Posted on 12/14/2008 12:47:17 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Iraqis have visited Baghdad's parks and shrines in their thousands in the past few days during a major Muslim festival, the highest turnout for years as violence falls in the Iraqi capital, security officials said.
For much of last year the city was still mired in sectarian bloodshed, unleashed shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Mutilated and tortured bodies were dumped on the streets almost daily.
Now Iraqis screamed and shouted from Zawraa park's "Space Gun" ride, which spins people full circle and holds them upside down in the air, handbags and glasses tumbling 30-feet (9 metres) onto the floor below with each revolution.
"We are proud of ... achievements that led millions of people to visit shrines, mosques, parks and fairs in a way Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces haven't seen before," Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi told reporters.
He was speaking in the park, where thousands of Iraqis were celebrating at the end of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, a four-day event that ends Friday for Shi'ites and ended on Thursday for Sunnis. Moussawi could barely be heard over processions of boys banging drums and tambourines and singing.
Moussawi said there had been no security violations in the city for six days.
The relatively quiet Eid in Iraq was still marred by a suicide blast near the northern city of Kirkuk that killed 50 people in a busy restaurant Thursday.
For many Iraqis out at Baghdad's parks, it had been the first Eid al-Adha they could remember in the capital since Saddam Hussein fell that had not been overshadowed by violence.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Sir, don’t you get it? Obama’s THE REASON that the world is suddenly wonderful. I think the oceans are already receding as well!
And, I still don’t believe it. These people hate each other over here. Their religion is filthy and hateful and now almost all of their attacks are pointed at each other, not against us anymore. We need to pick up and leave this cess pool and not waste another taxpayer dollar here. Violence has risen in my unspecified part of Iraq lately and it is all pointed at one another. I thought I would never say this, but it would take another Saddam to stop the violence and chaos here; these people know no other way.
I sure hope it wasn’t all for not.
Russia failed the test of self rule. It is sliding back to a dictatorship. Much of south America is sliding the same way. The world is looking pretty bleak these days.
You showed the Iraqis another way. We can only pray enough of a seed was planted to take root.
Time will tell...
Michael Moore is deeply saddened.
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