"The Americans brought electricity to my ass

[DoYouEverWonder]

before they brought it to my house"

The devastation of Iraq
By Dahr Jamail

Jan 11, 2005


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

The illegal war and occupation of Iraq was waged for three reasons, according to the administration of US President George W Bush. First for weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found. Second, because the regime of Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda, which Bush has personally admitted have never been proved. The third reason - embedded in the very name of the invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom - was to liberate the Iraqi people.

<snip>

In December 2003, for instance, a man in Baghdad, speaking of the Abu Ghraib atrocities, said to me, "Why do they use these actions? Even Saddam Hussein did not do that. This is not good behavior. They are not coming to liberate Iraq." And by then the bleak jokes of the beleaguered had already begun to circulate. In the dark humor that has become so popular in Baghdad these days, one recently released Abu Ghraib detainee I interviewed said, "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house."

Sadiq Zoman is fairly typical of what I've seen. Taken from his home in Kirkuk in July 2003, he was held in a military detention facility near Tikrit before being dropped off comatose at the Salahadin General Hospital by US forces one month later. While the medical report accompanying him, signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Hodges, stated that Zoman was comatose because of a heart attack brought on by heat stroke, it failed to mention that his head had been bludgeoned, or to note the electrical burn marks that scorched his penis and the bottoms of his feet, or the bruises and whip-like marks up and down his body.


more....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GA11Ak01.html


Of course, the US MSM continues to ignore these attrocities that Bush & Co are inflicting on the Iraq people in the name of freedom and democracy. Don't you know, cheerleaders make human pyramids all the time, so it's okay.

[Seldona]

1. "The Americans brought electricity to my ass

before they brought it to my house."

I think I am going to be sick. No one will mention the fact that this article points out that we are torturing INNOCENT civilians.

He would not have been released if he wasn't innocent.

My freaking great grandchildren will be living with the stigma of what happened there.

It is hard not to lose faith in the people of this country at times like this.

I just cannot comprehend how * is not sitting in an orange jumpsuit someplace, let alone how the people finally elected this psychopath this time around.

This one will be with me all day.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. What is even sicker is that we are committing this genocide

all in the name of George Bush's god. The perversion and sickness of Bush and the fundies that follow him are beyond comprehension.

[Seldona]

4. Agreed.

Did they have those 'Vote Morals, Vote Republican' type signs in your area?

Made me sick to look at them, and I had to pass a couple every day on the way to the shop.

If this is republican morality, then I am damn glad I have no part in it. It is just sick.

[gonefishing]

2. Boyz N the Hood II

Remember the end when Doughboy says:

"Either they don't know; don't show; or care about what's going on in the hood"

The Red states Either they don't know; don't show; or care about what's going on in Iraq

BTW: In case you missed this one posted earlier>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1387460,00.html

[leftchick]

5. Woman tortured and her husband beaten to death by the US!

I read this yesterday at commondreams.org. Isn't this just devastating?? I am so ashamed of this country....

~snip~

Last summer I interviewed a kind 55-year-old woman who used to work as an English teacher. She had been detained for four months in as many prisons ... in Samarra, Tikrit, Baghdad and, of course, Abu Ghraib. She was never, she told me, allowed to sleep through a night. She was interrogated many times each day, not given enough food or water, or access to a lawyer or to her family. She was verbally and psychologically abused.

But that, she assured me, wasn't the worst part. Not by far. Her 70-year-old husband was also detained and he was beaten. After seven months of beatings and interrogations, he died in US military custody in prison.

She was crying as she spoke of him. "I miss my husband," she sobbed and stood up, speaking not to us but to the room, "I miss him so much." She shook her hands as if to fling water off them ... then she held her chest and cried some more.

"Why are they doing this to us?" she asked. She simply couldn't understand, she said, what was happening because two of her sons were also detained, and her family had been completely shattered. "We didn't do anything wrong," she whimpered.

[American Tragedy]

7. My God why

:cry:

[seabeyond]

6. was to liberate the Iraqi people.

lets remember the story. it is hard to remember the story with bush because he changes it so much. when he first went to war was weapons and 9/11 and clearly and often said it is not about nation building, it is not about getting dictator out to help the iraq people. remember that is NOT a reason conservatives go to war, to help people

he only adopted as did all the repugs, helping, liberating the iraqi people after all his other reasons fell to the way side. i say this because i want this shot down anytime anyone says we are helping the people. what would it have been like if we didnt remove saddam, yada yada yada........now there is many things to say to that alone, but he clearly said that is not the reason they are doing war, prior to the war, to convince american people on the war

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. It was all a pack of lies

but it's okay because he did it in the name of Jesus.