RESPONDING TO ‘BLOGGING BAGHDAD’ COMMENTS
NBC News' Richard Engel and Babak Behnam respond to questions sent into Blogging Baghdad. If you have questions or comments regarding the content of Blogging Baghdad, please see the link below and send us your thoughts.
Reader's name: Frank
Hometown: Thermopolis, WY
Comments: These are stories you never hear on main stream. Thanks
Richard Engel’s response
Thank you…That’s the point. Television is powerful and a great TV package can be evocative, bring you into the moment and show you the story. But sometimes it’s hard to get all the pictures (especially here), or relay some of the subtlety… hence the blog. Sometimes it works better than others.
Reader's name: Julia
Hometown: Mesa, AZ
Comments: I read the blog about the kidnappings and I am wondering how do you all keep from having something like that happen to you? I see all of you on the news out and about in the cities. It seems that you all could be targets just like the politicians families are targets. Is that not true?
I remember watching a news cast where Richard Engel was following around one of the politicians and there was some shooting. Both Richard and the politician looked around and then the politician seemed to go on about his business. It seems also that more times than not we see you all in flack jackets, I am wondering how you can stand being there? Especially you Richard, it sounds like you have been there the longest of all the American correspondents. Is that true?
Richard Engel’s response
First of all, thank you so much for your concern.
And I just hung up the phone with an old friend, a fine journalist and fine man, Larry Kaplow - correspondent for the Cox Newspapers group – whom I suspected might be here longer than me, and found out I arrived in Baghdad a few weeks before him in February 2003.
So I think that makes me the longest continuously serving foreign reporter in Baghdad. It is frightening to think about that way.
CNN’s superb Jane Arraf had us all beat. She’d been coming here since the mid-1990s, although she wasn’t here for the major combat phase and left Iraq last year to go back to the states.
John Burns of the New York Times is still here, but has taken a few longish breaks, and most of the others from the early days have moved on. So, unless I’m forgetting someone, I think it’s me, I’ve been here since February 2003 until today.
And how do we stand it? It’s fascinating, tragic, heroic, historic and sometimes disgusting, but always interesting.
Reader's name: Jennifer
Hometown: Fariport, NY
Comments: There is so much chaos and confusion going on in Baghdad and Iraq, that these terrible tragedies are becoming a normal part of life for people. Why exactly are the American troops over in Iraq anyway? Can someone explain this to me?
It depends who you ask that question.
If you ask the troops some of them will tell you that they are trying to bring a sense of hope to an oppressed people. We were covering a story in Najaf last year where the commanding officer of the Marine unit held municipal elections for the city.
After spending some time with the unit you could not but help to come away with a sense of admiration for the 18 and 19 year old men and women who answered the call of their President to overthrow a tyrant.
In the middle of their mission, their objective changed. They were now trying to teach the men and women of this city the fundamentals of self governance.
One and all of that Marine unit felt proud to be American and even prouder of the work that they are doing.
One of the Iraqis I met on that trip told me that it was easier to blow up things but much harder to build. Even though he was not in favor of occupation he understood to rebuild his society would take one brick at a time.
Reader's name: Tutorbill
Comments: Tell me what these people want. Do the majority of them want a free government and protection until it is established? If not, send my son home.
Richard Engel responds
You sum it up perfectly… They want a free government and protection.
The only problem is that means something different to Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites.
For Kurds, it’s freedom to forms an autonomous (if not independent) government and protection so that the ills of the past are not repeated.
For the Shiites – it’s freedom to form a religiously-oriented government (although Shiites are divided as to how religious and the role of Iran) and protection from more Sunni domination.
For the Sunnis, it is more complicated. Many Sunnis have yet to decide what freedom means for them, or what they need protection from.
Most likely your son, like most troops here, is serving in a Sunni area, and until this much-pressured community answers these fundamental questions I suspect he will remain busy.
Troubling change of heart
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