Saturday, December 3, 2011

Mission Accomplished: Baghdad is Now the "Worst City in the World"


Remember back during the runup to the Iraq War when one of the bullshit justifications spouted by the Bush administration was that we had to "save" the Iraqis from the "evil" dictator, Saddam Hussein? The stated policy of the U.S. was that life in Iraq had become intolerable for most people and would instantly improve once they were "freed" from tyranny and exposed to the wonders of western style capitalism.

So how'd all that work out, anyway? About as well as every other project undertaken by Chimpy Bush and his merry band of neoconservative maniacs, actually. Here is the relevant excerpt from the Raw Story's report on Mercer consulting group's ranking of every city in the world in terms of quality of life:
Baghdad’s political turmoil, poor security enforcement and attacks on local people and foreigners made it the worst place to live in 2011, both in terms of life quality and safety, Mercer said.
This is what the squandering of over a trillion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds, the lives of several hundred thousand Iraqis and well over 4,000 American soldiers has wrought. Those ordinary Iraqis who have been lucky enough not to be killed, maimed or detained and tortured during the invasion and occupation have been consigned to living in a literal (given the desert heat and frequent power outages) hell on earth. Truly, a Mission Accomplished.

Yet Americans still tolerate the unarrested likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz in their midst, and even let them bloviate on national teevee from time to time. We are truly a sick and depraved society.


Bonus: a song about another bad place to live

11 comments:

  1. Q: How do you make an Iran sandwich?

    A: Destroy Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east.

    So funny none of this ever happens in, say, Saudi Arabia.

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  2. All the little towns are dirty now. I will have to steal that youtube.

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  3. @babystrangeloop - it was a nice try, but Iran is really starting to break out of the sandwich, particularly in Iraq. Which is likely a reason why the Israelis are so freaked out right now.

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  4. @Bill There have been 17 reported explosions on natural gas pipelines since 2010 up from only three in 2008 and 2009, and about 10 at oil refineries. Plus two exploded uranium enrichment facilities. Twenty-nine explosions in Iran in 2011? What do you see that indicates Iran is breaking out of the sandwich?

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  5. @babystrangeloop - retaliation for Iran effectively taking control of much of the Shiite portion of Iraq, no doubt. I don't think it is an accident that the rhetoric against Iran is just building up now.

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  6. I'm quite frankly amazed that no one has assassinated Chimpy or Rumsfeld or Cheney. I really am flabbergasted by that.

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  7. @Anon - the security for those assholes is way too good these days. Notice how there also hasn't been a serious attempt against Obama either, nor against any of the Wall Street banksters. They all live in a bubble, utterly isolated in every way from the real world disasters their decisions cause.

    Actually, my fervent hope is that there will NOT be a successful such attempt, because if there ever is we can kiss the last tattered remnants of our civil liberties goodbye.

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  8. Maybe nobody has attempted to assassinate them is because the people who hate them have morals and principles and things like that which preclude vigilante justice. It's the other side that has no qualms about creating wag-the-dog incidents and starting wars. Very rarely will you come across somebody like the Unabomber, or the Elves.

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  9. @Gail - that is very true. Generally, assassins are not stable people with a clear-eyed agenda seeking justice.

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  10. Gail: what kind of people went into Valley Forge?

    What kind of people came out?

    What happened to them at Valley Forge that brought victory against overwhelming odds?

    As an Aussie, I don't know the answer to that question. Can somebody tell me, because it's probably what the Occupiers need to be doing now.

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  11. @Max - people used to an awful lot more hardship than people generally are today. No iCrap or teevees to distract them, either.

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