Stay This Course?
From DailyKos:
Seattle Times--A stark assessment of terrorism trends by U.S. intelligence agencies has found that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
LA Daily News--The U.S. military is likely to maintain and may even increase its force of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring, the top American commander in the region said Tuesday in one of the gloomiest assessments yet of when troops may come home.
CBS News--The Pentagon is in the early stages of drafting a wartime request for up to $100 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers say, a figure that would push spending related to the wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars.
Guardian Unlimited--Torture in Iraq is worse now than it was under the regime of Saddam Hussein and "is totally out of hand", according to a United Nations investigator. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein," said Manfred Nowak.
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4 comments:
Is the present torture worse than the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed during the Saddam genecide campaign? Guess it depends on one's definition of torture! Undoubtedly times are worse for the Sunnis and Bathists who did the murdering for Saddam, but are they worse for the Shite majority?
You could argue that it is worse since more factions are doing it: government (both Iraqi and US), police, military, local militia, and by religious sects. The fact that Saddam murdered and tortured people doesn't give a free pass to others. And the fact that it is as bad as it is reflects very poorly on how the Bush administration is conducting the occupation. Stay the course means nothing if it is consistently getting worse.
Guess it also includes your definition of "worse". Mine is the number of people killed, maimed, brutalized. I doubt there is any evidence the present conditions are worse given that definition than under Saddam.
Of course winning a million dollar lottery can be "worse" by the UN investigator and your definition because it will mean you have to pay more taxes.
I personally only look at the overall level of human suffering and believe there is a lot less of that now in Iraq than what existed under Saddam. The fact that the media doesn't talk to the "average person on the street" about his/her opinion is because that opinion wouldn't be sensational (they'd likely say their life is better and getting better). But that isn't what "sells" hyped up news.
And finally, where was the hypocritical press and UN when Saddam was methodically carrying out his genocide campaign? Hardly a word and certainly no sustained outrage from them during those dark years of Iraq's history.
How do you know suffering is less now than under Saddam? Were there roving malitia's not affiliated with Saddam kidnapping, torturing, and murdering? At least the citizens of Iraq pre-invasion had water and electricity and didn't have to worry about suicide bombers on a daily basis.
Saddam was a terrible leader and commited many atrocities. But, due to the Bush administration's incompetence, we've really replaced one bad situation with a worse one.
There isn't a lot of good news coming out of Iraq. The mainstream media focues on the negative. But, there are other sources of media (like blogs) that are reporting from the ground. Right now the bad stories outnumber the good because the situation is terrible. The same can be said for Afghanistan, which isn't much better.
Lastly, Saddam was supported by the US in the 80's. We also didn't have instant media via the internet or sattelite. I'm sure that contributed to our ignorance (public that is) to what may have been happening over there. I can't say for sure since I was under the age of ten at the time.
Defending the decisions of Bushco is getting harder by the day.
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