destruction loop
One thing I remember very vividly about the days immediately following 11th September 2001 was the apocalyptic nature of the images from New York. The idea of the city in which one lives having fire and rubble rained down upon it... Just for a moment, there was the fleeting idea in a few people's heads, including my own, that such a high-profile atrocity would motivate the governments of the West not to rain fire down on anyone else's city, ever again. How naive.
I can't imagine what it feels like to be there right now... Two things really hit me on the news yesterday - a) the sheer normality of the streets of Baghdad as late as last night: even with shops closed and malls empty, even with the Saddam billboards, it all seemed so familiar, such an everyday locality; b) the strangeness of what the radio's been saying here: buy tinned food, bottled water, batteries, a torch, blankets - with no qualification - just everyone in the UK, "do this", they're saying. Not just for those of us who live a stone's throw from one of the major train stations in the capital - everybody. The way such a small precautionary piece of advice makes me feel, and then trying to multiply that to get some sense of what it must be like in Baghdad... You feel your stomach lurch, and the only possible response is for you to head as close to Parliament square as po-po will let you get, and do some shouting...
And this isn't even the main assault yet - the "shock and awe" (ie, blitzkrieg) bombing strategy could still follow.
Jesus.
One thing I remember very vividly about the days immediately following 11th September 2001 was the apocalyptic nature of the images from New York. The idea of the city in which one lives having fire and rubble rained down upon it... Just for a moment, there was the fleeting idea in a few people's heads, including my own, that such a high-profile atrocity would motivate the governments of the West not to rain fire down on anyone else's city, ever again. How naive.
I can't imagine what it feels like to be there right now... Two things really hit me on the news yesterday - a) the sheer normality of the streets of Baghdad as late as last night: even with shops closed and malls empty, even with the Saddam billboards, it all seemed so familiar, such an everyday locality; b) the strangeness of what the radio's been saying here: buy tinned food, bottled water, batteries, a torch, blankets - with no qualification - just everyone in the UK, "do this", they're saying. Not just for those of us who live a stone's throw from one of the major train stations in the capital - everybody. The way such a small precautionary piece of advice makes me feel, and then trying to multiply that to get some sense of what it must be like in Baghdad... You feel your stomach lurch, and the only possible response is for you to head as close to Parliament square as po-po will let you get, and do some shouting...
And this isn't even the main assault yet - the "shock and awe" (ie, blitzkrieg) bombing strategy could still follow.
Jesus.
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