So, yeah...remember that whole Iraq war thing? Remember all the refugees flooding into Syria?

[WilliamPitt]

Last edited Tue Aug 27, 2013, 07:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Remember the Iraq war? Millions of displaced Iraqis running for their lives? A couple million of them wound up in Syria, thanks to Syria's open-door citizenship policy for Muslims around the world.

To wit: if you're Muslim and come to Syria, you'll get housing and assistance until you land a job...but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees tore that welcome mat apart by dint of sheer mass.

There were food riots in Syria a few short years ago. The government had to sharply curtail the largesse they gave their new Muslim immigrants, and resentment festered. Plus, a lot of people were pissed about what happened in Iraq. Syrian society was put under enormous stress, and began to fray.

So, yeah, the Iraq war probably had at least something to do with the reasons why Syria descended into civil war. Kinda sorta. And stuff.

And the lead cheerleader for that disaster?

Oh, he's painting cats now.

These New George W. Bush Paintings May Herald a "Cat Period"
http://gawker.com/these-new-george-w-bush-paintings-may-herald-a-cat-pe-1209373403

Motherfucker.

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. Syria was a backward-assed murderous regime long before Iraq. nt

[WilliamPitt]

3. Enduring a civil war?

You fail.

[Civilization2]

48. ok,. then Iraq must have had not effect then,. .

War begets war,. peace begets peace.

If we would simply not fight/cause wars, for corporations and banksters, and instead work at social uplift, the world would be a much better place.

reminds me;

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”


― Bill Hicks

[truedelphi]

53. Thank you. I hav ebeen thinking a

Lot about Bill Hicks myself, during these troubled hours.

[leftstreet]

2. Good Gawdz. Are those paint-by-number?

DURec for the post

[joeybee12]

4. I hate Bush even more now that he's painting cats...

Cats are wonderful...he should not be associated with them at all.

[Enthusiast]

37. He doesn't deserve cats.

[Kennah]

58. May cats everywhere visit hairballs upon him and his for seven generations

[progressoid]

5. Meh.

I'm sure after we drop a few dozen bombs on them, they'll be right as rain.

[HooptieWagon]

6. I always wondered what happened to Riverbend.

The Baghdad is Burning blogger. Her last posts were shortly after arriving in Syria, IIRC.

[TexasProgresive]

17. She posted again in April

Baghdad Burning
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Ten Years On...
April 9, 2013 marks ten years since the fall of Baghdad. Ten years since the invasion. Since the lives of millions of Iraqis changed forever. It’s difficult to believe. It feels like only yesterday I was sharing day to day activities with the world. I feel obliged today to put my thoughts down on the blog once again, probably for the last time.

In 2003, we were counting our lives in days and weeks. Would we make it to next month? Would we make it through the summer? Some of us did and many of us didn't.

Back in 2003, one year seemed like a lifetime ahead. The idiots said, “Things will improve immediately.” The optimists were giving our occupiers a year, or two… The realists said, “Things won’t improve for at least five years.” And the pessimists? The pessimists said, “It will take ten years. It will take a decade.”

[HooptieWagon]

26. Thanks.

I followed her blog. Glad to hear she's alive and as well as can be expected. I hope she'll still post occasionally.

[Ghost Dog]

33. What a beautiful person,

to be much respected.

[whoopingcrone]

19. Riverbend Update

She posted again this April and mentioned that the
family left Syria "before the heavy fighting started."

[KamaAina]

7. That loud thud you just heard

was another large chunk of our moral authority for an attack crashing to the ground.

[bvar22]

8. Goodwin would not approve, but poor George's art....

...bears a marked likeness to Hitler's.

[Hydra]

13. It really does, doesn't it?

Just screams "blah..."

I have to say though, the German blah is almost pleasant compared to the Faux Texan's.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. I hope you don't mind hearing how good you are when you are on a topic you are familiar with.

Your posts today have been excellent.

[WilliamPitt]

18. Thanks!

[Autumn]

10. I consoled myself for quite a while that Bush was irrelevant and had slid into the dustbin

of history. I was wrong, his policies and murderous mistakes still endure.

[Link Speed]

11. That's because the same people are running The Show

The faces you see on teevee and the floors of government are merely Trick Ponies.

[spanone]

12. the repercussions from that motherfucker are being felt right now

[lastlib]

14. Him and Cheney and the PNACer gang..!

FUCK 'EM ALL!! with a rusty syphilis-infected pitchfork!

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

[kestrel91316]

15. Those poor dogs (the yellow ones) look like their heads are deformed by skull tumors.

We need a smiley that is sadly shaking its head.

[Zorra]

16. It's part of how the 1% - MIC - Neoliberalcon doctrine of eternal war works.

THE THIRD PIECE MIGRATION, THE ERRANT NIGHTMARE.

We spoke beforehand of the existence of new territories, at the end of the Third World War, which awaited conquest (the old socialist countries), and of others which should have been re-conquered by the "new world order". In order to achieve it, the financial centers carried out a criminal and brutal third strategy; the proliferation of "regional wars" and "internal conflicts", which mobilized great masses of workers and allowed capital to follow routes of atypical accumulation.

The results of this world war of conquest was a great ring of millions of migrants in all the world "Foreigners" in the world "without borders" which the victors of the Third World War promised. Millions of people suffered xenophobic persecution, precarious labor conditions, loss of cultural identity, police repression, hunger, prison, death.

With different names, under a judicial differentiation, sharing an equality of misery, the migrants or refugees or displaced of all the world are "foreigners" who are tolerated or rejected. The nightmare of migration, whatever its causes, continues to roll and grow over the planet's surface. The number of people who are accounted for in the statistics of the UN High Commission on Refugees has grown disproportionately from some 2 million in 1975 to 27 million in 1995.

[freshwest]

31. Very good piece. Will read it.

[NealK]

20. Iraq war thing? Doesn't ring a bell.

Now let's bomb Syria because we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a Sarin cloud.

[obxhead]

21. Now, maybe more than a decade later for some of the refugees

They will fear once again being injured or killed by American missiles and bombs.

I just don't get it. If Romney were talking about a strike on Syria today DU would be in a unanimous uproar over it.

[Cleita]

22. Was he getting too wrinkly in the bathtub?

Maybe one of his models might claw his balls off. It will be the only justice he will ever be served.

[LuvNewcastle]

45. Awesome post, Cleita.

[KoKo]

23. Indeed...Bizarre...but, so many of us Love Cats..how can we deny his

Pleasure with them..and his connection with those of us who Love the Kitteh's.

He does have a least ONE Good Side to his BLACK HEART....he loves our Kitteh's.

And God will shine on him for that...if he repents for the "kitteh's he KILLED" with his War Policy. THEY WERE INNOCENT and HE KILLED THEM!

It's true, Will...he did. Along with the Children and Families who loved them...

And when you kill a kids and families fellow dwellers (their pets) you've killed another or other "Innocents."

Just saying.... War kills everything in it's path. And the things that matter the most.

Bush needs to REPENT HIS SINS...before he paints another KITTEH Portrait.

He's still SCUM...but, his whole personality is so twisted...that Repentance for his Crimes is the only way he will ever find his true artist's talents in DARING to PORTRAIT PAINT...a KITTEH...because....THEY KNOW! They ALWAYS KNOW...

(Just going off on this...pay no mind..)

[etherealtruth]

24. My former neighbors were Iraqi immigrants

(immigrated prior to "the war" to escape Saddam Hussein)

Many in their family moved to Syria when we attacked Iraq hoping to flee war zones. They are weighing heavily on my mind.

Not that it really matters, but they are Christian ad have not fared well.

[kelliekat44]

30. They weren't bothered as Christians in Iraq before we invaded. Sadaam's Amb to US was Christian

But of course this really doesn't matter to the US.

[etherealtruth]

36. No they were not bothered because they were Christian

Tarik Aziz (sp) was Christian .... however, Samir and Maisa fled specifically because of Saddam Hussein

[Scootaloo]

25. The plan to dissolve the Middle East continues as scheduled

Don't let people fool you, this agenda didn't appear with PNAC - they just articulated and consolidated the points that had been in motion since Truman.

[DeSwiss]

27. Motherfucker, indeed.

- K&R

[railsback]

28. So, we forced Assad to bomb peaceful protesters who just wanted more freedom

Man, we are evil!

[ozone_man]

34. During war, the first casualty is truth.

I would offer a corollary that in the run up to war, the first casualty is truth. Who is funding these so called rebels? Will Syria look like Iraq does now if we invade? I think so.

[Demeter]

42. And how is that different from "peace"?

Or is it perpetual war yet?

[Drunken Irishman]

51. Yes. Assad is actually a good guy.

Don't be fooled by the propaganda. Trust Russia on this. They're really the truthful nation. Nothing is happening in Syria. All these videos are fabricated.

Don't buy the lie!

[truedelphi]

57. Well probably not.

I mean, I''m not sure that we can be blamed for this, if it indeed happened. But those of us who ave been around the block a few times are understandably dubious - Gulf of Tonkin, Weapons of Mass Destruction and all that. Kuwaiti babies thrown out of their incubators by the ever nasty Iraqi soldiers, and how that turned out to be a "fib."

And then there is the overwhelming notion that maybe as a nation, we are not the best nation to come forward and say, Shame on you!

After all, Assad did not give the orders for My Lai, or Abu Gharib. Nor did he lie a nation of three hundred million people into our attack on Iraq.

[WillyT]

29. K & R !!!

[freshwest]

32. Good perspective on how this evolved. Thanks.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. All that's missing from this venture is the cowboy boots and smirk.

[steve2470]

38. k&r nt

[KrazyinKS]

39. Good Point!

Thanks for refreshing out memory, a little history always helps to try to understand things. A little point we haven't heard about from other news sources.

[TBF]

40. I'm grateful you linked to the cats as opposed to the nude series. nt

[Demeter]

41. The past is not dead. It's not even past.

William Faulkner

[sinkingfeeling]

43. And Syrians have been pouring into both Jordan and Egypt since 2012. I met

an absolutely adorable Syrian lad of about 15 or 16 in Alexandria last fall. He came up to my sister and I in a mall and asked if we were American. I told him yes and he expressed his 'love of your Obama' He said he had been sent to relatives in Egypt to avoid being caught up in the violence in Syria. I wish I could have brought him home. I think of him a lot these days.

[Tom_Foolery]

44. He signs his work with "43"...

He is just a number now.

[Township75]

46. So is his going to be the new excuse to support attacking Syria?

Our Dem president didn't have much of a choice because of that Bush guy?

We can support it if somehow attacking Syria is a reflection of how bad Bush was.

[truedelphi]

54. Playbook Number Forty - what to do when your Pres. Polling Numbers are

In the Toilet:

When as President your polling numbers start declining, proceed at once to announcing the moral high ground of having to fight a new war. Ignore any common sense facts about why it would not be good to do so.

Also do not be concerned about the cost. There is ALWAYS enough money for the military endeavors; the middle class has no ability to resist the tax increases.

[suffragette]

47. Will, leave it to you to look at history and unintended consequences and stuff

When so many others are busy pounding the drums of war.

Love you for doing that

Keep it up!

[libodem]

49. Thank you Will

For bringing this out. Syria has a very vulnerable population of refugees from Iraq because of us. Putting them back in a war zone seems horribly wrong. Those people need protection and help. Not more war.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

50. I'm quite happy for Chimpy to be painting...

...cats or whatever he likes -- so long as it's from behind prison bars where he, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Blair and a host of other war criminals rightly belong.

[Egalitarian Thug]

55. Fortunately we're looking forward and ignoring past crimes.

I mean, what the hell can possibly be gained from prosecuting petty crimes like manufacturing war?

[The Wizard]

56. The Mad Bomber strikes again (NT)