Gritty
Does anyone else feel a sense of perversity in this New York Times story?
Athletes Disabled by Wars Lead Iraqi Team in World Games
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
War and hardship have not destroyed all of Iraq’s dreams for international competition. The country, which has been in three wars in two decades, has a robust Paralympic team.
I mean no disrespect; the efforts of these athletes are without peer. It is just tragic to consider athletes paralyzed in their prime, both ours and theirs. We are creating this, and somehow I can not be happy about it.
To me, this is not a feel-good story.
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
War and hardship have not destroyed all of Iraq’s dreams for international competition. The country, which has been in three wars in two decades, has a robust Paralympic team.
". . .after five years of war, Iraq's chances of fielding a competitive Olympic team are vanishingly small.""War and hardship, though, have not destroyed all of Iraq’s dreams for international competition. The country, which has been in three wars in two decades, has a robust Paralympic team.
“As a country that participated in many wars since 1980, we have many disabled people,” said Ahmed Abid Hassan, a wheelchair fencing coach. 'Our Paralympic team is better than our Olympic team' (Athletes Disabled by Wars Lead Iraqi Team in World Games.)"
I mean no disrespect; the efforts of these athletes are without peer. It is just tragic to consider athletes paralyzed in their prime, both ours and theirs. We are creating this, and somehow I can not be happy about it.
To me, this is not a feel-good story.
Labels: athletes paralyzed in war, consequences of wot, paralyzed iraqi athletes. iraq paralympics
posted by Lisa at 10:00 AM
4 Comments:
nope, not a lot of feel good floating around there.
Ties in with the tragic story in the NYT yesterday about the jundis disabled and essentially abandoned by the impoverished Iraqi Army and police agencies. Here are the very guys we have been so loudly hollering to "step up" so we can pretend we're going to "step down", and yet after they're used up and useless to us and our proxy the Malikists they are thrown back into the Third World reality that is Iraq, 2008.
Perhaps a little of the latest supplemental could go to training these guys for the Special Olympics...
Chief,
Yes, a revolting story about the abandoned disabled jundis, and an appropriately grim observation on your part.
I am losing my perceptive edge to have missed the linkage.
FDChief, and exactly how does this differ from the way we treat our disabled vets? jim
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