Dahr Jamail Is Back

...in Amman/Jordan, Iraq is now too dangerous even for him. But he has contacts in Iraq. Two tidbits I thought are worth to highlight:

Another interesting incident which occurred the beginning of the month was when two F-18 Hornet jets crashed in Iraq. The military claimed there was no indication of hostile fire, yet they crashed in different locations. On the day of their crash, Baghdad airport was closed to commercial air traffic for three days with no reason given by authorities.

Landing at different locations can happen easily if one plane was less damaged than the other, but the closing of the airport is more suggestive.

Abu Talat phoned his family today in Baghdad. They’ve had no electricity for four days. They told him (unconfirmed) that all of Iraq has had no electricity for several days. As Abu Talat says, “Baghdad is running on the generator.”

The worsening of everyday life may be even more important than the mass killings by all armed sides.

Jamail's second post from Amman so far deals with truck divers, who curse the Occupiers in unison, be them from Ramadi, Basra or Sadr City. One factoid that caught my eyes is that the Jordan-Iraq border queue now lasts 18 days. Eighteen. Days.