BAGHDAD — Marwa Hussein watched as gunmen stormed into her home and executed her parents. Afterward, her uncle brought her to the Alwiya Orphanage, a high-walled compound nestled in central Baghdad with a concrete yard for a playground. That was more than two years ago, and for 13-year-old Marwa, shy and thin with walnut-colored eyes and long brown hair, the memory of her parents’ last moments is always with her.
“They were killed,” she said, her voice trailing away as she sat on her narrow bed with pink sheets. Tears started to slide down her face. As social worker Maysoon Tahsin comforted her, other orphans in the room, where 12 girls sleep, watched solemnly.
Iraq’s conflict is exacting an immense and largely unnoticed psychological toll on children and youth that will have long-term consequences, said social workers, psychiatrists, teachers and aid workers in interviews across Baghdad and in neighboring Jordan.
“With our limited resources, the societal impact is going to be very bad,” said Haider Abdul Muhsin, one of the country’s few child psychiatrists. “This generation will become a very violent generation, much worse than during Saddam Hussein’s regime.”
Full story. And for the sake of jarring contrast, here’s the latest outraaageous sound bite from everyone’s favorite zany sociopath, Ann Coulter:
“We need to be less concerned about civilian casualties…we bombed more people in Hamburg in two days … I’d rather have their civilians die than our civilians… we should kill their people.”
… which leads to the inevitable question: is Chris Matthews fucked in the head? I ask this in all seriousness. What the fuck is wrong with media gatekeepers like Matthews, that they continue to give a raving sociopath like Coulter airtime long after her raving sociopathy has been established beyond reasonable dispute?