American Views Abroad

 
Storms should be ringing in the New Year here which sounds appropriate for these times. Locally, the economy seems to be picking up along with an increase in taxes and fees for health insurance. You take a rollercoaster ride if you read all the predictions for the coming year. In fact, there is a tendency to keep away from the news these days. Today, for example, the morning news was not listened to. There was no inclination to take part in what one good friend here called a medieval public hanging.

Riverbend from Iraq has written again. '.....This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous. ....There is real fear that this execution will be the final blow that will shatter Iraq...... Here we come to the end of 2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis.' www.Riverbendblog.blogspot.com

Juan Cole's Saddam: The Death of a Dictator highlights Riverbend's thoughts. He writes: 'The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance and become one more incitement to sectarian warfare. ....This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as an act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.'
www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam

In the Boston Globe Anthony Shadid reports on Lives of Desperation in Iraq.
'With or without war, Iraq is in shambles. A generation is lost in isolation, religious sentiment is overshadowing its once libertine secularism, and identity has become subsumed in the fractious tapestry of faith and ethnicity that the regime has woven to help it divide, conquer and repress.'
www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2002/10/29/lives_of_desperation_in_iraq/

The 2006 Military Times Poll reports only 35% of the military polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42% said they disapprove. Only 41% said the US should have gone to war in Iraq down from 65% in 2003.
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123006Y.shtml

Wishing for a peaceful New Year. It may be in the stars.
- posted by Gloria @ 6:58 PM