Climate Change

Michael Totten arrives in Baghdad:

We dismounted the plane and I stepped into harsh blazing sunshine.

You know how it feels when you get into a black car in the afternoon with the windows rolled up in July? It’s an inferno outside, but inside the car it’s even hotter? That’s how Iraq feels in the shade. Sunlight burns like a blowtorch. If you don’t wear a helmet or soft cap the sun will cook your brain. First you get headaches. Then you end up in the hospital.

The funny thing is, you eventually get used to it. Heat remains a threat, and you're never comfortable outside, but you drink lots of water and become accustomed to the extreme. You become "climatized" to temperatures in the one hundred-teens - and higher. It's still hot - believe me - but you can deal with it. I once had a month-long stay in a tent city in Egypt. It was August, and we had no air conditioning back then. But we got used to 110 degree heat, and shivered when night time temperatures plunged into the 70's.

Point being, if you haven't caught on yet, that after a couple weeks you get used to it - the body is amazing that way.

Back to Michael:

After having spent several days Baghdad’s Green Zone and Red Zone, I still haven’t heard or seen any explosions. It’s a peculiar war. It is almost a not-war. Last July’s war in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon was hundreds of times more violent and terrifying than this one. Explosions on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border were constant when I was there.

You’d think explosions and gunfire define Iraq if you look at this country from far away on the news. They do not. The media is a total distortion machine.

But stick around long enough, and you'll find the war. Or it will find you.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, and by the way, if you're a blogger headed to Iraq and would appreciate a better welcome then the one Michael received, contact me before you depart, I'll see what I can do. (I can't lower the heat, but otherwise...)