Reaping the Discontent We've Sown...

The article linked to above is chilling, especially since it indicates that, the Al Qaeda terrorist responsible for Nick Berg's beheading, was only able to gain a foothold in Iraq AFTER we toppled Saddam Hussein last year. If you recall, there was no love lost between the religious fanatic bin Laden and the secular Hussein - despite the stupid and wreckless notion promulgated by the Bush White House that Iraq was responsible for 9-11.

We are paying dearly for our arrogance now. Over 700 U.S. soldiers dead, more dying every day and American civilians are now slaughtered publicly and on street corners in Falujah.

We railed so vehemently against Hussein and his torture chambers and we are no better, it seems, for all our moral 'high ground'. Everyone knows that the people in the higher levels of the military and intelligence units will get off lightly or entirely on the Prisoner Abuse Scandal. I've heard people say, well, sure torture is wrong, but it was just a lot of 'play acting' and at least we didn't kill anyone!'

But, you see, we did.

We did kill Iraqi prisoners.

We murdered at least 2 prisoners and at least 10 more deaths are under investigation! Photos and videotape of the acts just haven't been made public. And, I suspect, if they do exist, we never will see them.

Why is it, that actions are ignored unless there is some photo or video record of them? Hell, the White House doesn't even want the American Public to see photos of flag draped coffins, for God's Sake!

The fall-out from the Occupation of Iraq and the Prisoner Abuse Scandal seems to be affecting Americans, FINALLY! We've been led by the nose into this ridiculous endeavor in Iraq to fund a President's group of cronies, have suffered the isolation from the rest of the world community, degrade and humiliate prisoners in their own country and then wonder why we are hated.

Wake up! This mentality of Americans are the Good Guys and everyone else are Bad Guys, is overblown! The reality of it is, we are imposing our will and values on another region of the world, when they neither asked for, or wanted our help. We suck the one resource out of the country, bomb the hell out of the rest of it and tell them what kind of government they should have, or else we won't pull out.

That's not Democracy. That's Blackmail.