SOMETIMES ONE HAS TO LOOK UNDER THE RUG TO FIND THE DIRT

Sometimes one has to look under the rug to find the dirt

I noticed an Associated Press article in my State Paper on Thursday November 8th.   It was about the return of 46,030 Iraqi refugees back to Iraq.  Brigadier General Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for a U.S. - Iraqi military push to pacify Baghdad, attributed the large number of returnees to the “improving security situation” in Baghdad.  A reader’s letter to the paper quoted this same article shaming all those who oppose the “surge”.  But other reports I have been reading give a different reason for the return of refugees.  Those other reports quote the reason for the return as a result of surrounding countries beginning to force out those Iraqi refugees.   Many Iraqi refugees have increasingly begun to be arrested by their host country and “sent” back to Iraq.  It is either return or languish in Jail, and not surprisingly, most Iraqis have chosen to return when given the option.

A typical example is presented by illustrating the plight of Ziad Qahtan Naeem and his family, six of those 46,030 who did return from Syria to their house in war-battered Baghdad.   These six refugees from the Naeem family were six of the more than a million Iraqis who fled Iraq to Syria to escape the ravages of that war. Naeem likened the return to Baghdad as a “death sentence”.   The reason they left Syria?  According to Ziad Naeem, they ran out of money and the Syrian authorities will not let them legally work in Syria.  So they either had to starve to death in Syria or take their chances in Baghdad.   Almost a million refugees have also fled to Jordan but the Jordanian Government has begun to force out the Iraqi refugees because those officials believe they have become too much of a burden to Jordan.

So the Associated Press report just may be somewhat off the fact.  And then again it might be “spin” to pump an agenda.  Whether it is spin or was the result of misinformation by the AP writer, the fact is upwards of five million Iraqi war refugees are facing more grief and who knows for how long it will continue.  But at least they can be happy they are not one of another statistical set  – one million dead Iraqis as casualties of the war.  And 65% of the dead are women and children.

Those who have fled plus those who have died constitute about 24% of the original Iraqi population.  In perspective, if America was to lose that same percent of population, then about 72 million Americans would no longer be alive and in our country.  And if we happened to come under the same conditions as the Iraqis, the great majority of those who would no longer to be found in America would be the likes of Doctors, Dentists, Engineers, and other educated Professionals who would be crucial to our recovery.  We would have to look to the morality of our conquerors to restore our lives.

And what was it that the Iraqi people did to America?  I can’t think of anything.  Remember they had nothing to do with 9/11, had no organized Al-Queida, and was definitely not a threat to America.  So why did we do this to them?  We should never forget that Iraq didn’t ask for this.  Yes they were under the thumb of a brutal Dictator, but this war was not of their choosing.  And the result of the carnage has been a destroyed Iraq, an uncertain future for the Iraqi survivors of this war, years of inadequate Iraqi infrastructure to endure for those survivors, and the guarantee that other countries of our World will try to rip off their one resource that could restore their ability to recover – their oil.  The current estimate is that oil is worth approximately $21 Trillion dollars (That’s 21 thousand Billion) Just possibly the value of that resource might have been the underlying basis of the war from the get go.  Retired General Wesley Clark recently stated on C-Span Book Notes that he spoke with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991 about the plan to invade seven Mid-East Countries, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Afghanistan, and Jordan.  Today we have gone to war against two, bombed one, allowed two to be ravaged by Israel, have undercover mercenaries in two at this moment, and with a steady drumbeat to initiate a war against Iran.    

There are those in America that insist the blame should be cast on the Iraqi people.  They cite all manner of reasons, the tired old WMD story, the need to free the Iraqi people from Hussein (although those refugees may today believe they have traveled from Hell #1 to Hell #2) and yes there are maybe a million of them who were forever freed from Hussein  - and from life.  Those who are still alive and have remained in Iraq are free also – free to suffer the injustice of this war.  Now they have to suffer another insult, those who support the war call this new enemy Security Contractors, but they are actually a Mercenary army that now outnumbers the United States soldiers currently on the ground in Iraq.   They have been indiscriminately killing Iraqis from day one.  And those mercenaries are paid from three to ten times the pay of our soldiers in uniform.  The GAO has stated the Contractors have consumed about 40% of the One Trillion dollars already spent on the war.  That’s about $400 Billion to date.  This is a Corporate Army with absolutely no incentive to help the war end.  Their incentive would be just the opposite.  And so the war goes on.

Who is blocking the stopping of the Iraqi war?  If 65 out of every 100 people in America are for stopping this war, and this is backed up by data, then the other 35% must be the ones who are keeping the war going.   The question is why are they keeping it going?  Some portion of this 35% surely must believe that it is necessary.  But just exactly what is it that America will gain from keeping it going?  Lets see, no WMD, Acceptance of Saddam’s offer of exile would have removed the Regime change argument, but then if we hadn’t invaded, the Iraqis would still control their oil and the Corporate Armies and the Military Industrial Complex wouldn’t have gotten their share of the War’s $Trillion dollar cost, and those poor ole oil Companies might have missed out on the $21 Trillion value of that oil.  There are people who profit from war and rumors of war.  

Ironically, the American voters put into office a majority of Democrats with a mandate to put a stop to this immoral war.  One year later they have refused to end it.  Yes, they claim not to have the wherewithal to override the Republican obstinacy but this is just an excuse not a reason, since the Democrats could stop it at anytime by not funding the war anymore.  They have refused to do this.  So the carnage continues.  And so does the deceit.  And so does the profits for the Corporations.  And yes, so does the misery of the victims of the war – the Iraqis and the American soldiers.  The truth about the reason for the war, the continuance of the war, the plight of the Iraqis, soldiers dying for Corporation profits, all get swept under the rug, to hide the ugliness from the world and especially the American people.  We just have to lift the rug to see the dirt.  Unfortunately this is a task our mainstream media refuses to participate in.