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September 22, 2006

Iraqis in Constant State of Terror

In case you've been missing the daily reports of tortured bodies dumped all over Iraq, Manfred Nowak, a UN official, has just issued a report claiming that the state of terror for the citizens of Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein – and the torture occurring in US detention centers and at the hands of Iraqi police may even be worse than that inflicted before we went in to bring freedom, democracy and human rights to the Iraqi people. I think I've recounted enough explicit descriptions of torture here in the last couple of days, so I'll leave it to you to read the article if you want to know the signs of torture showing up regularly on these bodies. Suffice it to say, modern power tools have expanded people's creative torture options.

The report points out the government in most of Iraq is completely broken down and in a state of primal anarchy. Nowak quotes a US Army major as saying that everyone is at war with everyone else, and the only protection people have is what they provide for themselves. The only reason the world does not know how desperate conditions are is because it is so unsafe for journalists (134 of them have been killed in Iraq during this war) that they will not go in to cover the news. Even members of the CIA have rebelled over our torture activities after being sickened by the brutality of what they saw.

And with around 100 Iraqis dying each day now, the White House's spin machine ain't spinnin' so well these days.

Bad news has cascaded out of Iraq at such an astonishing pace that it defies credulity to suggest that the war has not drastically worsened the lives of Iraqis. ...

The problem for Bush... is that many Americans are now connecting the dots and realizing that Bush's own actions brought terrorism to Iraq. So his pleas to stay the course and fix the problem he created can only garner limited sympathy.

So much for winning hearts and minds.

Posted by Becky at September 22, 2006 11:42 AM