I saw this piece... and was thrilled at the discovery of some honest reporting from Iraq! Obviously its hard, with journalists all but quaranteened to protect their lives, and everyday Iraqi bloggers(like riverbend) in danger of their own lives...
But still, particularely given all we hear about the media "bias" towards Iraq, its a breathe of fresh air to get such a thorough look at the situation.
On October 10th, Arraf wrote a post which refuted several right-wing talking points. I'll only excerpt part of it, but you must read its somber truth in its entirety:
I am very, very lucky. I am alive in a war zone. Most of the time I have running water and when I turn on the lights, a series of generators ensures that they come on. I don't have to worry about saying goodbye to my family here in the morning and not knowing whether I'll see them in the evening. I know I'm lucky because almost everyone I know in Baghdad has to worry constantly about those things.
Some readers and viewers think we journalists are exaggerating about the situation in Iraq. I can almost understand that because who would want to believe that things are this bad? Particularly when so many people here started out with such good intentions.
I'm more puzzled by comments that the violence isn't any worse than any American city. Really? In which American city do 60 bullet-riddled bodies turn up on a given day? In which city do the headless bodies of ordinary citizens turn up every single day? In which city would it not be news if neighborhood school children were blown up? In which neighborhood would you look the other way if gunmen came into restaurants and shot dead the customers? [...]
Imagine the worst day you've ever had in your life, add a regular dose of terror and you'll begin to get an idea of what it's like every day for a lot of people here.
Support for the war is unbelievably low, its easy to see why more speech like this is able to slip through the cracks, its just a shame they(the press) wouldn't open up about what they knew sooner.
And its a shame that msnbc hasn't brought more attention to her voice. With Saddams trial coming up November 5th(two days before midterm... wonder how THAT happened!) anything can happen...
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