Take Back America conference – and some day work as well – so I’ll miss tonight’s discussion but I wanted to encourage anyone who is in the DC area to join us at TBA. Jane is on a great panel and there’s lots of other amazing speakers – and a lot of good discussion is planned about we can in fact take back this country.

Meanwhile, I thought it might be good to update some of the stories we’ve talked about on Sunday nights. Above is a youtube clip from the series Hometown Baghdad. The team making this serial documentary about several “20 somethings” in Iraq has had to shorten the series – the situation for all the participants has gotten more dangerous as has life in Baghdad for all the residents. The latest installment is linked above – sadly it is an all too familiar tale for the people of Iraq.

The experience of Ausama as he attempts to get out of Iraq to safety is becoming familiar as well. Syria and Jordan are overwhelmed with refugees – and more are being turned away. This makes the work of groups like the Red Crescent all the more important as they attempt to aid families at camps within Iraq. COntinuing support – particularly as the situation continues to get more and more desperate is needed – and our donations are one small way we can help to counter the effects of the occupation.

While some families try to leave Iraq, one father from Basrah is attempting to get justice from the British government for the death of his son, Baha Mousa. Robert Fisk has written a particularly good column about the Mousa case for the Independent. He describes Mousa this way: “a young, decent man whose father was a cop, who did nothing worse than work as a receptionist in a Basra hotel.”

Fisk’s whole column is well worth the read but I wanted to share his closing words with you this week.

It’s all up now, of course. Iraq is a hell-disaster and the old clichés about “hearts and minds” are as dry as the sand on the desert floor. Maybe there are hearts and minds to be maintained inside the Green Zone in Baghdad or any of the other “green zones” around the Middle East where our Western forces shelter from their enemies in their modern versions of the Crusader castles that once littered the Holy Land. But the moral high ground – if ever it could have existed after Tony Blair and George Bush’s illegal invasion – has long ago been abandoned.

We will leave Iraq with all our dreams in pieces, and it will be left to Iraqis themselves – men like Daoud Mousa, carrying the grief of his son’s death with him for ever – to create a new country out of the pain and sorrow we leave behind for them.

I’m hoping that in the discussions this week at TBA, I’ll hear some good ideas about how we face this disaster – and how we can work towards dreams of partnership with the people of the world in place of the Bush/Blair dreams of conquest.

Related posts:

  1. How Fragile We Are
  2. Report Confirms Poor Electrical Work by KBR Endangers US Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
  3. Broken Dreams and Cookie Crumbs
  4. Gen. Ray Ordierno: We May Never Win in Iraq
  5. DPC to Continue Drive for Oversight, Accountability for Iraq and Afghanistan Contractors