"Let’s take a closer look at whatObama calls “success.” The war in Iraq—a war based on lies—cost thelives of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis; over 4 million have beendriven from their homes; the Sunni population—some 20 percent of Iraq’spopulation—has been decimated by the U.S. occupation and a sectarianwar of ethnic cleansing unleashed by the reactionary Shi’a forces theU.S. helped empower—an ethnic cleansing with tacit U.S. support. That slaughter, along with cash payments to the defeated Sunni fighters, isat the heart of the “successful” surge in Iraq. Yet Obama did not uttera word about the Iraqi victims of this U.S. aggression. Apparently theonly civilians worth talking about in his view are the 3,000 killed onSeptember 11.Obama’s treatment of Iraq istypical of his approach throughout his speech. He repeatedly refers to Americans who have lost their lives, but not to those America has killed in its “war on terror,” whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,or other countries. By doing this, he is rendering totally invisible the enormous toll of people killed by the U.S. In sheer numbers, the U.S. has so far killed something like 200 to 300 people for every American killed in the attacks of 9/11! By rendering these victims invisible and not even worth mentioning, he is training people in this country to see the world as if only American lives count. He is training them, in other words, in the mindset of imperialism."

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