Weary .  

Apologies in advance.

I dont know whether it is just me but I am weary when I look at news. I am tired at being fed half-baked analysis shorn of history. I get miserable at the trite phrases that journalists allow to trip of their tongues.

Where to start - well why not Iraq:

I have yet to see any analysis of the invasion and its subsequent problems that refers to two fundamental issues that were always going to prevent the Iraqis welcoming the "allies" with open arms as opposed to loaded arms.

1. Just after the first Gulf War for Kuwait the US administration called for Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. In both the northern Kurdish areas and in the southern Shiite areas the people took what weapons they had and did just that. And then they were massacred.

2. In the aftermath of the failed uprisings sanctions were imposed on Iraq and many thousands died as a result. Madeline Albright, then Secretary of State, was asked if the deaths of thousands of children was a worthwhile price to pay said on balance it probably was.

If you were Iraqi and opposed to Saddam and you had survived all of this what would you feel. What if you had spent time in Abu-Ghraib when it was a Saddam instituition. You had watched as Saddams prison guards raped your wife in front of you, you had experienced the joys of electrocution and burning of selected parts of your body.

I would like to think I would be different but I think the odds are high that if I was that Shiite man I would:

1. Be glad that Saddam was gone.

2. Be desperate for revenge against the Baathists who had supported him (mainly Sunni).

3. Be angry at those who had told me to rise up against Saddam and then watched on as we were slaughtered. Those who imposed sanctions that killed our children.

But of course that story is not told instead we get stupidly carictured portrayals. The man above is described as a "fanatic" or a "fundamentalist" maybe as an "insurgent".

Let me be clear. Any death is a tragedy, this:

"Iraqi police told The Associated Press that at least one civilian was killed and five seriously injured when a U.S. tank fired on a house in Diwaniya. The U.S. military had no immediate comment on any civilian casualties, AP reported."

or this:

"A US soldier was killed in Diwaniyah, where American and Iraqi forces have been battling Shiite gunmen for several days, the US military said. The soldier died yesterday, Colonel Michael Garrett told reporters in the town 130km south of Baghdad. He did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the soldier's death."

The shrouded bodies and body bags keep coming but we are told that a soldier dying is a tragic but necessary casualty in a war and that the civilian death is a tragic but inevitable consequence of conflict.

"You cant make an omelette without breaking eggs." Well its not an omelette its a country and those are not eggs they were people with families and dreams for the future.