The carnage of a nation wrought by GWB (oh, sorry, liberation I meant)

It's a crying shame what has happened to innocent people in Iraq. Is it better to watch your children starve but be told you're free (despite vicious attacks from morality police) or to live in a repressive political regime where you can care for your family but have to toe the party line? I for one would vote for my children to live, every time. Thank God we found those weapons of mass destruction finally...it was a pair of size ten shoes!!

How a shoe put the boot to Bush's Iraq legacy
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The greatest insult of all
There is one question left unanswered in the saga of the Shoes Seen Round The World: What does it take to actually offend George W. Bush?U.S. claims of progress after `surge' ring hollow amid angry protests

Dec 20, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (22)
Olivia Ward
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER



It was the thud heard around the world.

Just hours after Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi tossed his footwear at U.S. President George W. Bush, who was making a farewell appearance in Baghdad, the other shoe dropped.

Thousands of Iraqis poured out their support for the angry gesture, al-Zeidi's backers plunged the parliament into bitter controversy, and Bush's insistence that his "surge" of increased U.S. troops had put the country on the road to peace and progress rang hollow.

U.S. officials point out that al-Zeidi was not summarily executed, as he would have been under Saddam Hussein. They say that security has increased for many in Baghdad, parts of the country are returning to normal, and that a democratically elected government proves Iraq is on the right course.

But the anger and frustration of Iraqis – amplified by Muslim protests around the world – reflects a far different reality on the ground.

Aid organizations and analysts say that more than five years after the invasion, conditions are grim and in many cases growing worse, as the country suffers widespread poverty, massive displacement, a crippling brain drain and a dangerous breakdown in infrastructure.

"Neighbourhoods are flooded with sewage, households are without water or electricity and there's the threat of spreading disease," says Jennifer Abrahamson of the British-based charity Oxfam. "We are seeing that in the last year the situation has either stayed the same, or gotten worse."

In 2007, as the surge was taking effect, Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi organizations found that nearly one-third of the 27 million population needed emergency relief, 70 per cent lacked adequate water supplies, 50 per cent were unemployed and 25 per cent of children were malnourished.

In addition, 80 per cent of households had no proper sanitation, and 2 million internally displaced people no means of support. Forty-three per cent of Iraqis were living in absolute poverty.

The surge was aimed at salvaging Washington's Iraq operation, allowing an end to a war with growing American opposition, by quelling insurgencies that were spiralling out of control. But in spite of an impressive drop in Iraqi casualties by more than 1,000 deaths a month, as bombing attacks and fighting diminished, the trickle-down effects have been slow to materialize.

The January 2007 plan temporarily boosted troops by 21,500 to restore order in Baghdad and allow the Iraqi government to launch a process of peace and reconciliation. It was aided by an "Awakening" movement of Sunni Muslims encouraged to join U.S. troops in driving out Al Qaeda cells and by the "freezing" of the main Shiite militia, under leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

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[link to www.thestar.com]

Last Edited by LJS on 11/20/2012 07:18 PM