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Iraq: The Love Stories Are Gone

That untold death, injury and destruction has taken place in Iraq is not new news. But what one can readily overlook is how the War has affected the lives of so many people, on many levels, of the local citizenry. It is all very well for George W, Condi and the likes of John McCain to fly in and state how much things are "improving". They stay in the so-called Green Zone and see whatever they do through a very narrow prism.

IPS News reports on one dimension of "loss" in all the carnage - romance and love!

"As statistics go, at least 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the occupation, now in its fifth year. Every one of them has left behind once loved ones to mourn the loss and to think of what might have been.

This is the land of the Arabian Nights, and of love stories that became fables far and wide. In these stories, in the traditions of which they were born, the lover thought nothing of giving up his life for a beloved. But no one thought death would come to this land under the present circumstances.

All who have died had their own love stories, if not all romantic ones. And that must be a million of them. The figure of 655,000 – of Iraqis who died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation -- came from the British medical journal Lancet based on a study in July last year. The number would have risen significantly after one of the bloodiest years of the occupation.

The deaths are not the only tragedies to have fallen upon Iraq's love stories."

The full piece, here, makes for very sad reading.

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