Visiting Baghdad woman decries Iraq's fall into 'state of terror'

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 15, 2006

TAMPA - She kept thinking it couldn't get any worse in Baghdad. But it did - over and over.

So pharmacist Entisar Mohammad Ariabi decided to come to the United States with a group of Iraqi women to tell what it's like to live through three years of war.

After traveling to Jordan and getting a monthlong U.S. visa at the American Embassy in Amman, Ariabi arrived March 5 in the United States. She spoke in St. Petersburg on Tuesday night and is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. today at the University of South Florida.

She will talk about how a city of air-conditioning, e-mail and fashionable restaurants disintegrated into explosions, gunfire and kidnapping. How the reassuring routine of day-to-day life in Baghdad became death and chaos, making people afraid to venture outside. And how she, her friends and the U.S. soldiers she knows have become increasingly depressed and bitter over the past three years.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/15/Tampabay/Visiting_Baghdad_woma.shtml

But Bush says the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam. And Rummie and General Pace say things are actually going very well in Iraq. What's the matter, this lady didn't get the memo?

[rodeodance]

1. Here she says it is time for US troops to go home. How did she get a visa?

... "We know the U.S. soldiers wanted to bring democracy, but they have unintentionally brought misery," she said.

Ariabi, 48, is a Sunni and her husband is a Shiite. Like her son, she said many of her friends' families are mixed Sunni and Shiite who have always gotten along.

"The American notion that there will be a Sunni-Shiite civil war here if the soldiers leave is misguided," she said. "The bombings and violence are to protest the occupation, not because Sunnis and Shiites hate each other."

Ariabi's message: "It is time for the American soldiers to go home."

[leftchick]

2. I believe she was given a major hassle in Jordan about the visa

I am frankly shocked she got it! Cmon tweety, put her on your show!

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Isn't she with a group of women

that are going around the US telling their stories?

BTW: For any of the folks down by Tampa she will be speaking tonight at USF, detailing how three years of war has turned her country into shambles.

[leftchick]

4. yes and I would love to hear them...

I believe a peace group is sponsoring their trip. I wish I knew more details.

[wordpix2]

5. the Iraqis who wanted Saddam gone are now singing his praises thanks to *

[calimary]

7. Astounding, isn't it? I was afraid this would happen, a long time ago.

I had friends who'd throw this back in my face when I'd go off to anti-war rallies. All the blather they bought and regurgitated about how we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here, and "but AREN'T the Iraqis better off without Saddam?" and "but you've got to fly the flag to show you support our trooooooooooops!!!" NOBODY listened when I said I thought supporting our troops meant not sending them into shitholes like this and squandering their precious lives on nothing but lies and distortions and power grabbing, much less wars that can't be won and should NEVER have been fought, to begin with. They all thought I was some sort of heretic.

Stuff like this just confirms that I was correct. That WE here and everyone else who opposed this war from the outset were ALL correct and everything we dreaded, tried desperately to prevent, and warned about came true. As MP George Galloway said to smarmy normie coleman - "everything I said about Iraq turned out to be right and everything YOU said turned out to be wrong."

Funny, I don't see many of those folks out 'n' about in the neighborhood anymore...

[MrPrax]

6. Huh?

So what does this person figure the US should do?

OH--get out.

"We know the U.S. soldiers wanted to bring democracy, but they have unintentionally brought misery," she said.

Ariabi, 48, is a Sunni and her husband is a Shiite. Like her son, she said many of her friends' families are mixed Sunni and Shiite who have always gotten along.

"The American notion that there will be a Sunni-Shiite civil war here if the soldiers leave is misguided," she said. "The bombings and violence are to protest the occupation, not because Sunnis and Shiites hate each other."

Ariabi's message: "It is time for the American soldiers to go home."

Good luck, dear...but your wasting your time...even the Opposition Party in the US is 'on side' for more killing...they are far more worried about what Sean Hannity might say, than anything YOU have to say.