Dean's World

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts from Iraqi bloggers. We've got perspectives on the upcoming election, negative thinking and positive thinking, Hubby speaks and gives us the view from the Green Zone, and a lot more.

Ali, formerly of Iraq the Model, is now posting from his own blog, Free Iraqi AKA Iraqi Liberal. He addresses the question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy.

Rose of Diary from Baghdad thinks things have gone from bad to worse:

killing our police, our guards, destroying our infrastructure. They all made by those terriosts. maybe we have some of our ex-regime helping them in information. I don't know how someone have all this hate against his own people. But still things are getting worse and I still don't think that the elections will make any difference if they were held in time, and I still want the election to be postponed till the government could handle the situation in Baghdad and Mosul.

I believe in human power and our ability to change our situation but I believe that our power is nothing compared to God's power; in fact our power and the changes that human race has brought to the face of the earth (good or bad) are by God's permission. We 'can' because He 'wants'.

Ex-pat Fayrouz of Live from Dallas is tired of the ugly pictures of Iraqi women that seem to be a staple in the Western press. She posts a picture of a couple of cute Iraqi college girls.

Hubby answers some readers' questions over on neurotic iraqi wife.

Abu Khaleel posts on several different blogs. On his political blog, Iraqi Letter to America, he's critical of the last year in Iraq which he calls The Year of Neocon Rule. On his cultural blog, A Glimpse of Iraq he describes Fat-ha, the the social practice of grieving. It's not dissimilar to a visitation, a wake, or the practice of “sitting shiva” in Judaism.

Alaa of The Mesopotamian is back! He's got his blog back under control and should be posting regularly soon. I'm looking forward to his thoughts on the upcoming election.

There's quite a bit of posting on the elections. Husayn of of Democracy in Iraq (is coming), Hammorabi, and Ali of Free Iraqi offer their reflections. Kurdo gives us the Kurdish perspective. He's also got some graphics of election posters.

Finally, a new blogger from Mosul—Truth Teller of A Citizen of Mosul—has both a canned and a personal description of the city of two springs. He describes himself as a 57-year-old medical doctor living in Mosul, married, with three daughters. I found this blog through Iraq blog count. They're not certain about its authenticity.

Here's what I'm planning for the Carnival of the Liberated for the next several weeks. Next week I plan to feature a couple of blogs from Westerners working in Iraq. The week before the election I plan on a pre-election round-up. After that I'll have a post-election recap. Check back! We're here every Tuesday morning.

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.