The War Is Over

Or at the very least the presence of the US military in Iraq is.  This is the Breaking News alert I received from CNN yesterday:

The United States officially ended its mission in Iraq on Thursday, nearly nine years after it led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Baghdad for the ceremony to personally thank the U.S. troops who have served there, as well as Iraqi security forces.

All U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by the end of the month after Washington and Baghdad failed to agree on terms under which they could remain.

There were about 5,500 American troops in Iraq as of Tuesday, the most recent day American officials in Iraq gave CNN figures.

More from the CNN article:

Hussein's regime proved easy to topple, but no weapons of mass destruction were found, and the United States and its allies were left occupying a country where they were not greeted as liberators -- despite the prediction of Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney.

Iraq erupted into sectarian violence, leaving U.S. troops to try to contain what threatened to become a civil war. Improvised explosive device or IED became a household term; traumatic brain injuries, a signature wound of the war.

[…] In all, the United States spent more than $800 billion in Iraq.

But Panetta reflected on a greater cost.

He said the United States was "deeply indebted" to all Americans in uniform. Nearly 4,500 of them were killed in this war. More than 30,000, wounded.

[…] No one knows for sure how many Iraqis who have been killed since March 2003, but the independent public database Iraq Body Count has compiled reports of more than 150,000 between the invasion and October 2010, with four out of five dead being civilians.

Thousands of other Iraqis struggle to cope with lives marred by war. For them, the battle goes on as the Americans leave behind a fragile nation struggling to establish democracy, struggling to establish stability.

Violence still claims innocent lives in Iraq. People are frustrated with the lack of electricity. Baghdad is awash in trash. No one can predict Iraq's future without the presence of Americans.

I wonder how different the situation would be in the Middle East and for the US in the world had Bush not invaded Iraq after 9/11.  Given what we’ve witnessed with the Arab Spring revolts, Saddam Hussein would have likely been toppled by his own people, supported by the UN/Clinton embargos and no-fly zones that very effectively undermined his rule.

I guess we’ll never know, but the thought of all those lives lost and money wasted compels me to wonder…

One Day of the Iraq War

This video is incredible:



Keep in mind that all the things this video mentions we could do with the money wasted daily in Iraq could have been done over and over, every day, for the past 5 years.

How many problems could we have solved in this country already?

When are we gonna stop wasting money away in a country half around the world and start using it to make our lives better here in the US?

Just asking.

1,250

That's the (up-to-date) number of days the US has been involved in the Iraq war so far, longer than World War II lasted (1,244 days total).

Unfortunately, there's STILL no end in sight:

The war in Iraq has lasted three days longer than US involvement in World War II.

Germany declared war on the US on December, 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor. The US announced victory in Europe on May 8, 1945. That's one thousand, two hundred and forty-four days.

We've been in Iraq one thousand, two hundred and forty-seven days---and still the Administration has no exit strategy, no plan for victory and no clue what it is doing. In case you'd forgotten, George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" aboard an aircraft carrier over three years ago.

"In the battle of Iraq," Bush said, "The United States and our allies have prevailed."

Perhaps that pronouncement was a little premature. Twelve hundred and four days later, our troops are still paying the price.

Unconscionable

The New Berlin?

Wow, things have really taken a turn for the worse in Iraq. It looks like the country (as I always thought it would) will end up being split among the three ethnicities forced into the Iraqi experiment almost nine decades ago, when the Middle Eastern map was redrawn at the end of World War I:

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: "The parties have moved to plan B." He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west," he said.

Nice work, George.

The New and Improved Democratic Iraq

Well, I have to say, things in Iraq are really improving by the day, especially for gays. From Towleroad:

"There is mounting evidence that fundamentalists have infiltrated government security forces to commit homophobic murders while wearing police uniforms. Human rights groups are particularly concerned that the Sadr and Badr militias, both Shia, have stepped up their attacks on the gay community after a string of religious rulings, since the US-led invasion, calling for the eradication of homosexuals."

Is this something that the U.S. military is aware of? Apparently, and here's maybe the most cowardly crime of all:

"Mr Hili, whose Abu Nawas group has close links with clandestine gay activists inside Iraq, said US coalition forces are unwilling to try and tackle the rising tide of homophobic attacks. 'They just don't want to upset the Iraqi government by bringing up the taboo of homosexuality even though homophobic murders have intensified,' he said."

Now, I don't know how bad gays must have had it under Saddam's rule, probably pretty bad, but it's starting to look like more and more Iraqi segments of the population are worse off now then they were when he was in charge.

At least back then they had power and water continuously (certainly in Baghdad), women were freer than in other Muslim countries and people didn't run the risk of being murdered freely by the police, or by people who fake being the police.

Nice work, Mr. Bush. Iraq is really a beacon of liberties in the Middle East now that you have taken it under your wing.

For the sake of every single human being, let's just hope someone finds the way to stop this insane individual from attacking Iran.

If he does, we might really witness the end of civilization in our lifetime.

A tiger can't change its stripes...

As usual, Bush presented a rosier picture about Iraq and its new parliamentary elections than reality seems to offer. In other words, he lied.

He said, rightly so, that it was unprecedented and historical that the citizens of Iraq could freely vote, but accusations of voting irregularities and rigging have surfaced that put the whole election result into question.

Actually, Bush might be caught in a catch 22 here, since he can't denounce the election as irregular and call for a do over (since he'd lose face, not having allowed one when his first dubious election was called into question) and at the same time is faced with the same religious fanatics who rule Iran to take over in Iraq. What a position. No wonder the guy looks 20 years older then when he took office 5 years ago!

Obviously, nobody knows what will happen, but the secular parties and the Sunnis are already threatening to refuse the results and boycott the next parliament if an international review isn't conducted. Well, wouldn't that be a pretty sight?!

A few quotes from Yahoo! articles here:

Dozens of Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups threatened to boycott Iraq's new legislature Thursday if complaints about tainted voting are not reviewed by an international body.

A representative for former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi described the Dec. 15 vote as "fraudulent" and the elected lawmakers "illegitimate."

A joint statement issued by 35 political groups that competed in last week's elections said the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, which oversaw the ballot, should be disbanded.

It also said the more than 1,250 complaints about fraud, ballot box stuffing and intimidation should be reviewed by international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Arab League.
[...]
"We hold the IECI responsible for all the violations which took place during the elections and demand that it be dissolved and a suitable alternative to be found," said the statement read by Ali al-Timimi, the head of the Hilla al-Fayha List, a secular Shiite ticket Babil province south of the capital.

"If this is not achieved, then we will have no choice but to refuse the results and boycott the new parliament."

and here:

More than 10,000 people marched through Baghdad on Tuesday in support of a national unity government of Sunnis and Shiites.
[...]
Officials said insurgents were trying to deepen the political turmoil surrounding the contested vote. Preliminary figures have given a big lead to the religious Shiite bloc that controls the current interim government.
[...]
Sunni Arab and secular Shiite factions are demanding that an international body review more than 1,500 complaints, warning they may boycott the new legislature. They also want new elections in some provinces, including Baghdad. The United Nations has rejected an outside review.

"We will resort to peaceful options, including protests, civil disobedience and a boycott of the political process until our demands are met," said Hassan Zaidan al-Lahaibi of the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Front for National Dialogue. He spoke in neighboring Jordan, where representatives of the groups have met in recent days.

Isn't democracy fun!

Bush lied again

So the Pentagon admitted yesterday that, yes, they did use the lethal chemical white phosphorous as a weapon in Iraq, as they've been accused of doing, but not against civilians.

Pentagon officials acknowledged Tuesday that U.S. troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Falluja last November.

At the same time, they denied an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material had been used against civilians.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said that while white phosphorous is used most frequently to mark targets or obscure positions, it was used at times in Falluja as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants.

"It was not used against civilians," Venable said.

Now, let's analyze this. The Italian state-run television RAI's documentary that aired a couple weeks ago accused the American military of using this chemical agent in the Fallujah battle in Iraq indiscriminately, killing men, women, children, insurgents, and innocents.

As you would expect, the Pentagon denied the allegation as long as it could, until, faced with the evidence and mounting criticism and rage, it had to admit that they did use it, but not against civilians. Now, if you've been accused of something which you deny, then admit to it, but only partially, what are the chances that the part to which you're not admitting is also true and you're just trying to cover up your tracks a little longer?

Italy's state-run RAI24 news television aired a documentary last week that alleged the United States used white phosphorous shells in a "massive and indiscriminate way" against civilians during the Falluja offensive.

The State Department initially denied that U.S. troops had used white phosphorous against enemy forces. "They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters," a department Web site said.

The department later said the statement had been incorrect.

I mean, at this point, is there really anyone left in this country (or the world) who believes anything at all that comes out of these people's mouths?

Bush disregarded CIA warnings that there were no Al Qaeda-Iraq links

Now that the Democrats have forced the GOP's hand in the Senate to finish the so-called Part II of their investigation into whether the Bush administration lied to the Congress and the country to go to war in Iraq, more and more evidence of Bush's deceptions are coming out.

This is from today's CNN:

A January 2003 CIA report raised doubts about claims that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons -- dramatic assertions that were repeated weeks later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
...
The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, this week released the DIA report in alleging the administration cited faulty intelligence to argue for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
...
The document obtained by CNN was provided recently to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have been pressing for an investigation into the ways in which the Bush administration used intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war.

In January and February 2003 President Bush and Powell each made dramatic assertions that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda and argued for military action to prevent Baghdad from providing its suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

I'd like to know what Powell thinks of this evidence now surfacing that implicates him as well as the president, even though he was probably just reluctantly following orders. One thing is sure, he lost all his credibility here. It would have been smarter of him to quit, rather than go in front of the UN and lie for Bush and his minions, especially since he probably knew (or suspected) that the intelligence was faulty, and he could have used his sources in the Pentagon to find out if he was right.

This doesn't look good for Bush or the GOP at large. If more evidence comes out that he lied, next year the Democrats might really take back Congress, and then, what's going to stop them from impeaching Bush and Cheney?

The White House lied to the public according to the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee

Former Senator Bob Graham, who was still in office when the war preparation was undergoing, has come out publicly with his criticism of the White House saying:

"This was one of the most reprehensible and damaging breaches of American security in modern times," said Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the fall of 2002, when the administration made its case for war against Iraq.
...
Asked directly if White House officials lied to the public about Iraq intelligence, Graham said "yes."

He said the administration suppressed "all the nuance" and internal disagreement among intelligence agencies over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, then exaggerated the threat and covered up their activities.
...
Graham said Friday he was "suspicious" about the intelligence reports on the Iraqi threat he saw during the fall of 2002.

He voted against the war resolution, saying Iraq would drain resources from the war on terrorism.

"The administration did not want the best judgment of the intelligence community," Graham said.

"This was an administration that wanted to be blind going into this war. They did not want to have the most credible assessment of what was the reality of the case for war and the consequences of war."

Since he voted not to give the president the authority to go to war in Iraq I tend to believe him and his version of the facts, also because in the end, he was right.

And not having voted to authorize the current oil-war, he has even more credibility then, say, Hillary Clinton, for a 2008 presidential run, for which he's considered a potential candidate.

He also had this to say about the Plame-scandal:

"It's impossible to believe that Scooter Libby would have done this on his own, but rather this was part of a larger conspiracy to attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson," Graham said.

Graham called on Cheney to "defend and explain himself" in the wake of the indictment of Cheney's top aide, Lewis Libby, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case.

So Mr. Vice President, what did you know and when, and what was your role in the leak?

PS: it looks like the Democrats have finally realized that the public is fed up with the Iraq debacle and that it is finally waking up to this administration's shrewdness when it comes to getting what they want. The public is with us and, hopefully, we'll be able to take Congress back next year and the White House in 3 more. Keep your fingers crossed...

US Army proves Bush a liar

A couple days ago, I posted about the accusation Italian public television RAI made that the US had used illegal chemical weapons (White Phosphorous) against innocent and unarmed Iraqi civilians, INDISCRIMINATELY (notice the irony here, since chemical weapons were one of the many reasons given by Bush for attacking Iraq.)

Well, now there is hard evidence that the accusation, although denied (GET OUT!!) by the Bush administration, is in fact true. And the proof comes from the Army itself, so it will be quite hard for Bush to disprove it (is he gonna start smearing the US military like he does with everyone who doesn't agree with him?)

Check out this link at Daily Kos:

"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
...
there is no way you can use white phosphorus like that without forming a deadly chemical cloud that kills everything within a tenth of a mile in all directions from where it hits. Obviously, the effect of such deadly clouds weren't just psychological in nature.
...
Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.

SHAKE AND BAKE!! Absolutely appalling. Let's see how the administration pulls itself out of this sticky mess and how much more America will be hated now in the Middle East.

President Bush. Worst President Ever.

Another black eye for Bush and America

A documentary about the use last year of internationally prohibited chemical weapons on innocent civilians by US military forces in Fallujah, Iraq, will be broadcast tomorrow night in Italy by state-owned TV channel RAI:

The documentary - 'Fallujah - the hidden massacre' - uses witness accounts from former US soldiers, Fallujah residents, video footage and photographs, to support its claim that contrary to US State Department denials, white phosphorous was used indiscriminately on the city, causing terrible injuries to civilians, including women and children.

"I heard the order being issued to be careful because white phosphorous was being used on Fallujah. In military slang this is known as Willy Pete. Phosphorous burns bodies, melting the flesh right down to the bone," says one former US soldier, interviewed by the documentary's director, Sigfrido Ranucci.

"I saw the burned bodies of women and children. The phosphorous explodes and forms a plume. Who ever is within a 150 meter radius has no hope," the former soldier adds.
...
The evidence in 'Fallujah - the hidden massacre' claims to show the US forces did not use phosphorous in the legitimate way - to highlight enemy positions - but dropped the substance indiscriminately on the city, and on a massive scale. The documentary also shows the terrible damage wrought by the US bombardment of Fallujah, and the carnage to civilians, some of whom lay sleeping.

Equally disturbingly, a document in the report claims to prove that the U.S. forces have used the MK77 form of Napalm - the chemical used with devastating effect on civilians during the Vietnam war - on civilians in Iraq.

Naturally, the use of white phosphorous and Napalm is prohibited by UN conventions and the US signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, but c'mon, it's just an international agreement.

No wonder nobody respects the US in the world anymore. I wonder if the media will report about this story this side of the Atlantic.

Nice work, George. You're doing a heck of a job.

The insurgency gets stronger and more lethal

John Aravosis writes this about the over 2,000 dead American soldiers in Iraq:

We know they're dying faster -- it took 18 months for the first 1000 casualties and just 14 months for the next 1000. The insurgency is getting stronger and more lethal. So if that continues, we can expect to hit 3000 dead next August. (And we WILL still be in Iraq ten months from now.)

Nothing seems to stop the insurgency. Things will only get worse for our soldiers. We should leave soon, and quickly.

I wonder if Bush will be on his next 5-week vacation next summer when we hit 3,000 dead. Unless, of course, things get even worse and we hit that digit earlier than that. Whatever, chances are he'll be on vacation anyway.

2,000 and counting

The number of US soldiers killed in Iraq keeps mounting and there is no end in sight:

Experts think the country's increasingly regional-oriented politics will fuel the insurgency and even spread it further inside Iraq. Others put forward a simple, disquieting scenario: So long as U.S. and other foreign troops remain in Iraq, the insurgency will continue.

"It will become more chaotic," predicted Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm, Sweden. "It is obvious that the United States is in Iraq to stay. If this is the case, the Shiites will likely join the Sunnis in the fight."

If that isn't a nightmarish scenario then what is? There are 3 main ethnic groups in Iraq. So far the insurgency has been fueled by the Sunnis, the smallest in size. Imagine if the Shiites, the largest, were to join them in the fight.

Nothing seems to abate Iraqis willingness to fight, not elections, not a constitution, not freedom from Saddam Hussein, not democracy. Insurgent attacks continue or increase after each and every milestone Bush puts in front of them. Isn't it clear that what they want is for the US military to leave?

This little venture of Bush could turn out to be even worse than Vietnam for the US. It might actually supplant Vietnam's long-lasting image as America's lowest point in the public's collective consciousness.

Nice legacy you're building there, George. You're doing a heck of a job.

"We will have to go back and take the Middle East within a decade"

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, had some harsh words for the current administration and some cautionary words for anyone who would listen:

He indicated that this flawed, secretive process contributed to what he thought was a bad decision to go to war in Iraq.

But Wilkerson said that any decision by the Bush administration to leave Iraq "precipitously" would result in Iraq's neighbors sending in troops and creation of a breeding ground for terrorists like Afghanistan, leading to another major war involving the United States.

"We will have to go back and take the Middle East within a decade," if that happens, he said.

The Bush administration never planned for what would happen in Iraq after the war, he said.

"There was simply no plan with regard to postwar Iraq," other than some contingencies for humanitarian assistance, he said.

Shameful. Bush, unilaterally and pre-emptively decided to attack a sovereign nation based on a mound of lies, and he didn't even bother to plan for the post-war disaster. Does it take a genius to know that a war will leave mayhem behind? And now we're stuck. We can't even leave without risking the country to implode and the whole region to destabilize.

Nice work Mr. President. You did a heck of a job!

Iraq is in chaos

No matter how tomorrow's vote goes, Iraq might be a lost cause. Only time (lots of it) will tell how it will turn out to be. This Independent article by Robert Fisk, a Middle East correspondent, is quite sobering, more proof of Bush's rising mound of lies:

Most of Iraq is in a state of anarchy, with insurgents controlling parts of Baghdad just half a mile from the so-called Green Zone, an Independent debate was told last night..

He told the debate in London: "The Americans must leave Iraq and they will leave Iraq, but they can't leave Iraq and that is the equation that turns sand to blood. At some point, they will have to talk to the insurgents.

"But I don't know how, because those people who might be negotiators - the United Nations, the Red Cross - their headquarters have been blown up. The reality now in Iraq is the project is finished. Most of Iraq, except Kurdistan, is in a state of anarchy."

He said that the portrayal of Iraq by Western leaders - of efforts to introduce democracy, including Saturday's national vote on the country's proposed constitution -­ was "unreal" to most of its citizens. In Baghdad, children and women were kept at home to prevent them from being kidnapped for money or sold into slavery. They faced a desperate struggle to find the money to keep generators running to provide themselves with electricity. "They aren't sitting in their front rooms discussing the referendum on the constitution."

I think television connives with governments at war." He added: "Newspapers can tell you as closely as they can what these horrors are like."

Fisk was also asked about the implications of publishing graphic images of the dead. This was his reply:

He rejected suggestions that graphic pictures of the dead in newspapers took away their dignity. He said: "My view is the people who are dead would want us to record what happened to them."

I agree. If I were brutally murdered, I'd like for it to be known, and possibly investigated to its full extent.

Iraqi Constitution update

Well, this is getting complicated to follow. According to this BBC article, the constitution approval in Saturday's referendum is all but ensured, in spite of the eleventh-hour intervention of the Iraqi parliament meant to sugarcoat it for the Sunnis and trick them into not rejecting it.

First, there are issues of security in the Sunnis territories, the heart of the insurgency, that might impede many eligible voters from casting their votes:

Senior Western officials believe the credibility of the referendum is on the line.

If significant numbers of the Sunni minority are not able to cast their ballots, they fear the entire process could be undermined.

After largely boycotting last January's parliamentary elections, this time the Sunni community is mobilising to vote because it knows how much is at stake.

Then, then there is the whole issue of how the Sunnis will vote as a block:

Political and religious leaders - both moderate and radical - are united in calling on their community to vote No in the referendum.

The biggest fear not only of the Sunnis but also of Western officials and even some members of the Shia dominated government, is that the draft constitution could exacerbate sectarian violence and ultimately result in the break-up of the country along religious and ethnic lines.

And then there is the federalism issue:

Under the federal system envisaged in the draft constitution, the central government in Baghdad would only have exclusive control over foreign, defence and financial policy. Baghdad would not even have control over the police, nor oil and gas fields which come on-stream in the future.

Critically, the draft constitution also allows provinces which have not already come together to form a region to do so after holding a referendum.

The Kurds already have their own autonomous region in the north and want it extended to include the oil-rich area around Kirkuk. The Sunnis suspect the Shia want to establish their own region in the south including the huge Rumayla oil-fields which produce 1.6 million barrels per day. That would leave the minority Sunnis with a land-locked region in the centre of the country consisting mostly of desert and bereft of natural resources.

Little wonder the Sunnis are desperate to vote against the draft constitution being offered up in Saturday's referendum.

No wonder at all. I'd vote no as well. But the leaders of the Sunni community are concerned that even if they do get the maximum turn-out, the vote would still be extremely tight, unless some Shia groups join the no-camp at the last minute. And no one really knows how likely that is.

And this little tidbit to finish it all off:

Even the spokesman for the Shia prime minister, Leith Kubba, seems to hope the constitution will be rejected in Saturday's vote or at the very least re-written if it passes.

What a mess. Saturday is going to be an interesting day.

Iraqi Constitution update

So, the Iraqi parliament just approved a few changes to the charter, which is being voted on in 3 days, in order to give it a better chance of passage in the Sunni areas, and by extension in the rest of the country.

The central change gives Sunnis the opportunity — once the constitution is passed and a new parliament is elected in December — to try to make major changes to the charter.

Sunnis are hoping to have a larger representation in the next parliament and want to try to water down the autonomous powers that Shiite and Kurdish regions will hold under the constitution's federal system. But the current additions give no guarantee that the Sunnis will be able to push through the changes in the future — only that they'll have the chance to try.

If I were Sunni, I'd have held out for more than just a chance to try to change something in a document that will bound my country forever (changing a constitution after it's been approved is no easy task.)

So now I guess it looks more and more like it will be approved, which will probably lead to Iraq being split into 3 countries, with two rich ones sandwiching a poor one, desperate to get a piece of the pie, which could easily translate into full blown civil war (just in case you don't already consider the current situation to be civil war, which I kind of do.)

And let's not forget that the southernmost block will be ruled by a mirror image of neighboring Iran's ultra theocratic government.

Nice legacy Mr. Bush.

Bush is totally crazy

I just posted about how we spend $5 billion a month in Iraq, and then I read this article about Bush's body language during a recent interview, and this tidbit shocked me:

When asked why Gulf Coast residents would have to pay back funds but Iraqis would not, Bush blinked 23 times and hitched his trousers up by the belt.

Are you kidding me? The Gulf Coast residents are required to pay back the funds obtained from the federal government for the reconstruction of the disastered area due, in large part, to the incompetence of the federal government itself, while THE IRAQIS WON'T OWE US A DIME?!

Again, I have to ask, do you see anything wrong with this picture? I mean, are we (taxpaying citizens) here to help the Iraqis or ourselves? I mean, ok with helping others when they are in need (although, let's not forget, the Iraqis weren't really in need, we kinda, sorta, actually put them in the situation of being in need,) but why should we not help ourselves first?

And again, if you read the article, you'll see how this little piece of news, which to me is of paramount importance, was just casually thrown in the middle of the piece. There should be a whole article dedicated to it on every major (and minor) newspaper in the country. Instead, we get nothing but a quick reference mid-sentence.

Outrageous.

The Government isn't above the law

Last week a federal judge ordered (again) the government to release another series of pictures and videos (can you imagine they even made videos!?) from Abu Ghraib. This is his reasoning for turning down the government's case:

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that releasing the photos would hinder his work against terrorism. "When we continue to pick at the wound and show the pictures over and over again it just creates the image--a false image--like this is the sort of stuff that is happening anew, and it's not," Abizaid said.

The judge said, however, that "the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed."

Judge Hellerstein said today that publication of the photographs will help to answer questions not only about the unlawful conduct of American soldiers, but about “the command structure that failed to exercise discipline over the troops, and the persons in that command structure whose failures in exercising supervision may make them culpable along with the soldiers who were court-martialed for perpetrating the wrongs.”

And to get an idea of why it is so important to release these pictures, no matter the risks to the American military image in the world (especially the Muslim world,) here's the ACLU's take on the matter:

Today's historic ruling is a step toward ensuring that our government's leaders are held accountable for the abuse and torture that happened on their watch, said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. The American public has a right to know what happened in American detention centers, and how our leaders let it occur."

That must get Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's panties in a bunch so tight it hurts!

The horrors of war

I read this post from John on AMERICAblog yesterday and was very disturbed by the images. Go see them at your own risk.

This is the gist: US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have been snapping pictures of everyday "life" in those countries, as they see it, which means horrible images of bodies blown up, charred, chopped up, and of body parts that for the most part are unrecognizable.

The pictures are then sent to a website and uploaded for the world to see. Unfortunately, the website is a porn site. It looks like the soldiers wanted to gain free access to the pictures on the site, so the owner told them to send him pictures from the war zone and he would let them access the site for free.

Now, I say unfortunately because the controversy will likely focus on the fact that it's a porn website, that these horrible pictures are being exchanged for pictures about sex, and I don't think we should focus on that. This morning I happened to listen to AirAmerica Radio and they were interviewing the owner of the website, who defended his choice by saying that these pictures aren't shown anywhere else, because the media doesn't care, and so he decided to put them up so that at least people could gain a better understanding of what it means to be in a war zone.

I agree. Who cares if it's a porn site and if the soldiers do it to get porn pictures? The way I see it, they are at war, they can have any 'hobby' they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else (and this is an amateur website, so people post their pictures willingly, it's not like they pay the models for the pictures.) What I believe is worth focusing on is that the pictures are real, and that they are horrible. And therefore, our soldiers are seeing horrible things day in, day out. That's what worries me.

I took a look at the pictures and was so disturbed I had to stop. The interviewer this morning said he'll never be able to get them out of his head. That's true, but what about the soldiers who actually LIVE them all the time? What are those images doing to THEIR minds? What happens to them when they come back? Do you think they can just forget them? By the little I've seen, it's impossible to forget stuff like that. I can't imagine if instead of a picture I saw the real thing. For months or years. That's probably why I'm for bringing the troops home. They've seen enough. For several lifetimes probably.

It is also unfortunate that the guys actually 'pose' in the pictures Abu Ghraib style. This shows us once again that what happened in that prison WASN'T an isolated incident. The soldiers are actually trained to act that way, to treat the prisoners and suspects (and now the dead) that way.

Yesterday, I was ticked off by the fact that they were posing in the pictures, but then I started thinking that, besides because they are trained to be tough and heartless, they are probably doing that as an outlet for their frustration, their fear, their anger. As a way of breaking down the power of those images, like when a horror movie frightens you and you laugh it off to avoid feeling too terrified.

Maybe the soldiers are, consciously or not, working through their inner demons, and this is a way of playing down those demons. Maybe the only way they have been able to figure out. I feel for them.

I can't imagine the horrors they see.