TVs in Iraq Tuned to Real-Life Horror

[BlueNomad]

Tell me this situation is about to get any better. Vacation in Iraq anyone?

TVs in Iraq Tuned to Real-Life Horror
Beheadings, Bombings Becoming Viewing Fare of Choice in Iraq, Replacing Post-Saddam Porn Explosion

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq Sept. 26, 2004 — In an outdoor food market under the fierce midday sun, a crowd of men and boys were watching video footage of a truck bomber seated behind the steering wheel, smiling and murmuring his last words before crashing into U.S. military vehicles on an overpass...

Baghdad wakes up each day to explosions, gunfire, ambulance sirens and the clatter of low-lying American helicopters. But the ferocity of this month's violence in the heart of the Iraqi capital is unprecedented fierce gunbattles, car bombings that claim dozens of lives, brazen kidnappings, assassinations and barrages of mortars and rockets....

Kidnapping for ransom is rampant. Last week a father whose 12-year-old son was kidnapped was told by a male caller to pay $13,000. "This money will be used to buy missiles to attack the Americans. We defend the country while you're asleep," the voice said. The father paid and the boy was freed....

Underscoring the hair-trigger atmosphere are the guns constantly pointed at the public by American soldiers in Humvees or Westerners' bodyguards in SUVs as they navigate through the gridlock. This sense that foreigners rule them and that death may be a heartbeat away accentuates the average Baghdadi's sense of helplessness.

<http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040926_789.html>

[patdem]

1. I guess 'Reality TV' in Iraq is a bit different that in America?

There's is REAL Reality TV, whereas ours is PRETEND Reality TV? :shrug:

[sattahipdeep]

2. Open for business

Baghdad Year Zero
Written By
Klein, Naomi

The tone of Bremer’s tenure was set with his first major act on the job:
he fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors,
nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the
country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties,
no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared two weeks after he
arrived, was “open for business.”

U.S. and Britain must “comply fully with their
obligations under international law including in
particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and
the Hague Regulations of 1907.”


But Bremer didn’t give up. International law prohibits occupiers from
selling state assets themselves, but it doesn’t say anything about the
puppet governments they appoint. Originally, Bremer had pledged to
hand over power to a directly elected Iraqi government, but in early
November he went to Washington for a private meeting with President
Bush and came back with a Plan B.
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

[GHOSTDANCER]

3. I thought al Jazeerah was banned from Iraq?

I't would seem to me that they would be the only ones reporting these events. I am sure it's not coming out of the media and TV stations that the US set up there.

[StClone]

4. Things are getting better in Iraq!

If it has gotten better when are the wingers and assorted nutties going to start moving there. Just asking.