Rock The Truth: Occupation Iraq: The American Dream

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Occupation Iraq: The American Dream

Painted as success stories by the MSM.

That's what you are going to get from here to November:

George W. Bush, after soooo long, WON IRAQ!!!

"BAGHDAD - .... Although sales remain strong, goldsmithing is a disappearing art in Iraq, a land where it has been practiced for nearly 5,000 years. Many of the most celebrated goldsmiths have joined the exodus of doctors, teachers, and other professionals who are leaving the country, draining it of valuable knowledge.

The remaining jewelers are struggling to compete against a flood of imports while contending with daily power outages, gas shortages, and antiquated equipment....

Fowzi Taihi, who has had a shop near the front of the shrine for 30 years, said he used to make as much as $4,000 a day. "Now, I barely earn enough to keep myself alive," he said...."

Yup.

The guy DID FINE under Saddam Hussein, and now he can barely stay a live!

Yes, but Iraq is a success now!!!

"Escaping a nightmare in Baghdad, Iraqi refugee aims for American Dream" by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times News Service | June 22, 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Murtaja Kamal Aldeen, a 26-year-old Iraqi refugee, no longer recites the opening verse of the Koran, the Fatiha, as he exits his modest garden apartment.

Everyone in his family recited the Fatiha each time they left their house in Baghdad, he said, ensuring that if they died amid that city's bloody mayhem, the traditional prayer for their dead body had already been said.

But these days, Aldeen, a trim, serious man of medium height, says he no longer needs the comforting verse.

He is settling into his new American homeland. He has a Social Security number and a driver's license; he watches a lot of "Oprah" and "Seinfeld"; he has figured out how to navigate the online help-wanted advertisements and has landed a minimum-wage job at a local electronics chain.

Living in a spare room in an elderly uncle's house, Aldeen, like many refugees, rides an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes he lives the euphoria of escaping a nightmare, and sometimes he plunges into the sadness of having left his family and all that is familiar behind.

"I feel lonely," he said over a chicken dinner recently. "I need friends; I need American friends. Maybe after 10 years or even five, I will have the life I always dreamed about - living safe, living well, living with all my family in a healthy environment."

Aldeen is one of just 4,742 refugees from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed into the United States since October 2007 - eligible because he worked for an American organization and his life was considered to be in danger. Several of the company's employees were kidnapped. The administration has reserved 12,000 slots for Iraqi refugees for this year. But it has been slow to fill them. Critics call the program miserly, particularly since the United States ignited the chaos that pushed an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis to flee, mostly to Syria or Jordan, where they often struggle to make ends meet.

Years ago, Aldeen's dreams did not include emigrating to America. He had a good life in Iraq and anticipated a bright future, graduating from Baghdad University's college of dentistry in 2005. But the new reality sank in as one professor after another was assassinated and Aldeen faced mounting threats.

"We lost everything; we can't ever go back to Iraq," he said, blaming his fellow Iraqis for the magnitude of his changed circumstances. "Secular people have nothing to go back to."

The International Rescue Committee, one of some 10 nongovernmental organizations that help refugees assimilate nationwide, agreed to oversee his settling in San Jose because he had distant relatives here.

About a month after he arrived, the International Rescue Committee enrolled him in weekly training sessions to prepare him for job interviews. His English is so good that he skipped the usual first grueling language lessons, although occasionally he catches an unfamiliar word on the news. "What's a mortgage?" he asked.

A good chunk of the training was cultural. You should shake hands with a woman. Do not wear heavy gold chains, excessive cologne, or white socks. Show up clean-shaven. He worries about that last point - shaving three times a week was fine in Baghdad, and daily shaving gives him a rash.

But the rescue committee's lessons proved useful, forcing him to think about unfamiliar interview questions like "What's your main fault?" He has been coached to turn that into a positive, saying he worked too much when he ran his own computer business in Baghdad.

Overall, he feels that worrying about how to earn a living is a vast improvement over worrying about staying alive. "This is an open society," he said. "I don't feel different from anyone. If you stick to the rules you are fine. Nobody will come knock on your door in the middle of the night and take you out and kill you."

How is that different from Iraq?

Just stick to the rules -- in our fascista dictatorship?

As for the cops not killing folks, they do it all the time.

(Remember Ms. Carol Anne Gotbaum?)

You just never hear about it again.

Here is what the Globe cut:

"Leaving Home Behind to Escape a Nightmare"

The United States government has a reputation for being tight-fisted with refugees compared with, say, Sweden, which grants newcomers benefits for life. By contrast, Mr. Aldeen is entitled to about $400 a month for four months, plus $100 in food stamps. He turns over $375 a month to his aunt and uncle for room and board. Moving out is not affordable, he said.

Where is YOUR HANDOUT, American?

He misses his family badly, and on each visit to the I.R.C. pressed his case officer to speed their arrival.... He fears his parents do not have many years left, and every passing day feels like precious time wasted that should have been spent together.

How many refugees can this nation take, anyway?

Maybe this occupation wasn't such a good idea, huh?

Most immigrants spend their first six months happy — buoyed by having made it to the land of their new dreams, she said. After that, the expenses and other difficulties of daily life often bring despair.

But, but, but, they have been LIBERATED!

Meanwhile, the propaganda push is in full bloom:

"Female Suicide Bomber Kills 15 in Iraq"

BAGHDAD — The latest in a wave of female suicide bombers killed 15 people and wounded more than 40 others on Sunday near a heavily fortified courthouse and government outpost in central Baquba, Iraqi security officials said. Seven of the dead and 10 of the wounded were Iraqi policemen.

So let me get this straight: "Al-CIA-Duh" is nearly defeated, "Al-CIA-Duh" is on the run, and "Al-CIA-Duh" is now using kid bombers and women "suiciders"; so HOW can "Al-CIA-Duh" still be a WORLDWIDE "threat?!"

The bomber wore billowing clothes that concealed a vest padded with powerful explosives and laced with small projectiles — apparently iron ball bearings, the officials said. The magnitude of the blast immediately raised questions about the sophistication of the bomb, which witnesses described as unusually strong.

Uh-oh! I am SICK of the HUMONGOUS LIES being told by the AGENDA-PUSHING, WORLD-VIEW-PROMOTING, Zionist-controlled AmeriKan press!!!!

“The explosion was huge, like it was a car bomb,” said Adnan Majid, a 29-year-old library worker who was wounded in the arm.

PROBABLY WAS!!! But the New York Times has an agenda to push!

The bodies of at least three policemen were torn to pieces by the force of the detonation, security officials said....

The explosion underscored a growing problem for Iraqi security forces: Women attackers wearing the black, flowing head-to-toe robes known as abayas — which are customary in many parts of Iraq — who have been able to sneak bombs into crowds where male suicide bombers would have faced more aggressive searches or had difficulty concealing a bomb.

And CUI BONO?

How come the West always wants to undress the Muslim women?

That is why I don't believe in female "suiciders." -- among other reasons (see links below).

Many suicide bombers are believed to come from outside Iraq. But the American military issued a statement Sunday evening describing the attacker as a “female Iraqi citizen.”

Now I am DEFINITELY CONVINCED it is a SELF-SERVING LIE!!!

The female attackers continue to take advantage of Islamic rules that prevent men — including security officers responsible for conducting searches — from touching women. Compounding the predicament is a scarcity of female Iraqi police and soldiers who might otherwise fill the gap....

Then why did you promote that last week, shitters?

The general blamed Sunday’s attack and other recent female bombers in Diyala on the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and on “takfiris,” a catchall term used to describe Sunni extremists who attack Shiites because they believe Shiites practice a heretical form of Islam...."

Even though they have inter-married and lived together for centuries WITHOUT killing each other and blowing up each others mosques.

Funny how that only started once AMERIKA GOT THERE, huh?

Sigh!

About that sectarianism: Memory Hole: The Dream Vacation

Memory Hole: Sistani's Reach

Memory Hole: The Uniters of Islam

Occupation Iraq: Sectarian Saviors

The Real Muqtada al-Sadr

Also see: