Lost Laughter and Broken Lives

Sattar Hashim keeps a memorial to his son, Hassan, center photo, who was killed with 33 other boys by a bomb on their Baghdad block in 2005.
This Bomb’s Lasting Toll: Lost Laughter and Broken Lives will be in the New York Times sunday edition.

This is just a tiny glimpse into what the Iraqi people are experiancing on a daily basis now. And while there is no mention it gives the indications of Wartime PTSD setting in into the civilian population and growing.

More than 3,000 Iraqis are dying every month in this war — roughly the total deaths in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or all the American troops killed since the war began. But behind the headlines and statistics, most of the war is experienced in Iraqi living rooms and on blocks like the one here, where families struggle with the intense pain of loss.
And while American war planners discuss the way ahead, Iraqis on this scarred block are stuck in the past on the morning of July 13, 2005, when time stopped and the war truly began for them.
“Our life now, it’s not a life, it’s a kind of dream,” said Qais Ataiwee Yaseen, whose two boys, ages 8 and 11, were killed that day. “Life has no taste. I even feel sick of myself.”

I keep getting the "We are not responsible for the deaths that are done by the Terrorists" from those who say they are supporters of this War, rather than just admit they Only Support the little chimp, and except what is done as they follow like sheep.
We Are Responsible For Every Death and Maiming and All the destruction of their Country, 'We' the people of this country wether for or against, and our guilt gets bigger, if that can be possible for all that has occurred because we have Held No One Accountible!!!

“I pray to God that no one in this world will ever have to face such a scene,” he said, remembering the scene as he sat in his sparely furnished living room with the curtains drawn. “As if they had been scattered on the ground. Legs. Arms. Heads. Bodies still burning.”
His son died in a hospital operating room several hours after the explosion.

And in our arrogant, simplistic minds many ask "Why do they Hate Us"! Why folks indeed, we've been treating others like crap for years and on occasion Blowing the Hell out of others!! Along with installing and supporting their 'leaders{?}' in power because it served some short term empty policy of a few control freaks and it was easy to do because We Ask No Questions and Believe the Bullshit!

The pain caused strange things to happen. Mr. Yaseen lost his knack for numbers and found himself fumbling in front of customers at the hardware store where he had worked for years. Eventually, he quit. Reading and writing became difficult for Zahra Hussein, the mother of 11-year-old Hamza. She had lost her ability to concentrate and some of her eyesight.
Hadi Faris, Hamza’s father, stopped his work as a driver. He could not control his thoughts, and concentrating on the road and split- second decisions was too onerous.
“I kept thinking how life is cheap, how so many innocent people are killed,” he said, sitting in front of a kerosene heater in a small guest room.

Are we, as a Nation, going to payback, which really is impossible, these people who's lives and cultures We Have Destroyed??

Life became empty and quiet for the children who were left.

Mr. Yaseen is haunted by the helplessness he felt that morning when he found his younger son, Ali, still alive. He was badly burned and missing his feet.
“I said to myself — two feet, it is nothing,” he said. But within several hours the child was dead.
“I did not have the ability to do anything for him,” Mr. Yaseen said. “To save him.”
Memories rush back at inconvenient moments. Mr. Yaseen has one in which his older son, Abbas, who loved bugs, begged him not to put poison down for the ants, saying, “They also have families and houses.”

“I’m like a dead man,” said Mr. Yaseen, crying into his hands. “I have no ambitions. I have no goals in life. I have lost everything.”
His wife and daughter have moved out, and he has retreated into his apartment, a 12-foot by 14-foot room. He stopped shaving. The room is now piled with baskets of laundry, old children’s toys and a metal bassinet.
“I live in this room,” he said. “I sleep in this room. I eat in this room. This is my whole life. As if I’m in prison.”

This is the Reality of living in a War Theater, a War Theater We Created and by our presence sustain!! But we have also unleased the Pandora's Box of Sectarian Hatreds, once quelled as they lived together in relative togetherness, working, marriages, schools................. The Hatreds for our Invasion in their Country have brought about Hatreds of each other and those that work with us.

Three Shiite families from Diyala, a violent province north of Baghdad, arrived with the stunned look of refugees who just lost everything but their lives.
“There are no smiles on their faces,” Ms. Hussein said. “You can tell they lost somebody.”
Attacks on Shiites by Sunni militants started to wear, and families on the block began asking about the backgrounds of newcomers.

For Adel, the 12-year-old whose friends were killed, memories returned in spurts. Some time after the July attack, he took his bicycle to the balcony of his house and threw it off. He was angry about what happened, Ms. Hussein said. A month ago, his life became even more isolated: a guard and a teacher from his school were killed, and Adel’s father began keeping him home.

Does anyone think there will be 'Forgiveness', 'Understanding', 'Care' or 'Love' for us by these people whom We Have Destroyed, Not For Decades Folks, Not For Decades, If Ever!!!

The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades