A glimpse into the daily life of Baghdad

US Army soldiers from D Company of the 2-12 Cavalry from Fort Bliss, Texas, conduct house to house reconnaissance in the most dangerous city in the world.

put yourself in the place of that woman and her children... this is the kind of perspective most of us never get and, now that riverbend and her family are leaving the country (most likely have already left), those of us who try to get more are left with the tremendous vacuum our bought and paid for media maintain on descriptions of REAL iraqis living their lives...

spiegel offers up a series of narrative snapshots compiled by four iraqis and describes a day in the world's most dangerous city through their eyes... here's one of them...

It's Sunday, May 13 -- 1,496 days after the US military invaded the country. Another day begins for the 5 million residents of a city that was once the most advanced in the Arab world. Those days are long gone. Today Baghdad is a nightmare -- the world's most horrible city.

According to press reports, at least 35 people died in Baghdad on May 13, 2007, and dozens were injured. But no one will ever know exactly how many people have died since March 2003, when the war began. Baghdad is a city in which life lost its value long ago, a place where no one really knows how many murders, kidnappings and rapes the war has in fact brought to the city.

[...]

6:00 a.m., ISKAN

Imad, the body collector, is awakened by the sun. He unrolls his small rug and says his morning prayers, then he reads from the Koran. It is important to him to know that God is at his side because his work could cost him his life at any time. Imad, a former taxi driver, now makes a living driving bodies. He finds them and recovers them when their families are unable to. It's a good business. He is 39, a thin, nervous-looking man with a black beard and coarse hands. He lives in Iskan, a poor, crowded neighborhood near downtown Baghdad. Since Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia assumed control, only Shiites live in the district. Imad's house is tiny: four rooms on two floors. He sleeps in one of the upper rooms and his mother and two sisters sleep in the other one. Imad is single and says he is too busy to look for a wife.

it's worth reading the whole thing...

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