Iraq expert and author Jeff Archer recalls an Iraq which existed once in one of his columns. He laments that “Once upon a time” Iraqi women could dress as they wished, while comprising 55% of the workforce and gaining the same free and even subsidized education which Iraqi guys got. He recalled a time when teens were free to be teenagers, listening to rock and roll, rap, punk, heavy metal and other musical strains of youth culture. He remembered a time when homosexuals were left alone and Iraqi citizens could safely walk their streets without fear of robbery, rape, kidnapping and murder. Archer was describing the days in which the much-vilified Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein were presiding over Iraq, days which most Iraqis of all backgrounds, those who have survived, pine for. What has happened to Iraq in the ten years since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation has turned most of the country into a shambles. Electricity and water are hard to obtain and sporadic. The electrical, water and agriculture of Iraq has been destroyed over the course of the last 33 years, as Ba’athist Iraq struggled to maintain its independence, its integrity and its dignity in a state of siege and under constant attack. Iraq was never given a chance to breathe, as it was warred on, had sanctions applied to the point of causing hundreds of thousands of infant deaths, had its infrastructure repeatedly and systematically bombed out and suffered three decades of hell, courtesy of the warmaking “Globalizers” of what is called the “International Community”, and led, to its everlasting shame, by the United States of America.
But it was not Saddam who “butchered” Baghdad. Someone else poisoned the crops, killed the livestock, burned the wheat fields, left depleted uranium in various parts of the country that have already produced tens of thousands of stillborn and deformed babies and the usual accompanying soaring cancer rates in the neighborhood.
My dear fellow all-American mushrooms, who have been fertilized with Big Lies and left in the dark to suffer the cost of ignorance which can only be perpetual subservience, it was what passes itself off as “our” United States government that brought all these atrocities to pass and turned a promising Iraq into a hell for its people. Every day, there are reported to be an average of 18 bombings and 53 violent deaths in Iraq. Religious fanatics target gays and women, often for death. It is estimated that over 750 homosexuals have paid for their orientation with their lives. The rock sub-cult known as the “Emos” were officially targeted by the Minstry of the Interior, which is known to operate its own squads as well as coordinating a network of others. 58 “Emos” were confirmed as murdered in March 2012, and the repression against them, as with others, continues. Many were killed by being crushed with concrete blocks. Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Badr Brigades have long been in on a lot of this type of activity.
This followed a long campaign of “De-Ba’athification” which may have involved the murder of over 120,000 “Ba’athists”, in which Moqtada joined other Iranian assets in wreaking vengeance on the Ba’ath. 16 of the “Emos” were disappeared in his bailiwick of Sadr City. They could be identified by their “Strange tight clothes with picture s of skulls on them”. Teenagers everywhere wear such clothing and will be listening to their music. But to do so in Iraq today may place one’s life in peril. Women who are out “unescorted” by an approved relative and/or wearing what the morality police deem as inappropriate face a range of punishments ranging up to the supreme penalty, often taking place instantly and on the spot. The killing of a variety of Christians, other ethnic and national groups and religious sects has assumed intolerable proportions. 400 Yezidis were killed with four bombs in August 2007 alone. The Chaldean Archbishop and a lot of other churchmen of various denominations have been knocked off. Chaldeans, Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians and Sabaean/Mandeans (followers of John the Baptist) are all fleeing for their lives. 20% of the Iraqi population has been displaced. There are half a million homeless kids wandering around. People are selling their babies and children with the going rate around $10,000 but bargains are available as desperate parents want to save their children’s lives and possibly their own.
The protesters also called for a return of those surviving Ba’athists who loyally served Iraq, in contrast to its present rulers. A preacher in Ramadi exclaimed, “We are honored to be Ba’athists. The Ba’athists built Iraq for 35 years. Go to hell: you, your constitution and your ‘De-Ba’athification Law’!”
Meanwhile, the people continue to pour out into the squares and streets all over Iraq, proclaiming that “It Is Time to Recover Our Rights”. Shi’ite death squads stage counter-demonstrations in support of the Nuri Maliki government and against any such notion as “rights” for others besides themselves and their right to continue their assaults on Iraqis. “Al-Qaeda” carries out largely sectarian-oriented attacks against Shi’tes, which the protesting masses condemn, as did and does the Ba’ath. Repression is breeding resistance. Too bad the world knows so little about what is taking place. Americans should ask themselves, should anyone ever have to undergo what Iraq has had to endure, and is still enduring? Source: Submitted to Axis of Logic by the author |