Inside Iraq: "They don't think about us"

I'm copying here the most recent blog entry from Inside Iraq, which is part of the excellent McClatchy News site. The writer is an Iraqi employee of this US news service:

It had been my fourth days in the office. I couldn’t go home since I came on Wednesday. When I tried to go home on Thursday afternoon, I couldn’t find a taxi because of the violence wave that swept Baghdad neighborhoods which pushed the government to announce curfew. In a way or another, I could manage staying in the office in spite of the big pain in my heart. I always think about my son. I miss him so much. I miss hugging him, I missed his sweet kisses on my face, I miss his sweet smile when he sees me, I miss his tears when my wife doesn’t allow him to do whatever he wants and I really love his face when I defend him as if he teases his mother. I was planning to tell my boss that I want to go early tomorrow and I know she wouldn’t mind at all but it looks that planning for more that one hour is impossible in my country. About less than one hour ago and while I was watching a football match with my colleague, our office manager told us that the government decided to extend the curfew until further notice which means I have to stay another night in the office.

When I heard the news, I started thinking seriously about the most important thing. I started thinking about food, not my food but Iraqis food. I’m really surprised with the way our government thinks because it didn’t take in consideration the most important need for the people, the government didn’t ever think about food. Iraqi families are locked in their house for the last four days; they didn’t store much food because they never expected such a curfew. The food that the families usually store might be enough for two days as a maximum. The markets are empty since the second day of the curfew. It looks that our great government forgot that not all the Iraqis are prime minister or high rank officials or it may believe that Iraqis use the solar power to live. It looks that our politicians never read history; they never realize that hungry stomachs are timed bombs that may explode any moment.

Come on our great politicians, we don’t have the money you have, we don’t have the power you have and more than that, we have real human hearts not politicians hearts.

Remember this: "It looks that our politicians never read history; they never realize that hungry stomachs are timed bombs that may explode any moment."

If you are still up for it, look at this at another McClatchy blog.