Girl blogger Riverbend flees Bush’s Iraq like millions of other Iraqis

Bush, Rumsfeld, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, cartoon by Steve Bell

I did not link this before, as for a long time, something has been wrong with Riverbend’s blog‘s RSS feed at Blogger, so I did not immediately know about new entries by her.

She uses to blog at irregular times, due to the terrible security and electricity situations in George W Bush’s brave ‘new’ Iraq.

So, Riverbend and her family, like millions of other Iraqis, including bloggers like Raed, did before her, are fleeing Iraq.

I hope they manage to arrive somewhere where they are safe; and where there is reliable electricity for blogging.

I hope that Riverbend, like Raed and others, will continue to expose Bush, Blair, and similar warmongers, with her inside knowledge of Iraqi society.

Still, it is sad that so many refugees have to flee for their lives. Riverbend, though her electricity and access to foreign media situation may improve now, will, away from Iraq, be one eyewitness less to report first hand on the reality of George W Bush’s occupation and war.

Bush and the Iraq war, cartoon

From Riverbend’s blog:

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Great Wall of Segregation…

…Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans).

It’s a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest ‘Sunni’ area in Baghdad- let no one say the Americans are not building anything.

According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will ‘protect’ A’adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn’t empty of Sunnis.

The wall, of course, will protect no one.

I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe.

The Nazi government probably said, “Oh look- we’re just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!” And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.

The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart.

Promoting and supporting civil war isn’t enough, apparently- Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders.

It’s time for America to physically divide and conquer- like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today.

This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of “Shia areas” and Shia out of “Sunni areas”.

I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq).

They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict.

They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq’s history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that.

I hate that a handful of expats who haven’t been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there.

I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn’t know what our neighbors were- we didn’t care.

No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia?

You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.

On a personal note, we’ve finally decided to leave.

I guess I’ve known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times.

At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving one’s home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?

Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan.