Guess What? It's the Fifth Anniversary of Lethal Hypocrisy

March 18, 2008 -- Five years ago today, just before dawn broke over Baghdad, U.S. forces launched the Iraq war by dropping four bunker-buster bombs and forty Tomahawk missiles on Dora Farms, a palace compound within the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of the city. The bombs and missiles were meant to kill Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, who were supposedly spending the night at the compound. But several of the bombs missed their target, and since neither Saddam nor any member of his family or administration was there, the attack killed none of them. Instead it killed fifteen civilians, including one child. So our very first attack on Iraq killed three civilians for each of the five times our commander in chief pledged to "protect innocent lives in every way possible" just before starting the invasion:

1. "In the event of conflict, America also accepts our responsibility to protect innocent lives in every way possible.

2. "We will respect innocent life in Iraq."

3. "If we were to commit our troops -- if we were to commit our troops I would pray for their safety, and I would pray for the safety of innocent Iraqi lives as well.

4. "We will do everything we can to minimize the loss of life."

5. "And we will do everything we can, as I mentioned -- and I mean this -- to protect innocent life."

--President George W. Bush
Excerpts from news conference of March 6, 2003

Does anyone out there know the name of the first child we killed in Iraq, or the name of any one of those other fourteen civilians? As the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq rapidly approaches 4000, we should remind ourselves that Iraqi civilians have paid a far higher price. They were our very first victims. Though article 51 (item 5b) of the expanded Geneva Conventions of 1979 plainly forbids any attack that might cause civilian deaths disproportionate to the "direct military objective anticipated," U.S. forces tried to hit a target ringed by farming families because we had been told that Saddam and his sons might be lurking among them. In other words, just after our commander in chief had repeatedly pledged to do "everything possible" to spare civilians, he sacrificed fifteen of them to the almighty god of suspicion -- the same god who told us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was aiming them at us.

Since that time, the war in Iraq has killed more than 80,000 civilians, which is almost thirty times the number of people killed on 9/11. And what have we gained by this appalling sacrifice? According to John Burns of the New York Times, who has covered most of the war to date, what Iraqis overwhelmingly want right now is not democracy but a return to the stability they had under -- guess who? -- Saddam Hussein.

Happy anniversary, Baghdad!

Comments

[desmirl]

The Bush legacy will include each of those dead Iraqi civililans. But Bush won't bother with it, nor will he concern himself with it. He'll travel extensively, make speeches to NeoCons, be paid famously for his words, and live a life of utter luxury. Only the historians will be able to make sense of our 8-year nightmare, and hopefully, educate future generations in the hope they won't make the same mistakes we made.

[tea in the harbor]

AHH, censored again! To be fair, it doesn't always happen, but often enough. I just spent twenty minutes or so composing a post suggesting that we do something about this war, or more specifically the corporate ownership of our Nation that caused it! Apparently, this site is for whining, not trying to DO anything. The hypocrisy mentioned above is more than five years old, it is ingrained in both parties and has been for the fifty odd years I have been around! The hypocrisy is that we talk about a Nation of, by, and for the people, but we have a country of, by, and for the corporations! THEY started this war, Bush is just a pawn. They are bleeding us into bankruptcy and offering the distraction of politics to cover their tracks. Democracy is not a spectator sport, without our involvement it doesn't work, and that involvement is more than yapping about this candidate or that one. Unless we are in the streets demanding what we want, the hypocrisy is OURS!

[Merriwise]

Excuse me, Lethal Hypocrisy. But also think that covering the war under the guise of patriotism legalizes hypocrisy. Then again, that is not a new concept i.e.,Vietnam.

[Merriwise]

How can anyone face the truth about this killing and not go mad? How can anyone face the truth? I was always against the war and I never voted for Bush. but the appalling conditions in Iraq, the deaths of innocents, especially after the promise of Bush to be so careful, the foisting of "democracy" on a country that is more unstable now than before FIVE YEARS later, fills me with grief and sorrow.
The comment in Mr.Heffernan's post that ,"Since that time, the war in Iraq has killed more than 80,000 civilians, which is almost thirty times the number of people killed on 9/11. And what have we gained by this appalling sacrifice? According to John Burns of the New York Times, who has covered most of the war to date, what Iraqis overwhelmingly want right now is not democracy but a return to the stability they had under -- guess who? -- Saddam Hussein.', is the truth, but we as a people cannot or will not face it. And now it's okay, because as Mr. Heffernan points out, it's the fifth anniversary of the legalization of hypocrisy. Thanks, George W.

[MikeMidCity]

Five years + four thousand dead American troops + $504,000,000,000.00 down the drain + two million dead or displaced Iraqis ......... divided by the number of politicians who voted for this immoral, unjustified war of preemption = the number of years it will take the American people to understand that we have been hood winked into this ....... crap feast of a war.

I beg my fellow Americans not to vote for another politician who has authorized this stain on America, the Iraq war.

[TerenceHartnett]

I agree but this country can't even accept responsibility for Vietnam. Remember John Kerry?--the guy who lost in '04 because 30 years earlier he suggested that the US committed atrocities in Vietnam. So, I agree, but this country is not interested in dead civilians.

[ForRichardorPoorer]

Good Post. Everybody needs to read this every single day. Before they head off to take their kids to school. Their wives and husbands to work. The grocery store. The after-school activities. Church. Super bowl parties. March madness get togethers. BBQ with the neighbors.

Bush took an innocent country and bombed it back to the stone age. And in the process, bankrupt a nation and put us on the terrorists most wanted list.