another view of reality

În aceste minunate zile de primăvară-vară, cu ciripitul păsărelelor în urechi, într-o linişte tulburată arareori de câte o caravană electorală, îmi petrec cea mai mare parte a timpului citind despre război. Nu e o plăcere sadică, it is a duty pentru studiul de caz al lucrării mele de licenţă. Citesc cele mai populare şi urmărite bloguri de război, precum şi articole din media tradiţionale. Cu fiecare rând pe care îl parcurg, cu fiecare imagine care mă izbeşte cu brutalitate, mă înfior. Un amalgam de sentimente şi gânduri îmi străbat simţurile... milă, scârbă, revoltă, tristeţe. E o realitate care nu-mi era cunoscută până acum, dar care mă pune pe gânduri. Ştiu, cu siguranţă, ce nu-mi doresc să devin niciodată: autorul unui warblog de succes.




"Al Jazeera provided some of the most shocking war images ever broadcast on television: A field of bodies after the American strike on the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group in northern Iraq, a blood-soaked emergency room at the same location, and most horrendously of all, a luxuriously-paced tour of civilian casualties in Basra. Among those, one will linger in this viewer's mind forever (A few of the daily papers in Lebanon ran the same image on the following day's front page.) It was the corpse of a boy with the top of his head blown off. The kid's face, while stiff and covered with dust, retains its human features, but beginning at the forehead the skull simply deflates like an old balloon, ending in an unsupported scalp that (with apologies for the mixed similes) resembles the loose hide of skinned animal". (sursa)




"3:35pm (day7) The whole morning was spent cleaning up the mess created by the (sand-rain-and-sand-again) storm. Of course it was done to the beat of the bombardment. It has become the soundtrack of our lives. You wake up to the sound of bombardment; you brush your teeth to the rhythm of the anti-aircraft rat-tat-tats. Then there is the attack which is timed exactly with our lunch time. Dishes are fun to do while you think about the possibility of the big window in front of you being smashed by the falling tons of explosives and so on. The first two days we would hurry inside and listen with worry, now you just sigh look up to the sky, curse, and do whatever you have to do. This of course is only because we live relatively far from where the action is these days; we only seriously worry about two stupid anti-aircraft guns a couple of hundred meters away. Having heard form the people who live close to “targets” we can thank whatever gods or accidents that made us live where we do now. Last night the bombs hit one big communication node in Baghdad, now there are areas in Baghdad which we can’t call and phones from/to abroad are pfffft, I have lost all hope that I will have internet again. We drove to have a look and it is shocking, it looks as if the building has exploded from the inside, you can look thru three floors. It is just near the Saddam Tower in al-Ma’amun area. Thank god I can still call Raed. But he can’t call some of his relatives. The operator just gives you the “this number is not in use” automatic answer. [...] Most worrying bit of news is something that I heard being reported by the US gov; the Iraqi army is forcing all males to go into battle against Americans threatening to kill their families if they don’t. Telling them that I don’t feel like fighting won’t help much I guess". (sursa: Where is Raed?)