In case you have been missing "Baghdad Burning" - which has been
sporadically appearing at  best -  this one goes right to the depths,
complete with an Emily Dickinson rejoinder:

Tuesday, June 06, 2006
 
Bad Day...
It¹s been a horrible day. We woke up to unbearable heat. Our area averages
about 4 hours electricity daily and the rest is generator electricity, which
means we can use our ceiling fans, but there¹s no way we can use air
conditioners.
We woke up to an ominous silence- an indicator that the generator isn¹t
working. E. went next door to check and got a confirmation. It might not
work all day. The neighbor responsible for it was going to bring by the
Œgenerator doctor¹ as soon as he was free.
The electricity came at 6 pm for only twenty minutes- as if to taunt us. The
moment the lights flickered on, we were gathered in the kitchen and we could
hear the neighborhood children began to hoot and holler with joy.
Before that, we heard the news about the dozens abducted from the Salhiya
area in Baghdad. Salhiya is a busy area where many travel agencies have
offices. It has been particularly busy since the war because people who want
to leave to Jordan and Syria all make their reservations from one office or
another in that area.
According to people working and living in the area, around 15 police cars
pulled up to the area and uniformed men began pulling civilians off the
streets and from cars, throwing bags over their heads and herding them into
the cars. Anyone who tried to object was either beaten or pulled into a car.
The total number of people taken away is estimated to be around 50.
This has been happening all over Iraq- mysterious men from the Ministry of
Interior rounding up civilians and taking them away. It just hasn¹t happened
with this many people at once. The disturbing thing is that the Iraqi
Ministry of Interior has denied that it had anything to do with this latest
mass detention (which is the new trend with them- why get tangled up with
human rights organizations about mass detentions, torture and
assassinations- just deny it happened!). That isn¹t a good sign- it means
these people will probably be discovered dead in a matter of days. We pray
they¹ll be returned aliveŠ
Another piece of particularly bad news came later during the day. Several
students riding a bus to school were assassinated in Dora area. No one knows
why- it isn¹t clear. Were they Sunni? Were they Shia? Most likely they were
a mixŠ Heading off for their end-of-year examination- having stayed up the
night before to study in the heat. When they left their houses, they were
probably only worried about whether they¹d pass or fail- their parents
sending them off with words of encouragement and prayer. Now they¹ll never
come home.
There¹s an ethnic cleansing in progress and it¹s impossible to deny. People
are being killed according to their ID card. Extremists on both sides are
making life impossible. Some of them work for ŒZarqawi¹, and the others work
for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. We hear about Shia being killed in the
ŒSunni triangle¹ and corpses of Sunnis named ŒOmar¹ (a Sunni name) arriving
by the dozen at the Baghdad morgue. I never thought I¹d actually miss the
car bombs. At least a car bomb is indiscriminate. It doesn¹t seek you out
because you¹re Sunni or Shia.
We still don¹t have ministers in the key ministries- defense and interior.
Iraq is falling apart and Maliki and his team are still bickering over who
should get more power- who is more qualified to oppress Iraqis with the help
of foreign occupiers? On top of all of this, rumor has it that the Iraqi
parliament have a Œvacation¹ coming up during July and August. They¹re so
exhausted with the arguing, and struggling for power, they need to take a
couple of months off to rest. They¹ll leave their well-guarded homes behind
for a couple of months, and spend some time abroad with their families (who
can¹t live in Iraq anymore- they¹re too precious for that).
Where does one go to avoid the death and destruction? Are the Americans
happy with this progress? Does Bush still insist we¹re progressing?
Emily Dickinson wrote, ³hope is a thing with feathers². If what she wrote is
true, then hope has flown far- very far- from IraqŠ