Iraqi Child Struggles to Adjust to Losses

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_bombing_victim&cid=540&ncid=1473

BASRA, Iraq - War robbed 10-year-old Ibtihal Jassem. She lost her right leg. And the little girl who was born deaf and mute was deprived of the security of a loving family.


She was the only one in her family to survive a coalition air raid on Basra two days after the war began.


An Associated Press photograph of an uncle carrying Ibtihal into the southern city's al-Tahrir Hospital was widely used by news media around the world.


Today, while other children are back in school, she spends her days struggling with crutches in the streets of her neighborhood on the outskirts of this southern city.

more

[Lalena]

1. I wish the press would offer more stories like this one.

It seems we are so focused on our war dead that we forget what this war has done, and continues to do, to so many Iraqi families.

[newyawker99]

12. Hi Lalena!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[tlcandie]

2. I have no comment because there are so many atrocities commited

in our names all across this world! It's enough to make you not want to live anymore! :cry:

[madmax]

4. No tlcandie and pbl

Life is better! Who knows what's in store for this child. In her own life and maybe in a contribution to the future of her country.

To Life :toast:

Let's hold her and all those who are sufering close to our hearts and work to end this nightmare called bush.

[qanda]

3. That is the saddest story I have ever heard

Is this the pretty little girl in the picture with her leg mangled. I thought for sure that she was dead. In a strange way, death probably would have been a more kind outcome for this poor child. :cry:

[OneBlueSky]

5. that first line should have read "WE robbed 10-year-old Ibtihal Jassem"

and the real tragedy is all of the unknown Ibtihals in Iraq who we never hear about but whose lives have been destroyed by U.S. weapons of mass destruction . . . which is exactly what bombs are . . .

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. Someone is profitting from this child's misfortune

I'm not knocking the story...It certainly needs to be told. But I think a portion of the profits generated by the story and the photos should go to Ibtihal.

[lostnfound]

7. How deeply tied the miseries..birth defects in Basra after Gulf War I

Who knows? This girl's life may have been impacted by warfare right from the start..

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ

At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares.

The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

[Desertrose]

11. You want to see what this war is really about.....

if you haven't seen this flash animation...please check it out....very powerful!

http://kucinich.us/dk2.html

and one about DU....

http://kucinich.us/dkdu.html
(watch the second part..graphic but it needs to be seen)

War is about killing people to get what you want....
killing , maiming and leaving horrible crap that contaminates a country for years and years...so many future babies...born wrong.

You tell me...why do we not have a candidate for Pres who will get us out right away...and stop the shit we are doing?
Who are the real terrorists??

Peace
DR

more links to powerful Kucinich ads....wish they would make it onto TV
http://www.kucinich.us/video/index.php#tvads

on edit- lostnfound- this post was not directed at you...I just wanted to ad to your post about DU :)

[Gemini Cat]

8. That poor little girl.

Thanks bush. I'm sure I'll sleep better this evening, knowing you made the world safer from the likes of that innocent child and all the rest of the innocent children you've killed or otherwise ruined.
If there is a hell, I hope there's a special place for you and the rest of your dominion.

[kskiska]

9. Meanwhile, * is worrying about his feather pillows

and big screen TV on Air Force One.

[PartyPooper]

10. This story is just one of the hundreds of tragic sagas

I've read at DU during the past year. They're all tragic. Sadly, this is just one more.

:cry: