I protest.

The country of the blind.

The Guardian reports about "just another day in Baghdad." A day in which fathers were killed because they were angry and desperate. A day in which a young man was killed for being in the wrong place, working for the wrong people.

Neither the Iraqis nor the Americans ever dreamed that Baghdad would be like this, ten weeks to the day after Saddam Hussein's regime was finally toppled.

The people of this city are still gripped with the deepening problems of poor security, interminable power shortages and unpaid salaries. Their frustration is spilling over into a spate of attacks on the US military, which are met with heavy-handed raids and mass arrests which, in turn, spark yet greater frustration.

Hussein Saber was one of a huge number of men who were supposed to receive yesterday a $50 "emergency payment." Instead, he was shot when he became part of the protest that erupted when the money didn't arrive. Why did he protest?

All the junior ranks within Iraq's 400,000-strong military, which was formally dissolved last month, have been promised a one-off payment and the chance to apply for a job in the new Iraqi national army.

In reality none have been paid since their last wages from the regime in February or March. …

Hussein was lucky, he was only wounded. The two men beside him were killed. This happened because the occupation forces didn't make sure that they had the money they promised. These men have become desperate.

Until the war [Khadum Hussain Hani, a former soldier] was paid 75,000 dinars a month (then worth $37). Since March he has received nothing and has had to borrow thousands of dollars to pay the 30,000 dinars monthly rent on his small apartment. "I have borrowed and borrowed and all I have left in my pocket today is my identity card," he said yesterday. … Now he has to explain to his children why he has no work and no money. "Sometimes they ask: 'Did you bring home any apples today father?'" he said. "I tell them I will bring apples one day when I have some money."

Why does he have no money? To answer that, see who has the responsibility for his circumstances. I'll give you a hint: It's not Saddam Hussein. We as a nation put Khadum into this position and we are now responsible for him and for all the men like him. I argued against taking that responsibility because I knew we were being lied to, and now that we have it the same ones who lied to us are failing in that responsibility. Instead of governing, Bremer is having meetings:

The al-Shawaf crossroads outside the Republican Palace, the bloodied site of yesterday's killings, has become the touchstone of the failings of the military occupation. Here there are queues of the articulate and the plain angry. The US officials who should be listening to their very simple and very real complaints are locked in a cycle of meetings from dawn until after midnight in the palace complex, behind the heavily guarded, barbed-wire entrance at the palace gates.

I don't think Bremer even knows the people for whom he is responsible. The Bush administration replaced the idiot to whom they first gave the responsibility with someone even less competent. Bremer is expert only in riding the coattails of the truly competent.

Honestly, I could do a better job, without a moment of experience in governing. At least I know that meetings aren't how goals are met or tasks are accomplished. Of course, meetings are all Bremer knows.

Meetings.

Where is the money that was promised? Where are the peacekeepers that are needed in Iraq now? Sorry, soldiers who have been on constant duty for months just won't cut it. Hell, why not hire some of the out-of-work police that are so common these days (since so many municipalities are laying off police and firefighters due to lack of money), send them to Iraq and have them do the policing? It's what they were trained to do, after all! Sure, they don't speak the language and that is a real problem, but that would be a problem no matter who they used. Unless they used Iraqis, of course, but the chances for that happening are, as we have plainly seen, zero.

Why the hell don't those damned "US officials" stop with their useless meetings and just get out and listen to some of those complaints? Hell, Bremer could probably pay all of those who queued yesterday out of his own pocket, without feeling it! Simple complaints very often have simple solutions. Problems like the ones in Iraq right now aren't solved by some grand plan, nor all at once. They are solved one at a time, an individual at a time.

Hell, if nothing else, pair each soldier with a former Iraqi soldier! This would take the pressure off the American and would help a lot with relations between Iraqis and American soldiers in general.

But no. Bremer would rather have meetings. Bush would rather cut funding for veteran's benefits. Tom DeLay would rather give rich Americans another $83 billion in tax cuts. Condoleeza Rice would rather babble about "revisionist historians." Donald Rumsfeld would rather compare Baghdad to Washington, DC. And CNN would rather publish stories about fake religious relics.

If you think by "the country of the blind" I meant Iraq, you lose. As do we all.