The people in Iraq can't even get electricity 24/7 or running clean water. Yet Petraeus and our elected representatives are dining on lobster tortellini in Baghdad. This isn't the worst of it however. That Petraeus would sit in a comfortable environment and lobby for the surge whilst eating this elitist food is wrong on many levels. Its wrong because it sends the imperialist message that the masses can 'eat cake' and suffer whilst the elite mutha fuckas suffer notta damn bit. The masses of course being the millions of Iraqi's suffering through 115-120 degree temperatures without electricity, clean water or any of the other basic needs of a nation of human beings.
The NYT has a writeup entitled: Hear a General, Hug a Sheik: Congress Visits Iraq. It gives us a picture of what some of the congress did during their summer vacation. A snippet from the article:
The featured guest was Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander in Iraq. With an array of charts and maps behind him, he told the lawmakers President Bush's troop buildup had produced "tactical momentum," a phrase that he would use repeatedly in Congressional briefings and that lawmakers are now beginning to use as well.
The meal was just one stop in a jam-packed tour that included visits with Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders ("a sheik engagement," the Pentagon itinerary said), a chat with the Kurdish deputy prime minister and the all-important photographs with hometown soldiers to show constituents at election time. Just another day in Baghdad in August, high season for Congressional travel to Iraq.
The trips, highly choreographed affairs known as codels, for Congressional delegations, are an annual rite of summer for lawmakers, but they have taken on fresh urgency. With Democrats running Congress and Mr. Bush's troop increase due for an intense re-evaluation in September, roughly 50 lawmakers have tromped through Iraq this summer, and their impressions are having a profound effect on the debate.
Such bullshit..so craptastic, I think my head will explode after reading it. So when we hear how bad OR good it is over in Iraq, just think of these fuckwits dining quite comfortably whist the people of Iraq tried to make it through another day without being poisoned by the water they drink, suffer heatstroke and die, or get shot or bombed by extremists groups as they tried to buy food for their kids.
I think the gauge for how the 'war is going' should be how the Iraqi's are suffering Are they suffering less or more? Do they have more basic necessities than they did a year ago? Just remember, we did this to them. We have turned Iraq into a bottom feeding third world natioin..but it was for their own good of course, according to BushCo.
crossposted at Bring it On! and Sirens Chronicles
Tags: Iraq Lies, congressional junkets, Petraeus,
