River is back with two new blog entries from Baghdad. Her thoughts on viewing a (bootleg copy of) Fahrenheit 9/11 are essential reading. Speaking about Lila Lipscomb, the mother of the US soldier killed in Iraq, River says:
I can’t explain the feelings I had towards her. I pitied her because, apparently, she knew very little about what she was sending her kids into. I was angry with her because she really didn’t want to know what she was sending her children to do. In the end, all of those feelings crumbled away as she read the last letter from her deceased son. I began feeling a sympathy I really didn’t want to feel, and as she was walking in the streets of Washington, looking at the protestors and crying, it struck me that the Americans around her would never understand her anguish. The irony of the situation is that the one place in the world she would ever find empathy was Iraq. We understand. We know what it’s like to lose family and friends to war- to know that their final moments weren’t peaceful ones… that they probably died thirsty and in pain… that they weren’t surrounded by loved ones while taking their final breath.
As for her comments on watching Bush and Allawi on television…
The elections are already a standard joke. There’s talk of holding elections only in certain places where it will be ‘safe’ to hold them. One wonders what exactly comprises ‘safe’ in Iraq today. Does ‘safe’ mean the provinces that are seeing fewer attacks on American troops? Or does ‘safe’ mean the areas where the abduction of foreigners isn’t occurring? Or could ‘safe’ mean the areas that *won’t* vote for an Islamic republic and *will* vote for Allawi? Who will be allowed to choose these places? Right now, Baghdad is quite unsafe. We see daily abductions, killings, bombings and Al-Sadr City, slums of Baghdad, see air strikes… will they hold elections in Baghdad? Imagine, Bush being allowed to hold elections in ‘safe’ areas- like Texas and Florida.
Sad to say, I actually can imagine the latter. Maybe I need to get out more.