What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day

[Jersey Devil]

What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day
by Joan Chittister

Dublin, on U.S. Inauguration Day, didn't seem to notice. Oh, they played a few clips that night of the American president saying, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

But that was not their lead story.

The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four brothers and sisters in the back seat.

A series of pictures of the incident played on the inside page, as well. A 12-year-old brother, wounded in the fray, falls face down out of the car when the car door opens, the pictures show. In another, a soldier decked out in battle gear, holds a large automatic weapon on the four children, all potential enemies, all possible suicide bombers, apparently, as they cling traumatized to one another in the back seat and the child on the ground goes on screaming in her parent's blood.

No promise of "freedom" rings in the cutline on this picture. No joy of liberty underlies the terror on these faces here.

More - http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0128-35.htm

The rest of the photos: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/middle_east_shooting_in_tal_afar/html/3.stm

[intheflow]

1. Oh my God.

What could I possibly post that would make any sense out of this?

[DemBones DemBones]

2. And what Americans do not see.

I know soldiers are human and humans make mistakes but, dear God, what ghastly mistakes. :cry:

[Jacobin]

3. And the soldiers who committed this act

They are doomed to live in agony for the rest of their lives. They may get "you did the only thing you could do" from their fellow soldiers, they may try to be brave and justify it in their own minds.

but it will slowly eat them away until they crumble. It's not their fault. It is the crime of Bush and neo-con cabal. It is the crime of democrats who enabled the neo-cons. It is the crime of ignorant voters in this country.

It is the ghastly, godawful consequence of going to war. YOu never evere ever ever ever ever go to war unless you absolutely have no other choice for your survival. Period. no buts, no ifs, no maybes. You fucking NEVER go to war unless you have NO fucking Other choice in the world.

[fooj]

4. God help us all!

Save our humanity and our souls! Amen.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. This needs everyone's attention!

:kick: