>> hi, i'm lisa fletcher, and you're in "the stream." buckle up, we're going to walk the streets of baghdad with ordinary iraqis to get a sense of what a day is like with a sense of utter unpredictability. >> my cohost, rajahad ali is here, and he's bringing in all of your feedback in the show. raj, we have thought about this a lot whether we were in iraq, and we left, and it has fallen off the radar. and the last couple of days, we

have had this opportunity to learn what real like is like for average families like ours in iraq, and it has been a little mind blowing. >> you mentioned falling off the radar, and there are 32 million stories falling off of the headlines, iraqis living in the unstable land of iraq, and tweeting, he said: >> you know, your life is probably a lot like an average iraqis. you go to work, get the kids to

school, and you go grocery shopping, and the only difference, you're not wondering if there will be an explosion in the store, or if the car next to you on the commute is going to blow up. every day families trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, in chaos. it has been about two years since the u.s. left. but last year was the bloodiest since 2008. the promise to improve the lives of iraqis is a distant and almost pron memory. >> and the iraqi people can be certain of this. the united states is committed to helping them build a better future. if conflict occurs, we'll bring iraq food, and medicine, and supplies, and most importantly, freedom. [ applause ] >> for many, a better future

remains illusive, and the legacy of the u.s. invasion, complicated and still unclear. the first election since the u.s. withdrawal around the corner, what hopes and dreams do iraqis have for the future, and the challenges of daily life? here to help us walk in the shoes of iraqis, he just returned to iraq where his family is. and where they live. it's so nice to have you on this side of the camera with us for a change. >> thank you for having me, usually i'm in the back room, but it's good to be here with you. >> i know that this trip was incredibly emotional for you, and incredibly important. and why was it so important to go to iraq? >> well, i'm an iraqi, and i lived in a household to two wonderful iraqi parents, and throughout my life, politics and news was a regular thing.

it was a regular conversation. so i took a lot from my parents. but i lived outside of iraq, so i never really knew what that place was like. all i knew was the stories through my father. the stories of the good days, as he would say, when he was growing up, and the stories of the struggles under saddam hussein, the deterioration that iraq suffered. so this trip was about connecting with my roots. it's about going there and seeing it for the first time. and seeing the places that my father spoke. you know, that little alley that he grew up in, his house, my aunts and uncles, and it was just a wonderful experience. >> homecoming for anyone who has never been to the place of their roots, it's filled with you think a romanticized version in your head of what it's going to be like. there's this huge buildup for

you, your entire life, and did that happen in and what was it like once you arrived there? >> that's exactly what happened. because when i arrived, i remembering in the airplane, and as the airplane was approaching the airport, so many different emotions were going on inside of me. i was wondering, what am i going to see? i was both excited and i was nervous tainment. i was excited to experience this country, but i was afraid that the headlines that i had been reading for so long had poisoned my head to the point where i will confirm it by being there, and kind of hate what i see or what i saw there. so i was a little bit worried about that. but in the next few weeks, actually took me through a range of different experiences that i'm still in the process of figuring out what to do with that information. >> speaking of one of those

experiences, you mentioned the trauma that you saw. life was normal, and you told me stories of how everything can exchange. and our community is talking about the aftermath: you were there and you captured it. one of the most successful coping mechanisms for the chronic uncertainty that the 32 million iraqis have to answer every day. >> before you tell us that, will you tell us an experience that you had that was so powerful there that helps us sort of relate to what they're going through every day? >> sure, i'll just describe to

you briefly, driving out of the airport, one of the first things that i noticed, the level of security. there are checkpoints everywhere, and there are tanks and soldiers, stationed in certain roads, every few hundred feet, you would see someone standing there, so you can feel the presence of security. now, driving through, i kind of saw a rough situation, the roads were bad, the cars, the traffic was a little bit chaotic, but at the same time, i felt like people there were still living a normal life. they cope with what's going on. i thought about the vulnerability there, and kind of living with the sense of terrorism, but i hadn't experienced it yet. i'm just in iraq and driving around, and i see faces that are tired and people that are frustrated, but i saw people

move on. i saw people with shops, and buying all kinds of goods, friends hanging out and people living just a regular kind of life. and it wasn't until the fourth day that i was there, when a blast very close to where i was staying at my aunt's house, took place, and it shook the entire house. it shattered the windows of my cousin's room. it wasn't until then that i realized that this terror is a part of these people's everyday life. and to live with it was a very strange thing. when i walked out after that experience. when i was in the streets, i could sense the paranoia, and i could sense the fear. i carried my back back with me, and i had my laptop. i traveled between my aunt and uncle's houses and i carried my camera. and i could sense that people

were looking at me, what does this person have in those bags in and they could see that i'm not from there. so i could sense that they were looking at me with suspicion, and i don't blame them. because the unpredictability of the terror, it's a common thing. everybody says over there, you know, you just have to accept it. because if you don't accept it, you can't do anything. what do you do? you sit in your home and do nothing? >> the tweet you read, asking about how you cope, they memorize their surroundings, so they know what doesn't belong, like you and your camera and backpack didn't belong. >> sense of security very strong over there. the way they talk, say we're going out to the monarchy and it's very common to say, don't take that road. a blast went off two days ago, and the water pipes are broken,

or they're targeting this one street. and don't take it, take the back roads. and people know the cars in the neighborhood. i was with my cousin one night. and we step out of their building, and we see a car standing there. i didn't recognize it. this was a few days -- more than a week that i was there. and i asked them, i said quickly, hey, why is that car parked there? and he says, don't worry, this is our neighbor's car, so it's fine. so people are very aware of their surroundings, and very aware of the security and what they need to do. avoid certain places, avoid certain times. yes, it's unpredictable. but there are certain peaks when people are all out on the street. the blast took place at 8:00 p.m. so everyone was in the market, it was a very busy time. so people avoid these certain times, and they know what to do. >> hardly a week passes without an explosion in iraq, and few

people know what it's like to plan your day around the fear of a bomb going off or how to raise your kids with any sense of normalcy. when we come back, we'll be joined by people doing this. keep tweeting your thoughts, and give this a try:

>> welcome back.

we're talking about what life is like for an average family in iraq, trying to function amid escalating violence. joining us with more, a father of three and lifelong resident of baghdad, and she's a resident of baghdad but fled in 2007 to the kurdish region of northern iraq, thank you for both of you, and it's in the middle of the night in iraq right now. you get up and go to work and get the kids to school, and how do you do this day in and day out without being paralyzed by the fear of something as simple as going to the grocery store and dying because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time? >> you know, it's very difficult to live in iraq by this situation. especially when you have your kids with you, or without your kids. every time, when we go out and when they go to school, or when

i go to my business, i keep my find, they say, and are they very good? before two days, i take them with me by the car, and they say, oh, father, we are bored, can we go out in and i say, okay, no problem. let's go get some gas for the car, and suddenly, after 10 or 5 minutes, a blast, bombed car in the road, and suddenly, it's very rushed and crowded, and then the ambulance seens an sird then the firemen, and how can i come back to my home? and my wife is calling me, and couldn't get the number, and then i stop for a moment. and i said, oh, same thing.

tomorrow it will be better. it's our life. >> our community is tweeting in. we heard george w. bush saying, we want freedom and a successful iraq, and paul says: you were young, and you used to live there, and you're sunni and kurdish, and a young iraqi, and talk to us again. how are young iraqis really coping with this trauma? >> okay, first of all, thank

you for having me on the show, and for giving me the opportunity to show the world through aljazeera. so my situation is unique, because i lived in baghdad. i'm from baghdad, a sunni arab, and we moved to up to the north, and by the end of 2007. and then i finished high school, arabic high school. and then i joined the american university of iraq, and so i left my family and went to the university. i still feel today that i have

the memory -- in baghdad, and i had to, when i went to school there, i remembered their faces looking at me, how they looked. cars were not able to go into the streets because of the dead bodies. and to my school, when i went to one of my secondary schools. i went to more than six schools in baghdad, during my school time, because every time we were in one neighborhood, and then there were some kind of unrest in that neighborhood. and as you may know, it was a very hard area in baghdad, and it used to be right after the war, and we settled there for a

while. and then we had to go somewhere else. so there is no way for our kids to continue like that to get their education to the north. >> i'm going to pause you there for a second. and i'm thinking, back to what heather was saying, how they deal with the extremists day-to-day. i think of 9/11 here in america, and this was the closest touch to what americans have had to iraq, and it had a profound affect, and yet almost nobody in the population was directly affected by it, and in iraq, almost everybody is living in terror and directly affected. >> and everybody has a story to tell. you talk to cab drivers, and doctors, and engineers, beggars on the street, everybody can

tell you of either a family member they have lost, a parent, a friend, a friend of a friend. there's nobody in iraq that hasn't been touched by the violence in one way or another. and just add onto the story, there are so many iraqi families that live like that. on the fourth day after the blast happened, the chaos that i experienced in the house was something that i have never been through before. any initial reaction, the blast shook the house, and a bombing happened. and then i notice there's panic in the house. i thought everything was okay, because we were all there. but my aunt came out and said my sister had just left with her daughter, and she was a little bit -- she was very scared, actually. and this created such panic in the house, and what i notice is everybody reaches for their phone, and everybody calls everyone that they know to make sure that they're okay, everybody in the neighborhood.

my two aunts have husbands that work on the same street where the blast happened. but then as we talked about it, this is one of the ways they cope with the violence, they talk about the violence, and they make sure that their friends and family are okay. but i will tell you, the one thing that really shocked me, seeing little children, like my cousin's little kid. he's three years ol. and a few hours after, when we're going, he goes up to the door, and he says to us, be careful out there. a week later, another blast happened, but this time it was not as loud, it was in the same neighborhood. and my cousin's other kid comes to me and says, don't worry, this one isn't as loud, and i don't think it's as strong. you're talking about little children. >> it's heartbreaking that little kids have to deal with this kind of violence. >> one quick thing. my cousin's husband told me, you

want to know what extent people are used to the assignments here? in the minutes after the blast, there were ambulances collecting the dead and the injured. and on the other side of the street, people continued to shop. you're talking about a regular market. this is the level, the extent to which people are used to this kind of terror, and i couldn't imagine living there their years like that. i couldn't imagine switching schools six times like hadiga did. >> talking about the political corruption. >> all right, given the

challenges that we're discussing, what hope is there for the future? we're going to discuss iraq's potential. and i think that everyone on our panel will agree, they have a lot. but first, here are the stories we're following.

>> we're talking about the huge

challenges of daily life in iraq and what hope there is for stability in the near to futured talk about the state of politics in iraq right now, and if you feel that politicians there are helping iraqis to achieve the dream, or dismantling it. >> you know, lisa, i believe politics are not telling the truth about the dream. what dream if the dream that mr. george w. bush said about we'll bring freedom? i believe that americans left the iraqi people just like leaving some wounded person in the road. they didn't help us to finish our dream. >> kalij, i want to go with you, a lot of people are asking about hope. and is getting out of iraq what young iraqis aspire to do?

>> i don't think so. for me, personally, and for the people i know, and i used to be during my college time, i don't think any of them consider embrating to other countries or getting foreign passports because they hate iraq. i believe that my generation and i, have hope, and we are trying hard to succeed in spite of all of these difficulties. and in spite of the iraqi government has recently signed an arms deal with iran, where $195 billion, they say that it's to fight crime, but for how violent that will be, i'm not sure.

but does that mean we have to stay locked in our houses, or stay jobless? i don't think so. i think that young people are trying to do something. >> you told me that there's a common thing in iraq and that's that iraq has no solution. which speaks volumes about the mental state of the people who live there. and what fundamentally has to shift to create an undercurrent of hope? >> well, i think, this saying i heard everywhere i went. i heard it from friend, from cab drivers, and store owners, saying that iraq has no solution, and i think what they mean by that, americans are out. yes, left like a wounded man in the middle of the street. but i think it's two sides of one coin. the americans did their part, and now they're gone, and i think now it's in the hands of

politicians. and like he was saying, perhaps the focus has been on the wrong things. politicians, there's a general sense in iraq that politicians have no connect with the street. they live in different areas, they have security, personnel, and you see them on the street, when a politician is coming through, they have an entourage of approximately four armed cars. so there's a disconnect. the people on the street feel like the politicians are not working toward them. so yes, while there are young people doing a lot of cool work, there's this place called ideas base, initially a hacker's base, a lot of young people, but they need politicians that will work for them. this is the key thing. so there's only hope and optimism if the politicians change their act. and at least that's the sense i got from the street. >> on that note, thank you to all of our guests.

until next time, you can find us online at aljazeera.com/ajamstream. >> good evening everyone. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. doubling down. russia ignores demands from the west and reportedly sends nearly wise as many troops into ukraine. support from the kremlin, the russian parliament backs a plan to split crimea from ukraine. millions of young women at risk. we hear from the former first daughter who is trying to help.