Watch the kids

Few days ago we were getting back home at night from a visit to a relative of us, when we reached our neighborhood; two blocks away from my house, we noticed a gathering of people at the door of one of the houses, it was clear from the faces of the people and the way they were acting that something unpleasant happened.

I stopped the car and got out to offer my help in case they needed it. Unfortunately there was nothing I or anybody there could do because their son was kidnapped an hour ago from their very same street! He is a 7 years old kid, his father is a mechanic and about a year ago he started working with the Americans as people say…the kidnappers called and they asked for ransom, his parents didn't tell us how much exactly do they want.

I was a bit scared to be honest, because this might be the start for troubles and crime in my neighborhood, I thought the kid was kidnapped because his father works with the Americans but later I begun to doubt that.

At that night a friend called and I told him about the incident and he told me that his neighbor's son was also kidnapped two weeks ago and he was about the same age as my neighbor's kid. His parents paid the ransom and he was released but it seems that kid was smart because from several signs and evident he was able to tell his parents exactly where was held and he told them that there were 15 other kid held with him.

The parents called the police and they were able to rescue the rest of them and capture the thugs.

At that time I made an impression, it seems that this will be the new technique that will be used by the low life criminals, so I wanted to make a small search about the subject.

Yesterday at work I asked many of my colleagues and many of them heard or witnessed such incidents.

One of them had a young brother who was going to school with his friends; they were walking as a group when a car stopped by and two men disguised in women's robes got out of it and kidnapped one of their friends, till now his parents haven't heard anything about him!

I reached a conclusion that kids are the primary target for the gangs now, and the reason is so rational (criminally peaking); they are much much easier to kidnap and force to get into the car, the kid may scream and cry as he wants because no one will interfere (people will think they are his parents) and the parents are ready to pay all they have and more, when they kidnap the father who will get the money for them? And they solved this issue with kidnapping kids.

So for all the Iraqis who reads this; take care of your kids and watch them all the time, never leave them alone or let them go out alone at least these days and if you don't have kids then please spread the word among the people you know who have kids.

I think I have to go to work now.

May God protect us all. 

Statistics

Yesterday, I was chatting with my colleague about the situation in Iraq and specially regarding the social aspect…we both reached an agreement that we would witness a social crisis or a disaster…the Iraqis' ethics and manner have really changed in the years after the war…so many people lost the good sides of the Iraqi manners.

And since he is much older than me, he said that after each war Iraqis losses some of their good manners, and I think he is right.

And today I received an email with some very interesting statistics that are gathered together…and I thought those statistics would be a great way to show my point.

 

1,000,000 widowed women according to a statistic published by the Iraqi woman's ministry in 2008

 

4,000,000 orphan child (estimated by the ministry of planning if the average of the Iraqi family is 4-6 children)

 

2,500,000 killed (according to the statistics of the Iraqi ministry of health and the forensic medicine (morgues) till December 2008)

 

800,000 missing (according to the ministry of anterior till December 2008)

 

320,000 prisoners inside the USA and government jails (the USA announced the presence of 120,000 prisoners inside their jails)

 

4,500,000 refugees outside Iraq (according to the statistics of people who requested the new passport G)  

 

2,500,000 displaced inside Iraq (according to the Iraqi ministry of immigration and refugees)

 

76,000 cases of HIV (according to the Iraqi ministry of health) (it was 114 cases before the war)

 

40% of the Iraqi people are under the line of poverty (according to the statistics of the Iraqi human rights' ministry)

 

126 foreign security companies (registered at the Iraqi ministry of anterior)

 

43 armed militias (registered at the Iraqi ministry of anterior and ministry of defense)

 

Well, it's really frightening. Just look well at the numbers of orphans, widowed, killed and missing and you would certainly know why I said where are going to have a social crisis.

May God be with you. 

Back home

It has been more than a week since the three of us came back to Baghdad, I know I haven't posted for a long time now but parents knows why and singles should try being a parent and I'm sure everyone would excuses me.

I haven't been able to follow the news closely since I came back but I think now I can because my Looli is older she is 8 weeks now and she cries a bit less and sleeps a little more so I can find some time to follow the news.

We came back to our home but this time was the hardest because everything is different and there were so many arrangements and things to do since we have a baby now…it was so exhausting but now I'm almost finished.

When I was there, I heard from my friends that the things are a bit worst than when I was in Baghdad, and when I came back I found that was somehow true, I felt the tension in the streets specially in the areas that were controlled by the awakening like Adhamiya but I don't mean to say that things are bad but a little bit worst…but there are some good things that happened while I was gone, like opening some closed roads and removing some concrete blocks which is a really great thing, the electricity is better than before; it's still bad but better than the last year this time; as you know the hotter the weather is the less electricity there is because people would use more electricity for operating the cooling systems, and I heard two rumors about that, the first is that AlMaliki "promises the Iraqis a cold summer this year" and the other rumor is that AlMaliki threatened the minister of electricity that he will be resigned if he didn't provide Baghdad with at least 12 hours of electricity a day, and I tend to believe these rumors because this year is the elections year and for sure Maliki would love to be more popular so that he wins the elections for the second time…so in general the good things are more than the bad things and that's why I should say  things are better but if anyone looks at it rationally he would agree with me that the situation is fragile and everything might deteriorates any minute and I hope not.

Another thing that was really great; I came back from work yesterday and as I was closing the garage door I noticed a small card with the large Google logo on it and a stamp!! I took it off the ground and turn it, there was my name on it!! And my address!!! Coooool, I got mail!!! And from Google!! It came from USA to my door, what a great thing and what a great mailing service we have despite the very difficult situations we have, I was really glad and couldn't wait to open it…it was from Adscense, they sent me the mail with the PIN code which I never thought would reach me, that's fantastic.

And finally I'm thinking of something and I need your help with it, I'm thinking of writing a book in three languages, so many people told me that I should write a book  and I have been thinking about it seriously these few days…I'll write in English and Turkish at first and if things were good I'll write it in Arabic two…you might be wondering why Turkish? Because Turks are great readers and I have noticed that they have very very few books about Iraq and they know almost nothing about Iraq and what happens in it, they have a very shallow knowledge about the situations and what happened in Iraq…so what I need your help with is the following, and please give your feeds in the comments section or via email:

1-should I do it or not?

2-how should it be? I mean should it be like a diary and I'll use the contents of the blog for the time period and write about the past, or what? Please give me ideas.

3-since I haven't published any book before so I don't know what to do and how it's done? If anyone knows please tell me, I mean should I contact some office or something that will be responsible for everything or should I finish everything and just print it? I'm clueless.

 

I'll be waiting for your feeds.