Baghdad's Picasso

Today is the 5th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Here an intelligent, articulate and caring Iraqi blogs from Baghdad on his experiences of life and death in the Iraqi Capital since the start of "Shock and Awe." To me he is Baghdad's Picasso - in words.

Here is an extract (uncorrected) -

"During these 5 years I have experienced everything, two of my relatives kidnapped, 6 of the people I know closely including relatives and close friends have been killed, I can't count the number of people that I know who were murdered, my niece who is 7 years old girl died in an explosion, most of my friends and relatives have left the country, I watched my teachers and college professors being killed or kidnapped one after the other, I have been near an explosion countless times, I have witnessed uncountable number of dead bodies and crying families taking their dead beloved from the forensic medicine building, I have seen 3 men at different times being shot to death in front of me, I have been through militias checkpoints several times, Me and my wife have been targeted by a national guard sniper for a reason I didn't know till this moment, I have seen dead bodies left on the side walk and no dares to bury them, my family have been threatened and forced to leave the country and I joined them and stayed in Jordan/Amman for about a year and then had to return back despite the horrible situation and the extra danger on me being threatened, but what can I do, I tried desperately to find a job there but like most of Iraqis, I couldn't. I'm just one Iraqi and I have such loses, imagine 28 million one like me, how much looses does the Iraqis have?" (Last-Of-Iraqis)