Why did they die or suffer? Because Michelle Malkin and others were afraid of terrorists. It didn't matter that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were not even tangentially connected to the 9/11 attack. Cowardly Americans were so frightened that they adopted the strategy of fighting them "over there" so we don't have to fight them here. It mattered not how many lives were lost "over there", so long as we felt safer here. Life is cheap "over there". Only American lives count. Hundreds of thousands of dead or mangled Iraqis was justified to maybe, just maybe, absent any evidence, make us safer. That policy defines cowardice. Look at the photos above, and multiply by thousands upon thousands. It is shameful beyond words.
From misdirected outrage
Alas, no. While it is an accepted fiction that Americans are naive enough to think their standard of living is magically granted by some variation of fairy tale told to them as children, I think most Americans know that their bread is buttered in blood. And I think they don't care.
In fact, I think the majority of Americans who consider themselves 'on the left' don't care, or at least suspend belief...
I don't know what to do about it. My entire economic life is dependent upon the US empire killing more people abroad, imprisoning more people at home and gaming international trade so that the real ponzi scheme doesn't collapse. As is the life of everyone who has ever posted on this site - in some way.
I don't want that.
I don't want my continued material existence to be predicated on the murder of other human beings.
I want to start the discussion of how we stop murder from being the ground of subsistence.
And that conversation starts with the end of capitalism...