Irak 87

Van Jason Miller's website overgenomen: 'OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOOD.

"If you don't think our culture's marginalization of its own war is odd, imagine this: someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, is suddenly blown to bits, and you are splattered with his or her bloody goo. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. Folks, this is what happens every single day in Iraq." BY BOB HERBERT 6-8-06 New York Times.
For the smug, comfortable, well-off Americans, it doesn't seem to matter how long the war in Iraq goes on, so long as the agony is endured by others. If the network coverage gets too grim, viewers can always switch to an infotainment channel -- one hand on the remote, the other burrowing into a bag of chips -- to follow the hilarious-yet-pathetic antics of Paris, Britney, Brangelina, et al.Americans think: "This foreign war is depressing and denial is the antidote. After all, why should ordinary citizens -- good people, religious people, patriots -- stop to consider their role in, and responsibility for, these thunderous explosions of unending carnage? Enough with this introspection! Let's go to the ballpark, get drunk, and boo Barry Bonds."This nation is in deep denial about Iraq. For years the president and his supporting cast of arrogant, bullying characters have tried to put their best PR facade on this ill-advised military adventure. They had no idea what they were doing when they ordered the invasion of Iraq, and they still don't see that they've opened up a Pandora's Box. Many of the troops who were assured that the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms are now dead. And yet there's still no plan, no mission, and no exit strategy.Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about those phantom weapons of mass destruction. And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June, when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.Here are the facts: the war, so recklessly launched by the neocon amateurs in the Bush White House, has already taken well over one hundred thousand lives; and it will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Yes, that's "trillion" with a "t."No one has been held accountable for this fiasco. While Mr. Bush's approval ratings are low, the public has been largely indifferent to the profound suffering that we have created in Iraq. This is primarily for two reasons: (1) because most Americans have no immediate personal stake in this war (indeed, the wealthiest keep getting more tax cuts during the war); and (2) because the administration and the news media intentionally hide the worst atrocities, carnage and suffering from the eyes of the U.S. population.Even the killing of American troops is usually kissed off with a paragraph or two in the major papers, and a sentence or two, at best, on the national newscasts. If you don't think our culture's marginalization of its own war is odd, imagine this: someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, is suddenly blown to bits, and you are splattered with his or her bloody goo. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. Folks, this is what happens every single day in Iraq.The many thousands of Iraqis who are killed — including babies, children, and women who are being shot to death, blown up, and incinerated — remain completely unreported, and totally unknown to the American public. Hence, among ordinary Americans there is not only very little empathy for the suffering of Iraqis, but also virtually no sense that we share responsibility for their suffering.Despite the fantasies that are frequently expressed by President Bush and the leading politicians in both parties, the idea of a U.S. victory in Iraq is a vainglorious illusion. The nightmarish violence is rising, not receding. Iraq definitely is not being pacified.For instance, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bustling market in Basra last weekend, killing 27 and wounding scores. On Sunday, 20 people were stopped and pulled from their vehicles on a highway near Baquba and shot to death.John Burns, writing in yesterday's New York Times, told us in his report from Iraq: "The death toll in one of the most grisly recent attacks, in the village of Hadid, near Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba, rose to 17 on Tuesday when the police delivered nine severed heads to the Baquba morgue, after they were found inside fruit boxes in the village." Just a few days earlier, eight more heads had been found.Instead of beginning to withdraw our troops from Iraq, we are belatedly sending more in. The permanent Iraqi government, which was supposed to be the answer to everybody's prayers, is a study in ineffectual haplessness. Although Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, someone has already take his place as Al Qaeda's number one man in Iraq. And the real masterminds of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, are still at large somewhere in Pakistan.As was the case with Vietnam, the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. After more than three years, there is no clear mission for the American troops in Iraq. "Democratization" is, in fact, a raging civil war in which the Americans are but one among many competing militias. And the long-ago promised "Iraqification" of this war is still an illusory farce.No one can really say what the dead have died for. And yet the dying continues. When all of this gruesome carnage finally comes grinding to a halt -- according to President Bush, on somebody else's watch -- we'll look around at the hideous costs in bloodshed, human lives, and cold hard cash, and ask ourselves: "What in the world were we thinking?"Fair Use StatementIn accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of US Copyright Law, this attributed work is provided via Thomas Paine’s Corner on a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice.' Lees verder:
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/