Why Do We Spend So Little Time Discussing Iraq?

[cali]

Is it because we're all basically of one mind on the subject, abd thus there's little to debate about? Is it because we're innured to the ongoing, slow motion disaster? Or is it because it's just too painful? Maybe it's a combination.

I believe things are coming to a head in Iraq and that they're close to the end of the road. Going out on a limb, I'll predict that by the middle of the summer the civil war will have intensified into a conflict that engulfs the country in far greater violence than that which we see today. What will that entail? A serious refugee problem? A steep increase in American military deaths? It will surely mean an increase in Iraqi deaths. And what do the brilliant minds in the Pentagon and WH do then?

It's just sickening to watch this unfold.

(BTW, for anyone who missed it, it was another very bad day in Iraq. The meeting of Parliament scheduled for tomorrow was delayed for the umpteenth time, 4 marines died and over 35 people died in two bombings. And that's just for starters.)

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. It's a lost cause

It's out of our hands now, and I think we're saddled with "Iraq fatigue." Outrage like ours is tiring, and I know I'm tired. Angry, but tired.

What else can we do? The retired generals have come out and are making noise that might be noticed. I don't know. I'm not optimistic.

What else can we do? The deaths continue, the situation is clearly deteriorating even faster, and Fuckface Squats On His Throne In The Oval Office, planning an attack on Iran, while Cheney cashes his tax refund check, enjoying his deferred compensation from Halliburton, who, by the way, is hosting this murderous little affair in the Middle East.

Cheney is making money off the war in Iraq. And no one says a word. Not a word of outrage anywhere except here on DU.

And that, I think, is what has happened. There's been too much, we're only human, and, after all this time, we're tired.

[cali]

5. I know and yet,

I can't stand that even here Iraq is sort of fading into the background. If we don't keep it front and center, who will? It may not do much good, but at least it's a form of witnessing to refuse to let it become background noise.

[Terran1212]

6. Will it become like the Occupied Territories?

Every now and then word on an air strike or suicide bombing but everyone will just shrug to themselves and say, "There's really nothing that can be done"?

[cali]

8. I don't think so.

For one thing we have 133,000 troops there and Americans are not supportive of the war. If things worsen, even the bushbots will revolt, blaming the need to get out on, of course, the liberals. For another thing, Sectarian and ethnic factions within Iraq itself are powerful forces, unlike the situation in Palestine. Sadly, the death toll of American soldiers is the only thing that really gets to most Americans. The continuing death of those soldiers, without any perceptible gain, dooms this enterprise. Bush may say he'll never pull out but certain exigencies will force him to go back on that bravado filled bullshit.

[PublicWrath]

11. Yes, and I feel a kind of duty to publish far and wide the ugly details

of Iraq. I can't bear for people to sit around smug about their righteous president and his "liberation" of Iraq.

Some fool woman told my mother that everything will be fine because "Now we've got a Christian President", and so on. I think bush-supporting people should have to look at the pictures of what we've done over there and hear the stories.

[rzemanfl]

7. You know how hoarse saying "I told you so" a gazillion times

can make a person. I vote for tired and hoarse.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. Or feeling sort of like this .............

[quaoar]

2. Now there is a war in Iraq against bread

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=1846519

Most Bakers and Bakery Owners Are Shiite, Making Them Targets of Sunni Fighters

BAGHDAD, April 15, 2006 — In the Kasra bakery, there is flour, water, and another tool — guns, lots of them.

The guns are within hands reach, on the counter, just behind the loaves in the corner, propped up against the oven.

Bakers have become targets, caught in the daily mix of violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites. Attacks at bakeries have left more than 70 bakery workers dead in the past month and a half.

Nearly all the bakers and owners of bakeries are Shiite. Sunni insurgents are aware of that, and the bakery workers have become victims of Iraq's rising sectarian violence.

[Taxloss]

3. Frankly, what is there to discuss?

Other than fresh expressions of horror at each new atrocity, it's hard to see what else we can talk about. The US/UK force is trapped in a nightmare of its own making. We can't stay and we can't leave. Meanwhile, thousands of innocents suffer and die. It's agonising and we will spend decades paying for it in all sorts of ways.

[Olney Blue]

4. Who listens?

[tokenlib]

10. Fatigue? Hopefully temporary...

After all the huge protest marches and rallies that were for all practical purposes IGNORED by the Republican regime in DC--and the corporate media....

Now that public sentiment has finally swung our way.. I think a lot of people on our side are just burned out. Hopefully the New York event on Apr 29 will breathe a second or third wind into everyone.

[Imagevision]

12. fail to see success Bush boasts about?