this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

2 images and text below the fold


A mother and her daughter, who survived Hurricane Katrina, cry at the New Orleans Convention Center September 2, 2005. Army troops rolled in to try and restore order in New Orleans on Friday, finally bringing emergency supplies for desperate survivors of Hurricane Katrina after days of delays and broken promises.
(Jason Reed/Reuters)

I think Katrina is one more indication of how inefficient and corrupt this Administration is, and indicates the absolute lack of seriousness that Bush has in making the government respond to the needs of the people.  He is there primarily to give tax breaks to billionaires, to do the service of large corporations.  This is just one more powerful, dramatic, painful example of the incompetence and lack of concern of this Administration.  They are so separated from the lives of normal, low-income people that it never occurred to them that if you’re poor and have no money, no car, that you can’t leave.  You don’t just get in your SUV and go to a nice hotel a few miles away.

Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
From an interview with Bernie Sanders by Ruth Conniff. In The Progressive
Heads up courtesy Bill in Portland, Maine


Iraqis pray next to the coffins of US airstrike victims in Ramadi, Iraq, in this Monday Oct. 17 200 (sic) file photo. U.S. warplanes and helicopters bombed two villages near the restive city of Ramadi, killing an estimated 70 militants, the military said Monday, though residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.The number of Iraqis who have died violently since the U.S.-led invasion is many times larger than the U.S. military death toll of 2,000 in the country. In one sign of the enormity of the Iraqi loss, an Associated Press count found that in the last six months alone, at least 3,870 civilians died.
(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’.

– snip –

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. ‘We don’t do body counts,’ said the American general Tommy Franks.

from Harold Pinter’s Nobel Lecture – “Art, Truth & Politics”
heads up courtesy The Rude Pundit 12/8/2005.

– – –
read Ilona’s important diary at MLW – Returning Vet PTSD – One Soldier’s Story

view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)

take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)

support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day