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Children of U.S. occupation
munaeem | 13 April, 2007 07:44
Hassan Tavakoli, Press TV, Tehran
What has Bush brought for the children of Iraq?
Four years of occupation in Iraq has not only crippled the country but also set the scene for what we can see today of innocent children scavenging in garbage dumps to find something with what they could pass the day.
The appalling condition of many Iraqi children victimized by the U.S. occupation has become too emotive an issue for even American mass media to ignore.
Recently a report by CNN showed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children in rags and no longer attending school. Iraqi hospitals are also too strapped with casualties to deal with mental toll on children. According to Iraqi health officials, bomb blasts, gunfire, and killings of family members have plagued Iraq and unfortunately it is the Iraqi children that suffer the most.
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has plunged Iraq into a complete quagmire and causing widespread poverty. Iraqi children are most vulnerable, and in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, children can often be seen rummaging through heaps of rubbish, trying to find scraps of food just to survive.
It is difficult to give an exact figure of how much the war and violence has affected the lives of Iraqi children.
The humanitarian organization Save the Children, in a report last year about children in conflict zones, estimated that 818,000 Iraqi children, ranging from 6 to 11 in age, were not in school. That's roughly one in every five Iraqi children in that age group.
The war in Iraq has disrupted normal life, forcing millions of Iraqi families to flee their homes, and separating many children from their families.
Studies by the World Health Organization show primary-school-age children have experienced major traumatic events, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the country's subsequent occupation.
This is truly deplorable; taking into account that Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world, and should be one of the richest countries in the Middle East. Interesting; maybe that is why the country was occupied ….
The Bush administration, which invaded Iraq under the slogan of saving the Iraqi people from the tyranny of the then dictator, Saddam Hussein, now seems oblivious to the plight of Iraqi civilians, and children in particular.
It is crystal clear for the entire world that Bush, named "the Liar of the Year 2006" by Newsweek, only wants to plunder Iraq's natural resources. The Bush regime is quietly plundering Iraqi oil, and the corruption and insecurity in Iraq, fanned by the American military occupation, is facilitating this process.
The Iraqi government is under immense pressure to restore peace and security to the occupation-torn country, but this is an impossible task as long as the Bush regime defies American and world public opinion, by refusing to withdraw its forces from Iraq.
The fact of the matter is that President Bush's urge for surge is really designed to facilitate the plunder of Iraq's crude oil reserves.
Nevertheless, on the one hand, western media reports the dreadful situation going on in Iraq ad nauseam. However, on the other hand, it seldom asks who is to be held accountable for such a humanitarian disaster.
The humanitarian disaster in Iraq will undoubtedly exacerbate if, and only if, the Bush-headed U.S. occupation of Iraq continues.
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