’t define normal now anyway. Have you seen how a fish flips on its sides when brought out of water? This is how it feels in Baghdad these days. You are not even sure if what you say is going to get you a black eye."
"It is difficult, a two sided coin. On one side they are the US Army, invader/liberator - choose what you like, big guns, strange sounds coming out of their mouths. The other side has a person on it that in many cases is younger than I am in a country he wouldn’t put on his choice of destinations. But he has this uniform on, the big gun and those darkdark sunglasses which make it impossible to see his eyes. Difficult."
30 May 03:
"If it weren’t for the intervention of the US, Iraq would have seen saddam followed by his sons until the end of time. But excuse me if I didn’t go out and throw flowers at the incoming missiles."
07 Feb 04:
"Two days ago I spent the night at my apartment instead of staying over at my parent’s. I don’t go there too often anymore; it is too close to the "green zone". Too much gunfire at night. By now almost every Iraqi can tell the difference between a Kalashnikov (what the so-called resistance is likely to carry) and the sound of the machine guns US troops have. The constant reminders that it is not over yet."
Related links:
+ Where is Raed? Salam Pax's Baghdad blog.
+ Shut up you fat whiner! Salam Pax's new blog.
+ Salam's story (The Guardian interview).
+ Iraqis seek a voice via blogs (The BBC).
+ Iraq timeline, 1979-2004 (The Guardian).
+ Iraq timeline, February 2004 to present (The Guardian).
+ Salam Pax: The Baghdad Blog (Salam's book).
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