What lemmy thinks of Iraq?

Lovely people, amazing history, real shame about the politics. Also sorry about what my country did to yours. I hear your country is gorgeous.

One thing that struck me as an adult is that I grew up learning about some ancient civilizations, but in school I never learned that Mesopotamia is a location in present day Iraq. It just feels weird that we could study about ancient cultures and not learn where they are on the globe today.

Didn't you have a picture of the cities were in the school manual? I find that surprising

I LOVE the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the historic city of Uruk (Warka) is in modern day Iraq. In that way, I have a lot of respect for the history. However, I would be too scared to travel there, for example. I hope truly that now after ISIS war, things keep getting better for the people there. I don't hear many news from there anymore, though I wouldn't mind hearing.

Lots of tourists come around here, mainly to The marshes, the city of Babylon and Ur, yearly from the month of November to April where the temperature rates are at it's modest. I recommend you coming here, it's not that scary really from the tourists perspective.
- I'd love to visit Iraq and other parts of the middle east, but the culture surrounding women and their rights prevents me from going. I havent checked out Iraq specifically, but based on my reading of nearby Egypt, it's so ass backwards that I couldn't in good conscience take my wife there. The risk of sexual harassment, assault, etc is just too great.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is really cool, I wish there were more modern reinterpretations of it, though.

Iraq I feel like we (the US) wrecked and looted y'all and left the mess for you to clean up. I can remember being shocked at the start of that war and extremely skeptical about the pretext. Uneasy in general about the treatment of women there. I do think of the culture as so old, like the weight of history would lay heavy, and feel so bad about historical places getting smashed in war.

(Also so sorry for severe edit - my sleepy brain read Iran)

I know very little about iraq.

I'll just throw mine in to help confirm some of the general consensus coming from the states. Before 9/11, nothing really. A few brief mentions in history class etc, our education is horrible about human history but shoves American history down your throat. During the wars? Absolutely fucking horrific that any country is just allowed to attack an area like that. Every time I heard about some new operation I thought about how my family (if they were in that situation) would be huddle in the corner of a room just hoping to survive the night. Something that would make me want to lash out at anything because of the danger to my family, I never got why ANYONE thought this would "stop the terrorizing" by making more radicalized citizens.

After and currently, I'm completely blown away by the historical and cultural context of Iraq. In school there was never an emphasis on how important that country was to the civilization that we have now. Every documentary or book I read that touches on ancient history includes that area. I think if it was better taught in schools, the general consensus would've been more honorable towards finding a solution that worked for both countries.

Shoves American mythology down your throat, a large amount of what you were taught is just straight up lies or lacks incredible amounts of context.

Gilgamesh

A neighboring country

One thing I know is. There's a lot of ruins. In Mesopotamia.

I've heard Iraqi Kurdistan is a nice place to visit and is relatively safe compared to the rest of the country.

Bossy militias... we call those cops here in the US. As for Iraq, I think of the people I have met from there and that area. All good people. As for the government... I don't know of a single government that I think positively of. Once you get enough people in one organization, it attracts the worst kind of people to join.

Sometimes they're called proud boys

OP what do women feel about Iraq in Iraq?

For 100 years women was treated as the inferior gender not just in Iraq but all around the Arabian Gulf area due to religious/customary reasons. Iraq was one of the first countries to allow women to drive, it was and will be the most secular middle eastern country. After the American invasion on Iraq women's rights was at decline because of the war, and it's now even better than ever. So they feel pretty much normal I guess, they even sometimes have more freedom than us men here.
- It's great to hear a bit of inside news. It's so sad that when war subsides news coverage dus as well. Your post made me realize that.
  
  I really hope the middle east can get the corruption of oil or of it's system and the rigidity of the extreme interpretations of Islam.
  
  Thanks for the perspective, brother.
- I wonder why my comment was removed by the mods!?
- This is a place where honor killings, female genital mutilation, and arranged/child marriages are commonplace. I get that progress takes time, and that war was a major setback, but trying to portray Iraq as a safe place for women to travel is disingenuous at best.
  
  Also:
  
  "they even sometimes have more freedom then men here,"
  
  Wtf are you smoking? Please give me an example of a situation in which this is true, because considering what I've read so far, i have MAJOR doubts.

Honestly, I've heard or read very little about Iraq after the war, so I have no idea what happened there since then. Unfortunately I think the country is still mostly being associated with war and crisis here in Germany. I think it's a very interesting place especially for its ancient history though. Some of the first highly developed civilizations arose there. Would love to visit places like Ur, Babylon or Nineveh one day.

2million people were victims of american murderers. The americans like to forget that their foreign policy and behaviour of their military is basically identical to the IDF.

It's really funny if you think about it, what America identified as terrorists and imprisoned at Abu Ghraib prison are now politics controlling Iraq's economy each one with his own militia to protect him from the law. We now only looking for the future with people tending to forget what happened 20 years ago in the hope that things get better.
- The anti war movement against the illegal war on Iraq was the biggest mobilization in history. Millions of people all over the world tried to stop the war but we're ultimately unsuccessful. Which brings us to a bigger question, why don't we the people have political power. I believe it comes down to greed, and capitalism. How can we stop these wars? The genocide on Palestine? The only weapon we have is to withhold our labour. Organize, unionize and strike.
There were plenty of us that saw right through the bullshit even before the war started but unfortunately because the SCOTUS decided the election for us we were stuck with a gang of money hungry pieces of shit... I mean we still are, but we were then too...

I was young and naive so I wanted to join the military in hopes of getting some technical skills, but even as a 17 year old idiot I saw right through bushs bullshit and said fuuuuccckkkkk that. Now I work in a factory... Fuck Bush, fuck Cheney, fuck Rumsfield... War criminals the lot of them.

To get to OPs question, in America I think we have a collective shame about it so it's pretty much never spoken about at all. The state of Iraq is only ever mentioned within the context of ISIS :(

Cradle of civilization. Brilliant art math and architecture. A total victim of countless imperial aggression due to its resources. Will never forgive what the US did and the fighters in Fallujah were heroes.

I wish I could go there and meet people

I'm an American and a Texan. I feel shame, anger, guilt, worry, and pity.

Bush (a Texan) back in the day started a 10 year war with your country that my taxes paid and my generation died for. This was done with completely fabricated evidence. Bush Senior, about decade before, undermined the foundations of free speech and journalism to facilitate Desert Storm.

I'm part of a military industrial machine that kills people to make some of my country men rich.

I'm very different from a typical person from the middle east. I don't even abide or respect abrahamic religions. Those differences don't make me angry though, the world would be better to leave those different than me with peace and quiet. I want Iraqi people to be happy and content, for the selfish reason that I don't want to think about the region.

I'm extremely fearful that the powers that be in Washington will decide to invade Iraq again in a decade or so.

This is a much more serious version of my answer, which was going to be

"That's one of the places where we decided oil was more precious than human life; I don't really think of Iraq because the only discourse about it in my country is blatant xenophobia and I'm still working on finding ways around the propaganda"

Well, we don't get a lot of easy to find news on Iraq here in the US. You have to go looking for it.

That being said, with the little that I have gone looking for, it really seems like the people of Iraq are busting their asses to recover, and have shown incredible resilience in the face of so much destruction that hit them in the last fifty years. It's impressive as hell tbh.

That's been my impression as well. Other countries recovering from a conflict seem to have a lot of people still looking for others to blame for their problems but Iraqis seem more interested in just trying to make things a little better each day. I think if they can hold on to that hope their future will be bright.

Since we really only hear what little our media publishes about military operations, and the coming and going of the military, can you please tell us a little about it?

Well nothing much since 2014 except it become more safe with the security situation becoming more stable that tourists are being attracted to here. Corruption still a big issue and we see more and more of these cases most of them don't get resolved unfortunately because of the authorities negligence. Lack of jobs made the people more mad with the last 4 years, protests became more often demanding of jobs in the government sectors. Water drought and the climate change started to effect our lives with no government efforts to reduce it's impact. Generally Iraq is better now people are happier than ever.
- Thanks for the reply.The corruption seems to be an issue in most governments. Do most Iraqis you know think life is better or worse since Hussein is no longer in power?

I personally believe I have zero right to hold any viewpoint or opinion aside from feeling like the western lines drawn for the middle east after WWII were bullshit.

Let that part of the world run itself and leave them all the fuck alone.

What little I know about about today’s Iraq comes from Hakim’s personal stories on The Deprogram podcast.

I think the US military can’t get out soon enough. I hope Iraq joins BRICS, dedollarizes, and has continued success with BRI. The neocolonial ^* imperial core^* is no one’s ally, and is in decline.

As an American, sorry about the war that my country committed against yours for no good reason. And I'm sorry for all the innocent people that my country killed. I wish your country well, and hope you can achieve peace and stability for your people.

I think of it as a highly imperialized and exploited country full of workers trying to make it a better place for eachother. In short, a victim of empire who deserves our material support in their struggle. However, this is my position on a lot of places.

I don't know much about modern Iraq outside of how the US has affected it in all honesty. I know little about its current governmental structure or the major political forces at play. Would you mind giving me a brief synopsis?

There are like 20 or even more government parties, I stopped counting them really, they all fight for who will be in charge of different sections of the government each one of them having no chance of agreement with each other, which results in a a political conflict the last 14 years at the end of every election cycle on which party is the prime minister nominated from, in the end it comes down to the nomination of an acceptable figure among these parties. And it doesn't take long until each one of them starts digging holes in the way of that figure for the sake of benefits, either Money, investment contracts، positions amongst the authority.

It really doesn't effect us that much now with them recently settling down to form an electoral alliance in the last 2 years. It has become more safe the last 6-8 years so much to hold sports events "recently The Arabian Gulf Cup Which was won by Iraq btw". Iraq has come along way and now somewhat on par with its neighboring countries.
- I'm glad to hear things are improving for y'all :D
  
  Best of luck o7

Not heard of it since.

Which is good I suppose because it would have to be something horrific enough to push Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Hamas out of the media.

How is it nowadays? Getting better/worse/nowhere?

Not really much, the government only depends on oil for income with little to none effort of changing that direction. Electricity demand is higher than ever with the service declining each and every year.

I don’t think about Iraq. Should I?

should you think about the planet earth too?
- I don't think they meant it as a slight against your homeland. You probably don't think about my homeland either, and idk why someone in Iraq would be concerned about Louisiana
Just going by population, you should about as much as you think about Canada.
- Uh oh, I think about Canada a lot.

Are you an Iraqi in Iraq? I am an ex-iraqi but have lived in the Nordics majority of my life. People here don't talk much about the country, but the few tourists that go there go to Erbil and only have good things to say about it.

Would love to hear your own experience too.

Yes, born raised and probably gonna die here. I live in southern region of Iraq, specifically the city of Nasiryah. Generally everything are still lacking behind due to years of war but it's getting better bit by bit with some hiccups because of the Iranian government influence, inflation, corruption.
- Good that improvements are happening. I was briedly in basra long time ago. Stay strong!

We just don't think of Iraq.

I think its history, particularly ancient is fascinating.

Some guilt over the war, hoping y'all don't become irans bitch.

I think US should honor request of Iraq to remove bases if that's an earnest request

No matter how big the protest is... the war will continue. Feeling represented yet?

I know almost nothing about it, but I find ancient Mesopotamia fascinating.

(bart simpson voice) The exports of ~~Libya~~ Iraq are numerous in amount. One thing they export is corn, or as the Indians called it, "maize". Another famous Indian was Crazy Horse. In conclusion, ~~Libya~~ Iraq is a land of contrasts. Thank you.

joking aside, sorry about America.

It is a country with people in it of whom some suck and some don't suck. Like everywhere really.

I think Iraq has a similar climate to the desert where I live. Having grown up in the desert of the US, I have always wanted to visit other deserts to see how other cultures deal with the heat/dryness firsthand.

Beyond that and the obvious war news I do not know too much about Iraq.

Hmm. Unofficial Kurdish state in the north, typical Middle Eastern country in the south. Lots of Iranian influence. It had a wild ride thanks to warmongering Americans and Saddam, but as far as I can tell it's settled down since the end of ISIS as a territory-holding entity.

Aside from the politics, it's home to a lot of the oldest cities and ruins in existence. Like the rest of the region it used to be greener, but millennia of agriculture takes a toll.

I'm Canadian. I would say that I don't think much about it in terms of current events, I haven't heard much in the news about it in recent years. And my assumption from that is that's probably a good sign. There used to be a steady stream of bad news, and "no news" lies along the path in between "bad news" and "good news."

I did see a video recently about Iraq's plans for a giant new port facility on that little tidbit of Persian Gulf shoreline it has and road/rail link from it up through to Turkey, and thence onward into Europe. It sounded like a very optimistic development if it can be seen through to fruition, opening an alternative trade corridor to the Suez Canal. Anything that diversifies a country's economy is a good thing, and anything that removes single points of failure in global shipping networks is also a good thing. I can't imagine the Houthi obstruction of the Red Sea would still be a thing by the time that route opens up but at least it'll be an option if something like it happens again.