Today, 15 December 2011, marks
the official
end of the United States' war in Iraq, begun by the
still-unindicted ex-president, George W. Bush. President Obama
has kept his promise to end the war, and hence I am suspending my
updates on it. I leave this page on my site as an historical
record of a horror that should never have happened.
UPDATE:
President Obama announced today,
21 October 2011, that U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end
of the year. At last he is delivering on his promise to end the
war in Iraq. Now we must also get out of Afghanistan.
Too many lives have been lost and too many people have been maimed
physically and psychologically in both wars. We seem to have
learned nothing from the lessons of history regarding failed invasions
of Afghanistan. The
billions of dollars we are spending would be better spent to help our
people get jobs and housing and to implement the new health care
program.
UPDATE:
President Obama has announced a
plan to remove most of our troops within 18 months, not the 16 months
he aimed for in the campaign. This is progress, but it is not
good enough. As of the 1st of July 2009, U.S.
troops have been removed from Iraq's cities. Again, this is
progress but hardly enough. Additionally, he is dangerously close to
turning the war in Afghanistan into another Vietnam by escalating the
number of troops. I am
profoundly opposed to such escalation of troops in
Afghanistan, and I do not agree with Mr. Obama that the war in
Afghanistan serves our national security or interests.
Meanwhile, the slaughter of LGBT people in Iraq
continues after a fatwa was declared by the leading Shia religious
leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. According
to the British
Guardian,
Sistani "urg[ed] the killing of LGBT people in the 'worst, most
severe way' possible." And his orders are being carried
out. LGBT people have been "shot dead in their homes, streets and
workplaces. Even suspected
gay
children are being murdered." A network that
Guardian reporter, Peter Tatchell,
compares to the Underground Railroad which helped slaves to freedom in
America has been created to help LGBT people in Iraq. See "
Iraq's
Queer Underground Railroad" and the
Iraqi LGBT Blogspot to
keep up-to-date on this vital topic.
Here are four more pertinent articles: "
Iraq's
Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder," from
The New York Times (7 April 2009)
, "
Killing of Gay
Iraqis Shouldn't Be Ignored," from
The Denver Post (12
April 2009), "
Iraqi
'Executioner' Defends Killing of Gay Men," from
The National (2 May 2009), and "
Iraq's
Gays Face Rising Persecution," from the
Los Angeles Times (18 August 2009).
If you are on Facebook, I urge you to join the group,
SOS: Support
Iraqi LGBT.
On
Easter Sunday, 23 March 2008,
the number of American military personnel who have died in Iraq reached
4,000. Every person, civilian or military, who has died because
of Bush's war is precious. The number simply reinforces the
message of how wrong the war is. It must end now.
By electing Democratic majorities
in both houses of Congress in 2006, American voters sent an
unmistakable message that they want change in Iraq, that they are fed
up with the direction the current administration has taken in this
war. Despite this, and after five years of
this
heinous war, President Bush appears not to
have
understood the message of the 2006 elections. His escalation of
the war is a slap in the face to the troops there, who face increased
risk of casualties; the Iraqi
people, who desperately need to be self-reliant; and the voters of this
country. The Long Beach Press-Telegram
reports that "The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly
double the number of combat troops in Iraq . . ." (Stewart M. Powell,
"Second Troop Increase Is Silent" 22 May 2007: A9). Instead of increasing combat
troops, we must withdraw as
soon as possible. Mr. Bush has learned nothing from history,
particularly the Vietnam War.
As he makes another "surprise" visit to Iraq (am I the only one who
finds this president cowardly compared to the men and women he sends to
risk life and limb?), the Los
Angeles Times reports in an article by Tina Susman, that
"Turmoil Prevails in Iraq" (4 September 2007: A1). Susman writes:
"The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other
trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the
capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines,
violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in
political infighting."
The day after Bush announced his plans to escalate the war, thousands
of people across the country assembled in peace rallies to protest the
war and this latest so-called surge. I was one of the many people
who participated in the demonstration in Long Beach, California, at 7th
and Bellflower Blvd., where we gathered at all four corners of the busy
intersection as innumerable passing motorists honked their horns in
support.
Peace Rally, Long Beach, CA, 11 January 2007
Much has been made in the news of the fact the rate of deaths slowed in Iraq in
the last months of 2007. No discernible political progress has
been made, and even one person dying or becoming maimed physically or
mentally, perhaps for life, because of Bush's war is too many. I,
for one, am not impressed by the surge and Bush's policy of "staying
the course." The man is a war criminal, as far as I am concerned,
and ought to be impeached, removed from office, and tried in a court of
law for crimes against humanity. The same goes for his vice
president.
Honor Guard for Sgt. David J. Hart, Los Angeles Times
This picture from the Los Angeles Times, 16 January
2008, honors Sgt. David J. Hart of Lake View Terrace, CA, and I would
like it to honor all the others killed in George W. Bush's war and
those who will be killed. As the Times says in an editorial on 17
January 2008, "Such images are rare, partly because of a media tendency
to see the
commonplace as unworthy of coverage and partly because of a calculated
effort by the Bush administration to prevent the American people from
seeing them." The editorial goes on to say, this "photograph was
possible because Hart's body was flown into Long Beach Airport rather
than a
military facility, where media photographers are forbidden from
chronicling the ongoing human cost of the Iraq war." The ban on
such pictures began with the first President Bush in 1991.
A primary reason I oppose the war in Iraq is
my deep concern for our men and women in the military, who are dying in
an unjust and illegal war. For their sake and for the
sake of the Iraqi people and all others affected by the carnage, I pray
the war ends
quickly.
On the 11th of October 2006 the
Los
Angeles Times reported that a "team of researchers," whose "lead
author" is Gilbert Burnham of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at
Johns Hopkins University," says that
601,027
Iraqis have suffered violent deaths since the March 2003 invasion"
(Julian E. Barnes, "Study Puts War's Iraqi Death Tally at More Than
600,000": A-12).
Now
ORB, a "British polling agency that has conducted several surveys in
Iraq," places the number of Iraqis killed as
over
1.2 million (Tina Susman, "Civilian Deaths May Top 1 Million,
Poll Data Indicate,"
Los Angeles
Times, 14 September 2007: A6). As reported in the
Los Angeles Times on the 10th of
January 2008 ("U.N. Survey Puts 3-year Iraqi Toll at 151,000": A8), a
World Health Organization study says that about
151,
000
civilians in Iraq were killed in the first three years of the war; the
actual number of deaths during the period ranges from
104,000
to
223,000.
Even the Iraqi Health Minister, Saleh Hasnawi, says the study is "very
sound," according to the
Times.
Furthermore,
our troops are suffering in other ways. The
Los
Angeles Times reports, "The latest and most comprehensive study
of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has concluded that nearly
1 in every 5 veterans is suffering from depression or stress disorders
and that many are not getting adequate care. . . . An estimated 300,000
veterans among the nearly 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and
Afghanistan are battling depression or post-traumatic stress
disorder. More than half of these people, according to the study
conducted by the Rand Corp., are slipping through the cracks in the
bureaucratic system, going without necessary treatment" (Julian E.
Barnes, "Veterans Struggle with War Trauma," 18 April 2008: A16).
Needless to say, this is a shameful state of affairs.
According to
icasualties.org,
as of 7 November
2008, 4,506 coalition
troops had died in
the Iraq war. Of these, 4,192
were American troops. Also, there have been at least 30,634
American troops
wounded in action. A CNN
site also gives updated death and other casualty numbers and the names
of the troops who
have died, pictures when available, and other personal details.
Surely even those who have supported the war would agree that too many
have been brain damaged or lost their sight, their arms, their legs
and/or been otherwise
wounded psychically and physically. By any measurement, far too
many
have died and the
killing and maiming must stop.
Terrorism
in Iraq, and the world, has
increased. As reported in
the Los Angeles Times, a U.S.
government intelligence report, issued in April 2006 but not released
by the administration, says that "the war in Iraq has made global
terrorism worse by fanning Islamic radicalism and providing a training
ground for lethal methods that are increasingly being exported to other
countries" ("Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Fuels Terror," by Greg Miller,
24 September 2006: A1+). More recently, the Times reports, "the U.S.
intelligence community's first comprehensive examination of the
domestic terrorism threat in 20 years" reports that Al Qaeda . . . has
'regenerated key elements' of its ability to attack targets in America
and is intensifying its efforts to put operatives inside the country"
("U.S. Agencies Concur on Terror Threat," Greg Miller and Josh Meyer,
18 July 2007: A1).
I quite agree with the 11 September 2007 editorial called "What we've
lost" in the Los Angeles Times
that says, while "we have avoided another [terrorist] attack on
American soil . . . the decision to invade Iraq has proved, in our
view, a distraction from the struggle against radical Islamist
terrorism, and it has cost us dearly. More than 3,700 American
soldiers have lost their lives on foreign sands. Another 27,000
have returned home with injuries, many of them life-altering.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and about 4
million forced to flee, half of them to uncertain foreign refuge.
Their scars will mar the future as anger over the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq and its injustices at Guantanamo Bay breeds new
enemies" (A18). See below for more specific figures about the
dead and maimed.
The time
has come for Congress to consider the question of whether a man who is
responsible for "one of the worst presidential decisions in American
history" (see Bob Herbert, below), one that is needlessly and immorally
costing thousands of lives (American, Iraqi, and others), not to
mention trampled on the Constitutional rights of all Americans, ought
to be
impeached. See the petition for impeachment by the Veterans for Peace.
I agree with Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter that Mr. Bush, as
well as Mr. Tony Blair, is a war criminal. The same is true for
Vice President Cheney.
Anyone who keeps up with the news now knows Mr. Bush has broken the law
by spying
domestically without court approval. Even though the law allows
the president to do so under
extraordinary circumstances to protect national
security for 72 hours before gaining approval from
a special court (see "Legality of Wiretaps Remains in Question," Los Angeles Times, 18 December
2005: A1, and Senator Russ Feingold on The News Hour, PBS,
19 December
2005), Bush has not
sought such approval, and he says he
doesn't intend to seek it. If this is not an impeachable offense,
I do not know what is. Bush's outrageous arrogance is so blatant
even members of
his own party have questioned Bush's actions on this question and are
calling for an investigation ("Lawmakers Urge Review of U.S. Spy
Program," Los Angeles Times,
19 December 2005: A11). No doubt because the Democrats now
control Congress, the Bush Administration has pulled back from this
illegal practice. Nevertheless, though it may not be the most
convenient
political move, now is the time for the House of Representatives to
begin impeachment
hearings to remove this man from office. See the Impeach Bush
site, and read an article, "The Impeachment
of George W. Bush," by Elizabeth Holtzman, a former U.S.
Representative and member of the House Judiciary Committee when it
considered the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon.
Wholeheartedly I agree with former Vice President Al Gore, who says in
his new book, The Assault on Reason:
"With the blatant failure by the government to respect
the rule of law,
we face a great challenge in restoring America's moral authority in the
world. Our moral authority is our greatest source of
strength. It is
our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap
calculations of this willful president [i.e. George W. Bush]" (quoted
in
The Guardian, 24 May 2007).
I am
proud
to be one of over 13,000
Poets
Against the War,
the story of which and the poets and their contributions against the
Bush war with Iraq can be accessed by clicking on the above link.
As a teacher of literature and writing, I try to promote a spirit
of tolerance and open-mindedness in the context of moral and spiritual
values. Were I not to express my anguish at the mass destruction
and human loss orchestrated by the Washington administration's
single-minded madness in regard to Iraq, a country that posed no danger
to the United States and had no connection with the terrorist attacks
of 11 September 2001, I would be violating my own
purpose as a teacher and
a poet. Here is my first poem featured on the Poets Against the
War
site.
You Tell Me
I wanted to go to Baghdad
to see the Tigris,
to see elements
of Western Civilization,
to see, if not handle,
descendants of the desert
with eyes as deep as blood,
with skin like river rocks,
children of our forebears,
cousins.
But some of them
voted for the one name on the ballot,
a man who executed cabinet ministers,
who sent young men
to die fighting a neighbor
--two neighbors--
who failed to be conquered
by the father of our
illegitimate leader, he
of the sodden eyes, who
worships blood and oil.
If I get to Baghdad,
what and who will be there
to see, to understand?
Here is another poem that expresses my outrage at the actions of a man
who, in 2000, was not elected president under the specific directions
given in
the Constitution of the United States. The five justices who put
Bush into office are as culpable as he is for his immoral actions on a
multitude of issues, but especially on war. They are "activist"
justices, to use Bush's own parlance. Even had Bush been
elected legally, I would oppose his imperialistic warmongering.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
The woman with a scarf
at the food stand
asked for an ounce of flour:
she had three children
and a little water.
The American leader
squinted, eyes like oil pools.
He shot her point blank
in the temple.
His secretary of state
lopped off the arms & legs
of a soldier, pressed into service
by the sword of antiquity.
The minister of defense
ordered smart bombs to explode
the brains of a man in turban
old enough to remember
the American president
who provided his people arms
to fight their neighbor.
See my poem, "
St. Anthony's Church," published
in a
GLBT
issue
of the
Chiron Review. It
is also in my book of poems,
Aspens
in the Wind.
One not well publicized dimension
of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is the fact that
over 250 academics have
been murdered and many others have disappeared. According
to the
Brussels Tribunal Advisory Committee, "The wave of assassinations
appears non-partisan and non-sectarian, targeting women as well as men,
and is countrywide . . . This situation is a mirror of the occupation
as a whole: a catastrophe of staggering proportions unfolding in a
climate of criminal disregard. As an occupying power, and under
international humanitarian law, final responsibility for protecting
Iraqi citizens, including academics, lies with the United
States." Read more about this horrendous situation and consider
signing a petition to help prevent further atrocities:
Iraqi
Academics.
In
the 29 August 2005 edition of
Time
magazine, Joe Klein, who at that time supported continuing the war in
Iraq, wrote
that George W. Bush's "inability to acknowledge these terrible [U.S.
military] losses [by going to funerals and allowing pictures and videos
of returning military caskets] leaves an aching void in the rest of
us. It isolates the general public from the suffering that is a
dominant reality of life in military communities.
"And that is why Cindy Sheehan [whose son was killed in Iraq and who
maintained a vigil in Crawford, Texas, where Bush was on vacation but
refused to see her] has struck a chord, despite her naive politics and
the ideology of some of her supporters. She represents all the
tears not shed when the coffins came home without public notice.
She is pain manifest. It is only with a public acknowledgment of
the unutterable agony this war has caused that we can begin a serious
and long overdue conversation about Iraq . . . ."
On the 17th of August 2005, well over 100,000 people gathered in
candlelight peace vigils across the nation in support of Cindy Sheehan
and others who have lost loved ones in Iraq. I was in Taos, NM,
at the time and I attended one of those vigils on the Taos plaza.
Peace Vigil, Taos, NM, 17 August 2005
Klein has since written that "never was
Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore
the Baker-Hamilton report [on the war] and move in the exact opposite
direction: adding troops and employing counter-insurgency tactics
inappropriate to the situation on the ground." Klein concludes by
saying, "the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance,
incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his [Bush's]
personality. They're not likely to change. And it is
increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed
with a leader so clearly unfit to lead" (Time 16 April 2007: 25).
Needless to say, I agree with Klein. We are being "led" by an
untreated alcoholic whose unfettered self will has caused death and
grief for countless innocent people and whose policies, not only on the
war but also on such issues as global warming and human rights, have
placed the United States in a position for which Americans and people
around the world will suffer for untold years to come.
As
if fighting, becoming maimed, and dying in such a war aren't enough,
gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals in military service also suffer the
discrimination of
the military's
sinister "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
policy. See Patricia Ward Biederman's "For Gays, Secrecy
in Love,
War,"
Los Angeles Times, 17 April 2003: A1+. The list of
outrageous conduct against gay people
because of the homophobic atmosphere this policy creates includes rape
and
murder (C. Dixon Osburn, "Colleges Cave to Pentagon Threat,"
The
Gay and
Lesbian Review/Worldwide, March-April 2003: 28-29). What kind
of
freedom is our military supposed to be defending when such vile
discrimination
occurs within its own ranks? The
New York Times reports
that a Congressional study has found the "military has spent more than
$200 million to recruit and train
personnel to replace troops discharged in the last decade for being
openly gay" (John Files, "Rules on Gays Exact a Cost in Recruiting, a
Study Finds,"
New York Times
24 February 2005, www.nytimes.com). Jeff Key, a marine who served
in
Iraq and was discharged for being openly gay, says, "I became a marine
to protect the Constitution and to protect innocent people--and
thousands and thousands of people are being slaughtered for an economic
and political agenda" (quoted in Paul Clinton's "Tour of Duty,"
The Advocate 18
January 2005: 41). Key says "he decided to use the ban on gays in
the
military to avoid being asked to take innocent lives for corporate
gain."
Another soldier who is quitting because of anti-gay attacks is Pvt.
Kyle Lawson. Read his story in the
Arizona Daily Star
(18 December 2005).
In a new development on this issue, according to
Advocate.com
(News, 24-26 Sept. 2005), "
Secretly and without
consultation with the U.S. Congress, the U.S. military has suspended,
in part, its ban on openly gay soldiers [who are deployed to Iraq], an
official military spokesperson has said. But after these soldiers
have risked life and limb for their country, the military retains the
right to kick them out when they get home." This new policy is as
unsurprising as it is cynical and completely unfair.
Meanwhile, countries such as Iran
murder male teenagers for having sex
with each other, yet our government remains silent. How
can we
pretend to support freedom and democracy when our own policies, never
mind our silence on such atrocities, undermine freedom for all our
citizens. As Patrick Moore writes in The Advocate, " the U.S.
government never cites homophobia as a dangerous aspect of Islamic
extremism. See
Andrew
Sullivan's blog for 12 June 2006.
"In fact, the U.S. government
has done its part in the Middle East to reinforce the view that
homosexuality is inherently wrong. When our military denies openly gay
men and women the opportunity to serve their country, it implies that
such people are incapable of carrying the cause of democracy to foreign
lands" (see "
Murder
and Hypocrisy" and
Sodomy Laws).
The same kind of murderous brutality has now become part of the Iraqi
landscape. As
The Observer
reports: "
Hardline Islamic
insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type
of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The
country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are
being
called the 'immorals', homosexual men and children as young as 11 who
have been forced into same-sex prostitution. There is growing evidence
that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and
children who have been sold to criminal gangs to
be sexually abused. The threat has led to a rapid increase in the
numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it
has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country." (Jennifer Copestake, The
Oberver/The Guardian (United Kingdom), 6 August 2006).
And, as the Washington Blade
reports, "President Bush’s plan to deploy an additional 21,500
troops to Iraq
will do little to stop the death squads that continue to hunt gays,
according to exiled gay Iraqis and organizations monitoring the
violence there" (Joshua Lynsen, "
Troop
'surge' unlikely to help gay Iraqis"). The
Blade reports that "Gay Iraqis
living in exile have told gay rights groups that conditions
are so bad that entire categories of men — including those who are
unmarried or seen as effeminate — are suspected of being gay and
subject to death threats." Yet, according to the
Blade article, the American
occupiers of Iraq have done little to help gay Iraqis. For an
update on this story, see Lennox Samuels's "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Kill,"
Newsweek 26 August 2008.
See also Deb Price's "Iraq Struggles to Stop Persecution of Gays" (
The Detroit News, 16 April
2007). Price's article opens with these horrific examples:
Militias warn Iraqi families they will be murdered if they don't
hand over or kill their gay relatives.
An Iraqi family pays ransom for the return of a gay man, only to
learn later that his mutilated body has been found.
An Iraqi father is released without being tried for hanging his gay
son to defend the family's "honor."
Secretive religious "courts" try, sentence and execute gays.
In Baghdad, a store owner and four barbers are kidnapped or vanish
because of their sexual orientation.
She concludes with a comment no reasonable person could argue
with: "In Iraq, all of the violence against
innocent
civilians is horrifying. But if a stable, relatively peaceful
Iraq is
ever to emerge and join the ranks of civilized nations, it will have to
be a place where government tries to safeguard the rights of all,
including its most vulnerable citizens." See also 365gay.com
for 14 June 2007 and Molly Hennessy-Fiske's article, "Since Invasion,
Gays in Iraq Lead Lives of Constant Fear, in the Los Angeles Times (5 August 2007:
A6).
The Independent from the United
Kingdom reports that Iraqi police have murdered a 14-year-old boy,
Ahmed Khalil, for being gay. According to this report (dated 5
May 2005), "The killing of Ahmed is one of a series of alleged
homophobic murders.
There is mounting evidence that fundamentalists have infiltrated
government security forces to commit homophobic murders while wearing
police uniforms." Furthermore, "Grand Ayatollah Sistani recently
issued a fatwa on his website calling
for the execution of gays in the 'worst, most severe way'." This
is the country our government is supposed to have liberated?
Where are the voices of protest in our own government against these
hideous crimes? As reported in Iraqi
LGBT, "Queer Iraqis are finding life is now worse than it was under
Saddam." For more on this serious issue, see David France's
article in GQ, "Dying to Come
Out: The War on Gays in Iraq" (February 2007: 126+).
After the fall of Baghdad, I wrote the
following poem, also on the
Poets
Against the War web site. I include the picture that in part
inspired the poem.
Victory in Iraq
April 2003
Bush II sips his blood-red bubbly,
one bullet in the glass,
upstairs in the White House.
He nibbles pretzels of victory.
The horror he manipulated
exploits the TV screen.
Marines place the flag, lasso
a statue of Baghdad’s dictator.
Bush II must telephone Daddy. First
he belches from a toothy Texas grin
under brine-black eyes,
a brainy mangle of manure.
Somewhere in Baghdad,
on a solitary bed, lies an
armless boy, newly orphaned,
his face asleep, innocent agony.
* * *
--from Time 14 April 2003
There are a few articles from an almost
overwhelmingly biased press that convey some sanity on the issue of war
and American imperialism. Here are five I recommend. Two
are from renowned foreign writers, Margaret Atwood (Canada) and Gunter
Grass (Germany).
Atwood, Margaret. "Letter to America."
The Nation,
14 April 2003: 22.
Caputo, Philip. "The Smell of War."
Los Angeles Times,
30 March 2003: M6.
Grass, Gunter. "The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values."
Los
Angeles Times, 7 April 2003: B11.
Khouri, Rami G., "Another Casualty of War: American Moral Authority,"
Los Angeles Times, 9 October 2003:
B17.
Quindlen, Anna. "The Sounds of Silence."
Newsweek, 21 April
2003: 66.
I also recommend an instructive, useful, and inspiring essay by E. M.
Forster, "
What
I Believe," written in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War
II. See, too, Dante Zappala's column, "It's Official: My Brother
Died in Vain," written after the Bush administration officially stopped
looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (
Los Angeles Times, 14 January
2005: B11).
Now, over five years
after
the United
States and Britain invaded Iraq, instead of decreasing terrorism in the
world, the war has spurred more terrorism, including the attacks in
Spain and Britain that claimed hundreds of lives, not to mention other
attacks in many
other countries around the world. Today Iraq is open territory
for terrorists in a way it never was under Saddam Hussein, as brutal as
he was. Furthermore, other countries, our allies included, have
lost trust in a government that misrepresented the reasons for going to
war with Iraq in the first place.
I agree with the
Los Angeles Times
that the war has
done "more harm than good" ("A War's Woeful Results," 20 March 2004:
B22). Additionally,
Time
magazine reports that "A rash of unpunished honor killings highlights
the harrowing dangers females face in the new Iraq" ("Marked Women," 26
July 2004: 42). Although such murders for sexual "crimes" by
women by members of their own family occurred under Saddam Hussien,
they have greatly increased since his fall from power, as have many of
the freedoms women enjoyed under Saddam (this is because of the
increased power of Islamic clerics, according to the article).
Also, the
Los Angeles Times reports
that since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "Malnutrition among Iraq's
youngest children [aged 6 months to 5 years] has nearly doubled"
("Child Malnutrition Doubles in Iraq," 23 November 2004: A4).
Please see a short movie
from the
American Friends
Service Committee. Their
Eyes
Wide Open exhibition came to Long
Beach, California, on the 15th of March, 2005, at the Main Library and
at Lincoln Park:
The shoes represent a tiny fraction of the 1000s
of Iraqi civilians killed in the war.
These boots represent the U.S. troops
killed in Iraq.
Here is what Bob Herbert
says about the inauguration of George W. Bush on 20 January 2005:
"Watching the inaugural ceremonies yesterday reminded me of the scenes
near the end of 'The Godfather' in which a solemn occasion (a baptism
in the
movie) is interspersed with a series of spectacularly violent murders.
"Even
as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his
Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news
wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There
is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years
ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war,
one of the worst presidential decisions in American history." ("Dancing
the War Away," New York Times, 21
January 2005).
See also Jack Miles's "Only Death Will Win" (Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2005:
B13).
Let the pictures and the captions speak for themselves, both here and
at
Crisis Pictures.
Then see Frontline's
The Torture
Question and read "Autopsies Support Abuse Allegations" (
Los Angeles Times, 25 October 2005:
A4) about the 21 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan whose autopsies show
they were murdered in U.S. custody. If the buck stops at the
president's desk, then the president is ultimately responsible for
these murders.
As for the elections in
Iraq, consider the following:
"United States officials were
surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's
presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt
the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85
million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them
risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has
long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of
encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam."
- Peter Grose, in a New York
Times article titled, "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote," 4 September 1967: 2.
I invite everyone, especially
those of military age who say they support the war, to view the
following video. Obviously, I do not advocate that anyone join
the military to fight in Iraq. I do, however, advocate personal
honesty. Sadly, too many of our politicians, particularly the
President and the Vice President, have made "integrity" a meaningless
word so far as their words and behavior are concerned.
Generation Chickenhawk
See also:
"Why You Should Care"
(from
Saturday Night Magazine,
February 2006)
and
Bring Them Home Now!
Iraqi Veterans Against the War
Adbusters
Cost of Iraq War
Antiwar.com
DeeRimbaud.Blogspot.com
Yellowcakewalk.net
Iraqi LGBT
What
difference does it make to the
dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is
wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty
or democracy?
--Mahatma Gandhi
Blessed are the peacemakers; for they
shall be called the children of
God.
--Matthew 5: 9
Not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
--Zechariah 4: 6
It is no longer a choice, my friends,
between violence and nonviolence.
It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who Would Jesus Bomb?
--Bumper Sticker
Apart from any
quotations by
others, the opinions expressed on this page are my
own and do not necessarily represent those of anyone else at California
State University, Long Beach.
Copyright © Clifton Snider,
2011.
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