Mission accomplished: Iraq is broken

"It's hard to believe that supposedly intelligent people like Senators Joseph Biden (DE), Hillary Clinton (NY) and John Kerry (MA) call for 'staying the course' in Iraq and acting responsibly by sending more US troops with more fire power over there.

"Don't they understand that American soldiers break, not fix? The more US soldiers in Iraq, the more damage they will do and the more enemies they will make. To limit damage, to act morally and responsibly, remove the cause of violence and chaos in Iraq: the US military presence ...

"In March 2003, George W. Bush ordered the US military to break Iraq. The US arsenal destroyed the electricity and water supply, damaged sewage treatment and other vital sanitary facilities and pulverized bridges, other public places and thousands of homes. On May 1, 2003, dressed in a jump suit, Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced: 'Mission Accomplished.'

"His critics, myself included, laughed at such braggadocio. We misunderstood him. He had accomplished the standard post-WWII US military mission: He broke another country.

"The US-led Coalition has not restored what it demolished in Iraq, nor reestablished services to the level of Saddam Hussein’s regime. They imprisoned tens of thousands of Iraqis, subjecting many of those to systematic torture.

"Former prisoner Ali Abbas told journalist Dahr Jamail that to break the will of Iraqi prisoners, US guards at Abu Ghraib 'used electricity on us' while millions of homes lacked electricity for hours each day. 'They also shit on us, used dogs against us…and starved us' ...

"In June 2005, Dr. Thomas Fasy of the Mr. Sinai School of Medicine concluded that data from Iraqi hospitals indicated that depleted uranium’s effect had shown up dramatically in a more than 400% rise in children’s cancer in just over a decade ...

"On June 28, addressing the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, Bush asked implying that 'our' people had given up a lot to wage his war : 'Is the sacrifice worth it?' He quickly answered his own question. 'It is worth it…'

"The Iraq war has cost him nothing -- perhaps a few hours of missed video golf.

"'We have more work to do,' he stated. Yes, Bush stands as a national model of sacrifice and hard work! And Iraqis must think that those Democrats who ask for more troops are either crazy or stark opportunists. It will take them that much longer to restore some integrity to their broken society."
Source: informationclearinghouse.info

The World Speaks on Iraq
"The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) held its culminating session in Istanbul June 24-27 ... Never before has a war aroused this level of protest on a global scale -- first to prevent it (the huge February 15, 2003, demonstrations in eighty countries) and then to condemn its inception and conduct ... The WTI generated intense interest in Turkey, Europe, the Arab world and on the Internet but was ignored by the American mainstream media. Here in Istanbul, the WTI was treated for days as the number-one news story."
Source: Common Dreams