THE coalition of the willing invaded Iraq in 2003 in order to secure oil supplies for the West; they have left behind a legacy of religious and ethnic strife and diseases that cannot be cured.
The cancer rate in the city of Fallujah has risen to unimaginable levels; children are born every day with hideous deformities. Radioactivity in many areas is far above the normal level, even factoring in the fact that Iraq was the site of a war in 1991.
Buildings have been abandoned but the Iraqis who move about breathe in the harmful residues and a surge in the birth of deformed children is the result.
Couples in Fallujah are now afraid to have children. For any Arab, children are something to be proud about. But given the rising rate of unnatural births, the number of births has dropped.
The Americans have form in this regard: they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and the effects of that act of terrorism can be seen even today.
Depleted uranium is used in shells to increase their killing potential; what it leaves behind maims the living. It would be merciful if it killed them straightaway.
Winning hearts and minds? Sure, this is the way to go about it, by ensuring that a nation of deformed children rises up. We see ourselves in our children and the West has left Iraq in no doubt as to how it should start seeing itself.
George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, meanwhile, have all released their memoirs, defending the decision to invade a sovereign nation. Blair even justifies the bogus 45-minute warning he issued about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The other legacy that these three world leaders have left behind is religious conflict. Iraqi Christians are increasingly being forced to flee their own country because of attacks by Muslim militants. Iraq was one country in the Middle East where every religious minority could worship in peace.
But that is no longer the case. The level of militancy has risen a thousand-fold and people regard their neighbours with suspicion.
The Americans have exerted heavy pressure on Iraq’s government to keep these issues quiet. They are aided by their own media like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the TV channels like CNN and Fox News. These media organs have more important things — like Sarah Palin’s antics — to report about.