WP:"In Baghdad, Reality Counters Rhetoric"

[laststeamtrain]

In Baghdad, Reality Counters Rhetoric
Violence Remains Everyday Pattern

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A21



BAGHDAD, Nov. 30 -- Through the smoke of car bombs on the streets of Baghdad, Ali Kathem has trouble seeing the progress that President Bush described Wednesday in a speech in Annapolis.

"At least we didn't have terrorism under Saddam Hussein. Now, we have explosions, kidnapping, stealing," said Kathem, 24, a stocky man who has sold cigarettes on a busy roadside in the Iraqi capital for nearly a decade...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002259_pf.html

[leftchick]

1. That is quite an eye opener!

I think condi should read this to the chimp while he drinks his juice this morning....

<snip>

In an electronics store nearby, Haider Falleh, 32, said his opinion of the new Iraq crystallized when a half-dozen men in police uniforms, driving police cars, robbed his shop of 45 cell phones. He ran for help to police at a checkpoint across the street. They shrugged.

For Ghassan Abdul Haider, 26, a Shiite police officer in the capital, the religious lines dividing the country have kept him from his home in northern Baghdad for three months. The last time he was there, little children brought notes from his Sunni neighbors saying he would be killed.

Bush, in his speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, spoke of progress toward independence, of land restored to Iraqi control, of gains in stability and democracy, and of the "skill and courage" of newly trained Iraqi security forces.

But on the streets of Baghdad, such optimistic rhetoric contrasts sharply with the thunder of suicide bombs, the scream of ambulance sirens, the roar of racing police cars bearing men with masks and machine guns, and the grim daily reports of assassinations, murders and hostage-taking.

[Gelliebeans]

2. I laughed so loud, I made the cat jump

when I read what you wrote about Condi and Chimp. Mental picture of her serving him his daily cream of wheat and making his sandwhiches while writing love notes on his napkin :puke: LOL :rofl:

[leftchick]

3. sorry, didn't mean to upset your pretty kitties!

I was thinking after I wrote it the more appropriate beverage would probably be a Bloody Mary, heavy on the vodka and celery salt!

:)

[MetaTrope]

4. Everything's fine in the Green Zone!

Why can't the media report on the good things happening in Iraq?