The Americans have just "celebrated" Memorial Day.
Whilst the debate continues in the USA about torture, the release of photos, Obama not pursuing those who engaged in illegal acts during the Iraq War, etc. etc. there are those who are questioning not only the monetary cost of the war, but what was actually achieved - or put another way, were there any real tangible benefits for either the Americans or Iraqis.
Two pieces highlight critical "issues" relating to the Iraq War. First, Cindy Sheehan, writing on truthout.org in "The Day of the Dead" questions what, if anything, was achieved by the War:
"I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, which is a Palestinian Right's Conference (al-Awda translates to "The Returning"), when the pilot's voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.
"As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.
"As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child's brains, blood and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.
"Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause, and we can't even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport, or walk through a metal detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated "free speech" zones (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter), and oftentimes brutally treated if we decide we are entitled to "free speech" on every inch of American soil."
Over at The NY Times a sobering report "Fate of Missing Iraqis Haunts Those Left Behind" records the suffering of many in Iraq - supposed to have been liberated from Hussein by the Coalition of the Willing:
"Ten thousand Iraqis are listed as missing since the American invasion six years ago — although the Iraqi government acknowledges that its figures are probably only a small fraction of the actual number. Most of those who disappeared are believed to be dead. But even those whose bodies have been found are not always identified quickly; Dr. Munjid Salah al-Deen, the manager of Baghdad’s central morgue, said his staff was working to identify 28,000 bodies from 2006 to 2008 alone.
The authorities are hampered by some of the cruelties of war and the poverty it brings: some bodies are mutilated and hard to identify, and there is little money for new forensic workers to handle the huge caseload."
Whilst the debate continues in the USA about torture, the release of photos, Obama not pursuing those who engaged in illegal acts during the Iraq War, etc. etc. there are those who are questioning not only the monetary cost of the war, but what was actually achieved - or put another way, were there any real tangible benefits for either the Americans or Iraqis.
Two pieces highlight critical "issues" relating to the Iraq War. First, Cindy Sheehan, writing on truthout.org in "The Day of the Dead" questions what, if anything, was achieved by the War:
"I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, which is a Palestinian Right's Conference (al-Awda translates to "The Returning"), when the pilot's voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.
"As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.
"As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child's brains, blood and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.
"Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause, and we can't even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport, or walk through a metal detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated "free speech" zones (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter), and oftentimes brutally treated if we decide we are entitled to "free speech" on every inch of American soil."
Over at The NY Times a sobering report "Fate of Missing Iraqis Haunts Those Left Behind" records the suffering of many in Iraq - supposed to have been liberated from Hussein by the Coalition of the Willing:
"Ten thousand Iraqis are listed as missing since the American invasion six years ago — although the Iraqi government acknowledges that its figures are probably only a small fraction of the actual number. Most of those who disappeared are believed to be dead. But even those whose bodies have been found are not always identified quickly; Dr. Munjid Salah al-Deen, the manager of Baghdad’s central morgue, said his staff was working to identify 28,000 bodies from 2006 to 2008 alone.
The authorities are hampered by some of the cruelties of war and the poverty it brings: some bodies are mutilated and hard to identify, and there is little money for new forensic workers to handle the huge caseload."
Comments