John McCain talks a lot about the MiddleEast and the threat of "radical Islamic terrorism." He challenged Barack Obama to take a tour with him of Iraq so McCain could educate him on the country -- so Obama could get in touch with the facts on the ground. In his celebrated tour of Iraq in March, McCain made a show of visiting an open-air market in Baghdad, saying that Americans weren't getting a full picture of the progress being made there and pointing out that he could walk freely through whole neighborhoods in the city. As it turned out McCain walked nowhere freely. He wore a bullet proof vest the entire time and in the open-air market enjoyed the company of one hundred American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships.
Obama in his speech in Minnesota last week, when he effectively clinched the Democratic Party nomination, talked about Iraq, but mostly to scold Iraqi politicians for not stepping up and taking responsibility for running their country.
Suffice to say, in the five years since the U.S. "liberated" Iraq, we have learned very little about the country from our leaders. They tell us nothing, if they know anything, about daily life there in the wake of the "liberation" and in the midst of the ongoing occupation and civil war.
The blogosphere has more answers.
One of the weekly videos produced by the news program "Alive in Baghdad" details the problem of getting clean drinking water in Shama'iya, for example, a neighborhood in east Baghdad. In the video, residents describe the infrastructure and sanitation problems as clips show streets running with trash and overflowing sewage. A man holds up his pant legs, trying to avoid getting splattered as he walks awkwardly through the filthy streets. The video ends with an image of a young boy hanging out on the corner, rummaging through heaps of garbage.
Shama'iya sanitation problems are not a major concern to key voting groups such as Latinos in New Mexico and middle class voters in Ohio. But seeing to the basic sanitation infrastructure, the availability of clean drinking water, in the country will be a key part of any genuine successful strategy on Iraq and our eventual withdrawal.
Indeed, the larger humanitarian crisis caused by the war is rarely spoken of but is plain to see on the web. The ongoing conflict has displaced about 2.5 million Iraqis inside the country. Another 2 million have fled the violence and now reside in neighboring countries like Jordan and Syria.
"It's a huge disappointment that this has not been a larger issue in the campaign to date," Melissa Winkler of the International Rescue Committee told OffTheBus. "It's really been hardly mentioned."
President Bush has said even less about the problem.
"It is highly symbolic that the president of the United States who started this war has yet to publicly talk about its humanitarian impact," said Jacob Kurtzer of Refugees International. "The fact that the president has not publicly acknowledged the extent of the problem, hasn't said publicly that the U.S is committed to helping refugees, this is a discredit to the office and the person."
Kurtzer said the lack of attention paid the humanitarian crisis in Iraq by President Bush affects the millions of displaced people there because it sends a message to decision-makers here.
"The president has never even mentioned the Iraq refugees as a concern," Kurtzer said. "It filters down to people [working in the administration] as not a priority."
Bloggers and journalists living in Iraq and its neighboring countries -- including both those of Middle Eastern descent and Westerners traveling there -- have taken it upon themselves to fill the void.
Alive in Baghdad, for example, is created by a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground. Their videos have covered topics such as the 5 million Iraqi orphans, the plight of displaced Sunni families, and the difficulties finding and holding down a job when electricity outages prevent the completion of projects and car bombs interrupt lunch breaks.
In a video on the difficulties involved in going to university in Iraq, a graduate student explains that many of the professors are missing because they have fled the country due to the ongoing violence. A female student says the situation is improving, but parents have been reluctant to send their children to school because they would hear stories about abductions and the targeting of students.
A young man named Wahid Hashem Kadhem describes the difference between getting an education under Saddam Hussein and now. The translations read: "During the buried regime, we were able to move freely, we did not think an explosion might happen, we used to think just of our work, and we did not think that an explosion or a bomb might blow up. It has become a buried regime and it passed away, but now we have a new government and it must provide a peaceful environment for the students. This is the simplest thing we ask the government for."
---------
Update: Although you will search long and hard and find very little of substance said on the stump by either of the candidates on the humanitarian crisis caused by the war -- much less on their plans to address it -- Barack Obama's website includes a six-page Iraq Fact Sheet , a section of which reports that he intends to "increase American investment in Iraq's refugees and internally displaced people and to the neighboring countries that house them to at least $2 billion."
The John McCain campaign has yet to get back to OffTheBus.
The humanitarian thing to do is to help the people of this country first ; who have lost their homes, their jobs, their pensions.
The humanitarian thing to do is stop spending trillions on this CRAZY WAR IN IRAQ, go and get Bin Laden and his supporters, and invest that money right here at home.
The humanitarian thing to do is to help Seniors get the meds they need, the money they deserve and the GI Bill passed to help returning Vets pay for college and a V.A. that recognizes the Vet's needs.
The humanitarian thing to do is to build up our stressed out military men and women and the equipment needed to fight a real legitimate war if we ever again need to.
Maybe those countries surrounding Iraq who slurps up all the millions of US petro dollars we send them, maybe they should step up to the plate and help those in need in Iraq. Yeah! this idiot in the WH and his buddy MCain "broke it" but who says we in the US has to "own it"..
BTW, Obama has said in the debates that he would help with humanitarian relief.
Us Westerners are complaining a lot these days about the bad figures of our economy and about inflation.
We should be ashamed of our self centeredness and selfishness. Considering what the Iraqis are going through, it seems to me that we're very spoiled, and don't even realize it.
It is so unfair that the Iraqis' lives have been destroyed to such an extend and who cares ? Not many do. Not many would be ready to pay a special tax for the reconstruction of a country which has been torn apart on orders from their democratically elected government.
Okay, let's go back to the whining about the price of oil and the price of food.
Why vote at all - we all should be revolting.
This is what America’s sons, daughters, died for in Iraq.
Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html
How many miles per dead American soldier does your car get? How many grandsons are you willing to sacrifice to fill the tank of your SUV? Face those faces of the dead in Iraq:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Dead US Troops = HAlliburton Profit = Mondy in Dick Cheney's bloody criminal pockets.
Its that simple. The so called "War" will not end until the US is completely Bankrupt and all the money is disributed to Bush Co.
Wake up.
bushco wasn't interested in saving lives and they and the republicans, and to a lesser extent, the democrats, won't BE interested in saving future lives, simply because they are brown, meaning, largely, that they are different than the WASPs and therefore less than. If they were interested in saving lives, many of the arms caches, such as at Al Qa'qaa, would have been secured instead of left open and available to anyone that wanted some of the explosives. (If you don't remember Al Qa'qaa, see this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qa%27qaa)
Furthermore, while it is ultimately the Iraqi government's responsibility to fix their country, that we broke, they can't do it because our military is still occupying it. No occupied country's government ever amounted to anything useful while they were occupied. I would bet that the Iraqi people know this and that this is one of the many important reasons why they want us out. Most Americans don't seem to understand why the Iraqi government won't make any progress because they have accepted the "importance" of Brittany that the "mainstream" media has force fed to them.
All of this also applies to Afghanistan as well.
Last night on Jon Stewart, his guest CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan when asked if we here in the US get the true news from Iraq said:
"If I were to watch the news that you see here in the United States I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts."
The facts are "written" to suit politics not truth. Most of what we here is not news but propaganda carefully written to try to control our view of the current administration. Fortunately the Internet is helping get around the news blackouts imposed by a failing American media.
You can watch the interview here. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=173871&title=lara-logan