Results of war

From USA Today:

“About 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighborhood suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering, according to a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.”

This is what it comes down to. The long-term future of a country mangled for the sake of a few greedy men.

“Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.”

You won’t see them on the news channels. No one will mention them on Fox. They’re not American, so they’re not worth talking about. George W. Bush’s sleep will not be disturbed by their cries.

"’Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it's severely damaging their development,’ said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School and runs a private clinic in west Baghdad. ‘We're not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day,’ Al-Hashimi said.”

Before the war started, I participated in a silent march to Senator McCain’s office in Tucson. We carried coffins with American and Iraqi flags on them. People jeered at us, told us to protest Saddam instead, but we didn't answer. When we got to McCain’s office, several of us chose to be arrested for trespassing. One woman yelled, “I cannot stand by while children are murdered!” while the police handcuffed her.

McCain did not listen. He did not hear her. Neither did the Democrats. The media pretended that the protests were small and irrelevant. Do any of them feel any remorse today?

Four years later, that woman’s cry haunts me. Children were murdered, and still are. The surviving children live in fear. McCain lives in comfort, as does Cheney, and Rice, and Powell, and Rumsfeld, and the rest of that criminal gang.

Here are the results. Those horrible yellow ribbons are stained red.