While I doubt that the real reason for invading Iraq was to replace Saddam Hussein with Mary Poppins, it is clear that the new regime tortures. After 6 years and how many dead, a man is tortured for throwing a shoe.

Joe

We were there to stop torture?

Rather, it's clearly that we've been teaching torture all over the world -- and

setting an example of torture!

.

"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"

The idea that we invaded Iraq "to stop Saddam in his torturous treatment of Iraqis is utter BS. So is the idea that the U.S. invaded to bring democracy. And what about the "weapons of mass destruction"? The U.S. government knew that was a lie and manufactured the whole WMD story as a pretext for invasion, an invasion to destroy Iraq as a country. After the murderous "Shock and Awe" to terrify the population, the next step was to destroy what was left of the functioning infrastructure. That was the job of our appointed Viceroy Bremer. He fired all the existing Iraqi military, police, hospital personnel, utilities personnel, etc., etc., who were capable of maintaining the infrastructure. He then started to allow pieces of the infrastructure as well as Iraqi-owned businesses to be sold off to private foreign investors. The goal was to make it impossible for the Iraqis to run their own country--to gain control of Iraqi resources, namely control of the oil.

Then in order to break the country into smaller factional segments, death squads, organized by U.S., British, and probably Mossad operatives started the bloodbath between Sunnis and Shiites in 2003. It was General McChrystal (now appointed by Obama to head the Afghanistan theater of war) who had been Cheney's leader of his secret assassination team. In addition McChrystal set up the torture camps at Abu Ghraib and other locations in Iraq. Under U.S. direction, Iraq has been reconstituted in the re-establishment of a total police state. You are correct. When it comes to U.S. chicanery and brutality, it seems that things do not ever change. Out of curiousity, NMBill, where have you been all this time? Where do you get your information?

And, please, let's not forget that the US has joined in the torture party, just to add insult to injury and for shit and giggles.

thanks for that link lingum............

it's just a shame that those shoes didn't go down george wanker bush's gullet, so he could have a taste of the carnage he instigated..................

I second your emotion, Lingum.

Mr. al-Zaidi's statement is eloquent, powerful, and moving.

I can only hope he does not suffer further consequences for his heroic action, as he fears.

· Yr Obd't Servant

And I'm willing to bet that there are even more Americans that harbor ill feelings towards him.

"I suppose that makes him a better man in his eyes."

I doubt it. Bush has been subject to and apprenticing of his behavior of amusement in the face of horror since at least the time of his sisters death (6 years old?); he, like so many bullies in humanity, is, and has been, so full of himself for such a long time that the pressure of his biological inflation halts the conscious recognition of the connection between his behavior and it's resulting horror. This is of course the number one "cancer" of the Western social order.

This "growth", better stated: lack of growth/maturity, can be witnessed within almost every home, between almost every neighbor...at almost every town hall meeting...and, in it's grossest form, within international relations, where basic tribal fears are provoked and spawn the catastrophic massacres and lingering tortures. The up side is that almost anywhere is a place to make a stand for replacing the likes of Bush, the perfect poster boy for America's general behavior, with a new behavior of human recognition and dignity, thus helping humanity's personal organic behavior to mature and catch up with humanity's technological advances. Not an easy task, wherever the stand may be taken...but so far, seemingly well worth it.