by James Glaser
August 4, 2003

America is my country and it hurts me deeply to watch as we continue to screw the very people that we boast to the world we are liberating. An Iraqi man that was wounded by our forces said he didn't blame the US for shooting him, as it was an accident. When asked how life was without Saddam, the man said, "life was better under Saddam."

Here is a guy that doesn't blame us for shooting him, doesn't hate Americans, but in all honesty admits that life was better before we came to help him. Today, Sunday, on National Public Radio, an American reporter said that electricity was an on and off thing and still Iraq has no safe drinking water.

We have to face the fact that we are screwing millions of innocent Iraqi people. Our government knew going in that we would have to rebuild Iraq and every time we bombed a water treatment plant or electrical generating plant we should have ordered more equipment. Under the Geneva Convention, which Washington likes to quote when it serves their purpose, the United States has the responsibility to fix everything we destroyed. That destruction against civilian infrastructure is a War Crime that George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld just blow off along with the bombing of hospitals.

It has been three months since George made his landing on the Aircraft Carrier 30 miles from our coast, since he made that landing which kept those Sailors and their loved ones apart for another day, the landing where he said major hostilities were over and "Mission Accomplished."

Three months and we can't use any of that $1,000,000,000.00 we are spending in Iraq every week and get some generators over there or portable water treatment plants. It is almost like George and Donald are looking at those little Iraqi kids and saying, "Screw them little rag heads." I believe that is exactly what they are saying. These two guys have never defended America in a real war and have never seen the suffering any war inflicts on the innocent people of the countries we attack.

At the same time George and Donald are doing this evil to the Iraqi people they are screwing our own troops too. Remember, these two guys have no idea of what they are asking our troops to do, because neither of them nor any of the staff in George's administration except Colin Powell had the courage any time in their lives to defend America in combat.

George must think the .03% raise he our military pay, makes up for all the troops that are dying for his war. Sad to say, it is now clear that the Americans that have died in Iraq, died not to defend America, but for either George's rich friends or pay back for his dad's goof up in the first Iraqi War. George Bush #1, could have taken out Saddam twelve years ago and saved tens of thousands of Iraqi lives that Saddam killed, saved the over ten thousand innocent Iraqi people we killed this time, plus the Americans and Brits that have been killed in this one.

Just like Vietnam thirty years ago, the men in this War are dying for a President that lied to the American people to get us into the War. Just like those that died in Vietnam, those dying in Iraq are not stopping any attack on America's shores. Like Vietnam was and is, Iraq is a small third world country where the people have suffered for years under a government backed by the United States.

When you think about Iraq being a threat to the United States, you have to think about this War and remember some of the battles where five hundred Iraqi soldiers would get killed and one American would get wounded. Iraq had nothing to attack us with, just as they had nothing to defend their own country with. Before this war started, Iraq was armed with 1980s and earlier weapons. No Navy, no Air Force, and no weapons of mass destruction.

For twenty some years Saddam Hussein was our boy. It didn't matter if he was gassing his own people or torturing any opposition because he was doing what we wanted in attacking Iran. Only when he attacked Kuwait after America at first said OK and then changed their mind and said no, did Saddam become a evil person. Up until then all his killing, rapes, torture and just plain evil ways, were just fine with our government.

Now it makes me sad to see the Iraqi people get screwed over again. One would think thirty years under Saddam's thumb would be enough punishment for any people to suffer, but no, these Iraqi people are still suffering.

Only this time we are the ones that are punishing these poor people and I don't believe that they will ever thank us for the suffering they have today, even if we did kick Saddam out of power. When you are down and out, it doesn't matter who is holding you down, you hate who ever is doing it and that includes us.

Our troops in Iraq can see what we are doing just like the troops in Vietnam did and they will have to live with the images they see every day in Iraq. Our troops know what is going on and they can see all the work in the oil fields, with nothing happening at the water treatment plants. They know and now the American people are starting to see what is going on too. Liberation for Iraq is not happening and every day now the Iraqi people suffer under our occupation.

POST SCRIPT DEATHS IN IRAQ:

A US Soldier was killed Friday, forty miles North of Baghdad when attacked with a grenade.

A US Soldier was killed and three wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack east of Baghdad Saturday.

Two Americans were killed when a command detonated bomb exploded under their vehicle on Sunday. After that, the attackers opened up with a machine gun and one soldier was wounded in the neck.

President George W. Bush is still on vacation at his ranch in Texas