Annals of Liberation: Beer-Busting and Blood-letting in Iraq

Wednesday, 17 May 2006
"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow." -- Hamlet

The "All Day Permanent Red" in Iraq roars on relentlessly, a churning spiral of death, chaos, terror and sorrow. This week brings reports of fresh horrors in the supposedly secure south, the British-held territory long cited by the apologists for aggression as a shining example of the Bush-Blair philosophy of "democracy at gunpoint." Armed gangs of religious extremists now control Basra, where the U.S.-backed Iraqi officials report that at least "one person is being assassinated every hour." Coalition authority has collapsed in the city, where British troops are now largely confined to their fortified outposts, unable to face the violent wrath of the population they "liberated."

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the last remnants of the cosmopolitan secular culture once enjoyed by Iraqis (some recompense, perhaps, for the political repression they endured under the former US ally Saddam Hussein) are rapidly disappearing beneath the onslaught of sectarian repression. More and more women are being forced to the veil, secular academics are being systematically cut down -- even the simple pleasures of sitting down with friends for a cool beer in the evening are now being denied by violent zealots.

Worst of all, the agony h imposed for years on the children of Iraq by the US-UK sanctions regime -- which led to the unnecessary deaths of at least 500,000 people -- is now accelerating under the occupation. As Patrick Cockburn reports below, the number of children between six months and five years old suffering from acute malnourishment has more than doubled since the ouster of Hussein. It you take the severe developmental problems associated with chronic malnourishment in early childhood, and compound them with the intense psychological and emotional trauma of life in the midst of violence, brutality, fear and deprivation, then you have laid the foundation for a lifetime of suffering and hardship, for millions of people.

This is the human reality of what is happening in Iraq; this is what has been done in the high and mighty name of civilization. This is a vast crime whose malign effects cannot be undone. And still it goes on, day after day, week after week, year after year, life after life falling into the pit. >>>cont

***ChrisFloyd***