Not sure if this was discussed, or if its off-topic; I did a quick search, nada. This article discusses the Iraqi Gold Murders of the last six months (May-October.) It’s another sad milestone in the Great Unwind.
Iraqi Gold’s Glitter Dims for Dealers Under Siege
I don’t have a teevee anymore, and Iraq news seems all but forgotten. (Are US troops still there? How many? What is this costing us? Etc.) Gut instinct tells me that Iraq is now like another ‘War on Drugs’: untold billions spent for nebulous purposes, lining the pockets of shady defense-contractors who cycle money back to the scariest rightwing goons in Congress (of both parties.) God spare us from these kleptocrats – it’s worse than the old Soviet Union, now!
But I read this particular story and think “This is the worst calamity a man could face.” He (and his kind) did all the right things (trust Gold not Dollars) and paid the ultimate price. Imagine losing two of your sons in a violent robbery! Better to be poor & starve, certainly.
I don’t know who did it – but I really doubt the US commander’s assertion ‘It’s al-Qaeda, again!’ The US government (esp. the military – damn that scumbag McChrystal!) has been lying to us all along, they cannot be trusted. Doesn’t this look more like a mafia effort, Sunni/Baathist paramilitaries targeting Kurds? (That means it’s more like ethnic sectarian gang violence.) Am I the only one who thinks it’s probably inevitable that Iraq will splinter into three countries?
Grim, very grim. And very sad too. Like something from The Book of Job? (An earlier version of Job was a Mesopotamian, Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan : you can hear ‘The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer’ here.)
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