Silent since March 24th, Salam Pax ("Where Is Raed?") is back online, blogging from Baghdad! He Emailed a document with all of his backdated blogs to a friend, and they were posted today. Day by day stream of thought of the attack on Baghdad, from an articulate Iraqi civilian being forced to live through it. The whole thing is well worth reading, but here are some of the highlights: March 24th:
The air raid sirens are not really that dependable, when they dont sound the all clear after a whole hour of silence you get fidgety. The better alarm system is quite accidental. It has become a habit of the mosque muezzins (the prayer callers) to start chanting "allahu akbar - la illaha ila allah" the moment one of them hears an explosion. The next muezzin starts the moment he hears another calling and so on. It spreads thru the city pretty fast, and soon you have all the mosques doing the "Takbir" for five minutes or so. Very eerie but works well to alert everybody. March 30th:
No good news anywhere, no light at the end of the tunnel and the Americans advance doesnt look that reassuring. If we had a mood barometer in the house it would read "to hell with saddam and may he quickly be joined by bush". No one feels like they should welcome the American army. The American government is getting as many curses as the Iraqi. April 1st:
There is one item which I have not thought I would need a big supply of: antacids. Air raid sirens start wailing or the heavy bombs start falling; five minutes later I go for the drawer with the antacids. Now every time the bombing starts my brother starts humming Nirvanas "Pennyroyal Tea" The streets are more crowded by the day and more shops are opening. Can you imagine having to stop all your work for two weeks? A huge part of the population, especially shop owners, groceries and the like all depend on a daybyday income. Two weeks is a lot of time with no money. Most manual labor is paid by the day and all these people have to sit at home because there is no work. Shop owners who live near their shops are opening; banks are open even private banks and life goes on. Things cost double their normal price but we are happy that you can still buy what you need from shops because this means we can keep what we have stored for harder days which are sure to come. April 2nd:
Pachechi was on all the Arabic news stations with interviews and talk shows. If it is a choice between him and Chalabi. I go for Pachechi. (Elonka's Note: Search on this second name with the spelling of "Pachachi") April 7th:
Since the day the Airport was seized we have no electricity and water is not reliable, at times if you have a tap that is higher than 50cm you wont get water from it. . . . Right after that we saw Al-Sahaf denying once again what we have just seen minutes ago. He kept insisting that there are no American troops in Baghdad and for some reason kept insisting that Al-Jazeera has become "a tool of American media", idiot, Jazeera has been obviously very critical of the amrican "invasion" they insist on calling it that and what does the super smart information minister do: ostracize them some more. April 10th:
To see your city destroyed before your own eyes is not a pain that can be described and put to words. It turns you sour or was that bitter, it makes something snap in you and you lose whatever hope you had. Undone by your own hands. Close your doors. Shut your eyes. Hope the black clouds of this ugliness do not reach you. What I am sure of is that this could have been stopped at a snap of an American finger. The ministry of interior affairs was kept off limits to the looters by the simple presence of a couple American army cars and soldiers. Doors were shut, no one went in. at the moment we wish there was an American tank at the corner of every street. April 17th:
[Fedayeen] . . . Syrian, Lebanese and of course Iraqi sickos who are stupid enough to believe the Jennah-under-martyrs-feet rubbish. They want to die in the name of Allah, so what do they do? Do they stand in front of "kafeer infidel aggressor"? No they dont because they are chicken shit. They go hide in civilian districts to shoot a single useless mortar shell or a couple of Kalashnikov shots which bounce without any effect on the armored vehicles. But the answer they get to that single shot is a hell of mortars or whatever on all the houses in the area from where the shot came. This has been happening all over Baghdad, and in many places people were not as lucky as we have been here in our block.
April 23rd:
And what does Mr. Zubaidi, who knows fuck-all, say? His "financial adviser" - another self appointed ex-thief befriended with al-chalabi - told him that the Iraqi Central Bank is able to cover the money so it should not be a problem. Ho-humbug. Who are you to say anything about the central bank? A little aside here before I get back to the 10k bills. Do you know what the new scepter and crown of this state is? A THURAYA phone and an "Iraqi National Conference" flag - Chalabis people. Makes you wonder. Anyway, anything al-zubaidi says can be taken with a ton of salt, we be listenin to what the Americans say. I would rather look at the puppet master than the puppet. Iraq is taken out of the headlines. The search for the next conflict is on. Maybe if it turns out to be Syria the news networks wont have to pay too much in travel costs. April 26th:
(Elonka's note): I can't figure out how exactly to quote it, but Salam evidently interviewed with John Burns from the New York Times for a translator job. Did Burns know who he was talking to??? Why the hell didn't NY Times post that Salam Pax was alive and well?? And the most recent entry from Salam Pax: Things are looking kind of OK, these days. Life has a way of moving on. Your senses are numbed, things stop shocking you. If there is one thing you should believe in, it is that life will find a way to push on, humans are adaptable, that is the only way to explain how such a foolish species has kept itself on this planet without wiping itself out. Humans are very adaptable, physically and emotionally. and I also confess that I am going thru massive internet withdrawal symptoms. Welcome back, Salam Pax! Salam Pax Is Back! | 
