approaching 3 years
we are just over a week from the three year mark of our country's evil and embarassing attack on iraq. george bush lied to the american people. he lied about weapons of mass destruction. he lied about a saddam-osama connection. he lied about the status of iraq. he lied about our liberating the iraqis.
in three years we have spent the lives of over 2300 american soldiers to kill almost 40,000 innocent iraqis. innocent men, innocent women, innocent children, innocent elderly. the actual numbers may easily be twice as much. we have killed many times more iraqis who were either free or forced to protect their country.
40,000. it's a big number, but it isn't just a number. each represents a person. a human being who died because of american greed and pride. a brother, a son, a mother, a daughter, a father, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt, grandmother, grandfather. a 2 year old daughter of azibba al-issa, killed by a mortar shell on may 6 2004. a 11 year old girl saja mohammen, killed in april 2004 during airstrikes in fallujah. a sixteen year old male farmer maitham thare madlol al- sheblawy, shot april 1 2003. a 30 year old housewife shukreyaa abed al-hassian naayef killed by an american missile on march 23 2003.
the list could go on.
40,000 dead doesn't include the hundreds of thousands injured, maimed, blinded, disabled, and destroyed in other ways, but living to remember the pain and suffering forever. i don't know the name of the boy above. if he is still alive, how will he remember our great and wonderful country. how liberated is he today? what freedoms of peace and life have we stripped of him.
a child. for god's sake, a child.
Yes, war is terrible. But Bush didn't lie, the intelligence that he (and an overwhelming majority of Congress) based the decision turned out to be wrong. A mistake is not the same as a lie.
ReplyDeleteWe miscalculated the resistance we would face in Iraq. We thought it would be as easy Afgahnistan or the first Gulf war, but we didn't know that Iran would be letting foreign fighters cross its borders or that Syria would run guns into Iraq.
Now that we are over there, what do you want us to do? Cut and run? How would that change the situation for the boy in the picture? I think we owe it to him and the rest of Iraq to stay until their freedom is secured.
I think most Iraqis are grateful for what we've done.
ReplyDeletes.o.,
ReplyDeletewhen i say bush, i am referring to the whole bush administration which he leads and is responsible for. they lied. he lied. they controled and were behind the doctoring of supposed intelligence to push the iraqi invasion. it's all a part of the bush/wolfowitz doctrine. i used to buy into the rove-inspired image of a dumb bush duped by his neo-con buddies, but i don't buy it anymore. bush is just as guilty as cheney, rummy, and wolfy.
there were plenty of signs and warnings given that a very strong resistance would exist against american troops. wolfy and rummy were too prideful and confident of themselves to admit such a possibility. syria and iran hardly accounts for the strong resistance faced.
civil war is immanent, with or without u.s. occupation. it's better to pull out and let them decide for themselves how they want their country divided and led.
ronnie,
a very small sampling in january showed less than 50% support for the american invasion.
Also, the Iraqi Parliament actually held a vote as to whether or not the Americans should stay in Iraq. The majority voted that America should leave, HOWEVER, they were just as reluctant to put a time-frame on it as everyone else. Of course Iraqis want us to leave, but that statement is not informative because it is a definite minority that want an immediate withdrawal.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you say we should just let them have their civil war. What happened to all that concern you had for 40,000 dead civilians?
"What happened to all that concern you had for 40,000 dead civilians?"
ReplyDeletea civil war is immanent. it's best to let them deal with it themselves, american involvement will just lead to more hatred of american foreign policy
a civil war is immanent
ReplyDeleteYeah, the liberal media has been saying this for about 3 years, too, the most recent example being about 2 weeks ago when Sunnis withdrew from peace talks.
There will probably be these cowardly suicide bombs between factions, but that's a far cry from actually organizing into armies and attacking each other. The Sunnis would have to be stupid to try something like that because they're only 30% of the population there. The Shiites would wipe them off the map.
I'll believe it when I see it.
the liberal media has been saying this for about 3 years, too
ReplyDeletewow. i can't believe you are turning this into some silly non-existent liberal vs. conservative battle. much of the conservative media and many conservative politicians have been pointing out the likelihood of a civil war. more and more conservative politicians are beginning to push for a quicker exit plans for american forces.
I just call it as I see it.
ReplyDeleteFor example, one of the Yahoo.com news headlines at this very moment reads "Iraq Edges Closer to Open Civil War". As I clicked on it, the first thing I thought of was the comment I just made on your blog --had I spoken too soon? No. If you read any of the article beyond the headline, you'll see that there's nothing in it to suggest that Iraq is any closer to civil war than it was last week, last month, or last year. It's just a bunch of odd bits of Iraq-related news lumped together under an alarming headline to get people to click it and see the ads.
And I fell for it.