Hundreds of these orphans, are in prison. Conditions for detainees, as we know, are horrendous. Most, if not all, are subjected to atrocious conditions, many being tortured. US forces, not proxies, have personally and directly murdered at least a hundred people through torture.

It is death by torture, condoned by Bush and the White House, which claimed throughout its eight long year stolen tenure that the US does not torture.

Now the man who promised change and who just won the Nobel Peace Prize has allowed torture to continue under his watch, after announcing that some 40,000 US troops will remain indefinitely in Iraq.

This immoral war and ongoing occupation of Iraq has been responsible for the needless deaths and suffering of millions, with the death toll of over 1.2 million Iraqis and tens of thousands of US soldiers. (The 1.2 million Iraqis killed is also, by the way, corroborated by not only death certificates from most of those interviewed by the Lancet Report, but also by the 4.5 million children who have been orphaned - that is, deprived of their parents.)

The official death toll of US personnel in Iraq is 4,349. This 4,349 figure is, we know, low because they transport some victims out of Iraq and take them elsewhere, making the count smaller for Iraq War casualties.

But the largest numbers of dead really come from suicides. According to the Veteran’s Administration itself, eighteen vets have committed suicide every day since the US’s April 2003 invasion of Iraq. If you do the maths, this means that as of now over 40,000 US service personnel have died by suicide alone since the start of this war, launched by Bush and Cheney and continued under Obama.

Most people know by now that the Bush Regime’s WMD claims were a hoax, designed to provide a justification for an invasion and occupation that the neocons had been planning to carry out almost ten years before 9/11.

Most people also know by now that Bush and Cheney’s alleged links between 9/11 and Hussein were phoney, although a surprising number of Americans still believe this linkage exists.

They believe this in part because they were told it so many times, in part because it was their government and media that said it again and again, so ”it "must be true", and in part because it’s hard to admit that what you believed to be true for so long was completely false. Admitting that you had been taken in would mean that you have to re-evaluate what you thought and supported because these were lies by this society’s leading figures.

This would mean that you would probably have to radically revise how you think about America. That is a hard thing for many people to do. But coming to grips with this fundamental truth is vital.

More people will have to emerge from among the people, to join the relative handful of people (such as Cindy Sheehan) who have already stepped forward up to this point, to bring this truth to people again and again in a living, concrete, and compelling way. Because one event isn’t enough for most people to change their long-held attitudes.

It requires persistent work and a great deal of determination and courage to do the work that must be done. We need people to be heralds to the people, people who will not sugar-coat the reality and spread comfortable illusions, but who will tirelessly bring the hard truth to people. That truth can be very difficult to stomach, but it is the truth nonetheless.

Truth today is both scarce and terribly precious. Truth is inherently potent. It has the hardness of diamonds and like diamonds, can cut anything else it touches or tries to cut.
WMD and the linking of Hussein to 9/11, while hoaxes from the start, aren’t even the main aspect of the illegitimacy of this unprovoked aggression and ongoing occupation. They weren’t even the biggest lies.

For even if Iraq had had WMD, the US invasion of Iraq would not have been justified. The US’s invasion of Iraq, according to the UN Charter and according to Nuremberg, represents the supreme war crime: invading a country that has not first attacked you.