you have to wonder if, among the Iraqis we've killed -- particularly . . .

among the (now dead) children -- there might have been a potential Nobel Prize winner, a future charismatic leader committed to peace, the possible discoverer of a new kind of energy, a world diplomat who would work to outlaw war, or any other kind of future leaders you might conceive . . . the tragedy of what we have done to that country and it's people is truly overwhelming . . . the human potential we have destroyed is alone enough to convict the US (specifically, BushCo) of horrendous crimes against humanity . . .

I'm Shocked, Shocked
by Deck Deckert

http://www.swans.com/library/art11/rdeck054.html

(snip)

No one over the age of 12, or with an IQ over 60, could have possibly believed that Iraq had the means and the desire to attack the most powerful country in the world with weapons of mass destruction -- or baseball bats -- across thousands of miles of ocean.

Oh, they might have had the desire, at that. After all, we had slaughtered a hundred thousand of them in the first Iraq war; had been bombing them for 10 years; and we had been subjecting them to sanctions which had killed hundreds of thousands of their citizens, including perhaps a half-million children, which UN ambassador Madeline Albright said blithely was "worth the price."

(snip)

If the media were honest in their reporting, their coverage would also mean an end to this war. But that won't happen either. They are only slightly embarrassed by the fact that the public can now see how easily they lied, and are lying, to support the Bush administration and other centers of power in Iraq and elsewhere. They should be more than just slightly embarrassed; they have utterly failed us, both in the run-up to the war, and now. The case of Judith Miller is just the most visible transgression.

There never was any golden age of media accountability and responsibility to readers rather than to the ruling elite. The media has always given voice and support to those in power, both visible and those behind the scenes. But the degree of that subservience to power is now dangerously complete, in large part because of the incredible concentration of power in the hands of a handful of giant corporations.

- more . . .

http://www.swans.com/library/art11/rdeck054.html

but that's exactly the kind of rhetoric the "pro-life" people use.

"the Cradle Of Civilization"

amazing place..