The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.
Would we find this acceptable in this country?
Yet, Mr "Stay the course" does not seem to care about the well being of the Iraqi's any more than he cares about ours. One of his reasons for vetoing the "deadline" bill was that billions of non-emergency dollars were to go elsewhere, rather than his wars.
In Iraq, the people have only bouts of power. Doctors have fled the country. The water is contaminated, the air is heavily polluted. They live with daily violence and fear. Morgues are overflowing - and remember, there's only a few hours of power per day. Any guesses on how contaminated that air is?
Now, let's pretend the U.S. pulled the majority of it's troops out of Iraq. We tell the elected Iraqi government to step up and take control or hold a no-confidence re-election. Take the billions we wanted to bomb them with and turn that into electric companies, wind power, solar power. We build hospitals and schools and bring back the doctors. Clean the messes that we have made, rebuild with Iraqi construction companies, not a no-bid-no-brainer like Halliburton. Employ the poor, shelter the now homeless. Hope, confidence in their government, a clean environment, safety, THAT is Iraqi Freedom Not what they are getting.
They did not deserve this. They certainly don't deserve more of it.
Our troops deserve to have a plan and an exit strategy. They deserve to be told the truth, they deserve to know who and what it is they are fighting and why. Not the lies and the set-up to fail BS that they received.
The Bush administration has steam-rolled its way over everyone and every thing in it's path. It has refused to listen and see. Despite all of the evidence, they still see themselves as heros and saviors. They have defiled a constitution, three countries, stood by while funds to rebuild after Katrina criminally disappeared. An administration who appoints a horse expert to the head of FEMA cares not for his people.
Look around. This administration has left nothing but pain and suffering and devastation in it's wake. It's no wonder we are hated.
My only question is this, how much longer can we afford to let this continue? I know the Iraqi people can't last much longer, our tired troops can't. So, what now?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Not to mention that we are now the subject of children's nightmares, the terrorists known only as Americans. I hate this. I truly hate this war and all the people who perpetrated it in our name.
Damn Ziem, did you read my mind? I just blogged about this very same thing today. I guess GREAT minds really do think alike! I agree this administration (if you can call it that) could care less about the people & what they want. Maybe if we changed our names to Hellaburden they would care. ITMFN!!!!!
oh YES. Some real solutions are offered here!!
Excellent post, ziem.
There has been plenty of less than brilliant leaders in the world and, unfortunately, there will be more still to come. Generally speaking, in democracies, their stupidity is more limited and kept under the wraps.
This is why, the present leader of the free world, in the greatest democracy of them all, takes my breath away. Like some sort of a wound-up toy, he marches on from a fiasco via a disaster to a gatastrophe without missing a beat. I have no idea (or maybe I do), how good bush is as a local or a regional leader, but I know now as I knew when he became the president, that he is a woefully ignorant about the world outside the borders of the U.S., which is a disaster waiting to happen in a president. In that score, he has even exceeded my fearful expectations. As to what kind of local/regional leader he would be, I leave debating to you, the Americans.
Suprisingly, many of us still like Americans despite of all the best efforts by your preznit to makes us hate you.
Though it pains me unbearably to say this, but my friend, Pekka, is too expansive in discussing my native country. The United States of America is the ex-"leader of the free world", is the once-'greatest democracy of them all', our president has been certified as being the worst president my country has ever had, and the electorate which elected him is the most uninformed and inattentive electorate in the modern world. But Pekka is right about one thing: it is surprising that Americans, as a people, are still liked in many countries of the world.
Post a Comment