Whatever your losses are, ours are bigger

As Barack Obama's administration is turning the page on Iraq's war, some U.S. media outlets are focusing on the consequences of this war on the Americans first and then talk a little about the woes Iraqis have gone through since 2003 despite that the difference is huge between the two consequences on both nations.

They are talking about how many lives of U.S. troops this war claimed, how much American money was burned for it and the most irritated thing they are still quoting U.S. officials on the "seeds of democracy" the Americans have sown in this land and how Iraq will be stable and prosperous after the full U.S. withdrawal by December 2011.

But what made me furious this morning is the Associated Press story which wrote by its Washington-based writer, Robert Burns, about FBI interrogation records with Saddam Hussein henchman, Tariq Aziz while in U.S. military custody.

In its first version, Burns preferred to mention the number of the U.S. troops who were killed in Iraq before the number of Iraqis who were killed without any sin committed which is of course bigger than the U.S. loss of life.

"More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, suspicions Saddam might have secretly collaborated with al-Qaida or other terror groups remains central to the continuing debate over the wisdom of launching the war, which has cost more than 4,400 U.S. lives and tends of thousands of Iraqis."

While in its second version, he preferred to omit the "tens of thousands of Iraqis," as if those killed Iraqis are not human beings and only the Americans are.

If you lost 4,400 lives we lost hundreds of thousands. We have a devastated society whose sects and ethnic groups hate each other more than before your invasion. We have at least five million individuals who were forced out of their homes. Our infrastructure is ruined, our antiquities are stolen and the once-fertile land is now a desert. An army of widows and orphans.

The list of the Americans' favors is too long.

I think at this critical period of time for both nations and from the ethical aspect, the American media should focus on how to prove that this war based on lies to bring those who masterminded it to justice and then they have to push for an official apology from U.S. to Iraqis who have suffered since 2003. Their readers should know that U.S. owes an apology to Iraqis.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Approve my payment quickly!

Not only the Iraqis are impatiently waiting the new parliament to convene again and start its job, but we have now another group of people who are waiting for that moment; they are the Americans who recently got their compensation payments for what they consider an abuse by Saddam Hussein's regime.

On Thursday, the Iraqi Cabinet unanimously approved a $400 million settlement for those Americans who claim to have been tortured or traumatized under Saddam's regime dating back to the 1990 Iraqi invasion to Kuwait, Sameer N. Yacoub of the Associated Press in Baghdad reported.

But the settlement still needs to be approved by the parliament which has only met once since the March 7 national elections as post-Saddam politicians are still at loggerheads over who should form the government and becomes its Prime Minister as the vote produced no clear winner. For that, the approval could take more months, giving the political wrangling and the likely fierce opposition by Sadrist and Sunni lawmakers for the plan.

And given the bad economic situation in the U.S. and how important is the cash now there, we may see these Americans involved in the talks of forming the new government or may be they would make proposals and initiatives to the politicians to end the political deadlock to let the parliament start its work or may be would go in demos and shout: "Approve my payment quickly."

Who knows.

kassakhoon@gmail.com