Greetings from America!
How are things? Oops, sorry -- I guess that was a pretty insensitive question. Things suck, don't they?
I hear Uncle Sam's been fudging the number of civilians slaughtered by coalition troops -- not, of course, that this comes as news to you or me; I've been tortured sick since Day One of Georgie Boy's "war" by the few reports that did manage to trickle out -- but I did want to let you know that at least now the truth is finally beginning to come out in American news sources:
Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country. ...
Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam. ...
By one measure of violence against noncombatants, as compared with resistance faced by soldiers, the war in Iraq was particularly brutal. In Operation Just Cause, the 1989 US invasion of Panama, 13 Panamanian civilians died for every US military fatality. If 5,000 Iraqi civilians died in the latest war, that proportion would be 33 to 1. ...
The US Department of Defense has refused to give any sort of estimate on deaths. ...
Surveys pointing to high civilian death toll in Iraq
Christian Science Monitor
May 22, 2003
(Hey, now, don't let the "Christian" in "Christian Science Monitor" turn you off -- it's a damned darned good source of information.)
I also hear that those of you left alive and in captivity by the U.S. are being treated as badly as -- if not worse than -- the Gitmo prisoners (if that's even possible, in light of the news that the U.S. "has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber"):
The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to Baghdad airport, The Observer has learnt.
There have also been reports of a mutiny last week by prisoners at an airport compound, in protest against conditions. The uprising was 'dealt with' by the Americans, according to a US military source.
The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down.
There is circumstantial evidence that prisoners are being gagged and hooded, in the manner of the Afghans and other captives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - treatment in itself questionable under international law. ...
Red Cross denied access to PoWs
The Observer
May 25, 2003
My God, I'm sorry. I'm especially sorry there's not a damned thing I can do about it. I'll just keep bringing such atrocities to light here, in the hopes of awakening a few sleepyheads among the nearly 288 million Americans happily encased in their big, collective coma.
That's all I can do.
Now, listen, Iraqis, I know the last you need is any more bad news, but frankly, I'm concerned about your health. No, no, I'm not being facetious -- I mean, if you've read along this far, it means you're still alive, and have at least one working eye (unless you've been blinded in a bomb blast, and somebody has to read this to you). In any case, aside from the possibility that you're starving to death, missing a limb or two, and in danger of getting your ass shot off in the streets of Baghdad tonight, I'm worried about your longterm health prospects.
You see, there's a whole lot of depleted uranium (DU) lying around your neighborhood right now. DU is, simply, "a very dense metal fashioned from low-level radioactive waste, allows [conventional munitions] to easily pierce armor and buildings that would deflect other projectiles."
Yeah, well, the problem is, that "low-level radioactive waste" has pierced more than a few human bodies, too, and some of you folks are walking around (or lying in your hospital beds) with radioactive shrapnel in your bellies.
The really scary thing, though, is that you didn't have to take a hit from U.S. fire to be affected by DU. The U.S. government plays down the dangers of exposure to DU, but -- come on -- is there a single Pentagon official who'd be willing to have the stuff lying around his backyard in order to prove there's no risk?
Go talk to the widows of the hundreds of thousands of Gulf War I veterans who died after returning home from Kuwait -- or talk to those who lived long enough to sire babies with "severe deformities, including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers." (Just what do you think "Gulf War Syndrome" is, anyway?) Or go talk to the Afghans who show "'astonishing' levels of uranium in their urine."
You can speculate all you like about what the longterm health hazards of DU exposure might be, or -- like the terminally corrupt American media and the idiots who lap it up -- you can swallow the official propaganda and blow off the idea that all those tons of DU we left lying around Kuwait and Iraq in '91 are dangerous.
So, dear Iraqis, if your local hospital hasn't been bombed out of existence, ransacked, or filled beyond capacity already, I urge you to go get tested as soon as poss--
Wait, what am I saying? You're just trying to stay alive at this point, aren't you?
Damn, sorry. I forgot that for a second. That's too easy to do in the comfort of my nice, big, American house, with a PBS special on Mexican music providing pleasant white noise in the background, as I kick back with my keyboard on my lap, and wonder idly what I'm going to make for dinner tonight.
See, Iraqis, that's the problem with us Americans: We're too fat and sleepy and ignorant to realize you don't have a lot of choice in anything anymore. Betcha never thought this was what "liberation" and "democracy" were all about, didja?
I apologize. I'll do better. I can't promise my fellow countrymen will do better, but I'll try. Really I will.
Posted 7:23:31 PM 
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