How do you know someone doesn't give a damn about Iraq?
For starters, they ignore it.
But the tenth anniversary approaches and it's like an essay topic the teacher just scrawled across the blackboard/greenboard/projector from the laptop. So now a lot of people feel like they need to write about Iraq.
And we're going to see some really bad writing.
Today's worst? Coleen Rowley.
Writing for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Coleen yet again demonstrates that she can write about herself. In fact, she brags about herself in the opening paragraph. She demonstrates that she can heap scorn on Dick Cheney and Bully Boy Bush. (Of course, the majority of us on the planet can do that.)
Paragraph four finds her moving to a topic other than herself, Iraq and the Middle East and Africa. Paragraphs four, five and six are generic statements that could have been written four, five, six, seven years ago. Nothing really about Iraq. Then she wants to move onto a paragraph about the kill list and thinks herself brave for mentioning "the Obama administration." (If only she had the guts to apply the same scorn she has for Dick and Bully to Barack.)
Now we're really off to the races. She wants to include Timothy McVeigh, "the Beltway sniper," Robert Flores, Christopher Dorner, Waco and so much more. It's all name check, not illuminating. Then she goes on for four more paragraphs -- remembering to name check Iraq in two sentences.
The paper calls her ramblings "Ten Years After Iraq." Leaving aside that Waco and McVeigh are from the 90s and not ten years ago . . .
The column's not about Iraq.
She's using Iraq. She's manipulating a country where the people suffer to advance her own pet causes.
When does Iraq get to be recognized?
The US attacked Iraq. At what point in this country, do we feel the need to recognize that and to talk about what happened to Iraqis and what is happening to them now as a result of the illegal war?
Ten years ago? You'd think people 'reflecting' would be writing about the huge increase in birth defects in and around Falluja and Basra. You'd think they'd be writing about the ongoing protests. You'd think they be writing about the US pouring billions into Iraq still to prop up the US-backed Nouri al-Maliki.
But we can't have that honesty.
I think I prefer the delusional War Hawks who write that Iraq is great and that the Iraq War is worth it. Those freaks you can argue with.
How do you argue with an idiot like Coleen? 'Uh, the beltway sniper . . .'
I don't know a damn thing about the beltway sniper and don't care to learn. I'm not a true crime addict. I will never be one of those pathetic women writing, 'Dear killer, Learning of your recent killing spree made my panties damp in a way that nothing ever has. I will wait for you until you are released -- from prison or this earth.'
Coleen apparently is one of those women.
The topic is Iraq.
If you can't stay on topic, find another one to write about. If you don't give a damn about Iraqis and the way they suffer today, ten years after the start of the war, don't insult them further by using them as the starting point for 'what I really want to write about.'
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
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