Wisconsinites who've been to Iraq say ...

[struggle4progress]

0:07 AM 6/26/04
<snip>
Stuenkel, a grandmother, used vacation days from her state job to join the Christian Peace Makers group on an 11-day trip to Baghdad in April, which included the Abu Ghraib prison.

The story of the Iraqi people, she said, was one of hope turned to despair.

One man she met was so overjoyed immediately after Saddam Hussein's removal from power that he wanted to build a statue of President Bush. "They were so hopeful when Saddam was overthrown. They believed in democracy."

But that optimism and hope had turned to disillusionment by the time she arrived in Iraq on April 3. "Everyone I met knows of someone who was tortured by Saddam or someone that was detained by the Americans."
<snip>
http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal/local/77142.php

[Mnemosyne]

1. everything old is new again!

how terribly sad.

[sybylla]

2. A sad tale

How can democracy even have a chance now. I didn't hold out much hope for it in the first place but it seems the bungler in chief has so hopelessly fucked it all up. Democracy hasn't a chance if there is no hope that it will lift everyone and bring oppression to an end.