The Iraq Debacle

Looking for adjectives to describe what the American war machine has wrought in Iraq is only difficult in the sense that there are so many of them. Even the word debacle seems to understate it -- for the Iraqis it is a complete disaster and the current state of affairs is far worse than was ever visited upon them by their former dictator.

There was a report yesterday that 1 out of every 6 Iraqis is an orphan. You read that right. Not 1 out of every 6 Iraqi kids but 1 out of ever 6 Iraqis, period. The exact figure only became a reality recently, when the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs made public its own statistics, but there have been reports reflecting this crisis for years now -- they've just been ignored. So when you read that the Americans have only killed 100,000 or so Iraqis, remember the number of Iraqi orphans and do the math. The real numbers of deaths that the Americans are responsible for are far higher, as this report from Truthout asserts, for the war and continuing occupation of Iraq.

Leaving behind 50,000 combat ready troops, and paid contractors (modern day mercenaries) who are regularly engaging in combat is war and occupation no matter how the story is currently being spun.

While on the subject of people whose misery is being scrupulously ignored in the media go read this report on the 4.5 million Iraqi refugees that this war has created. The humanitarian consequences of this seven-year war on Iraqi civilians are too often unreported. Since 2003, 2.5 million Iraqis have fled the country, mainly to Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, while another two million have been dislocated inside Iraq, many of whom are now living in makeshift camps on the outskirts of Baghdad and other cities.

This is a humanitarian crisis on a grand scale and the United States needs to take action but it seems uunlikely that they will because as far as the US media is concerned it's not really happening.

Operation Enduring Presence

I haven't had as much time for this blog as the Canadian one of late -- so it goes.

Getting right to the business of catching up on the media narratives, as most know Obama declared the end of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," Tuesday night and the beginning of "Operation New Dawn." It is exactly the kind of Orwellian hooey that it reads like. There are as noted everywhere even the MSM 50,000 combat ready troops being left behind, but not being reported as often are the bases that still remain occupied by American forces in the desert and the 7,000 independent contractors ( re: modern-day mercenaries) they are hiring to leave behind at five different bases . Here's a report from Democracy Now on those bases:



Seven years later there's still lots to say about this war of choice that devastated Iraq. The war killed untold numbers of civilians and made refugees out of millions and it's all being ignored except in small corners of the media and blogosphere. Some like Chris Mathews are trying to pretend they were against the war back in 2003 and that they weren't cheerleaders and enablers -- it's a bit nauseating. There are so many in the media that displayed a remarkable lack of courage that one hardly knows where to start but that link includes an interview with Jim Lehrer of PBS who as much as admits to the cowardice of the press which of course includes himself.

Glenzilla does a great job of taking apart the claims that "everyone" thought Iraq had WMD's here. Rachel expresses her anger over Obama's absolving of GWB jr. and his recklessness here. You can read the complete list of who the architects of the Iraq war were at ThinkP and please note that they are now out in the media trying to claim for themselves credit for the "success" of the Iraq war. Possibly the greatest blunder in US military history and the right-wing neo-cons who argued for this war want a victory parade with themselves in the lead float.