Regarding the Sept. 5 photograph and article "Iraq troop drawdown may no longer be taboo idea for Bush": From the cheerful smiles of the soldiers posing with U.S. President George W. Bush, one might think this was a picnic photograph taken on the lawn of the White House. It is just more Republican propaganda in a war that has cost the lives of more than 700,000 Iraqis and displaced more than 4 million civilians, now homeless refugees who will face another harsh winter with little food or medical care.
The American soldier in Iraq, by contrast, lives on a strongly fortified military base, and has ample food and secure shelter with state-of-the-art medical care 24 hours a day. And fresh clean water. Bush visited an air base in the Anbar region of Iraq. The photograph is obscene when you think about all the carnage and suffering that Bush's failed adventure has inflicted on so many innocent Iraqis during the past four years of invasion and violent occupation. Bush never attends the funerals of fallen American soldiers back home in the United States as that would not be a "pretty picture."
Some would say Bush should be sitting shame-faced in an international courtroom somewhere, confronted by a stern prosecutor and angry Iraqi and American witnesses who would testify against this war criminal and his neocon friends who have committed such crimes against humanity. Instead, we see him mugging for the camera with lovely U.S. military nurses. American troops would return home next week if Bush and his cronies had to stay in Baghdad's Green Zone until a peace settlement could be reached.
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