Dahr Jamail back in Iraq

by Miriam Mon Oct 27, 2008 19:25

From a recent report:

Razak has been doing his job for the last ten years, the first five of them quite happy ones. “We used to have a special elevator just for doctors and professors,” he says. “But by now most have left, and some have been killed. I know three doctors who have been killed.”

Past the elevators and up the stairs, it gets worse.

“There is no air-conditioning in the building, when temperatures can be 48C, almost no qualified staff to serve patients, no antibiotics, and sometimes not even basic material for intravenous treatment,” says Dr. Samir Abdul Zahra, who treats patients while also doing his medical studies.

There are no senior doctors around. “Most of them left because of the situation in the city, the lack of security,” Dr. Zahra says. And that affects teaching as much as treatment. “We are educating ourselves now. This means also that young doctors are taking on complex cases they are simply not qualified to deal with.”

This dilemma is particularly acute at Baghdad Medical City because it is the largest medical complex in Iraq, and the most serious cases are usually taken to this hospital.

At this complex now, it is not even safe to drink tap water any more. Sometimes doctors cannot find water even to wash their hands. Equipment is often not sterilised.

Full report here: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/the-biggest-hospitals-become-sick

by Miriam Fri Oct 31, 2008 12:05

"I believe that, like me, most people, deep inside, know that many things have gone terribly wrong, that we must find a better way to exist.

Now, as I write, on October 25, 21 Iraqis and another US soldier are killed in Iraq, along with an additional 17 wounded Iraqis. These facts hardly garner mention in the American corporate media, because the “surge” has been a “success.” You and I are the intended beneficiaries of this “success,” as our lives grind on in this twisted Disneyland, while half a world away an occupation grinds on, carrying out industrial scale slaughter, with the unfailing support of our tax dollars.

History repeats itself, for we choose not to learn from it. I amend the above Sartre quote:

“… for over five years, the United States has been a mad dog dragging a saucepan tied to its tail, every day unaware that we have ruined, starved and massacred a nation of poor people to bring them to their knees. They remained standing. But at what a price! While the delegations were putting an end to the business, 4,700,000 Iraqis remained in the slow death camps as refugees; we have killed more than 1.2 million of them …” "

Full article here:

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/the-cost-of-slumber#more-1379