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Dusty has a great blog, It's My Right to Be Left of Center. I recently discovered that she also has a YouTube Channel. I know its from a while back, the time of the Blogswarm Against the Iraq War, but this slideshow makes a lot of points that are worth thinking about, a couple of which I would like to emphasize here.
One item she nails is the role of war profiteers in getting us into Iraq and keeping us there. One area of failed analysis is that many on the left see our presence there almost exclusively in terms of neocon foreign policy objectives. The neocons certainly have been the propagandists, but the people with the power, Bush and Cheney, were at least as motivated by personal greed and political corruption as by policy considerations. Many on the left like giving political opponents the benefit of the doubt when it comes to personal integrity. That is an admirable impulse, but when it is taken too far, it becomes an obstacle to accurate analysis.
The slideshow also points out that violence roughly doubled in Iraq between January and March of 2008, despite the alleged success of the escalation in Iraq. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the claims of the corporate media and rightists in the GOP and the Democratic Party on the supposed success of the "surge" (or perhaps "splurge"). This is yet another.
Another point of concern is the growing number of troop suicides. At home, veteran suicides are going up too. This is another cost of the Iraqtastrophe that the corporate war party hides or ignores. The video gives a personal look at the human costs of this war on American troops. I also would recommend the blog Faces of Grief to see vivid photographs of the suffering of the Iraqi people, something we as Americans are morally obligated to face and acknowledge.
As an aside, I can not help but note the irony in Kennedy's comments on secrecy, given that his administration's greatest failures, the Bay of Pigs and getting us further into the Vietnam war, were policies developed and acted on in secret.
Psycho Woman Throws Knives At Children
13 years ago
Thanks Libhomo..I appreciate your post on the facts of the occupation in Iraq.
Not only Kennedy's words, but Eisenhowers words are sadly ironic as hell.
The fact that the surge ISN"T working based on the Iraqi deathtoll is one of those 'things' our MSM hides from us. Those bastards are complicit as hell in this bullshittery.
The number of vet suicides are unconscionable as well. The VA has finally started a hotline for these vets, but without proper advertising on it..it will not get used by those that need it most.
There is a special place in hell for all the complicit bastards and bitches that continue to allow BushCo to wage this war whilst his cronies make record profits in the form of government no-bid contracts.
This YouTube was the one I worked the hardest one..and I hope it slaps everyone between the eyes that watches it. Every fact is validated that I use. There is no bullshit in it.
I heart you Libhomo..for your dedication to the cause. There aren't enough of us that do that. Lip service doesn't count and truthfully most bloggers only give it that. Armchair quarterbacking is not enough. We need civil disobedience on a grand scale and we need it every month.
The suicides are such a clear indication of the problems inherent in this war effort. Even worse is the government's refusal to acknowledge these casualties for what they are.
I saw CSNY: Deja Vu the other night, and they had a screen up at the back of their concert with all the faces on it of the dead soldiers, that was really moving.
All the soldiers interviewed for that seemed to agree on several things. People here have no idea how wrong being in Iraq is.
People here have no idea what it's like to kill an innocent person, and how horrible that makes you feel. Enough to make anybody put a gun to their heads.
One kid said he signed up to save his sister and mother from terrorists, but then realized he was killing somebody else's mother and sister.