America's shame and shock is called Iraq and yet the mainstream
media continue to down play the blatant hubris and criminal arrogance of the
Cheney/Bush administration and outright avoidance of the human cost ~ one million
Iraqi dead, five million displaced and hundreds of thousand Iraqi widows and
orphans as well the disgraceful after
effects of the illegal use of
depleted uranium munitions: Allen L Roland
"God is not on the side of
any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a
nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own
citizens, and for the people of other lands." - George W.
Bush justifying Iraq war
"If we pursue this way, if
we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our
duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the lord God
will always help us:" Adolf Hitler, at the
Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937
On
July 7, 2010 I wrote Iraq is America's Gaza and almost three years later
it remains the same if not worse ~ Iraq is America's
Gaza and, like Gaza, it cries for justice to a world which would rather ignore
its plight as well as America's and Great Britain's role in this murderous
error of judgement . Our
karmic debt, like Israel's with Gaza, is immeasurable. See article ~
Let's make this crystal clear ~ The Bush/Blair
illegal war against Iraq was the willful planned destruction of a civilization
and the same consciousness is obviously at work in the current Obama
dismemberment of Afghanistan.
American/British
war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan ~ RT News, must see 9 minute video
As James Petras points out in his August, 2009 article THE DESTRUCTION OF A CIVILIZATION
~ " The sustained
bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in killing 1.3 million Iraqi
civilians during the first seven years after Bush invaded in March 2003 ...The militarist strategy of
conquest and occupation of Iraq was designed to establish a long-term colonial
military presence in the form of strategic military bases with a significant
and sustained contingent of colonial military advisors and combat units. The Iraq war was driven by an
influential group of neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues with strong
ties to Israel.
They viewed the success of the Iraq war ( by success they meant the total
dismemberment of the country ) as the first ' domino' in a series of wars to '
re-colonize' the MIddle East .. Conflagrating Israeli regional hegemonic
ambitions with the US imperial interests , the neo-conservatives and their
neo-liberal fellow travelers in the Democratic party first backed President
bush and later President Obama in their escalation of the wars against
Afghanistan and Pakistan." See
article:
Here's the current state of Iraq according to SFGate.com but
note these figures are very similar to occupied Gaza.
Health: Iraq's child mortality rate has increased by 150% since 1990, when U.N. sanctions were first imposed.
Education: By 2008, only 50% of primary school-age children were attending class, down from 80% in 2005, and approximately 1,500 children were known to be held in detention facilities.
Children: In 2007, there were 5 million Iraqi orphans~ according to government officials.
Refugees: More than two million Iraqis are refugees and almost three million internally displaced : 33% percent ( 500,000 people ) live as squatters in slum areas.
Water: 70% of Iraqis do not have access to potable water.
Jobs: Unemployment is as high as 50% officially, 70% unofficially.
Poverty: 43% of Iraqis live in abject poverty.
Sanitation: 80% of Iraqis do not have access to effective sanitation.
Health: Iraq's child mortality rate has increased by 150% since 1990, when U.N. sanctions were first imposed.
Education: By 2008, only 50% of primary school-age children were attending class, down from 80% in 2005, and approximately 1,500 children were known to be held in detention facilities.
Children: In 2007, there were 5 million Iraqi orphans~ according to government officials.
Refugees: More than two million Iraqis are refugees and almost three million internally displaced : 33% percent ( 500,000 people ) live as squatters in slum areas.
Water: 70% of Iraqis do not have access to potable water.
Jobs: Unemployment is as high as 50% officially, 70% unofficially.
Poverty: 43% of Iraqis live in abject poverty.
Sanitation: 80% of Iraqis do not have access to effective sanitation.
As
Frank Rich wrote recently in the New York Times ~ "It's too early to say what the war's lasting impact on
America (or Iraq or the Middle East) will be, but as for the current impact
at home, any accounting must begin with the human cost. As David Rieff, a
war opponent, wrote this week:
"Could anyone who supported this war today encounter a relative, spouse,
or friend of one of the American soldiers who was killed or grievously injured
in Iraq and tell them with a straight face that this war was worth their
sacrifice?" See
article ~ http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/265-34/16617-how-iraq-wounded-america
Bush,
Cheney and Obama; Two unindicted war criminals and their presidential enabler
and protector.
Iraq cries out for
justice but our war crimes still remain unpunished and unacknowledged.
Nicolas J.S. Davies makes the same point recently in AlterNet ~ " The reality of the "accumulated evil" unleashed
on the people of Iraq by the "supreme international crime" of
aggression has been painstakingly obscured behind a tapestry of lies. Our military leaders may be chronically unable to
win a war in another country, but they sure know how to wage a propaganda
war in America:
- Fantastical
notions of the accuracy of "precision" weapons obscured the widespread
slaughter and destruction of the invasion, which unleashed 29,200 bombs and missiles in the first month of the
war and killed tens of thousands of civilians.
- Reports by the Iraqi Health Ministry in 2004 that
occupation forces were killing far more civilians than were killed by
"insurgents" were efficiently suppressed.
-
Epidemiologists who estimated that 650,000 Iraqis had died by 2006 were ignored or dismissed.
As the war went on, the number of dead probably reached a million by 2008."
Davies correctly
asserts the most disturbing face regarding this illegal and uneccessary
occupation of a foreign country ~ "Perhaps
the most disturbing aspect of the transition from Bush to Obama was that the
new President not only failed to hold U.S. officials criminally accountable for
their crimes but in fact embraced the doctrines and policy developed under Bush
and expanded their application to U.S. policy around the world. Obama's ever-expanding drone strikes and doubling of Special
Forces operations from 60 to 120 countries are spreading the
violence, lawlessness and instability of Bush's "war on
terror" to the four corners of the Earth … The United States has a
legal and moral duty to pay war reparations to Iraq to help its people recover
from the results of aggression, genocide and war crimes - this is a central
demand of one very special group of Americans whose experiences and
sacrifices make them uniquely qualified to press such a demand: Iraq Veterans Against the War."
See
article ~
And who made money on
the Iraq war ? Dick Cheney's Halliburton cashed in for $39 billion on the shame
and shock of Iraq.
"
I believe very deeply in the proposition that what we did in Iraq was the right
thing to do. It was hard to do. It took a long time. There were significant
costs involved." Dick Cheney
"freedom and fear, justice
and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral
between them." George W. Bush
"Iraq is
sort of a situation where you've got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch.
You obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch, and that's not easy to do,
although you probably should fire the driver." Barack Obama, The Daily Show, Nov. 7, 2005
"Never in these long years have we offered any other
prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve
to them peace from the foreign foe!" : Adolf Hitler - Nuremberg
Sept. 13, 1936.
The shame
and shock of Iraq must begin with accountability and end with justice. Humanity demands it !
Allen L
Roland
Allen
L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and
lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and
website allenroland.com He also
guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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