War sucks.

What infuriates me more than anything else is the whole "God On Our Side" thing. Evil wrapped in the cloak of righteousness. Plus, as you say, they are getting even more obscenely wealthy from this.

I don't even know what to say about this. God.

My anger and frustration with this administration is so sweeping it's very difficult to pinpoint on specifics.

And it's completely incomprehensible to here Christians, etc. complain about violence in media/entertainment when all this Iraq shit is happening for real.
And we're about to declare the Iranian Guard a terrorist organization, and doing so confirms the US is one as well.

And yeah danf, when you have God on your side, you can do no wrong. You can't rationally argue with someone who claims God told him to invade a country.

:(

I don't mean this as a defense of this administration, but war isn't just about young men (and now women) dying for the sake of real estate; war has always made women into prostitutes. It makes a lot of orphans and spreads disease like crazy, too.

war has always made women into prostitutes. It makes a lot of orphans and spreads disease like crazy, too.

Of course. It also destroys infrastructure and leads to refugee crises in neighboring regions. All of which are among the reasons many of us were against this war in the first place -- precisely because of the knowledge that the devestation it brings goes far, far beyond "just" the casualty count that gets reported (or not) on the news. The fact that the administration didn't know or care about such inevitabilities doesn't make them any less culpable this time around.

Sure, I agree completely: these usurpers oughtta hang and rot in the public square for their continued attempts to destroy us all. But it's worth mentioning, when one of war's many horrors is newly newsworthy, that even the Greatest Generation turned out the women of Paris and Luzon by the thousands.

Oh bullshit. Prostitution did not suddenly materialize with the landing of US troops. Saddam merely pushed it deeper underground.

History shows that prostitution does tend to boom when a large occupying force shows up anywhere, especially when local resources are limited and supplies cut off.

Prostitution did not suddenly materialize with the landing of US troops.

Straw man, much, mischief? No one here or in the article takes such an asinine position as to suggest that prostitution "materalized" with the troops.

What is being argued is that there has been an increase in women (and children) forced into selling themselves sexually for survival as a direct result of the occupation. It's not unique to Iraq (as Hugh and Miko point out), but it doesn't make it any less horrifying. To some of us, at least.

More about increased trafficking of children in postwar Iraq.