Silent Messages from our troops in Iraq

[Ichingcarpenter]

[Sunnyshine]

1. Indeed, these are very telling pictures.

Comparing #'s 6 & 7 (peace symbol on palm and fallen soldier memorial) to that of #9 (The heinous thieves).:mad:

[hootinholler]

2. Damned DOD network...

Blocks Photobucket, youtube, yadda yadda.

I'll have to look tonight when I get home.

-Hoot

[blogslut]

3. Bremer Walls

That's what those concrete barriers in the first photo are nicknamed:

A Bremer wall is a twelve-foot-high portable, steel-reinforced concrete wall of the type used for blast protection throughout Iraq. The name is believed to have originated from L. Paul Bremer III of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who was the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq following the Iraq War of 2003 in the early years of the Iraq war...

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremer_wall

More from Naomi Klein:

With unemployment as high as 67 percent, the imported products and foreign workers flooding across the borders have become a source of tremendous resentment in Iraq and yet another open tap fueling the insurgency. And Iraqis don't have to look far for reminders of this injustice; it's on display in the most ubiquitous symbol of the occupation: the blast wall. The ten-foot-high slabs of reinforced concrete are everywhere in Iraq, separating the protected—the people in upscale hotels, luxury homes, military bases, and, of course, the Green Zone—from the unprotected and exposed. If that wasn't injury enough, all the blast walls are imported, from Kurdistan, Turkey, or even farther afield, this despite the fact that Iraq was once a major manufacturer of cement, and could easily be again. There are seventeen state-owned cement factories across the country, but most are idle or working at only half capacity. According to the Ministry of Industry, not one of these factories has received a single contract to help with the reconstruction, even though they could produce the walls and meet other needs for cement at a greatly reduced cost. The CPA pays up to $1,000 per imported blast wall; local manufacturers say they could make them for $100. Minister Tofiq says there is a simple reason why the Americans refuse to help get Iraq's cement factories running again: among those making the decisions, “no one believes in the public sector.”

link: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080197

In other words, not only are those blast walls a constant visual insult to the Iraqi people, now they are sporting advertisements for American junk food.

Amazing.

[Lugnut]

4. K&R n/t

[malaise]

5. Stunning

Thanks K & R