References on the Current Situation
Please contribute useful references!
  • Books and References: Reference Library
    • Lists of links in Arabic, and some in English.
     9neesan

    Rezgar, Modern Discussion(Arabic)

    Al Jandool Magazine (Arabic)

    Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (Arabic and English)

    Al Medar Magazine

    Maaber (Arabic)

    Elaf Magazine (Arabic)

    Anhaar Magazine (Arabic)

    Ofouq Magazine (Arabic)

  • Articles on the political economy and social structure of Iraq by Isam al-Khafaji and Faleh A. Jabar, as published in _Middle East Report_ http://www.merip.org
    Good links for up to date information:
  • The official web place on Iraq to share information, with many useful maps and datasets.http://agoodplacetostart.org
  • http://www.uga.edu/islam/iraq.html; This is an excellent source of historical and current links.
  • Frequent reports on the iraq situation are sent out by email from: reliefweb; Relief Web is a project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
  • The comprehensive status of reconstruction updates from USAID: http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/updates/index.html
  • This UN source is updated almost daily concerning security issues and incidents. http://www.Humanitarianinfo.org/iraq
  • Development Gateway has a comprehensive archive of documents related to development & reconstruction in Iraq. http://www.developmentgateway.org/iraq
  • CENTCOM Headquarters publishes a daily security briefing as well as a short analysis of current events. http://www.centcom.mil
    ...I looked at their site. The best article that I could find on the whole site was the presentation by Ahmad Dia on the current living situation for Iraqi citizens. http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030707-0341.html
  • Info on and for Aid Workers is at: http://forum.aidworkers.net A recent article addressed the re-entry stresses experienced by aid workers who return "home" to find that they do not fit as well as they thought they used to. Re-entry shock and stress is a serious issue for the many short-term and long-term aid workers, and few of the international organizations give adequate pre-field training, and post-field debriefing and re-entry counseling.

    _Third-Culture Kids_ by David Pollack (?) addresses some of the "I don't fit here anymore" questions.
  • Voice in the Wilderness, a long-time supporter of freedom and independence for the Iraqi people, have a site with personal testimonies of local and foreign people in Iraq
    http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/index.html

  • A blog presents newspieces showing the negative views of the US occupation of Iraq: http://c-sawiraq.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_c-sawiraq_archive.html#105595302808568323
  • The US Institute of Peace has a number of articles addressing Civil Society in Iraq. http://www.usip.org/
  • the Electronic Library (Ebray) of resources on the social history of the Middle East.
    http://middle-east.ebrary.com/
  • Iraq Occupation Watch: "Exposing the Impact of the Military and Economic Occupation of Iraq"
    http://www.occupationwatch.org/index.php

    • What about a map of social "hotspots", where there is peace and social progress?
    Can we map civil society graphically?
    If we had location info on three types of villages, towns, or areas, we could give them three ratings and color code them on a map as: peaceful, moderate, and unstable; or civil, semi-civil, and uncivil?
    If we know where these types of social situations are, then we can begin to intelligently look for questions to answer through threat analysis and threat mediation. Is this worth pursuing?
    --Jon

    Faleh Jabar contributes a description of the places and types of people most commonly involved in political and ideological violence in Iraq. See below his article on "Who is behind the violence in Iraq?"
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3148223.stm

    The Council on Foreign Relations has a thoughtful presentation of the various groups inciting violence against all "non-Islamic" agencies in Iraq. They also present a timeline of Iraq history and an intelligent overview of the shi'a of Iraq.
    http://www.cfr.org/background/background_iraq_attacks.php

    There are maps and lists of violent attacks listed on the UNOCHA website at http://agoodplacetostart.org
    This site now redirects to: http://www.hiciraq.org/main.asp

    A blog by "uncommon thought" includes a well-written article on the US businesses that received contracts from the US government to work in Iraq. See: http://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/000707.html
    I have recently been following Daniel Drezner's webblog on Iraq-related thinking.
    http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/000871.html#000871
    In this article series the REAL reasons that the US is in Iraq are debated and documented. This is one of the best forums on this topics. --Jon

    An interesting source of older research on Iraq can be found at "The Internet Archives" by Brewstter Kahle.
    http://www.archive.org/ These archives are a "complete" archive of internet documents found, on any topic, since 1996!

    http://www.seedwiki.com