The 'new' normal life in Baghdad

By Libby

Bill Ardolino is peddling surge success with pictures today. He strolls the Shorja Market with the Sons of Iraq and defines the new normal.

Since the improvement in security, central Baghdad has regained a sense of normalcy. Aside from the legion of security personnel bristling with weapons and ubiquitous concrete barriers, portions of the capital bustle and hum with an energy common to all big cities. At the market, children played in the streets while adults shopped, ate, and socialized over chai. The Sons of Iraq moved easily among them and seemed well-received by the locals. [emphasis added]

I'm sure they do seem to be well-received. How would anyboby treat armed enforcers of the peace except with at least feigned respect? Oddly, I was thinking about the old definition of normal in Baghdad this weekend and posted about it at my own blog. Contrast Roggio's photos with this mundane video of a typical street scene before the invasion. [Note it's a little glitchy for the first couple of minutes and the bulk of the nightime scenes start from about the four minute mark]. Especially poignant are the last frames in which an local Iraqi speaks.

Tell all the Western foreigners. We are like this. Normal. No problem.

One can't to fail to notice there are no women in Roggio's pictures but he does take care to capture the smiling children. However, look at the difference in the children between Roggio's photos and the candid snaps here. The knowledge of the horrors these children have witnessed, now reflected in their eyes, breaks the heart. I posted links to many more photos of the old normal before the trees were cut down, before the ancient buildings were bombed, before the Tigris was fouled, but the greatest damage can't be shown in pictures. As Baghdad's Kassakhoon said in comments to my post:

We may be able to regain our buildings, streets and treasures but the thing we can't get back and I think it is bigger than all your losings is that the damage that has affected our society.

It is something we have not seen before: the Shiite hates his Sunni neighbor and vice versa and the Sunni man can't marry a Shiite woman and vice versa.

No matter how the warmongers define, and redefine, success in Iraq, this new normal will be the real legacy of the invasion. The bitter divisions fostered in their society as a result of the liberation will take generations to heal.

Comments

[Bill from INDC]

I find it disappointing that you read my description of Baghdad and regard it as "peddling" success. It is success, relative to the horrific conflict taking place less than a year ago ... though it is not ideal, as caveated with the security measures and presence required to maintain it.

True concern for Iraqi civilians and neutral analysis certainly would not "peddle" failure given the objective reduction in horrific bombings and sectarian murders in central Baghdad.

In addition, there is at least one woman in the photos, and there were women out at the market. My failure to include enough of them in the slideshow was a creative oversight, not a reflection of their absence.

[Libby Spencer]

Bill, no offense intended but I'm sorry, I find the idea that the limited gains made the surge can be honestly couched as a return to normalcy. Life under Saddam wasn't perfect, in fact it was horrible, but as the Iraqi blogger who commented at my blog pointed out, it wasn't a sectarian problem. It was a governmental abuse issue that affected all Iraqis and they nonetheless were at peace with each other.

I think it's insulting to tout the diminishment of violence that didn't exist before we screwed the whole country up with the invasion as any kind of success. But my biggest problem with all of you who excuse the administration's folly, is that I think it's inhumane to give the Iraqis short shrift in failing to acknowledge the price they paid and continue to pay.

If you looked at my links, can you honestly say the street life is even close to the same? I don't see it, but I'm not there. If I'm midjudging the situation, I'd be more than happy to be wrong. Show me the street vendors lining the sidewalks. Show me the old men laughing on the street and playing backgammon. Show me the evening weddings and joyful Iraqis strolling the street without fear. I'll shout my apology from the rooftops.

Six years ago, I could have safely traveled to Baghdad and walked the streets at night, haggling with the vendors. That's not the case anymore. In the end, clearly I thought the invasion was wrong and it irritates me when occupation supporters couch success in terms of armed peacekeepers. We not only have spent enormous blood and treasure of our own, we destroyed their treasures and their society.

I believe as long we remain in occupation, they will not be able to heal themselves. So you'll have to forgive me if I find your promoting what I consider a destructive policy of a prolonged occupation, wrongheaded and counterproductive if our true goal is to bring peace and freedom to the Iraqi people.