We’ve lost over 200 years of long held freedoms and well…over there, they tasted freedom for less than a week and are wondering what we’ve wrought.
Let’s pause to reflect that we’ve also lost close to 2,400 men and women. Never to return. Over 17,000 maimed, and that’s the official count.
And over there, an estimated tens of thousands dead and the killing continues. No healing in sight.
There will be a lot written on this the 3rd year of the illegal Iraq war. Illegal? Oh yes. It couldn’t be justified; so we’re lied into a pre-emptive strike against Iraq in violation of domestic laws, international laws and treaties.
Saddam was boxed in, being bombarded every few days by US and British planes. He was not a threat. The few voices raised in opposition and the millions who marched worldwide, were voices in the wilderness. The War profiteers could not be stopped.
Those who advanced the arguments or voted for the war, including our very own Democratic Senators and Congressmen and women, cannot now disown their votes, or their advocacy or the results; Every death, every adult or child maimed to a lifetime of misery are on their hands.
Just imagine, the ‘Shock and Awe’ meant to liberate has become a civil war. This morning the NPR reporter, on the scene, gave an interview with her driver, a Sunni. As I listened, ‘man’s inhumanity and revenge’ are the words that came to mind and I’m left ashamed that this was done in my name. (Transcript not yet available. It was a fairly long interview so I’ll give a very short recap, direct quotes).
Here is a guy, a Sunni, who “got down on his knees to give thanks for what he thought was a liberating day.”
more after fold
He had this to say about current conditions.
[..]”We have lost our freedom. The US army broke into our homes, knocked down our doors, broke our furniture, Stole from us.” (The reporter tells the story of an Iraqi whose $8.500 was stolen by the US army personnel as they went through his car at a checkpoint. She reports her intervention with the army in the fortified Green Zone, only to find the case closed without an investigation).
So much for winning hearts and minds
The interview picks up as her driver continues. . “We have a civil war. The US and Britain are super powers, yet we have no electricity, water, medicines or security. They don’t want us to.
We don’t trust the Iraqi police. Brothers can’t tell brothers what they are doing. You can’t give your true address.. The US can’t leave, not now.”Oh yes we will leave, in a Saigon style exodus. Too arrogant to exit otherwise.
Iraq on the eve of the 4th year: the reliable Knight Ridder’s news team finds,
“Predictions of a better Middle East have evaporated three years after invasion”
President Bush cited Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to international terrorism – neither of which turned out to exist – when he ordered a pre-emptive war that began March 19, 2003. He predicted payoffs for the wider Middle East: spreading democracy, deterred enemies, more secure oil flows, a less hostile environment for Israel. None of that has happened, at least not yet.[..]
Without commenting, Prof. Juan Cole, in his today post has a must view map: – the ‘Istans’
” ‘Bush’s Greater Middle East’: a broken Iraq: the territories involved in major Warfare: greater Kurdistan; greater Qaedistan; greater Shiitistan; Iran; Petroleum: $500/barrel. “
NPR reports Rumsfeld took pen to paper in the NYT giving his views of progress. But, in this morning’s comments, Prof. Juan Cole had this note:
The New York Times reveals that Rumsfeld’s torture team, Task Force 6-26, was so notorious that even the CIA wanted nothing to do with it! Current Attorney General Albert Gonzales helped authorize this torture. [..]
In an interview with the BBC, Reuters reporting, ex-prime minister Ayad Allawi counters Rumsfeld, {Warning: with related graphic photos}
“Iraq is in a civil war and the conflict could spread through the Middle East.”
“It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.[..]
And as we sow the seeds to expand the civil war in Iraq; again found in link provided by Prof. Cole:
Al-Hayat reports [Ar.] that the (Sunni hardline) Association of Muslim Scholars said that it “deeply resents and takes offense” at the idea that the ‘forces of Occupation’ (the United States) and Iran would hold talks about Iraqi internal affairs.
Its communique said, “Iranian intervention in Iraqi affairs is not new, and has reached an apex of harmfulness. But what`s new is the attempt to legitimize this interference and to provide it with an international cover, while completely ignoring the sovereignty and the governmental administration of Iraq itself.” Sunni Arab Iraqis have long been distrustful of Shiite Iran.[..]
Is this the same Iran that we’re in a war of words with over their ambitions for nuclear technology? Words, soon to be replaced by bunker busters as the war for profits marches on?
Here is my concern and my despair. In the name of ‘spreading freedoms’ we have committed torture and war crimes, over there; while over here, we’ve lost our long held civil liberties. And those of us who attempt to fight the erosion of these freedoms are labeled traitors. Does any of this make a lick of sense?
How can democracy be imposed with the barrel of a gun or by using death squads?
We’re told, by those who sold us this war and are too timid to admit their mistakes, that we have to stay the course, we’re in for a ‘long war’. But not a word on correcting the errors so indeed, it’ll be a very long war and not very winnable.
A few days ago, Prof Cole asked, does a Pinochet’s fate await George Bush? Oh yes, there’s a future George Pinochet Bush.
And we may add, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Bruce Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, I Lewis Libby, David Addington, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, hatchet men, women and cronies all.
As we enter the 4th year, who would’ve thought we’d still be there in the midst of the killing, continuing the lies, PR shock and awe, masive air strikes?
