John_L, again, you're spot on when it comes the Islamic religion, Saddam also had it in for the Kurds, who lived mostly in the north east also alot lived in the north west of Iraq, ( later a whole village was gassed ), nothing lived, no animals,no children,no mothers,fathers, even live stock was killed,.
when you got into a taxi in Baghdad, the taxidriver would always ask, "how do you like Iraq, " my reply was alway, very nice, "and the people". also very friendly, I always waited for the next question, "what do you think of our president". even tho the driver was dirty and had robes that had seen better days, under his hat you could always see a military haircut, "great man, great man,. and the drivers always said they came from Egypt,.
In the Iraqi army, you would never see a Kurd solider. because they had a bad habit of shooting the officer and running away, so the ones they did have where there only to clean everything, ( they were not allowed to carry guns ).
I think the nicest place there was Ramadie, ( a town west of Baghdad ) it had a very busy market, Small cafe's where you only drank char, it has/had a cinema, and every film was all the Europeans where devils and as you drove into the town on the left was a Christian hotel,very clean and where you could get a cold beer, the cake shops sold cakes that were unbelievably sweet, but their icecream was out of this world,
when you go down the side streets you see all the old,dirty houses, I went to a home of one of my engineers,who was also my friend, the outside wanted a lick of paint and a lot of the windows where bricked in, ( never judge a book by its cover), as I walked in, the outerdoor was closed, then they open the second door leading on to a courtyard, it was beautiful, marble floor the rooms to the house were around the courtyard, with a balcony running around all four sides, in some rooms I was ankle deep in lush carpet, and as I said white marble, and green plants every where, but like everything else, when you get over the fear of the unkown, you see a whole new world, that you have only ever read about in books,.....................John 2000
