Your tax dollars at work

Riverbend reports that she and her family are fleeing from their home in Baghdad. Over the past three and a half years she has provided an occasional glimpse into the chaos of the U.S. occupation and the sectarian civil war that now pervades every aspect of life in that unfortunate country. She notes in her blog that religious-minority neighborhoods are now being surrounded by enclosing walls.

The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!" And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.

She's mistaken about the origin of the concentration camps, but I can see how someone inside such a wall might be reminded of the enclosing of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed government not only refuses to prosecute sectarian crimes committed by thugs in uniform, but actively rewards them and arrests victims who file complaints.

But flag-waving Bush supporters in the U.S. don't have to worry about dangerous Riverbend and her family settling down anywhere near them, since the U.S. refuses to accept any responsibility for the refugees fleeing from the war which it insisted on starting. Many of the people now being persecuted, kidnapped, or assassinated are the educated and professional people who, under other circumstances, would be the best hope for establishing a rational civil society. The interpreters and others who worked with U.S. forces are also reportedly being targetted for retribution. But I suppose it's more important to keep them from telling their stories to U.S. voters than to allow them any legal escape route from the hell that we have created.