...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Friday, May 21, 2004
      ( 12:52 PM )
 
Atrocity Fatigue

I told my husband last night as I read the latest Nation that I felt like I was succumbing to Atrocity Fatigue. It's almost as if there is so much, it feels like all we're doing is wading slow-motion through the shallow end of the pool. I know that I need to know the facts, I need to be constantly curious in order to keep my government accountable for what it does in my name, and I know that I want to find out how to amend the wrongs and keep this from ever happening again. And yet, day after day, it's more and more of the kind of news that seems like it just can't get any worse - but it does, the next day.

Blah3 points us to a great blog from an Iraqi newswriter describing the most recent horrific events enacted at the hands of the US against Iraqis:

“Iraq is sitting atop a volcano,” says a school teacher in Haditha. “The Americans are aggravating people here, trying to get a reaction. Everyone in this province is against them now!”

Most Iraqis I speak with nowadays are seething with rage towards the occupiers of their country. With their mosques being raided, damaged or destroyed on what has become a nearly daily basis, they have had enough.

Then, as if the unremitting stream of horrendous photographs documenting the widespread torturing of Iraqis within Abu Ghraib prison (among other detention facilities throughout Iraq) are not enough, the recent wedding party massacre has brought the fury to an entirely new level.

The continuing cultural insensitivity and unwillingness to take responsibility for the slaughter by the U.S. military is not helping ebb the rage felt by Iraqis about the incident.

While Arabic media has shown footage of the mangled bodies of the 25 women and children killed by U.S. helicopters, Marine General James Mattis in Fallujah responded:

"Ten miles from Syrian border and 80 miles from nearest city and a wedding party? Don't be naïve. Plus they had 30 males of military age with them. How many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?"

Uh, general? The entire country is a desert. I am uncertain as to where a large wedding party might be held that wasn't in the desert in Iraq.

The worst part about the Atrocity Fatigue is that it feels like when I can't get anymore angry, our government says something so incredibly horrible in response to something that my cringe reflex feels tired out - but my anger keeps growing. The general and our White House leadership continue to say publicly that the wedding party attack was justified and that no true civilians were hurt. How is it possible that our country can continue to function under such aberrant views of reality? Oh, I'm so tired of this.

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