Iraqi blogger returns after six-year hiatus

This week’s 10-year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad prompted plenty of reflections on the Iraq war from soldiers and strategists, columnists and analysts. But we’ve heard far less from Iraqis themselves. 

Here to close that gap is "Riverbend," an Iraqi woman whose blog posts from 2003 to 2007 about daily life after the fall of Saddam were published in the book Baghdad Burning and nominated for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction. "I’m female, Iraqi and 24," she wrote in her first post on Aug. 17, 2003. "That’s all you need to know. It’s all that matters these days anyway." As my colleague Christian Caryl wrote in a review of her book in 2007, "she has provided us with the most comprehensive Iraqi view of the war to date."

There’s the moment when she can no longer work because her company doesn’t want to be responsible for the safety of women, her questions about the U.S. awarding highly inflated contracts to Americans when there are plenty of unemployed and highly qualified Iraqi engineers, the shift she sees in the country toward fundamentalism (which she chalks up to fear and frustration), and the sadness she feels for U.S. soldiers. "Just as it isn’t fair that I have to spend my 24th year suffering this whole situation, it doesn’t seem fair that they have to spend their 19th, 20th, etc. suffering it either," she wrote. And then details such as not wearing pajamas to bed given the likelihood of having to wait outside in the cold during a night raid. 

After her blog went effectively dark for six years — her last post on Oct. 22, 2007 documented her arrival in Syria as a refugee — she suddenly re-emerged this week to offer her take on lessons learned over the past 10 years:

We learned that you can be floating on a sea of oil, but your people can be destitute. Your city can be an open sewer; your women and children can be eating out of trash dumps and begging for money in foreign lands. 

We learned that justice does not prevail in this day and age. Innocent people are persecuted and executed daily. Some of them in courts, some of them in streets, and some of them in the private torture chambers.

We are learning that corruption is the way to go. You want a passport issued? Pay someone. You want a document ratified? Pay someone. You want someone dead? Pay someone. 

We learned that it’s not that difficult to make billions disappear. 

We are learning that those amenities we took for granted before 2003, you know- the luxuries – electricity, clean water from faucets, walkable streets, safe schools – those are for deserving populations. Those are for people who don’t allow occupiers into their country. 

We’re learning that the biggest fans of the occupation (you know who you are, you traitors) eventually leave abroad. And where do they go? The USA, most likely, with the UK a close second. If I were an American, I’d be outraged. After spending so much money and so many lives, I’d expect the minor Chalabis and Malikis and Hashimis of Iraq to, well, stay in Iraq. Invest in their country. I’d stand in passport control and ask them, "Weren’t you happy when we invaded your country? Weren’t you happy we liberated you? Go back. Go back to the country you’re so happy with because now, you’re free!" 

We’re learning that militias aren’t particular about who they kill. The easiest thing in the world would be to say that Shia militias kill Sunnis and Sunni militias kill Shia, but that’s not the way it works. That’s too simple. 

We’re learning that the leaders don’t make history. Populations don’t make history. Historians don’t write history. News networks do. The Foxes, and CNNs, and BBCs, and Jazeeras of the world make history. They twist and turn things to fit their own private agendas. 

We’re learning that the masks are off. No one is ashamed of the hypocrisy anymore. You can be against one country (like Iran), but empowering them somewhere else (like in Iraq). You can claim to be against religious extremism (like in Afghanistan), but promoting religious extremism somewhere else (like in Iraq and Egypt and Syria). 

Those who didn’t know it in 2003 are learning (much too late) that an occupation is not the portal to freedom and democracy. The occupiers do not have your best interests at heart. 

But despite the closure of these lessons, she adds that ultimately many questions remain:

What about George Bush, Condi, Wolfowitz, and Powell? Will they ever be held accountable for the devastation and the death they wrought in Iraq? Saddam was held accountable for 300,000 Iraqis… Surely someone should be held accountable for the million or so?

Finally, after all is said and done, we shouldn’t forget what this was about – making America safer… And are you safer Americans? If you are, why is it that we hear more and more about attacks on your embassies and diplomats? Why is it that you are constantly warned to not go to this country or that one? Is it better now, ten years down the line? Do you feel safer, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of the way (granted half of them were women and children, but children grow up, right?)

And what happened to Riverbend and my family? I eventually moved from Syria. I moved before the heavy fighting, before it got ugly. That’s how fortunate I was. I moved to another country nearby, stayed almost a year, and then made another move to a third Arab country with the hope that, this time, it’ll stick until… Until when? Even the pessimists aren’t sure anymore. When will things improve? When will be able to live normally? How long will it take?

How long? Who knows. It’s been 10 years, but it might take another 10 before we can answer that.