October 07, 2004
Fog
The temptation to use this beautiful picture of fog to rant about the way in which the Bush Cheney Machine clouds the issues, is entirely unacceptable.
I heard yesterday that when Cheney challenged Edward's lack of experience in public service in the debate, Edwards deliberately chose not to point out that George W. had exactly the same number of years in public office as he does, before becoming President. Edwards thinks W. is a prime example of an inexperienced leader running amok, and doesn't wish to compare himself in any way to W.
Later:
Here's the real fog stuff. Daily Kos reported shocking news revealed by an Iraqi guest on Oprah yesterday, --more on Obsidian Wings . The US is making valium available to the people of Iraq -- cheap. A brief googling tells us that these psychopharmacological interventions are called "calmatives" by the military , and seem to have been in the arsenal for some time . Oprah's guest reported that the women of Bhagdad buy water and vials of valium when they dare to go out, and many are walking around in a fog. These women have been horribly traumatized, and valium, no doubt, offers some relief from their PTSD. It also serves the strategic interests of the military, by tranquilizing "would-be insurgents". Women are once more the victims in this war.
Valium is the oldest of a classification of psychoactive drugs called benzodiazepines. Although they are useful in very short term situations, they are VERY habituating. To quote from Benzo.org. uk
"It is more difficult to withdraw people from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin. It just seems that the dependency is so ingrained and the withdrawal symptoms you get are so intolerable that people have a great deal of problem coming off. The other aspect is that with heroin, usually the withdrawal is over within a week or so. With benzodiazepines, a proportion of patients go on to long term withdrawal and they have very unpleasant symptoms for month after month, and I get letters from people saying you can go on for two years or more. Some of the tranquilliser groups can document people who still have symptoms ten years after stopping." - Professor M H Lader, Royal Maudesley Hospital, BBC Radio 4, Face The Facts, March 16, 1999.
Yet another atrocity that we are commiting in Iraq. Where is the media?
Photo note: It's a pretty picture for not such a pretty picture
Posted by Dakota at October 7, 2004 06:23 AM