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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Fresh Failures in Iraq
(Rep. Ron Paul, Antiwar.com, 6/5/04)
What a mess! But no one should be surprised. Regime change plans – whether by CIA operations or by preemptive war – almost always go badly. American involvement in installing the Shah of Iran in the fifties, killing Diem in South Vietnam in the sixties, helping Osama bin Laden against the Soviets in the eighties, assisting Saddam Hussein against Iran in the eighties, propping up dictators in many Arab countries, and supporting the destruction of the Palestinian people all have had serious repercussions on American interests, including the loss of American life. We have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars while the old wounds in the Middle East continue to fester. ...The real tragedy is that even those with good intentions who argue the case for our military presence around the world never achieve their stated goals. Not only do the efforts fall short, the unintended consequences in life and limb and dollars spent are always much greater than ever anticipated. The blowback effects literally go on for decades. The clear failure of the policy of foreign interventionism followed by our leaders for more than a hundred years should prompt a reassessment of our philosophy. Tactical changes, or relying more on the U.N., will not solve these problems. Either way the burden will fall on the American taxpayer and the American soldier. Economic law eventually will limit our ability to live off others by credit creation. Eventually trust in the dollar will be diminished, if not destroyed. Those who hold these trillion plus dollars can hold us hostage if it's ever in their interest. It may be that economic law and hostility toward the United States will combine to precipitate an emotionally charged rejection of the dollar. No nation has ever been able to finance excessive foreign entanglements and domestic entitlements through printing press money and borrowing from abroad. Instead of the incessant chant about us forcing democracy on others, why not read our history and see how thirteen nations joined together to form a loose-knit republic with emphasis on local self-government. A policy of non-intervention and strategic independence is the course we should take if we're serious about peace and prosperity. Liberty works!

posted by A Curmudgeon 4:50 AM