six year old children in iraq know nothing but war.....

[spanone]

just thinkin

[Mz Pip]

1. Sad isn't it.

No matter what we do next, these kids will be traumatized for a very long time, if not for the rest of their lives. So much for liberation.

[slipslidingaway]

2. K&R :( n/t

[Fleshdancer]

3. long term memory, on average, doesn't fully mature until the age of 3

So realistically, children as old as 9 know nothing but war. Children as old as 11 or 12 may remember a time of peace, but the memories are probably few and far between.

[otherlander]

4. The kid who lives next door to me

can't remember when we weren't at war. :(

[JackRiddler]

5. Actually, 29-year-old children in Iraq know nothing but war.

1979-1988: First Gulf War, Iran-Iraq. West arms both sides.

1990-1991: Gulf crisis, invasion of Kuwait; in response coalition bombs, destroys Iraqi infrastructure, kills unknown number, likely hundreds of thousands; Shiite uprising at end of Second Gulf War suppressed, est. 30,000 killed.

1992-1997: Imposition of no-fly zones by US-UK, UN sanctions regime, UN program to destroy WMD (the latter highly successful).

1997-2003: Bombings of Iraq escalate to daily to weekly after US (falsely) claims failure of sanctions and demands Iraq finally dismantle its now non-existent WMD programs. (1998, Clinton's "Desert Fox" bombings.)

2003: Bush regime launches "preventive" aggressive invasion in violation of UN Charter, US Constitution, and all notions of international law.

[kestrel91316]

6. Like the little boy in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"

(which should be required reading for all humans), who had only ever known war and death and environmental devastation........