Refugee Focus: Iraq

An excellent piece at the consistently prescient antiwar site Tomdispatch, written by Dahr Jamail, gives a true picture of what life in the maelstrom of Iraq is like...to cut to the chase, upwards of 1.5 million people have left the country because of the unremitting violence and chaos caused by the US invasion (another couple of million, give or take, have been internally displaced). Jamail follows some of these unfortunates into Syria, where an overwhelmed UN agency struggles vainly to provide them with the bare necessities. The statistics are staggering, but the individual interviews will make the hardhearted blush. The mainstream media in the Empire have chosen to avoid this subject and why not? The maudlin aftermath of university shootings or the Kabuki rantings and apology of a celebrity are more to the liking of the somnolent public.