Dean's World

In this week's Carnival of the Liberated we present a great selection of this week's posts from Iraqi bloggers.

First off, there's a blog specifically dedicated to cataloging Iraqi blogs. If you want to get some idea of the entire spectrum of Iraqi opinion, check out Iraq Blog Count. I found Welcome to my World!!! through this blog. Many thanks.

Mrs. S. of Iraq at a glance provides some insight into the objectives of the resistance in Iraq:

If there are groups that disagree with the government and want the military forces to get out, why don't they participate peacefully in the upcoming elections and then achieve their goals? If Iraqis want them, they'll choose them.

But there are Arab and foreign countries who do not want Iraq to heal and be rebuilt for many purposes and cooperate with the terrorists to destroy our country.

They are the real enemy of Iraq, if they are not, so they could guard their borders and help Iraq to arrest those terrorists who harvest the lives of innocent Iraqis...have you ever heard that one of our `neighbors' arrested terrorists who were trying to enter Iraq?

I'm not against American people or even their army, I know they are only doing their jobs and they are misled by their government but I'm against the American policy which makes the things worse to its people.

More here.

Well, Riverbend certainly doesn't think much of either GWB or Allawi:

I was channel-surfing yesterday evening- trying to find something interesting to watch. I flipped vaguely to Al-Arabia and Bush's inane smile suddenly flashed across the screen. Now, normally, as soon as I see his face, I instantly change channels and try to find something that doesn't make me quite as angry. This time, I stopped to watch as Allawi's pudgy person came into view. It's always quite a scene- Bush with one of the alledged leaders of the New Iraq.

and Ali of Iraq the Model fisks it:

I've been surfing the net yesterday and I found a post on Riverbend's blog via another blog that I can't remember now that was really interesting. I never wanted to criticize my fellow Iraqi bloggers but there are things that I just can't ignore; telling lies. The blogger noted that our perspectives and those of Riverbend's were always extremely contradicting each other and he seems more inclined to believe Riverbend than us, and I'm just fine with that, as there are many people who have the opposite attitude and this is all just normal. The problem is that they are believing `poetry' not realities and facts. The scarce amount of "observations from the ground" you can find in all Riverbend's post and especially the last one are actually frank lies, and I wish there was a polite way to put that, but lies are lies and it's ironic that she chooses “liar, liar” as a title for her post.

Who has the right of it? You decide. It's very difficult to figure out the real situation from thousands of miles away but one thing is quite clear: the terrorists, thugs, and insurgents in Iraq are making things very tough for everyone. Rose of Diary in Baghdad writes:

What is happening in Iraq is a tragedy. Every day tens of Iraqi people get killed either by mistake from American army or by some suicide bombers who found Iraq a fertile land to their acts against USA and their allies and somehow the Iraqi people became the victims instead of the US army.

That's pretty much the way Alaa of The Mesopotamian sees it, too. But he urges us to have faith.

Sam at Hammorabi has some pretty harsh words for Abu-Musab Zarqawi, Sheikh Yosif Al-Khardhawi, Hamas, John Kerry, and Iyad Alawi.

Ays of Iraq at a glance describes an al Arabiya documentary on the Saudi-supported madrassas:

The teacher said: `we learn those kids the morals and ethics of Islam, how to respect the people, we are studying the Koran, and learn it by heart, the pupils here are so happy and proud of their future as they'll grow as good men'

Till now, I asked myself: `so what?..what's wrong with this system, since it is an ordinary school, and does not hurt anyone, let them learn what they want to learn, but without harmful outcomes'..

But I knew that there's something after this nice introduction.


The movie went on, and I watched some scary scenes, those kids were sitting and reading the Koran loudly and hysterically with rapid forward and backward moves and above this, the teacher was holding something like a small piece of a hose and was beating them while they were reading the Koran frantically!

And here the black face was shown up.


The reporter asked one of the pupils about his life in this school, and the kid said that they are there from the morning till late evening, they don't do anything but reading and studying the Koran (according to their teacher's way) for years.

Future troubles began to be clear half an hour from the beginning of this movie.

The kids were talking about the Jihad and how they are ready to be one of AlMujahideen, their parents were so happy with their `courageous and strong' boys, and that they would get AlJannah (the paradise) sooner or later.

Kardox worries about the the insurgency spilling over into the Kurdish areas.

Not to over-emphasize Iraq the Model but Ali really has some good stuff there. Don't miss his thoughts on the relationship between Islam, the caliphate, and terrorism and his hopes for the future of Islam:

However nowadays there are many Muslim thinkers and writers who adapt a similar pattern of thinking to that of the Moa'atazilla and they are oppressed too. They look at the words of Koran as a beginning not a limit. They are just broad lines that we can start from without fear and without restrictions, and they believe so also because the most frequent command in the Koran is, "THINK"; think and look around you and question everything.

I believe that these thinkers are the hope to reform Islam, to save it and get it back from the hands of those evil and ignorant Mullahs and clerics. Such pattern of thinking can open all closed gates between Muslims and the rest of the world. We really believe that all religions are one and that they all come from the same source, so why fight and why quarrel? And I don't mean this in the same superficial way we always hear from clerics who just want to sound moderate. It's that we can, and should, have our own ways in praying and communicating with our creator and it's not anyone else's business.

How do you know you're Iraqi? Downfall of Welcome to my world !!! tells us.

Finally, neurotic iraqi wife describes her wedding night. It's not what you think.

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.