Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Did you know:

1. There are still 20,000 – 50,000 troops loyal to Saddam fighting the US forces, and that, according to Sen. Lugar (R-IN), “victory is at risk”?
2. Civilian death toll is estimated at around 10,000, the highest since the Vietnam war?
3. Pfc. Jessica Lynch wasn't injured in a fire-fight; she just crashed her truck?
4. America is funding terrorist groups in order to wage war on other terrorist groups?
5. The US is holding 3,000 Iraqis — gagged, bound, and beaten — in violation of the Geneva convention and is refusing to let the Red Cross have access?

Now some details. I'll of course provide references, and you can use google news to find lots more should you choose to. Although the age of the free press is coming to an end unfortunately… Within a year it will only be one single mega-corporation and then the indie media (more, more, more, more, more).

1. Saddam's Troops

Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Defense Secretary) has said that the US is still facing “several tens of thousands” of light infantry (ie. Saddam still has a functional army), as well as about 20,000 criminals released from Baghdad prisons. Government officials are warning both that the military victory is far from complete, and that the US underestimated their civil responsibilities and are at present unable to bring the country to order. (more).

2. Civilian Death Toll

Hospitals in Iraq are still totally overrun with civilian casualties of US aggression, with “collateral damage” being roughly triple that of the first Gulf war, and possibly five times that of the attack on Afghanistan — and these numbers just keep rising (more).

3. Saving Private Lynch

In the original version of the story, young Jessica Lynch heroically fought off a battalion of Iraqi troops, emptying her gun and killing several demons before being stabbed and shot herself. Her injuries included broken bones, presumably from torture at the hospital… not! Turns out that their company got lost and drove into Nasiriyah (where they were no longer protected). A band of paramilitaries fired on their convoy, and Jessica got spooked and crashed her truck where she sustained her injuries — which were then treated by Iraqi doctors who found her (more).

4. America, State Sponsor of Terrorism

America is demanding the right to overthrow Iran due to claims that “it's where al Qaeda is from” (I think I've heard this one before). In order to do so, the Pentagon would heavily fund the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), an Iraq based armed-opposition group, contracting them to launch terror attacks on Iranian interests. I should be clear that the MEK is officially considered a terrorist group by the State Department. Ignoring the sheer hypocrisy of this action, it's one that almost always backfires in extremely unpleasant ways a la deals with the devil (more).

5. American War Crimes

The US is continuing to hold about 3,000 PoWs captive in a tent city near Baghdad, gagged and hooded, in the searing heat. Even though it's over a month after America declared the war effectively over, the US still refuses to give the Red Cross access to these camps, and continues to directly violate the Geneva Convention (more).

There's a lot of other horrible crap in the news, like the blocking of French journalists covering E3 (the video game convention) from entering America (more), as well as the Pentagon snubbing of France (more), all of which promises to erupt into a dangerous tit-for-tat… America may be big, but it's not that big. These are profoundly self-destructive acts that the American people will surely suffer for. Or I could go on about state-sponsored racism in America (more) or any number of other problems…