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
