Iraqis to Bush: ‘You have left us with nothing’
By Mike Whitney Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 28, 2007, 01:12
Never had I fathomed, not even in my remotest imagination, that a day will come when God’s houses will be attacked and destroyed. The way they are today, in Iraq . . . Never.
This Red Line is now crossed . . . Crossed, transgressed, trespassed into blasphemy. Layla Anwar “A Red Line” from An Arab Woman’s Blues
According to a recent UN report, the Green Zone is now coming under heavy fire on a daily basis. The report said that the so-called “International Zone” — which houses the U.S. embassy and Iraqi government offices — is being pelted regularly with a “barrage of mortar bombs and missiles . . . The attacks have become more frequent and more accurate.”(Reuters)
The news of the mortar and missile attacks has been largely concealed from the American people. The public already believes the war was a “mistake” and the persistent bombing of America’s “last sanctuary” in Baghdad just adds to the nation’s sinking morale. The US is progressively losing its grip in Iraq and the fighting is degenerating into a vicious free-for-all. The “surge” has failed to achieve its political objectives, and this is forcing the occupation to rely more and more on aerial bombardment and counterinsurgency operations.
The war is in its fifth year, and, still, Bush has not produced anything even vaguely resembling a political solution. He is utterly clueless.
The world’s oldest civilization is being destroyed before our eyes — its cities laid to waste, its people slaughtered by the tens of thousands. Saddam never could have dreamed of devastation on this scale. We’ve ruined everything. Truckloads of dead men are delivered to the Baghdad morgue every morning where they are processed and then dumped in mass graves in abandoned soccer fields or schoolyards. Twenty percent of the population has either been internally displaced or forced to flee into Jordan and Syria. In Falluja alone, 65 percent of the buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands of its citizens are left living in tent cities scattered across the desert — exposed to the elements, living on crusts of bread and foul water. The number of refugees has risen rapidly: 2 million in Amman, Damascus and Cairo. They go wherever they can to avoid the bombing and find safety or shelter. [more]