Buddhism is the most peaceful religion, if Iraqis are buddhist then
things will be much better. The article is aimed at people like
demorising. I have sent him a copy, haha!
On Apr 23, 10:31 am, yansimon52
hotmail.com> wrote:> Ask ourselves this question.......
>
> If, majority of Iraqis are buddhist or hindu......do you think the
> situation there will be the same as what is happening now?
>
> On Apr 23, 10:20 pm, "abianc...@
my-deja.com"
my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>> Just Another Day: Living In Baghdad
>> Lara Logan On How Ordinary Citizen Cope In Iraq's Capital
>
>
>> (CBS) There is perhaps no place in the world today where it is harder
>> for an average person to get through an average day than in the city
>> of Baghdad. It has become a living hell, with daily car bombs, mortar
>> attacks, hundreds of kidnappings and murders every week.
>
>> The problem is, in order for Iraq to have peace and security, the
>> capital must first be made secure, which is why President Bush chose
>> to send in more troops.
>
>> As correspondent Lara Logan reports, many in Baghdad fear it is an
>> impossible task, given how chaotic the city has become, with
>> terrorists, insurgents, and now a brutal civil war tearing the society
>> apart.
>> ________________________________________
>
>> When Mahmud al Wadi gets ready to take his kids to school, he says,
>> "The first thing I prepare them, I prepare my weapon of course."
>
>> There couldn't be a better metaphor for what it's like living in
>> Baghdad today: without his gun, Mahmud won't even attempt the drive.
>
>> He calls ahead to friends and neighbors to make sure the roads are
>> clear of danger. And he tells Logan he never goes the same way,
>> changing his route every day.
>
>> It's just a short drive, but he can never know how long it will take
>> to get there. He cracks the window so he can hear if there's gunfire
>> or mortars nearby. The day 60 Minutes went with him, they never made
>> it to school - they didn't even make it out of their neighborhood,
>> because the military had blocked all the roads.
>
>> Asked if his children are afraid, Mahmud tells Logan, "Believe me,
>> they are afraid. Because when I told them, 'Tomorrow we'll not go to
>> the school.' He will be very, very enjoy about this."
>
>> The only time his children ever really get to leave the house is to go
>> to school. Otherwise they stay home.
>
>> "What kind of life is that?" Logan asks.
>
>> "No life," Mahmud says.
>
>> Mahmud's family lives on the edge of Adamiya, a violent neighborhood
>> overtaken by hardcore insurgents and under constant attack by Shiite
>> militias. It's off-limits to Western civilians, so the images for
>> Logan's report were filmed by an Iraqi cameraman.
>
>> For the interview, the family had to come meet 60 Minutes, traveling
>> across town for the first time in three years - a risk they said was
>> worth taking to tell their story.
>
>> Asked about his daily life in Iraq, Mahmud tells Logan, "If I want to
>> talk about this, I don't need 60 minutes, I need 60 million minutes to
>> told you how do we live."
>
>> 60 Minutes went with Mahmud, who lives off his small military pension,
>> to see what it takes to do a simple chore like getting gas for his
>> car.
>
>> What drivers in Baghdad face are massive queues; on the day 60 Minutes
>> accompanied Mahmud, the queue at the gas station stretched for four
>> miles. Sometimes, Mahmud says, he has had to wait in line for three
>> days, sleeping there and waiting.
>
>> "And then when I come they say there is no fuel," he tells Logan.
>
>> But none of these hardships compare to the fear he has for his family,
>> in a country where civilians - even children - are victims of
>> kidnappings, or worse.
>
>> "When they take my boy, just they will kill him," Mahmud fears. "But
>> when they take girl, no. They do other thing maybe."
>
>> Mahmud fears they will rape her which, he says, would be worse than
>> killing her - because, in Iraq's Muslim culture, rape of a daughter
>> brings shame on the victim and the whole family.
>> (CBS) When 60 Minutes asked Mahmud's teen-aged daughter Rheem what the
>> hardest thing is about her life, she said it is seeing things she
>> can't forget.
>
>> All of his children, Rafif, 11, and 13-year-old Mustafa, have seen
>> things no parent wants their child to see. "One day, we see there's
>> two fighter, they killed two boys in front of us," Mahmud explains.
>
>> Mahmud says the two fighters just shot the two people in the street
>> and left their bodies on the road. "And they see the blood of them,"
>> he explains.
>
>> His children remember the incident, and his daughter wept when asked
>> about it.
>
>> It's a story heard over and over in Iraq. And no one has been spared,
>> not even the most privileged.
>
>> Dr. Quoresh al-Kasir is one of Iraq's most prominent surgeons, and was
>> a guest of President Bush at the White House in 2004. He and his
>> family lived on Haifa Street, an upscale Sunni area, where fighting
>> broke out in January between the mostly-Shiite Iraqi army and Sunni
>> gunmen.
>
>> "The Iraqi Army tried to kill my family and my kids," Dr. Quoresh
>> explains.
>
>> That was when CBS News first spoke to Quoresh. He and his family were
>> trapped by the fighting, and CBS broadcast his desperate cry for help
>> on the Evening News.
>
>> "The snipers were on the other building," Quoresh explains. "When the
>> shots started to come through the windows my sons and my daughter, you
>> know, they were in front of my eyes, expecting at any moment the Iraqi
>> army comes and shoots my children."
>
>> His wife Nala, sons Zaid and Taif, and his daughter Dina still can't
>> believe they survived.
>
>> "What was it like for you that time, when you were stuck in the
>> apartment, trapped there during the fighting?" Logan asks Dina.
>
>> "I feel I will be dying," she recalls.
>
>> Her brothers nod in agreement. "'Cause this is the end," Zaid adds.
>
>> "You thought it was the end?" Logan asks.
>
>> "We are all are crying, me and husband, and my son, and my daughter
>> all are crying that time," Quoresh's wife Nala remembers.
>
>> As the fighting raged for 10 days, they all hid in the bathroom of
>> their dark apartment, without heat, electricity, and running short of
>> food.
>
>> "We were so hungry at that time," Quoresh remembers. "So my wife said,
>> 'Quoresh, we had to had, I don't know, the kids are hungry.'"
>
>> "I go to the kitchen and prepare something to eat," Nala explains. But
>> out of fear of the snipers, Quoresh's wife couldn't walk upright past
>> the windows.
>
>> "So she crawled and went to the kitchen. And then we sat in the
>> bathroom near the restroom. We ate," he remembers.
>
>> The day after the CBS News report about the doctor and his family's
>> plight was broadcast, the U.S. decided to launch a rare rescue
>> mission, sending in soldiers from the 4/9 Cavalry to save them.
>
>> With U.S. helicopters hovering over Haifa Street, a convoy of Bradley
>> fighting vehicles drove down the dangerous road to Quoresh's house.
>> When soldiers yelled to locate them, the family came out, luggage in
>> hand, and was hurried into the Bradley vehicles and taken to safety.
>> No shots were fired and the rescue mission was very quick and
>> precise.
>
>> "We heard the helicopters starting to come to the area," Quoresh
>> recalls. "My sons and daughter said, 'Oh, Baba, the American started
>> to reach the area.'"
>
>> "I remember that. It was a moment really, it was a start of a new
>> life," Quoresh says, describing his feelings of the rescue.
>
>> Quoresh's daughter Dina says the rescue was "like a dream."
>
>> His life was saved, but Quoresh lost his home and almost everything he
>> owned. He says he was targeted because he's a doctor.
>
>> Nearly 200 physicians, including 15 of Quoresh's closest friends, have
>> been murdered by those intent on destroying Iraqi society, which is
>> one reason why 18,000 Iraqi doctors - half the physicians in the
>> country - have fled for fear of ending up like many of the people who
>> pass through their hospital doors.
>
>> Asked why he remains in Iraq, Quoresh tells Logan, "This is the big
>> question that I have been asked from so many people."
>
>> "And what's the answer?" Logan asks.
>
>> "And the answer is that I love Iraq," he replies. "Yeah. This is my
>> country."
>> (CBS) Dr. Quoresh hasn't forgotten the people they left behind on
>> Haifa Street. He and his family told 60 Minutes they witnessed Shiite
>> fighters executing unarmed Sunni civilians, evidence of the growing
>> hatred between the two sects.
>
>> Baghdad today is a divided city, something that's not so obvious in
>> some neighborhoods that look pretty much like they used to, blending
>> easily into one another. But in other areas, it is a different story.
>> There are now distinct sectarian borders between some neighborhoods.
>> Many have been ethnically cleansed, carving up the capital along
>> sectarian lines and separating Sunni from Shia.
>
>> Mahmud's neighborhood used to be mixed, but he says fellow Sunnis have
>> forced out most of the Shiite residents.
>
>> "So, overnight with no warning people were just forced to leave their
>> homes, just told to go?" Logan asks Mahmud.
>
>> "Sometimes 'Now you have 10 minutes to leave your house,'" he tells
>> Logan. If they refuse and don't leave, Mahmud says, they get killed.
>
>> For Mahmud this is one of the most distressing things about the new
>> Iraq. "We don't need this. We don't need this. Why if I am Shia or
>> Sunni. What's the different? I am Muslim. That's enough," he says.
>
>> Many Iraqis feel the same way, but the body count from Shiites and
>> Sunnis killing each other tells a different story. Families on both
>> sides have been devastated.
>
>> Mahmud says he has lost 14 family members. Asked what happened to
>> them, he says, "Someone who was killed by shooting. Someone he killed
>> by a militia."
>
>> Asked if it's hard for him to think about them, Mahmud says, "Yes,
>> believe me. It's very difficult."
>
>> Like most Iraqis, Mahmud is so desperate for security, he would like
>> nothing more than for the new U.S. security plan to work. With the
>> troop surge, U.S. soldiers are now a constant presence in dangerous
>
> ...
>
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