Sun Jun 19th, 2005 at 12:26:40 PDT

I can't believe this. The outrage never ends.

Buried in the Boston Globe,Over half of Iraqis struggle in poverty. ( http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/06
/19/corruption_theft_tied_to_shortage_of_food_rations/ ... .)


The UN World Food Program, which monitors the distribution of rations, recently reported ''significant countrywide shortages of rice, sugar, milk, and infant formula." Families in Baghdad haven't received sugar or baby milk since January. Newspapers have also begun reporting that the tea and flour handouts contain metal filings and that people have fallen ill after consuming food rations.

NO BABY MILK IN BAGHDAD SINCE JANUARY? UNBELIEVABLE! I AM SO GODDAMN ANGRY! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Iraqis were already poor, they'll say.

The country's median income fell from $255 in 2003 to about $144 in 2004, according to a recent UN survey.
Mr. President, why are you not feeding the Iraqi people? What have you done with our $300 billion?

Those Iraqi politicians learn from the best:

Officials with the Trade Ministry, which is in charge of distributing the rations, said the media have created the crisis. But they have refused to release results of the tests for contamination they said they are doing.

Retail agents who sell the food baskets say the ministry is corrupt, a charge supported by Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the government's anticorruption chief. Radhi said in a recent interview that Trade Ministry officials had spread rumors about contaminated food to discredit the current flour supplier and renegotiate the contract.

What kind of freedom is this? Freedom from food?

Sometimes the sugar they receive has been hardened by rainwater and the rice is crawling with maggots.

What kind of compassion is this?

The cost of tea and flour has almost tripled. At local food markets, a 35-pound can of vegetable oil, which just a few months ago cost $4, a little more than an average day's wage, now costs $12.

How can an average Iraqi not hate Americans?

One brother applied for a job with the Iraq National Guard. But they also wanted money: $500 to consider hiring him as a recruit.
What an absolute disaster! Tell me how this isn't guaranteed to create more terrorists! Tell me who wouldn't join the insurgents!

The compassion my mother taught me was obviously different from that which Barbara taught her son. We didn't have much, but (actually, "so") whenever we encountered a woman with kids begging, my mother always gave us money to give them, because it troubled her deeply. I'm incapable of imagining those lessons in the Bush family. We simply live in different realms.

To the Iraqi people, we are terribly sorry.