Engaging MSM translation/inversion subroutines. Working... Translation complete: "Post-invasion neglect of pioneering mosquito control efforts may cost the lives of 'millions' of Iraqi civillians, says one expert."
"A quagmire that's spinning out of control" is my own intentional malapropism to describe how very silly the war's critics have been ever since the first boot hit the ground and they began declaring it a failure, a debacle, a quagmire, and a situation spinning out of control.
"A quagmire that's spinning out of control" humorously describes the entire litany for me. I thought you would have noticed the tongue-in-cheek nature of it by now. ;-)
I say ignore the critics, and stay the course! If this quagire seems to get bigger, too bad!
On a more serious note: I think it's important to note why this happened:
Iraq's marshes were devastated in the 1980s and 1990s by the Hussein regime's campaign to ditch, dike, drain, and burn them. Unable to pursue their traditional means of livelihood--fishing, herding water buffalo, and hunting--tens of thousands of Marsh Arabs fled to southern Iran.
It wasn't a casual coincidence of some ingenious or misguided urban renewal plan on Saddam's part. Ruining the marshes and punishing, driving out, or killing the Marsh Arabs was the whole point of the effort.
Yep. Imagine for example if you were dictator of the United States and you decided you didn't like Louisiana, so you dammed up and diverted the entire Mississippi so it no longer flowed down there at all.
Or, if you wanted to destroy Egypt, you'd just dam up and divert the Nile.
Those are more exaggerated examples but they're there to make the point: this was an intentional effort to destroy the entire economy and way of life for those living there, and it did. Quite a few of them died, even more had their livelihoods and their entire way of life utterly destroyed. It was one of Saddam's more cruel acts.
Should I laugh or cry? &why?
For the media, I
will merely let go a sigh.
And that's the way the quagmire quakes.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
"A quagmire that's spinning out of control" humorously describes the entire litany for me. I thought you would have noticed the tongue-in-cheek nature of it by now. ;-)
On a more serious note: I think it's important to note why this happened:
It wasn't a casual coincidence of some ingenious or misguided urban renewal plan on Saddam's part. Ruining the marshes and punishing, driving out, or killing the Marsh Arabs was the whole point of the effort.
Or, if you wanted to destroy Egypt, you'd just dam up and divert the Nile.
Those are more exaggerated examples but they're there to make the point: this was an intentional effort to destroy the entire economy and way of life for those living there, and it did. Quite a few of them died, even more had their livelihoods and their entire way of life utterly destroyed. It was one of Saddam's more cruel acts.