15 October 2006

Standing in the Shoes of an Iraqi

Can you imagine the daily trauma that so many Iraqis are experiencing? And with no good reason at all. George Bush must be held accountable for this. Like a bank robber, like any criminal suspect, his actions, and those of his henchmen, necessitate apprehension and confinement until trial.

Here's an excerpt and link to an exceptional piece of writing from The Observer. Mary Riddell:
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Even all-out anarchy would be unlikely to dislodge the US, which would impose martial law, according to Amyas Godfrey, a strategic expert and former aide-de-camp to a British general in Iraq. No Republican administration, and possibly no Democrat one, would dare risk the ripple effect of a collapsed state.

Meanwhile, the fate of Iraqis grows more hideous. A road-sweeper says he works with 'his soul in his hands'. Stand on the Syrian border and you will see, each day, 1,000 refugees fleeing Iraq. They drive Mercedes and Chevrolets, these doctors or engineers driven out by kidnap, rape and brutality from streets where muggers kill for a mobile phone.

A middle class is on the move, to Syria, Jordan and to Europe. Such itinerants are not poor, but they soon will be. Their host countries will grow weary of a diaspora sinking into destitution. The UNHCR believes this exodus is the biggest displacement in the Arab world since the flight from Palestine in 1948. Meanwhile, those without the means to leave stay home and die.

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link

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

1 comment:

  1. Okay, if Mary Riddell thinks that even anarchy in Iraq won't cause the US military to withdraw, then we have to find a way to exert pressure on the decision makers here in the USA. If the Iraqis can't get the monkey off their back, so to speak, we owe it to them, and to ourselves, to work for that.

    We have to make it politically obsolete to support the ongoing presence of US military forces in Iraq. I like that Martin Luther King, Jr. quote!

    That's the mission, should you choose to accept it. Anybody with me?

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