Iraq Again

A Dream Deferred Breeds Mistrust of US

Casting a shadow over discussions with Shiites such as Lefta is a despairing sense, inspired by centuries of oppression and suspicion of outsiders, that their community is handcuffed, effectively prevented from shaping its future. Lefta's friend Wisam al-Taieb, 27, a gaunt Oil Ministry worker with dark, intense eyes, stood next to him at the mosque. "What future?" Taieb demanded. "Now the Shia are suffering from a campaign of genocide. The Americans are in total control of our security forces. Our elected government does not have the power to move a single military unit. How do you expect me not to be pessimistic?" ……"Who are the secularists?" demanded Adeeb, the Shiite lawmaker, his eyes tightening. "The secularists are the Baath Party." "It means the base of their thinking is not stable," he continued, referring to the Americans. "They are going to lose the Shiites. And they won't win the Sunnis back, because they attacked them at the beginning. So now both sides will lose confidence in the United States."

My comments on the WaPo website:

It was never a dream deferred -- it was all a lie. And someone should tell Mr. Adeeb that the plan all along was to get the Shias and Sunnis to fight one another, and to make both groups weak to better control them. Amazing how the corporate US media stays on target with the Saddam oppressed the Shias and Kurds line without noticing that Saddam also oppressed Sunnis and Saddam also had Shias in his cabinet. Saddam also had a Christian in his cabinet. Forty percent of the deck of cards idiocy was Shias. But the part about the US objected to Saddams killing this past weekend is funny. We are supposed to believe this is actually true and that US forces were forced to escort Saddam and his corpse from place to place by helicopter against their own wishes. Really. Any intelligent person can figure out that the US was totally behind this hanging and it would never have happened when it did without US approval. But the corporate media continues to spin such a yarn. This would all be very funny if real people were not dying and suffering. Pretty convenient that Saddam is killed before the trials for the genocide of the Kurds. Now we will probably never find out who was giving him the chemicals he needed nor will we ever hear of how the CIA aided Saddam during his rise to power and during his war with Iran and most likely while he was gassing the Kurds. Pretty convenient for someone.

With Iraq War Come Layer Of Loss

This is a story about US troops suffering and how Americans are mostly ignoring that fact.

I posted this comment on WaPo site:

What most Americans really don’t understand is what is happening to the Iraqi people. They are truly, truly blind to that reality. Of course, our media has pretty much ignored them from day one -- and I suppose will continue to do so, just like they ignore the Vietnamese that were harmed and killed in that war. It is estimated that 200+ Iraqis have died for every American death, and that is in a country with less than 10% of our population. I imagine the entire population of Iraq has PTSD at this point, and since it is happening in their homes and country, the PTSD they do have - is far worse than anything our troops are left with. I think it is the height of IMMORALITY to ignore the suffering that the US-taxpayer-funded bullets and bombs have inflicted on Iraq.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"The essence of tragedy is not the doing of evil by evil men but the doing of evil by good men, out of weakness, indecision, sloth, inability to act in accordance with what they know to be right." - I. F. Stone