To see your city destroyed before your own eyes

Here is what Salam Pax wrote about Baku Baghdad back in 2003:

To see your city destroyed before your own eyes is not a pain that can be described and put to words. It turns you sour or was that bitter, it makes something snap in you and you lose whatever hope you had. Undone by your own hands. Close your doors. Shut your eyes. Hope the black clouds of this ugliness do not reach you.

As if I have written these words about the current destruction construction boom in Baku

Also, these words of Salam's reminded me of another post of mine:
A tale of two cities: Baghdad, Baku and US Embassies