So What About Iraq?

What with the subprime mortgage crisis, the Democratic primaries, and the spiking food and fuel prices it seems as though everyone has forgotten about Iraq. Here's an interesting post from Last of Iraqis, one of the few Iraqi bloggers still left in Baghdad:

I have been asked by many westerner friends and readers so many times about the reality of the situation in Iraq and especially in Baghdad. Many are confused about the truth, many are manipulated by the media and most of them have the same question "is the situation good in Baghdad as we hear?"

He sums up:

...it got better but is it good yet or close to being good? No it's not...Is it close to normal, is there a hope for such thing? No it's far way from being normal and I can't see hope for such thing at least not in the 10 coming years...Is it violent? Yes it is...

He says things are better than they were during the absolute peak of the violence (2006-2007 "was the bloodiest times for Iraqis so when comparing to those times the situation is less violent but please don't forget that at that time Baghdad was like a living hell") but cautions the situation is still far from good.

Baghdad is still violent, there is a large count of daily civilians casualties, unidentified dead bodies, road side bombs, explosive cars, kidnapping and criminal acts and there is something I need to make clear that is the pattern of violence.

Some areas are better than others, and some types of violence have receded more than others. He also suggests he may be more desensitized than an outsider - fewer dead bodies still means there are dead bodies, after all.

I might see it good but I strongly believe you would not if you came here...it's a bit less violent but it's still violent...still there are explosions and they are a lot, still there are kidnappings and they are more than the beginning of this year, still there are sectarian violence, still there are a lot of dead bodies.

Here's another post on a similar topic from about a week ago, with pictures.

Half a Decade in Iraq

A lot can happen in five years. In five years, a toddler will grow old enough for her first day of school. In five years, a schoolboy of eight will become a teenager.

In five years, a proud country and its vibrant population has been reduced to a desolate killing field.

Ellen Weinstein - Camouflage, 2007 Collage

Lies, hundreds of them, that led up to the war in Iraq have been revealed. Five years later, the liars are still busy crafting the Iran propaganda.

Tony Auth - Roots, Unpublished Pen, ink, and wash

In 5 years, the American military has put down roots. At least 75 permanent bases have been established in Iraq.

Koren Shadmi - Tasting Victory, 2007 watercolor, ink and digital

In 5 years, countless Iraqis have been killed and wounded. (We've lost count, you see, since each Iraqi life is not precious enough to concern ourselves with an accurate count. Estimates are as high as a million deaths due to the war.) One in five displaced (around 2.7 million Iraqis). A generation traumatized. A cycle of violence set in motion. The economy and infrastructure of the country destroyed. 3,987 dead American soldiers.

Yes, a lot can happen in five years.

All images from Artists Against the War

John McCain Channeling Dr. Strangelove

A Brave New Films video:

Ugh, although the fact that so many Republicans don't like him sits well with me, I must say McCain gives me the heebie-jeebies.

After insisting that future wars are just around the corner, McCain launched into a creepy riff in which the suffering of our soldiers seemed to leave him almost breathless with anticipation: "We're going to have a lot of PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] to treat, my friends. We're gonna have a lot of combat wounds that have to do with these terrible explosive IEDs that inflict such severe wounds. And, my friends, it's gonna be tough, we're gonna have a lot to do."

It's a speech that could easily have been delivered by Gen. Buck Turgidson, George C. Scott's war-loving character in Dr. Strangelove. "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed - tops!"

McCain, like Turgidson, has a disturbing displaced ardor for war. Although he'd be the oldest person ever elected president, he doesn't need Viagra -- he's got Iraq. Call your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours -- or your war lasts longer than 100 years. <Huffington Post>

Help stop the war in Iraq... support the troops who have the courage to resist!

January 25-26 U.S.-Canada actions to support war resisters

To my fellow Canadians, do you often feel helpless to do anything about the war in Iraq?

One thing you can do is demonstrate your support for the American troops who refuse to fight in the Iraq war. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!

• There are events in the U.S. and Canada - January 25 (USA) and Jan 26 (Canada) event locations, times, and contacts.


• Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay" and encourage others to sign.


• Americans, you can organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you.


• Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.

For Iraqis, Treatment for Trauma is Luxury

The young woman was walking with her husband along a Baghdad street when she was abducted, held captive and raped repeatedly by five militia men for several days.

"Before, she was very proud of her body but now she is overweight -- she eats to protect herself and not to attract people," says therapist Sana Hamzeh about her 27-year-old Iraqi patient, who recently escaped to Lebanon as a refugee.

"When she first came here she hated her body and was very isolated. She could not touch her husband. She sat rigidly, clenched; she could not relax or talk about her feelings."

Hamzeh works at the recently opened Restart centre in Beirut, a charity funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) that provides free therapy and psychological therapy rehabilitation for up to 70 mostly Iraqi refugees who are victims of torture. The centre also gathers documentation to help argue their case for asylum.

The centre is a brief respite for a few Iraqis fleeing torture, death sentences and the grinding violence of daily life back home. But they arrive in Lebanon only to find themselves dangerously illegal, and subject to discrimination and exploitation. Few can find counselling and support.

X tally Iraq
Originally uploaded by Natasha Mayers

Mohammed, a refugee in his late 20s, is a particularly hard off case. "He came to our centre for psychological treatment but had no money to eat, or a place to sleep -- so how could we deal with his psychological suffering?" asks Jabbour. "We arranged a place to sleep for him on a personal level. Usually UNHCR has other partners who do this."

A patient of Hamzeh's, Mohammed was a former bodyguard for Saddam Hussein and was later imprisoned by the U.S.-led coalition. "He suffered torture, unbelievable torture -- they gouged out one of his eyes, and he can't walk properly," she says. "He is very, very depressed. Every time I see him I don't know if it's the last, because he's suicidal. But he's also religious and feels that suicide will condemn him to hell, so for this reason he stays alive." Hamzeh looks down at the ground. "Every day I think about him." <Article>

More Iraq news from IPS

Too much aid to Afghanistan wasted on contractors' profits, expensive expatriate consultants and quick-fix projects

Despite more than $15 billion of aid pumped into Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001, many Afghans still suffer levels of poverty rarely seen outside sub-Saharan Africa.

"The development process has to date been too centralised, top-heavy and insufficient," said a report by Oxfam.

By far the biggest donor, the United States approved a further $6.4 billion in Afghan aid this year, but the funds are spent in ways that are "ineffective or inefficient", Oxfam said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) allocates close to half its funds to the five largest U.S. contractors in Afghanistan.

"Too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and sub-contractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs," the report said.

A full-time expatriate consultant can cost up to $500,000 a year, Oxfam said.
[...]
Spending on development is dwarfed by that spent on fighting the Taliban. The U.S. military is spending $65,000 a minute in Afghanistan, Oxfam said.
[...]
Violent incidents are up at least 20 percent since last year, according to U.N. estimates, and have spread northwards to many areas previously considered safe.

More than 200 civilians have been killed in at least 130 Taliban suicide bombs and at least 1,200 civilians have been killed overall this year — about half of them in operations by Afghan and international troops.

Oxfam called on the 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan to take greater care not to hurt civilians, particularly in air strikes. The lower number of troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq — less than a third as many in a much bigger country with a larger population — leads to a greater reliance on air power.

There are four times as many air strikes in Afghanistan as in Iraq, Oxfam said. <Common Dreams>

Meanwhile, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been very very generous to private contractors. Here's the top 100 private contractors, 2004-2006. In first place: KBR at $16 billion (2002-2004 they made $11 billion. Next on the list, DynCorp International at 1.8 billion.

Funny (not so much in a ha-ha way), more than $20 billion in contracts went to foreign companies whose identities (at least so far) are impossible to determine. The largest of these contracts is worth more than $6 billion, for "miscellaneous items".

We Don't Negotiate With Dams

According to the Washington Post,

The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

Via the ever brilliant Bors Blog

Young Iraqis Blogging

From Sunshine, a 15 year old Iraqi girl:

Last night, I stayed awake, I am suffering from insomnia, there are a lot of things I think about, and most of the days I don't sleep immediately I spend an hour or two laying till I sleep, I walked towards the window and was watching the neighborhood, it was dark (the electricity was off), empty, and scary, like a ghost city, and I started to remember how crowded my neighborhood and it's street were, I am glad I didn’t forget that, anyway I came back to my bed and there was sound of far shelling, after an hour or two, mortars erupted from the neighborhood , and we heard 3 near by explosions..<more>

From A Star from Mosul, written by a young woman who is an engineering student:

When my cousin drives me, I feel the need to keep talking, I just hate the silence. But because of my deep depression, and to keep myself from crying, I didn't talk much this time.. I concentrated on the road, something I rarely do (I still haven't learned the way to my school, I can't get my brain to concentrate on roads at all). I couldn't believe all the wreckage on the way.. Building after building, destoyed, burnt.. Black signs announcing deaths.. Smoke from a new explosion. We had to stop few times to clear the road for the police or the Americans.
I asked my cousin about a destroyed building I haven't seen before, he said it was months ago.. I was shocked; I didn't ask about the ones that followed. <>more>

From Last of Iraqis, by a 25 year old dentist in Baghdad:

About 1,000,000 deaths and 1,500,000 Injured Iraqi civilians since the beginning of the war in 2003 , an estimation of 4,000,000 Iraqis have been displaced with 2,200,000 fled out of the country and the rest are refugees inside their own torn country (I believe the real number of Iraqis outside Iraq is greater than this).

Great numbers , right? a lot of zeros , a lot of grief and sadness , a lot of humiliation , a lot of black clothes , rivers of tears and many shocking stories , it's not just numbers . Just count all the people you knew throughout your life , not only the ones you talk to , but all the people you know, what their count will be?500 or may be 1000? let's say 1000. Can you imagine that all the people you know are only 0.1% of the civilian casualties in Iraq. <>more>

Of the Iraqi bloggers, there are not many left - many have stopped blogging, many have left Iraq, some still write from wherever they are. These three are still there. Via BBC.

Because War Just Isn't Enough...

As if invasion, occupation, destruction of infrastructure, unemployment, poverty, and displacement aren't enough... now they've got cholera, a truly horible and deadly disease.

You know, if the American military had any intention of actually trying to win "hearts and minds", they might consider nutritious food and clean water as a start, rather than, say, this.

U.S. War resisters in Canada need our help

We Canadians love nothing better than watching and criticizing American politics and foreign policy. It's practically our national pastime.

Nearly all of us oppose the Iraq invasion and occupation, but we feel helpless to do anything. As non-consistuents, we have no representative or senator to call. Inhabiting a different geography, we cannot easily participate in anti-war demonstrations. There is, however, something we can do, and that is to support the war resisters looking for asylum in Canada.

A couple hundred AWOL GI's are currently living in Canada. They are from the U.S. Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. Many of them served one tour in Iraq and then refused to go back again. Instead, they and their families have moved to Canada. With the support of many Canadians, they are struggling to create a home for themselves and a sanctuary for war resisters.

Nearly fifty of the resisters have asked Canadian authorities to allow them to remain in Canada as political refugees. They strongly believe they are doing the right thing by refusing to fight in an illegal war. They look to UN refugee law, which states that soldiers should be considered as refugees if they face persecution for refusing to fight in wars that are "widely condemned by the international community as contrary to standards of human conduct."

These absentee GI's are upholding the Nuremberg Principles, which were adopted as U.S. law after World War II. By refusing to fight in illegal wars or to commit war crimes, they are exercising their rights and responsibilities as soldiers.

So far, the war resisters' refugee claims have been rejected by the political appointees on Canada's refugee boards, who say that war resisters had legal avenues in the U.S. they could have pursued. They say that prosecution for being AWOL does not amount to "persecution." They are reluctant to call the U.S. war "illegal."

But the war resisters are fighting for their rights and for international law. They are appealing in Canada's federal court system. The first two U.S. war resisters to apply for refugee status, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, have asked the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their appeals. Their lawyer, Jeffry House, is optimistic that the Supreme Court will overturn the negative decisions of the refugee board and the lower courts that have upheld them. In November, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear the war resisters' appeals.
<Read the Whole Article & Watch the Video>

Tell the Canadian government: Let them stay!

Contact both Prime Minister, Stephen Harper and Minister of Citizenship & Immigration, Diane Finley to request that they make a provision to allow U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Fax: 613-941-6900
Email pm@pm.gc.ca

Minister of Citizenship & Immigration Diane Finley
Phone: 613-954-1064
(between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.)
Email: Minister@cic.gc.ca

For more information or to donate to the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, visit their website at www.resisters.ca.

Back to School in Iraq

This article Back to School, Back to Horror offers a good opportunity to compare some lifestyle differences between the invaders vs. the invadees, occupiers vs. occupied.

While American kids are getting settled in their new classes, probably after going on a shopping spree, Iraqi kids are also going back to school.

With the security situation grimmer than ever all over the country, just stepping out of one’s house means a serious threat to life.

"God knows how we could send our kids to school this year," Um Mohammed, a mother of five in Baghdad told IPS. "Our financial situation is the worst ever and the prices are way too expensive for the majority of Iraqis to afford. I might have to keep some of them at home and send only two."

The 40-year-old woman shed tears when she started to talk about the family’s financial now compared to what it was before the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

"My God, don’t those Americans have any conscience? We were not rich before, but life was easy and we used to celebrate the school season, watching our kids trying their uniform on and looking at the colourful pictures of their new books," she said.

Now, the state of American public education is somewhere between adequate and dismal (depending on which school district you look at), something for which there is no excuse in the richest country in the world. Iraqis face infinitely more challenges:

"The educational system in Iraq is destroyed and we are suffering all kinds of difficulties," said Hassan, a school headmaster in Baghdad who spoke on condition that his last name and the name of his school would not be used. "There will be a shortage of desks, blackboards, water, electricity and all educational supplies – as well as a critical shortage in the number of teachers this year."

Teachers, like other Iraqis, have fled the country because of threats from sectarian death squads. Some were evicted from their areas and moved to others inside Iraq for sectarian reasons.

According to Iraq's Ministry of Higher Education, as of February 2006, nearly 180 professors were killed and at least 3,250 have fled Iraq to the neighbouring countries. The situation has deteriorated severely since then.

Many children in the USA have little more to worry about than studying and socializing, with puberty and various crushes thrown into the mix for older kids. This is enough for any kid to deal with, and many American kids have other concerns on top of these: learning disabilities, bullying, child abuse, incest, family violence, gang violence, poverty, racial or ethnic discrimination, social exclusion, self-esteem issues, eating disorders, pressure to succeed... it goes on. Is it any wonder that kids have a lot on their mind and often experience mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or hyperactivity?

Now imagine life as a school-age child in Iraq.

According to an Oxfam International report released in July, "92 percent of children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the current climate of fear."

The report added, "Schools are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK -- up from 600,000 in 2004."

Photo from War News Radio

More on Children in Iraq

Other recent interesting posts on back-to-school: Surveillance, Control and the First Day of School and School, Take Four...

And speaking of school, instead of blogging, I should really be reading right now (Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-1962)... time to get back to it.

The Petreus Antidote: Amazing Mini Documentary The Ghost of Anbar

After the Petreus report, I definitely recommend watching these rather intense clips from Big Noise Films.

The Ghost of Anbar
From an expose on the new American strategy in Iraq, this video examines whether the controversial US policy of joining forces with Sunni tribes in Iraq's volatile al-Anbar province has worked, and who is paying the price. Each clip is just over 10 minutes, and well worth the time.

Particularly distressing was the part where they go to a Shiite informal refugee camp (read: slum) on the outskirts of Baghdad. Many of these refugees are from Anbar, and were forced out of their homes by the same Sunni tribes allied with the Americans. Because it is considered too dangerous for international media, theirs was the first camera to film in this neighbourhood.

Part 1:


Part 2:


You can also watch some of this over at Democracy Now (click here to launch segment in Real Player, as well as an interview with Rick Rowley, one of the reporters, to put it all in context.

Iraq: The Legacy of Oppression and the Legitimacy of Resistance

We sit here 8000 miles away with our luxuries of electricity and water, while Iraqis suffer in the desert heat with no relief, and we tell them they are disorganized. This is fiddling while Iraq burns. People are dying; the question is moot.

We are not fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq; we are slaughtering people's children. We went in to liberate Iraqis from a ruthless dictator we imposed upon them who allegedly killed 300,000 during his 30 year reign of terror. We’ve accomplished more than triple that in a fraction of the time.

If ever there were legitimate resistance to illegal occupation, it is in Iraq.
[...]
And do you know what Iraqis are saying? I don't speak Arabic, but I can translate for you. They're saying, "Get out!" They're saying, "NO way you're staying for 60 years." They're saying, "Get your oil the old-fashioned way - pay for it!" And why are they saying this? Because they have a dignity and self-respect rooted in 7000 years of civilization.

Iraq is the center of Arab nationalism. Actually, this is what my father says, and I would argue that my father is the center of Arab nationalism. Modern-day Iraqis are the descendents of ancients who devised the first system of writing, the 24-hour day, the bases of mathematics, law, science and medicine. Once corrupt American corporations, the U.S. military, and its death squads, prisons, and bombings are out of the picture, true reconstruction by Iraqis can and will begin.

Perhaps we don't embrace the Iraqi resistance because its fighters are killing American soldiers. What other choice have we given them? From Vietnam to Lebanon to Somalia to Iraq, we have taught our victims around the world that the only way to effect a change in American foreign policy is to spill American blood.

Thousands died in Chile during the CIA led coup on Sept. 11th, 1973. But we only remember 3000 Americans who died on the 28th anniversary of that massacre. Grenadans in 1983 and Panamanians in 1989 were buried in mass graves by the thousands after the U.S. assaults, but the stories of these victims go untold. Between 1,000 and 10,000 Somalis were killed when our humanitarian mission in 1993 turned into military aggression. (We will never know the exact number of our innocent victims, again because of mass graves.) But we left Somalia because 19 Americans fell victim to their system and were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. Time and again, it doesn't matter how many "others" die. The outrage comes when the victims are American.

Martin Luther King Jr. said “silence is betrayal.” In these times, remaining silent on our responsibility to the world and its future is criminal. And in light of our complicity in the supreme crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ongoing violations of the U.N. Charter and international law, how dare any American criticize the actions of legitimate resistance to illegal occupation? How dare we condemn anyone else as “violent” or “disorganized?” Our so-called “enemies” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, our other colonies around the world - and our inner cities here at home-are struggling against the oppressive hand of empire, demanding respect for their humanity. They are labeled “insurgents” or “terrorists” for resisting rape and pillage by the white establishment, but they are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is a speaker and activist. Born in the United States to an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father, she lived in Iraq as a child, returning to the U.S. at age 5. Read the whole speech here. It's powerful words, especially in light of this.

Pro-Iraq-War Ads Featuring Wounded Soldiers

Lies, and manipulation.

Note: "We're dealing with the safety of our country, of our sacred United States of America."


She says she lost her husband to al-Quaeda. He died in Iraq. Most soldiers were killed by insurgents, Iraqis, certainly not al-Quaeda, who haven't been there for very long.


Note: "They attacked us, and they will again." This is simply false. Iraq did not attack America. Iraq was attacked by America.


Her son "sacrificed for their freedom". Yes, I'm sure the Iraqis are thankful for his sacrifice. I suppose it depends what one means by "freedom".

Via IraqSlogger, which is reporting that MSNBC and CNBC are refusing to air the ads. Of course, CNN and FOX are running them.

Goodish News from Iraq

Not this (Mosul Dam in trouble - catastrophic flood could put 70% of Mosul under water), or this (Residents of Sadr City are enraged, and grieving over US airstrike and "arbitrary" arrests), and certainly not the missing weapons (Even more than originally thought) or the water and electricity crisis.

Good thing someone thinks there's "significant progress".

(Comic from Big Fat Whale)

The Costs of the Iraq War - Who is picking up the tab?

So about a trillion dollars is spent by American taxpayers to kill Iraqis.Aside from the direct cost to American taxpayers, there are additional costs incurred by the war in Iraq.

For instance the cost of dealing with 2 million refugees - primarily in Syria and Jordan - is astronomical. How about the cost to the UN and NGOs - humanitarian support, food aid, and helping refugees? Canada and other NATO countries are paying to hold the bully's coat (by picking up the slack in Afghanistan).

This doesn't even include what it has cost the Iraqi people themselves.

So the Iraq occupation costs everyone money - well, almost everyone. Ah, I see. Transferring more money from those who have little to those who already have a lot. Killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. Good policy, GWB.

The War Takes it's Toll

"We were coming from school and we saw a man in the street. Blood and pieces of his brain were all over the place and he was crying." "He was still alive for a while after they shot him."


The war takes its toll on Adel's younger brother.

This was an especially poignant episode of Hometown Baghdad .

See also Children and the Traumas of War

Join One Million Blogs for Peace

If you haven't already done so, get yourself over there and join! Even if you aren't from one of the countries involved in the invasion, you can still join in solidarity.

The Pledge
I believe in the immediate withdrawal of all foreign combat troops from the nation of Iraq. I believe in using my blog, in whole or in part, as a tool toward this end.

It's Just Like Christmas!

It's time for the fourth International Rebuild Iraq Exhibition - the trade show dedicated to showing business owners how you, too, could be capitalizing on the destruction of the infrastructure and economy of Iraq.

Well, it was so much fun last year, I guess they just couldn't help themselves.

The Right to Bomb

From an interview 21 January 2003 (Before this Iraq War officially began), with Sadiq, a scholar:

Now they are saying we are 'a threat' to them. But hasn't it always been they who have threatened us?
[...]
Yes, we are a threat to them. Every time we break bread, thousands of them are at risk from each munch of our teeth. Every time I chew a grape or a sugared date, suck a mulberry or an apricot, someone in England must shudder in fear. Every time my son climbs a tree to find a fig, the fine imperial gentlemen of England are put at risk. Yet all we have ever wanted to do is to live our own lives without them. The other night on TV I heard an old Iraqi layman saying, 'they have everything, we have nothing. We don't want anything from them - but still they want more from us'. All we ask is for them to stop interfering with us. We have not been bombing them since 1920. It is they who have been bombing us. Do they never think of that? It never bothers them. They seem to think of it as their god-given right. Or is it another of their human rights - the right to bomb?
[...]
And still they claim that it is we who are a threat to them. So much so that they have been killing us over the decades, bomb after bomb after bomb, whenever we displeased them or went against their interests. Our problem though, I suppose, is that ... we didn't just go along with everything they wanted... They will never subdue us, you will see, never 'pacify' us - even if they keep at it for all eternity.
[...]
I often wonder how they would feel if we had been bombing them in England every now and then from one generation to the next, if we changed their governments when it suited us, destroyed their hospitals, made sure they had no clean water, and killed their children and their families. How many children is it that have died now? I can't even bring myself to think how many. They say that their imperial era is over now. It does not feel that way when you hear the staccato crack of their fireballs from the air. Or when the building shakes around you and your children from their bombs as you lie in your bed. It is then that you dream of real freedom - in shaa' allah - freedom from the RAF

Quoted from Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction by Robert Young. Emphasis mine.