Please - I need your advice

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

In January, 2006 I began what is now 232 weekly candlelight vigils to remember those who had been killed or wounded in the Iraq War. To date millions of Iraqi men, women and children have been killed or wounded, as have thousands of U.S. and allied troops. Iraq is in ruins, its economy shattered with unemployment twice the level of the U.S. Great Depression of the 1930's, electricity for just four hours a day, meaning little or no air conditioning in 110 degree temperatures, little refrigeration, television or lighting and clean water and sewage treatment are scarce as the electric generators and pumps are often down.

Over 2 million Iraqis have fled their nation including many of the doctors, nurses, professors, school teachers and other educated people who provide vital services. Medical supplies are scarce and often trade in the black market which means children, ill from filthy drinking water and disease receive little care, and many of them die. The situation is so bad and the anger so high, that you as an American would not be safe on the streets of Baghdad, Mosul, Basra or Fallujah without a security detail along side you. Even the U.S. military only ventures out in numbers, not individually.

Now President Obama declared "an end to combat operations" in Iraq leading the American people to think the Iraq War is over. In fact, the U.S. will keep 50,000 troops in "stability operations," likely 50,000 more as "contractors," (mercenary soldiers provided by Halliburton, Blackwater, etc. and whose numbers are rarely released to the media) and another perhaps 3,000 Special Forces, an elite fighting force (whose numbers are also rarely released to the media). The heavily secured Green Zone, where the U.S. and foreign officials live and work and in which the Iraq government, kept in power by the U.S. military also live and work and about 90 U.S. military bases (that's right 90!) will remain.

If you've wondered if this war is over oil, it never was, for until March 20, 2003 when President Bush ordered the Iraq invasion, Saddam Hussein was one of the U.S.'s biggest oil suppliers. It was and is about power, for Iraq is and will remain the U.S. military's strategic launch point for its attempts to control the Middle East. Weapons of Mass Destruction was just a cover used to frighten the American people.

My question for you is given the impression the American public will have that the Iraq War is over, where do we go from here? How can we reach their hearts and minds, something that has already been a tough task given that so few Americans are directly affected by this war?

(posted with permission from the author of http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com and http://candlelightvigils.blogspot.com )

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. The war is over?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gQNZ-iDlwjFMX9HrXgX7-7y-RuGQD9HOIFPO0

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

2. Not for the family of that young man/woman...

"The name of the deceased soldier was being withheld pending notification of next of kin."

More of the same - but with a new operational name.

Sad.

[Chan790]

3. The public perception is the war is over...

not the reality. OP asked about a course of action to combat that perception, not a news story that confirms the reality they were already clearly aware of.

Edit: That was unduly snarky of me.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

4. So do you have any thoughts as to a course of action, to combat that perception? nt

[Chan790]

5. No, unfotunately.

Other than what you're already doing.

(Also I'm not really the person whose opinion you're going to want to seek, if only to avoid being associated with me. I'm vocally one of the staunchest anti-Iraq/pro-Afghanistan hawks on DU.)

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

7. Re: "I'm not really the person whose opinion you're going to want to seek"...

Not true. I value your opinion, no matter if I agree with it, or not. But your post begs the questions - As a pro-Afghanistan war hawk, do you want that war to end now, or to continue? And has our involvement in Afghanistan made that place better or worse, for the people who live there?

[Chan790]

8. I think we basically blew it in Afghanistan...

by diverting forces and resources to Iraq in what could and should have been the end-game. If we'd stuck to Afghanistan when we had global public opinion and support on our side, a broad coalition of forces, the support of their neighbors, overwhelming military control and a marginalized opp. force...we'd have been out of there years ago, Al Qaeda and the Taliban would have been annihilated and Afghanistan would be a stable if poor nation mostly run by tribal militias.

Now, I think we've created two cesspools that we're stuck in long-term because we couldn't fully commit to leaving either without destabilizing further and creating the very terrorist breeding grounds we set out to prevent/eliminate to begin with. (With the added irony that the one's in Iraq were a lie to begin with.) The only wise thing to ever come out of the Bush regime was Colin Powell's statements on the "Pottery Barn" principle.

We broke it and now we've bought it. Twice.

How much worse things are now because of us has to be balanced against how much worse they will get if we leave. What to do? I don't know...I think we screwed the pooch and I don't think we ethically can leave now. Nor can we afford the cost of leaving or the cost of staying. It's situation "all-f*cked-up", pardon my French.

And...the Afghans aren't exactly stepping up to forge their own nation.

[uppityperson]

6. k&r, no answer but maybe someone does

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

9. Across the U.S., there are few of us in recent years who have challenged our government's actions...

...in Iraq.

(the author continues...)

Now when the propaganda machine whose position is dutifully served by most major U.S. media outlets carries the news combat in Iraq is over, how do we raise a voice against this onslaught? What do you recommend?

Is it sufficient to show numerous pictures of tanks leaving Iraq but not one picture of Baghdad, which remains in U.S. military lockdown? Is it appropriate to interview the celebratory U.S. soldiers leaving Iraq but not those who remain deployed there? Is it acceptable not to interview common Iraqi citizens to find out what they think? Is it acceptable not to show how common Iraqis live since the U.S. invasion and occupation or not to tell their stories? Is it acceptable not to interview the families of U.S. soldiers who have lost their loved ones or to interview severely injured U.S. soldiers to find out what they think of this war?

A handful of us are willing to fight the fight but we need your support. We need your ideas as to how to reach the mass of Americans, most of whom are ignoring the enormous suffering from this war, including the suffering of U.S. soldiers and their families. In your silence, evil will continue to prevail, as much more blood will be spilled, billions of additional dollars will be wasted and the tragedy that is this war compounds.