The Children Are Still Dying: Violence is Not News
By Ramzy Baroud
Friday, August 24, 2012
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-children-are-still-dying-violence-is-not-news-by-ramzy-baroud
"Somewhere in my home I have a set of photo albums I rarely go near. I fear the flood of cruel memories that might be evoked from looking at the countless photos I took during a trip to Iraq. Many of the pictures are of children who developed rare forms of cancer as a result of exposure to Depleted Uranium (DU), which was used in the US-led war against Iraq over two decades ago.
I remember visiting a hospital that was attached to Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The odor that filled its corridors was not the stench of medicine, but rather the aroma of death. At a time of oppressive siege, the hospital lacked even basic anesthetic equipment and drugs. Children sat and stared at their visitors. Some wailed in inconceivable pain. Parents teetered between hope and the futility of hope, and at prayer times they duly prayed.
A young doctor gave a sweeping diagnosis: “No child that ever enters this place ever leaves alive.” Being the young reporter I was at the time, I diligently made a note of his words before asking more questions. I didn’t quite grasp the finality of death.
Several years later, Iraq’s desolation continues. On August 16, 90 people were killed and more were wounded in attacks across the country. Media sources reported on the bloodbath (nearly 200 Iraqis were killed this month alone), but without much context. Are we meant to believe that violence in Iraq has transcended any level of reason? That Iraqis get blown up simply because it is their fate to live in perpetual fear and misery?"
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I spent 13 months in Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader. The one this that appauled me more than the violence I saw in Iraq is that next to none of it is actually shown to the American people. If people saw immages over and over again of the mangled women and children that this war produces instead of watching American Idol or dancing with the stars (or even "stars earn stripes"
, support for the wars in the middle east would have vanished a lot faster than it did. There was a reason why Goerge W. banned the media publication of coffins comming home from Iraq and Afghanistan - and it really wasn't to protect the dignity of the families and military dead.
