Politics

Reading Between the Lies

By Chelsea Lawliss

Iraq's Ministry of Interior recently released a civilian casualty count for the month of July. Their report accounted for the lost lives of 535 Iraqis, making this past month the most violent since June 2008. This escalation in violence can be attributed in part to a situation which Jeremy Scahill, writer of the ground breaking novel, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and correspondent for Democracy Now! explains as an unstable country. Iraq is as "unstable as it has ever been," Scahill says. "They [Iraqis] can't form a government. The vast majority of people don't have consistent access to potable water, to electricity, to gasoline... Iraq is a disaster right now."

This is what seven years of war has led up to -- a living situation so poor that Scahill felt compelled to mention that many Iraqis are saying, "It was a better under Saddam Hussein."

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Full post as published by PR Watch on August 04, 2010 (boomark / email).