Riverbend: the year in review, or, you know your country is in trouble when...

[lumberjack_jeff]

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#116738820591750213

End of Another Year...
You know your country is in trouble when:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

More at the link.

[poverlay]

1. That breaks my heart. Poor Riverbend. It must stop. It must... n/t

[acmavm]

2. Wonder if the world will ever find out who this poor girl is?

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. We better hope we don't -

at least until the killing stops.

[acmavm]

5. You're right. She wouldn't last a five minutes if her identity was

known right now.

But I mean in the future. She's the only legitimate historian of this war right now. She's there and she's truthful about what happens to the civilian population. She's been candid about what she thinks and she reports what others are thinking. She deserves to be recognized for the heroine that she is, in a safer time and environment.

[Briar]

3. What's amazing is how little people care

Iraq is being torn apart. Millions of people like Riverbend have had their lives ruined. The death and destruction continue unabated. And o we continue to care only about the Christmas sales. Why this failure of indignation? Where is the outrage? How come Bush can get away with escalating the mess he has created and threatening to spread it? Because it's only brown skinned muslims suffering?

And where are the recommendations for this topic? Why do articles like this sink out of sight so quickly, so often? Let's not just blame the neocons for what has happened!

Oh yes, kicked and recommended.

[Ghost Dog]

7. Here's a rec.

(But I'm a European).

Where is the outrage? The charitable answer would seem to be that the average US citizen is just too busy between bad education, work, shopping and tv to have time to think let alone to empathise.

Others would suggest pure self-interested selfishness, I'm sorry to say.

[54anickel]

11. K&R

[maxsolomon]

6. i'm struck by her naivete and that of other iraqis

"The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional."

its so sad that she, and many many other iraqis/arabs/americans, think that this can't be utter, total incompetence.

but even sadder, it actually is. its not like our 'best & brightest' planned this - neocons did. america is a big unruly puppy - smashing into things heedless of the consequences. we don't MEAN ill, but we sure fuck things up trying to get people to like us.

i'm very glad she is still well, but she won't be living in iraq much longer. it is time for rational people to leave & save their lives.

[Ghost Dog]

8. Not so incompetent, maybe, if your aim is to replace the 'Soviet Threat'

with another excuse for a (highly profitable for some) 'Long War' abroad and a 'Police State' at home.

Riverbend provides at least some circumstantial evidence:

2006 has been, decidedly, the worst year yet. No- really. The magnitude of this war and occupation is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim, Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming apart- a chip here, a chunk there.

That is Iraq right now. The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.

The question now is, but why? I really have been asking myself that these last few days. What does America possibly gain by damaging Iraq to this extent? I'm certain only raving idiots still believe this war and occupation were about WMD or an actual fear of Saddam.

Al Qaeda? That's laughable. Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the distant hills of Afghanistan. Our children now play games of 'sniper' and 'jihadi', pretending that one hit an American soldier between the eyes and this one overturned a Humvee.

This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous- like whether your name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things- like the Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the checkpoint.

[maxsolomon]

9. to knowingly CREATE a long-term threat?

i just can't buy that yet - that would mean:

1. bush is actually machiavellian & faking his idiocy
or
2. cheney can talk bush into anything.

i buy #2, not #1. the series of mistakes in the invasion & occupation are so numerous as to create suspicion, but then i remember that this being run by republicans & the pentagon.

[Ghost Dog]

10. Further reading here, maxsolomon:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2995445