Fist bumps around the Thanksgiving table! There is a sense of relief in the air (except for minor things like ongoing tragic reality).
Per Steve (above) the commercial kitsch of “Holiday Spirit” is cloying, annoying. That will not end when Barack Obama is President. What will end, though, is that George W. Bush will no longer be President.
“Thank Fucking God!” — can that be considered a Psalm of Praise of some sort?
It is vital to understand that the first “hot” Gulf War was waged as much against the people of Iraq as against the Republican Guard. The U.S. and its allies destroyed Iraq’s water, sewage and water-purification systems and its electrical grid. Nearly every bridge across the Tigris and Euphrates was demolished. They struck twenty-eight hospitals and destroyed thirty-eight schools. They hit all eight of Iraq’s large hydropower dams. They attacked grain silos and irrigation systems.
Farmlands near Basra were inundated with saltwater as a result of allied attacks. More than 95 per cent of Iraq’s poultry farms were destroyed, as were 3.3 million sheep and more than 2 million cows. The U.S. and its allies bombed textile plants, cement factories and oil refineries, pipelines and storage facilities, all of which contributed to an environmental and economic nightmare that continued nearly unabated over twelve years.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, The Thirteen Years’ War (Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia)
1991 Uprising (I hang these casualties on the US, as Gen Schwartzkopf gave Saddam Hussein permission to use captured weaponry to put down the revolts, thereby keeping him in power. Contradiction? (No.) link links to other links.
Sanctions under Clinton, 1993 forward: United Nations estimates, 1,000,000 dead, including 350,000-567,000 children. Link
Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.) 2003(figures “disputed” but not “debunked”: Lancet 2006, link. Opinion Research Business 2007: 1.2 million. Link
Total casualties, Iraq alone: 1,131,000 to 2,199,000. “Millions”.
Add to the misery the 2 million who have fled the country since 2003, and it’s safe to say that the US is nobody’s savior, more a curse on that poor country and all its inhabitants. That’s why they want us to just leave, and stop saving them.
Piece of Mindful 
Let the shitty christmas music begin!!
LikeLike
Fist bumps around the Thanksgiving table! There is a sense of relief in the air (except for minor things like ongoing tragic reality).
Per Steve (above) the commercial kitsch of “Holiday Spirit” is cloying, annoying. That will not end when Barack Obama is President. What will end, though, is that George W. Bush will no longer be President.
“Thank Fucking God!” — can that be considered a Psalm of Praise of some sort?
LikeLike
Actually, I think this turkey day cartoon is more fitting.
LikeLike
For Craig:
First Gulf War: 26,000 to 200,000. Link links to other links.
1991 Uprising (I hang these casualties on the US, as Gen Schwartzkopf gave Saddam Hussein permission to use captured weaponry to put down the revolts, thereby keeping him in power. Contradiction? (No.) link links to other links.
Sanctions under Clinton, 1993 forward: United Nations estimates, 1,000,000 dead, including 350,000-567,000 children. Link
Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.) 2003(figures “disputed” but not “debunked”: Lancet 2006, link. Opinion Research Business 2007: 1.2 million. Link
Total casualties, Iraq alone: 1,131,000 to 2,199,000. “Millions”.
Add to the misery the 2 million who have fled the country since 2003, and it’s safe to say that the US is nobody’s savior, more a curse on that poor country and all its inhabitants. That’s why they want us to just leave, and stop saving them.
LikeLike