Baghdad Burning

[kliljedahl]

Assassinations...

We woke up yesterday morning to this news: Sunni tribal leader and his sons shot dead.

“Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms shot dead an aging Sunni tribal leader and three of his sons in their beds on Wednesday, relatives said…”

Except when you read it on the internet, it’s nothing like seeing scenes of it on television. They showed the corpses and the family members- an elderly woman wailing and clawing at her face and hair and screaming that soldiers from the Ministry of Interior had killed her sons. They shot them in front of their mother, wives and children… Even when they slaughter sheep, they take them away from the fold so that the other sheep aren’t terrorized by the scene.

In war, you think the unthinkable. You imagine the unimaginable. When you can’t get to sleep at night, your mind wanders to cover various possibilities. Trying to guess and determine the future of a war-torn nation is nearly impossible, so your mind focuses on the more tangible- friends… Near and distant relations. I think that during these last two and a half years, every single Iraqi inside of Iraq has considered the possibility of losing one or more people in the family. I try to imagine losing the people I love most in the world- whether it’s the possibility of having them buried under the rubble… or the possibility of having them brutally murdered by extremists… or blown to bits by a car bomb… or abducted for ransom… or brutally shot at a checkpoint. All disturbing possibilities.

I try to imagine what would happen to me, personally, should this occur. How long would it take for the need for revenge to settle in? How long would it take to be recruited by someone who looks for people who have nothing to lose? People who lost it all to one blow. What I think the world doesn’t understand is that people don’t become suicide bombers because- like the world is told- they get seventy or however many virgins in paradise. People become suicide bombers because it is a vengeful end to a life no longer worth living- a life probably violently stripped of its humanity by a local terrorist- or a foreign soldier.

I hate suicide bombers. I hate the way my heart beats chaotically every time I pass by a suspicious-looking car- and every car looks suspicious these days. I hate the way Sunni mosques and Shia mosques are being targeted right and left. I hate seeing the bodies pile up in hospitals, teeth clenched in pain, wailing men and women…

But I completely understand how people get there.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. :^( How is keeping our military there making people safer?

[babylonsister]

2. "it's nothing like seeing scenes of it on television." I realize

U.S. journalists' access is severely constricted in Iraq, but don't understand why they can't use some of the reports already being aired by local people. I imagine said journalists watch TV over there...
I wish we were all seeing the truth as this brave person is.

[HockeyMom]

3. They learned from Nam

when we still had a free press. We saw at our dinner tables the coffins coming home, the villages being naplamed and little kids on fire running out of the villages. This turned the public off on the war. That is why they had to muzzle the press for their "spread of democracy" at the point of a gun.

[DistressedAmerican]

4. Sometimes I Just Can't Believe Where We Find Ourselves.

I usually stay pretty damn up beat, especially considering the circumstances. But, what we are doing over there is blatantly wrong. It is sickening.

Sometimes I think that the very ugliness keeps people from even accepting it is going on. They simply can't imagine that America has become what the world keeps telling us we are, oppressors.

Kicker and nod.

[kliljedahl]

5. Thank you my friend

I love this site, someday the truth will out.

[kliljedahl]

16. Kick

[EuroObserver]

6. Oh, the world gets it, all right.

Just some of you people over there seem to be extremeley cosseted, brainwashed, selfish, isolated.

In spite of all your advantages...

C'mon, you're bright, intelligent people. Wake up and do something about it: it's your country (but only that one) after all.

[annabanana]

7. We have become our '50's nightmare..

Everything we were taught the evil Soviet Russians did.. The things we were told we would never do because we were a good nation.. all these things we have been doing, have been caught doing...

torture... endless, chargeless imprisonment... suppression of discussion. . . censure of the press...selective enforcement.. invasions..

all of it

on edit:nom

[EuroObserver]

8. Totally unsustainable economy (except for elite few)... n/t

[Gronk Groks]

11. At least two-thirds of the nation knows it...

...but we keep trying to do it non-violently. We know what an all out (un)civil war will do. We pray it will never come to that...

...but the prayers may be in vain and THAT is terrifying.

[Pharaoh]

9. kicked and reccomended n/t

[atfqn]

10. Our Father

who art in Nasdaq, Hallowed be thy business model. Thy kingdom be profitable. Thy will be done - to subjugate all, On earth as it is in cable television. Give us this day our daily balance sheet. And forgive us our economic trespasses, As we forgive those who valiantly try to economically trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation of fair wages, But deliver us from evil of honesty and transparency. For thine is the kingdom of power, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever in our consumer hearts. Amen.

[blonndee]

12. "Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms..." WHY do they keep writing it like that?

Isn't it possible that it's Iraqi army?

I'm afraid that we've brought to Iraq that civil war they keep saying will happen if we leave. :cry:

[Norquist Nemesis]

13. CNN has a brief report on the troop morale tonight

Supposedly, all of troops he was 'embedded' with blame the media. Apparently, it's all of the media's fault that they have swayed opinion back here at the Homeland...all of the negatives shown.

Now, I'd really like to know where these soldiers are getting their information! Aside from emails and letters from home, do they have access to things other than Faux and Limbaugh? Or is it a constant stream of "those unpatriot, weeny Liberals" and the "Liberal media is succeeding in wanting us to surrender" type of thing?

I understand how this might sound completely off-topic...but it's not! It's all related media-wise. So, when we hear reports of the troops stating to reporters "stay the course" and "it's because of the negative things the media portrays", has there been a psy-ops on our troops?

[EuroObserver]

23. Control of media content

and of people's access to media (or their motivation to pay attention at all) in the warmongering states is the key to the rest of the plan.

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Negrponte was sent to Iraq to organize death squads

as he had done before in Central America. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte

More on the Wolf Brigade in Iraq:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/iraq-j06.shtml
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70607&time_posted_upper_limit=1120449600&time_posted_lower_limit=1120363200

[TheGunslinger]

15. I'm sure it didn't take much given insurgents had infiltrated Iraqi gov't.

[Pastiche423]

17. Who are the insurgents?

[TheGunslinger]

18. Various groups: Baathists, Sunnis, even Shiites

The corruption in the Iraqi gov't makes the GOP's culture of corruption look like a kid stealing a candy bar from a drugstore.

[dxstone]

19. Great site, man...

And yeah, I can understand how they get there too...
K&N.
Our government is looking more and more like the aliens from Mars Attacks...
"Don't run; we are your friends!"--as they melt people with their death rays...
Our leadership has revealed itself as utterly inhumane. There is nothing remaining that is even remotely human about them.
d

"All these moments
will be lost in time...
like tears... in rain."

Time to die.

[kliljedahl]

20. Damn I love "Mars Attacks"

One of my all time favorites

[mom cat]

21. Thanks for the reminder that Iraqis are people too...

something that the christo fascists war mongers would like us to forget. The assassination of Jesus is the only one we are supposed to feel bad about.All others are mearly in the service of corporate profits.

[lonestarnot]

22. Thanks for pointing out causes close to the root.