DIGBY: She forgets that the jackass unnecessarily "flew" onto the ship for the photo op and pranced across the deck like a Chippendale's dancer before announcing "in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." Far be it for anyone to "play it up." After all only hundreds of thousands of people are dead.Indeed.
Beyond the oft-repeated line delivered by President Bush that day, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," and all the Hullabaloo about "Mission Accomplished," the speech of May 1, 2003 is a deep and vexing study in official propaganda and smoothing for public consumption what were by that time very harsh intentions for Iraq.
For example, the very next line after "prevailed" states that, "Our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."
Well, how has that turned out for the "celebrating Iraqis" whom the president said that day had "seen the ageless appeal of human freedom"? Let's not bother to discuss the details of how the "Coalition" allowed looting and looted the country itself mercilessly, the U.S. policy of disciplining the population of Iraq by invading homes, sweeping up citizens to be tortured in dungeons, encouraging ethnic divide and death squads, conducting aggressive and currently increasing aerial bombardment of civilian areas, sacking whole cities (e.g. Fallujah), and generally ensuring the destruction of the modern state of Iraq.
Let's just look at one especially devastating consequence, studied and reported this week by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees:
Survey shows most Iraqis in Syria still unwilling to return home
GENEVA, April 29 (UNHCR) ? A survey of nearly 1,000 Iraqis currently staying in Syria has shown that 95 percent fled their homeland because of direct threats or general insecurity and that only 4 percent currently had plans to return to Iraq.For now at least, it's just wishful thinking that anytime soon there will be "a safe and dignified return to Iraq" for most of these people. This is really all you need to know to see that practically everything President Bush says about Iraq is bullshit.
The latest Assessment on Returns to Iraq was carried out for the UN refugee agency by the IPSOS market research agency in Syria from March 2-18. A total of 994 interviews were undertaken in Damascus at UNHCR's registration and food distribution sites, in community centres or during home visits.
Some 86 percent of the respondents were registered with UNHCR, while 14 percent had not yet been registered. A total of 95 percent stated that they had fled Iraq in recent years, either due to direct threats (65 percent) or general insecurity (30 percent). About 2 percent of the interviewed Iraqis had left Iraq before 2003; 44 percent between 2003 and 2006; and 54 percent since 2006. A total of 94 percent had a valid residency permit in Syria.
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A total of 4.7 million Iraqis have been uprooted as a result of the crisis in Iraq. Of these, more than 2 million are living as refugees in neighbouring countries ? mostly Syria and Jordan ? while 2.7 million are displaced inside Iraq.
"UNHCR remains committed to identifying obstacles to a safe and dignified return to Iraq and to working with the Iraqi government on measures aimed at addressing these obstacles to ensure that a voluntary return will someday be possible," agency spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said in Geneva on Tuesday.
She noted that UNHCR had appealed in January for US$261 million for its work on behalf of Iraqi refugees outside their country as well as for the internally displaced. "So far, we have received just under half of that amount, which is not enough to keep our programmes going during the second half of 2008," she stressed.
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