kpete Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Mon Aug-23-10 07:40 PM
Original message
We ALL Lost: "The American public has no idea just how terrible we've made conditions in Iraq" Updated at 3:07 AM
Edited on Mon Aug-23-10 08:10 PM by kpete
U.S. Occupation of Iraq More Than Doubles Poverty, Sickness -- Leaves Country a Total Disaster
The American public has no idea just how terrible we've made conditions in Iraq.
August 22, 2010 |
Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.
UN-HABITAT, an agency of the United Nations, recently published a 218-page report http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publ... entitled State of the World’s Cities, 2010-2011. The report is full of statistics on the status of cities around the world and their demographics. It defines slum dwellers as those living in urban centers without one of the following: durable structures to protect them from climate, sufficient living area, sufficient access to water, access to sanitation facilities, and freedom from eviction.
Almost intentionally hidden in these statistics is one shocking fact about urban Iraqi populations. For the past few decades, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the percentage of the urban population living in slums in Iraq hovered just below 20 percent. Today, that percentage has risen to 53 percent: 11 million of the 19 million total urban dwellers. In the past decade, most countries have made progress toward reducing slum dwellers. But Iraq has gone rapidly and dangerously in the opposite direction.
According to the U.S. Census of 2000, 80 percent of the 285 million people living in the United States are urban dwellers. Those living in slums are well below 5 percent. If we translate the Iraqi statistic into the U.S. context, 121 million people in the United States would be living in slums.
more:
http://www.alternet.org/story/147928/u.s._occupation_of... /
http://www.fpif.org/articles/what_you_will_not_hear_abo...
wtmusic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Mon Aug-23-10 07:41 PM
Response to Original message
1. War crimes for Bush. nt
Can someone point out the law that requires the US to treat Iraq as a ward once the US has granted and Iraq has acknowledge its independent sovereignty.
Larry Ogg (880 posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Aug-23-10 11:50 PM
Response to Reply #1
35. So if Bush is a war criminal (which I believe he is) Updated at 2:02 AM
what then should we call those who refused to investigate, impeach and prosecute?
Your candidates for 2010 and 2012.
Thank-you for your donations and support.
wtmusic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Tue Aug-24-10 02:26 AM
Response to Reply #35
46. Negligent at best, accomplices at worst. nt
Raster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Aug-24-10 05:02 AM
Response to Reply #35
50. collaborators and accomplices
Yes, but can they count on your vote in November?
Butch350 (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Aug-24-10 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #35
61. Left holding the bag.
If only the Commander-in-Chief and congress weren't so powerless.
Usrename Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Aug-24-10 12:22 PM
Response to Reply #35
62. According to the Nuremberg Principles, they would be complicit.
On a tangental subject, failure to investigate credible accusations of torture becomes a separate War Crime under the UN Convention Against Torture. These people (including the Speaker of the House) have a moral and legal duty here.
indecision is the main cause of delay
At which point we breathlessly await the next thread on DU extolling San Fran Gran Nan's virtues for making some lame snark about the GOP.
Snark does, after all, cover a multitude of sins.
MissDeeds Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Aug-24-10 12:37 PM
Response to Reply #35
63. And what should we call those who
chose to continue his wars?
They guy you voted for and will vote for again.
I mean, really, do you honestly want Obama to sacrifice another 5 points among independents just to mollify you? Whats a few thousand US kids mutilated to death just to hedge with the electorate especially when you pussies aren't going to do anything to really stop him and vote anyway.
If you're REALLY looking for co-conspirators, collaborators and the complicit look no further than the mirror...
...unless this is once more a demonstrations of the feckless, unprincipled nature of liberalism.
You people only bitch now because you bitched when it was Bush's war. Faux paeans to the beleaguered Iraqis let you keep your cred among yourselves but at the end of the day you still vote for Obama, Pelosi and the rest. You tried for 5 years to claim your people were lied to in order to get them to go to war. You knew that claim wasn't true then and now with your peeps in charge you can't say it anymore. It's not losing a war that grates against you so hard, it's losing the facade for unreasoned hatred over something so petty as Gore losing to a Bible-thumping hick with a stumbling tongue. It really goes no deeper than that. You lost to a moron and you;re losing to him even after he leaves office.
indepat (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Aug-23-10 07:48 PM
Response to Original message
4. Lincoln's words "The world will never forget what they did here" comes to
mind. :cry:
Gettysburg <--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> War crimes
gratuitous (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Aug-23-10 08:09 PM
Response to Original message
5. Very useful information
When we hear (and you know we will) from the Nitwit Brigade about what a terrific thing it was that we invaded Iraq, executed its dictator, and occupied the country for seven years, you might keep this little factoid handy in memory. I wonder how many would think it was a good trade should this have happened in their neighborhood?
Vote Mussolini 2012.
Tarins. On-time. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.
dixiegrrrrl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Aug-23-10 08:20 PM
Response to Original message
6. And the US did that intentionally.[/b]
From the start of the attack they destroyed or permitted to be It defines slum dwellers asdestroyed hospitals, power plants, water plants,
everything a city needed, then imposed curfews so people could not work, barricaded towns and neighborhoods so nothing could move in or out.
Fortunately, at the time and later, all of this was reported.It defines slum dwellers as
Unfortunately, not enough people seemed to care about the reports.
But all the while, as the stories were revealed over the years, I kept thinking:
" This is OUR future. At some point, we WILL be next, in some fashion."
How many people live in Ca.or Nev. or Ariz.or DC., New York, Michigan, etc.meet the definition of slum dwellers:
those living in urban centers without one of the following:
durable structures to protect them from climate, ( the homeless)
sufficient living area,( tent cities)
sufficient access to water, access to sanitation facilities,( homeless and tent cities)
freedom from eviction.
That is 11 million people, if you break down the stats in the article's quoted Census report.
Now add the millions in this country living one check from eviction,
We've gone from a country who's population instinctively knew there was no free lunch to one who's population has convinced itself that the consumption of free lunches is a revenue generating activity.
Which is worse:
A) rambling
B) structure
C) self contradiction
I vote: YES!
bobbolink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Aug-24-10 12:02 AM
Response to Reply #6
38. Thank you. That's a very good breakdown! I appreciate being remembered from time to time.
Although, it is not pleasant to think of myself as a "slum dweller".
Wonder when this country will take this seriously, and make sure everyone is housed????
Then they squabble about the definition of neo-liberalism.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9000859#9000881
