U.S. Occupation Has Created Millions of Iraqi Orphans

Iraq is rarely discussed in the mainstream media these days.  Eight years after W’s “Mission Accomplished” moment, the American public seems to have finally accepted the false corporate narrative that the war is over and American forces have – to use the appropriate Bush terminology – prevailed.  But the war isn’t over; the illegal 2003 invasion created lingering effects which persist to this day, and the occupation still continues, claiming the lives of civilians soldiers alike.

There are many aspects of the Iraq invasion and occupation that have been forgotten about or entirely ignored by the American public:  the tens – hundreds – of thousands of dead civilians, the ongoing lack of access to water, electricity and adequate medical care, the complete lack of order in cities across the nation.  And hidden away beneath countless layers of forgotten aspects of the war are children who lives were forever changed when American military action resulted in the deaths of their parents.

Al-Jazeera reported today that there are some 1 million orphans in Iraq now, whose parents were killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation.  As if having one’s parents slaughtered at the hands of foreign invaders was not torturous enough, most of these children now appear to be homeless.   Facing the reality of high unemployment and widespread poverty in a the midst of a war zone, many relatives are forced to abandon these orphans.  But there are very few orphanages in Iraq, so the children often have no one to which they can turn.