Iraq: The Devastation

[G_j]

The invasion of Iraq was just a preview of the untold misery and destruction to come under U.S. occupation.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5028

Wednesday 12th January 2005 (21h30) :

Iraq: The Devastation

By Dahr Jamail


The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working 7 of the last 12 months in Iraq, I’m still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.

<snip>
So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I’ve been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I’ve traveled in the south, north, and extensively around central Iraq. What I saw in the first months of 2004, however, when it was easier for a foreign reporter to travel the country, offered a powerful - even predictive - taste of the horrors to come in the rest of the year (and undoubtedly in 2005 as well). It’s worth returning to the now forgotten first half of last year and remembering just how terrible things were for Iraqis even relatively early in our occupation of their country.

Iraqis were then already bitter, confused, and existing amid a desolation that came from myriads of Bush administration broken promises. Quite literally every liberated Iraqi I’ve gotten to know from my earliest days in the country has either had a family member or a friend killed by U.S. soldiers or from the effects of the war/occupation. These include such everyday facts of life as not having enough money for food or fuel due to massive unemployment and soaring energy prices, or any of the countless other horrors caused by the aforementioned. The broken promises, broken infrastructure, and broken cities of Iraq were plainly visible in those early months of 2004 - and the sad thing is that the devastation I saw then has only grown worse since. The life Iraqis were living a year ago, horrendous as it was, was but a prelude to what was to come under the U.S. occupation. The warning signs were clear from a shattered infrastructure, to all the torturing, to a burgeoning, violent resistance.

Broken Promises

It was quickly apparent, even to a journalistic newcomer, even in those first months of last year that the real nature of the liberation we brought to Iraq was no news to Iraqis. Long before the American media decided it was time to report on the horrendous actions occurring inside Abu Ghraib prison, most Iraqis already knew that the "liberators" of their country were torturing and humiliating their countrymen.

..more..

[OneBlueSky]

1. the entire occupation of Iraq . . .

is nothing but one huge war crime . . . and BushCo are the worst international war criminals since the Nazis . . .

[G_j]

2. completely

agree.. clear and blatant breaches of the Nuremberg principals on "aggressive war", just for starters.