With her blog, Riverbend was able to offer to her readers intense eyewitness occurrences of the everyday life and reality of the war in Baghdad. She also gave a strong analysis on the politics behind these events. I have always known about the war, but I never really knew the exact details of what was going on. I didn’t have an actual concept of the reality of the war and how bad life was for everyone over there. Her blog opened my eyes to a whole other world, one that was hidden from my own. By reading all of her stories of life in Baghdad, I was shocked at the harsh reality and my perspective on the war was drastically changed. She wrote about families whose relatives disappear into prisons, about children who are kidnapped by militias, about the harsh living conditions, about all the homes attacked by U.S. troops. I am extremely surprised at how one person can be so strong and determined to get a message out there like Riverbend does. She is very passionate about what she writes and she shows no fear in speaking about the truth. Her knowledge on the Western World also impressed me as well as her awareness of her own culture. She is writing from a women’s perspective which also allows for us to realize how rough it is for the women in that culture. Women are not even allowed to leave their house without a head covering and if they wear jeans they risk being attacked, abducted or insulted. Her blog definitely raises large awareness of the reality of the war, the prejudice against women, and the understanding between the Iraqis and the Americans.
I read quite a few blogposts from Riverbend. The author is insightful and clearly passionate and if you can get around her probably deserved loathing of Americans then she is an interesting author to read. In her top post about visiting her aunt there is so much more going on than just a visit to a family member. The thing that stood out to me the most was the gas prices. Before the war gas cost one cent in American dollars. Now the cost of gas is enormous and suprise suprise the Saudi Arabians are imprting it and jacking up the price. Other things I noticed are how the Iraqi people have absolutely no faith in the americans often referred to as the CPA. When people go missing the families organize their own search parties because the americans will do nothing. The author also thinks that the Americans are stealing money. When asked to rebuild the infrastructure an American company said they would need $90 billion. Our author dispells that and lauds the brilliant Iraqi engineers. She claims that a source close to her stated it wouldnt even cost a fraction of that and that Iraqi engineers are some of the best in the world. This all boils down to a common theme. The Iraqi people are intelligent and resourceful. They remember the times before the war that Americans dont think/now about. The country had its problems but the people were educated and lived comfortably with electricity and running water. Now, with the incoming of war gangs have risen to power, one of those gangs being the American military.
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