'City of Peace' now a city in pieces (Baghdad)

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Known for centuries as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the Iraqi capital's landscape has been marred by concrete blast walls, barbed wire, steel barricades, sandbags and crumbling buildings pockmarked by bullet holes or gutted by explosions.

"We used to be under sanctions and the economic conditions were dire, but never was the city so ugly. Between the chopped trees and the burned houses, it's a total mess," said Fadhila Dawoud, a teacher who used to take her students on picnics along the banks of the Tigris. Now they hold picnics in the school courtyard.
...
...Baghdad has survived the 13th-century mayhem inflicted on it by the Mongols, the 16th-century marginalization by the Ottomans and two decades of war and sanctions under Saddam Hussein.

After the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, the city of 5 million became one large military barricade: Humvees and tanks roaming the streets, helicopters rattling above, checkpoints and soldiers everywhere. A two-year insurgency compounded the problem.

Mayor Alaa al-Tamimi has made it his mission to bring back the city's former glory......MORE......

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/3099993

[sniffa]

1. we came in peace

and Left it in pieces

[calimary]

2. Nice job we did there, 'eh?

We're nothing but the latest wrecking crew. Nice legacy, don't you think? Jon Stewart is so spot-on - "MESS-o-potamia."

[AlCzervik]

3. Freedom is on the.......oh never mind.

[Moderator]

4. kick to combine

[chlamor]

5. Invasion Robs Baghdad of its Beauty

Invasion robs Baghdad of its beauty

Thursday 24 March 2005, 4:53 Makka Time, 1:53 GMT  

The war has exacted a heavy toll on the Iraqi capital
Baghdad, whose name means the Garden of God, has fallen from grace.

Known for centuries as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, its landscape has been marred by concrete blast walls, barbed wire, steel barricades, sandbags and crumbling buildings pockmarked by bullet holes or ransacked by explosions.

Things have become so bad that the Iraqi capital has dropped to the bottom of a quality of life survey of 215 cities, conducted by the London-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting. "We used to be under sanctions and the economic conditions were dire, but never was the city so ugly," Fadhila Dawud, a teacher who used to take her students on picnics along the banks of the Tigris, said.

<snip>

Glorious past

Once dubbed the City of Peace, Baghdad was founded in the 8th century by Caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur as the capital for his rising Muslim Abbasid empire. The city soon became the heart of mediaeval Muslim civilisation - a centre of arts, culture and architecture. 

<snip>

City of barricades

After the US-led invasion in March 2003, the city of five million became one large military barricade: Humvees and tanks roaming the streets, helicopters rattling above, checkpoints and soldiers everywhere

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/71466A7F-C7C6-42E8-93FC-0D1955D6FD4A.htm

[Cocoa]

6. PBS showed the army bulldozing trees

in a relatively quiet part of Baghdad, they were systematically destroying a beautiful palm grove while some Iraqis watched. It was really really sad to see.

edit: this was on "Frontline" a couple of weeks ago.

[chlamor]

7. What will the children bear witness to every day

blown up buildings-barricades-machine guns-bomblets-sewage-bug infested dogs

The damage is beyond comprehension.

[chlamor]

8. Two Years... Baghdad Burning

The sky was lit with flashes of red and white and the ground rocked with explosions on March 21, 2003. The bombing had actually begun on the dawn of the 20th of March, but it got really heavy on the 21st. I remember being caught upstairs when the heavier bombing first began. I was struggling to drag down a heavy cotton mattress from my room for an aunt who was spending a couple of weeks with us and I suddenly heard a faraway ‘whiiiiiiiiiiiiiz’ that sounded like it might be getting closer.

I began to rush then- pulling and pushing at the heavy mattress; trying to half throw, half haul it down stairs. I got stuck halfway down the staircase and, at that point, the whizzing sound had grown so loud, it felt like it was coming out of my head. I shoved again at the mattress and called E.’s name to help lug the thing downstairs but E. was outside with my cousin, trying to see where the missiles were going. I repositioned and began to kick the heavy mattress, not caring how it got downstairs, just wanting to be on the ground floor when the missile hit.

The mattress finally budged and began to slip and slide down the remaining 10 steps, finally landing in a big pile at the end of the staircase. I followed it in a hurry, taking two steps at a time, expecting to feel a big “BOOM” at any moment. I tripped on the last step in the mad dash for the ground floor and ended up in a heap on the cotton mass on the ground. The explosion came the same moment- followed by a series of larger explosions that didn’t sound like the ordinary missiles we had been experiencing the last 40 hours or so.

The house was chaotic that moment. The parents were running, dad trying to locate his battery-powered radio and mother making sure the stove was turned off. She was also yelling orders over her shoulder, commanding us to go into the “safe room” we had specially decorated with duct tape and soft cushions, or ‘bomb-proofed’ as my cousin liked to say. The aunt that was staying with us was running around, shrilly trying to find her two granddaughters (who were already in the safe room with their mother). The cousin was rushing around turning off kerosene heaters and opening windows so that they wouldn’t shatter with the impact. E. hurried in from outside, trying to keep his expression casual under the paleness of his face.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=10612&hd=0&size=1&l=x