What the United States of America has done to Iraq...

[Octafish]

Children at play in Iraq, a photo entitled "Iraq War Games." (Sorry, I don't have photo credit info.)

William Blum puts it into words:

Anti-Empire Report

Things Which Don't Go Away

By WILLIAM BLUM
September 1, 2010
CounterPunch

EXCERPT...

But no American should be allowed to forget that the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, have been destroyed, ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ... an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum09012010.html

Back in 2003, millions -- including DU and the vast majority of then-DUers -- tried to stop the warmongers.

Here we are, more than 7 years and a million lives on, and we are still trying to stop the warmongers.

[xxqqqzme]

1. "...These people (bush administration) have ZERO credibility,

and have no business in public life anymore. They shouldn't be able to leave their houses without being confronted with the death and destruction that their lives caused."

- Jeremy Scahill, appearing on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann, Sep. 1, 2010

[Octafish]

3. Like Kissinger overseas. Like Pinochet at the bookstore...

General Pinochet at the Bookstore

Santiago, Chile, July 2004

The general's limo parked at the corner of San Diego street
and his bodyguards escorted him to the bookstore
called La Oportunidad, so he could browse
for rare works of history.

There were no bloody fingerprints left on the pages.
No books turned to ash at his touch.
He did not track the soil of mass graves on his shoes,
nor did his eyes glow red with a demon's heat.

Worse: His hands were scrubbed, and his eyes were blue,
and the dementia that raged in his head like a demon,
making the general's trial impossible, had disappeared.

Desaparecido: like thousands dead but not dead,
as the crowd reminded the general,
gathered outside the bookstore to jeer
when he scurried away with his bodyguards,
so much smaller in person.

from The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada

[Solly Mack]

2. It's by Hadi Mizban ...for the AP

He did a series of photos on the evolution of children's play in Baghdad.

[Octafish]

5. Thank you, Solly Mack.

Back during Poppy Bush's Gulf War I, a local group tried getting Michigan media interested in covering the fate of the children in Iraq -- "Victims Of War," they were called. They got very little coverage, apart from an FBI file.

Go forward 14 years, and we still see more of the same. The small child's eyes...

[Solly Mack]

7. One of my favorite books is called "I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia

a collection of art work by children caught up in the horror of it all.

I think if people would just make the time...take the effort...to see it through a child's eyes....what a difference it could make.

[gratuitous]

4. And can you believe how ungrateful they are?

There was a story here earlier this week with Iraqi reactions to President Obama's address to the nation on the end of combat operations. They seemed soooo preoccupied with things like unreliable electricity, and stolen rights, and so much other irrelevant folderol. Don't they understand that we had a few thousand military personnel die? And that Halliburton was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy so that Dick Cheney's deferred compensation from his time as CEO there would be secured? And they don't seem to have any appreciation for the fact that the invasion and occupation of Iraq allowed George W. Bush to claim that he was a "war president." It almost makes you think that they don't think it was all worth it!

Let's talk about Saddam Hussein not being in power anymore. That seems to be the "good" talking point that all the talking chuckleheads like to focus on. Saddam is definitely gone. No disputing that!

[Octafish]

6. Saddam cashed a Big Time BFEE paycheck.

Sorry to sound redundant, but no need to reinvent the kharmic wheel:

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

The guy was pretty generous with his oil horde, too. Building schools and hospitals for poor people. Wasteful, really, as they all were going to get blown up, anyway.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. War is Peace

Just ask anyone in the MIC. "Let Freedom Reign"

:cry: All those lives lost or horribly changed by the greed... :mad:

[Octafish]

10. Where Death is the Family Business

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

By their words shall we know them.

[Solly Mack]

9. Here's the presentation the photo in the OP is from

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/war_games/index.html

[Octafish]

11. Thank you, my Friend!

The photographer and filmmaker is very, very brave.

His work is outstanding: It gives me hope that he has documented a change away from gun-play. May it continue. And may the Iraqi people find it in their hearts to forgive us for what our government has done to them and their country.

[Solly Mack]

14. You're welcome! Kids can be resilient...and considering everything they have gone

through and are still going through... that is a very good thing. Still, not all children are capable of adapting in such a manner.

But the main point isn't that the children changed their play over time - at least to me it isn't (of course, I'm glad they did) - but that they ever were exposed to such horrors to begin with....and how seeing death and destruction day in and day out can influence children...can drive how they see the world and that all comes out in their play. Children act out what they see... it's how they try and make sense of/come to terms with what's going on around them. It's heartbreaking.

[earth mom]

12. There is BLOOD ON THE HANDS of EVERYONE in Washington DC who has the power to stop the GENOCIDE

but has not.

[Octafish]

16. Many good people at the State Department resigned their positions in protest.

Some, like John J. Kokal never had the chance.

Great photo, earth mom. The expression on Condescenda's face says, "Guilty."

[grahamhgreen]

13. Obama's oval office address missed the point entirely - the war was and is a scam.

[Octafish]

18. His address missed the point regarding origins of Afghanistan conflict, as well.

Obama repeated Bush line that Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden.

NTYMI: Several of his addresses have missed the point -- health care, the budget deficit and pursuing "Bush Administration" corruption are a few more off the top of my head.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. Certainly not! It was started by a patriot!

Obama said so.

[indepat]

15. I shudder to think what a just God in heaven might have in store for the perpetrators of these

crimes and for those professing to love and follow Jesus, but who supported all this. :P

[FiveGoodMen]

21. There is no afterlife.

If we let them get away with it now, they get away with it forever.

[Octafish]

29. They Hate Us Because We Kill Them.

Antiwar Radio: Gareth Porter

Lord knows the truth. History also will not be kind to them.

[Swamp Rat]

17. In a nutshell: mass murder, theft, torture, and environmental terrorism

There is no rational defense for what the United States of America did to Iraq (and other counties).

The USA is now a global empire bent on the destruction of all non-compliant nations.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

26. One of your best, Swampy

I wish you peace.

[tnlefty]

27. Awesome graphic as usual!!

How ya doin'? Feel free to send a PM so as not to hijack this excellent thread. :hi: :hug:

[Octafish]

28. The politics of terror as the business of terror: The greatest covert operation ever

Sad times for democracy and those who love it:

The politics of terror as the business of terror: The greatest covert operation ever

By Douglas Valentine
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 31, 2010, 00:22

EXCERPT...

The Establishment and its National Security State as terrorism

The lower classes in America have little voice in making government or state policy. Some are hopeless, others content, but, in either case, voter turnout is a mere 54 percent.

Whether hopeless or content, they know they cannot fight conventional thinking. For example, when the Establishment exerts its influence, it is not considered politics; it is simply the status quo. The rich create jobs and must be accommodated with trillion dollar bailouts, paid for by workers taking furloughs.

That’s just the way it is. Politicians in the service of the Establishment, for overarching reasons of national security, have to keep the capitalist financial system afloat.

It is the same thing with the National Security Establishment: America invaded Iraq, and there was nothing the people do about it. The decision was made for them. Peace activists, least of all, had no voice in the decision, because they are assumed to have no stake in national security. You will not find peace activists in the National Security Establishment; and that political repression is covert state terrorism.

Likewise, if labor seeks to exercise influence, its efforts are described as exploiting the state for more than it deserves, because it does not have an enduring stake in the state.

It is a fact: only Establishment wealth -- ownership - is equated with national security.

CONTINUED...

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6284.shtml

Beware who says they sign the paychecks, America.

Most importantly: Outstanding rendition of McPalin, Swamp-san. It captures the essence of the no-pretensions poster-child of the national security state.

[fascisthunter]

19. See... the US is Spreading Freedom

if you believe that you are part of the problem. And remember, this war was for oil/big money.

[Octafish]

31. All about OIL.

Ray McGovern said the Big Lie for War was all about OIL: Oil, Israel Logistics.

For those who give a damn about the Truth:

CLAIM: There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there." - Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04

FACT: According to documents, "Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle U.S. troops. The document provides another piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda terrorists."

SOURCE with TONS more on the lying warmonger class:

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htm

Thanks for giving a damn about the Truth, fascisthunter.

[fascisthunter]

38. I Feel Free Living with Truth

it isn't always fun, but I'd rather someday pass away knowing I was dying with my eyes wide open. My grandparents from both sides didn't escape nazism and communism just so I could become some apathetic consumer who compromises one's ideals in order to support what isn't good for this nation in my humble opinion. I can't change the whole world but I can be influential with passing on the truth.

[Blue_In_AK]

22. The photo breaks my heart.

So sad that the United States that we've all been taught since childhood is the "best country in the world" continues to bring about this devastation around the globe.

I'm ashamed to be an American.

[Octafish]

33. Me, too. Me, too.

The great DUer Solly Mack found the photographer. The work is part of a series he did following the war's impact on kids:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/war_games/index.html

I found a spark of hope for the future. May it light a fire of rightesousness that rushes the return of democracy to our great nation.

[slipslidingaway]

23. Big K&R - except now "we need to turn the page" :( n/t

[amborin]

24. K&R

[WinkyDink]

25. Put succinctly, and with apologies to Pogo: We have met the terrorists, and we are them.

[old mark]

30. The "religious" right in the Bush regime thought that a war in the "holy land"

against the Muslims would fulfill some biblical prophecy nonsense. There was NEVER any real reason for any of this crap, not ever.

These are the same people who want to take over congress and run our country, but the new batch is even more insane than the Bush gang.

They are dangerous crazies who many people see as clowns, which makes them even more dangerous.


mark

[G_j]

32. William Blum

right on as usual!

[LuckyLib]

34. Not to mention the millions of educated Iraqis (and it had a highly educated population)

who fled the country, a huge professional brain drain from which Iraq will never recover.

[Karenina]

35. And the poisoning, malnutrition and trauma of

TWO GENERATIONS.

[malaise]

36. K & R

Great post

[DFW]

37. I was talking to an Iraqi about just that a few years ago

Bush was still "in office," even if he was really out to lunch.

This was in Paris at a fruit stand, and the seller was obviously an Arab, so I spoke to him in my few
words of Arabic. He asked where I was from (we were speaking mostly in French--my Arabic is practically
non-existent). I told him Texas, USA. He frowned. He said "Bush is from Texas. I am from Iraq."

I explained to him that not all Americans were in agreement with what our country had done to his country,
and that not even all Texans supported what Bush had done (explaining that is was really Cheney was a nuance
that would have been lost on him). This news just astounded him. He obviously listened to news sources that
made it look like America, especially the south, was 100% behind Bush. I said nothing was further from the
truth, and that I would like to apologize for the horrible things being done to his country by mine. I implored
him to keep in mind that at least half of my country was completely against what had been done to his country
in our name.

He came out from behind his fruit stand, shook my hand, thanked me for this news, and said he would now view
America in a completely different light. Just a simple Iraqi exile working at a fruit stand in Paris--but one
less Iraqi that hates all of us.

The longest journey begins with a single step...............