In the house of my friends in Baghdad, Iraq, they share how each of them experienced the horrors of the improper war that the US imposed in their nation in 2003.
Both Yusuf and Anisa are users of the Iraqi Federation of Journalists, and they both have worked for Western media outlets since the battle.  ,
When I first went to their house for supper in the well-placed Waziriyah town, I was struck by the fact that Anisa, whom I had known as a liberal man, wore a mask on her face.  ,
Later in the evening, Anisa said to me,” I wear this scarf to cover the scar on my neck and throat, the scar caused by a US soldier’s panic when an IED [improvised explosive device ] went off beside his patrol.
In the earlier part of the time, Yusuf had guided me through New Baghdad City, where an Apache helicopter in 2007 claimed the lives of nearly 20 residents and injured two children. Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor- Eldeen, two reporters who worked for Reuters, were among the dying.  ,
” This is where they were killed”, Yusuf tells me as he points to the plaza. ” And this is where Saleh]Matasher Tomal ] parked his car to liberate Saeed, who had not yet died. And this is where the Apache shot at the minivan, grievously injuring Saleh’s children, Sajad and Duah” . ,
I was interested in this area because the whole affair was captured on film by the US defense and , released , by Assange as” Collateral Murder”. Julian Assange is currently imprisoned primarily because he was a member of the team responsible for creating this video ( he has the right to challenge his extradition to the United States in a UK court ). A tragic war murder was directly presented in the video.
No one in our community has been spared from the crime. We are a world that has been traumatized”, Anisa said to me in the night. ” Get my cousin for example. She lost her mother in a bomb, and her father is deaf as a result of yet another attack.
The tales fill my book. They are unlimited. Every culture that has experienced the kind of war faced by the Iraqis, and now by the Palestinians, is greatly scarred. It is hard to return from such crime.
My Poisoned Area
In Vietnam, I’m on a walk near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My buddies who are showing me the area cite the areas that surround it and claim that this area has been poisoned by the United States dropping Agent Orange, making it impossible for them to produce food around for centuries.  ,
The US , dropped , at least 74 million litres of compounds, typically Agent Orange, on Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, with the target for many years being this supply column that ran from the north to the south. At least five million Taiwanese people were killed when the spray of these chemicals struck their bodies and mutilated the property.
A Vietnamese journalist Tran To Nga published Ma terre empoisonnée (My Poisoned Area) in 2016 as a way to call attention to the atrocity that has continued to impact Vietnam over four decades after the US lost the war.
In her reserve, Nga describes how as a columnist in 1966 she was sprayed by a US Air Force Fairchild C- 123 with a peculiar substance. She wiped it away and continued on through the forest, breathing in the drugs that had fallen from the sky.  ,
Two years after the birth of her child, she passed away suddenly from Agent Orange’s effects on Nga. ” The people from that town over it”, my guides tell me, naming the town, “birth children with severe problems generation after generation”.
Gaza
In Gaza, these memories are brought up. The deceased and the death of the environment are frequently the subjects of conversation. But , there are other enduring pieces of modern war that are  , hard to calculate.  ,
There is the immense noise of conflict, the sound of assault and , of , cries, the noises that go deeply into the awareness of younger children and mark them for their whole lives.  ,
There are kids in Gaza, for instance, who were born in 2006 and are now 18, who have seen wars at their beginning in 2006, therefore in 2008- 09, 2012, 2014, 2021, and then, 2023- 24. The gaps between these significant bombardments have been filled with smaller, as loud and deadly bombardments.
Then there is the dust. There are a variety of toxic materials used in contemporary construction. Indeed, in 1982, the World Health Organization , recognized , a phenomenon called” sick building syndrome”, which is when a person falls ill due to the toxic material used to construct modern buildings.  ,
Imagine the toxic dust that flies around and lingers on a building as a 2, 000-pound MK84 bomb lands on it.
This is precisely what the children of Gaza are now breathing as the Israelis , drop , hundreds of these deadly bombs on residential neighborhoods. There , is , now over 37 million tons of , debris , in Gaza, large sections of it filled with toxic substances.
Every war zone remains dangerous years after ceasefires. Even a cessation of hostilities wo n’t put an end to the violence in this conflict with Gaza.  ,
In early November 2023, Euro- Med Human Rights Monitor , estimated , that the Israelis had dropped 25, 000 tons of explosives on Gaza, which is the equivalent of two nuclear bombs ( although, as they pointed out, Hiroshima sits on 900 square meters of land, whereas Gaza’s total square meters are 360 ).  ,
By the end of April 2024, Israel had , dropped , over 75, 000 tons of bombs on Gaza, which would be the equivalent of six nuclear bombs. The United Nations , estimates , that it would take 14 years to clear the unexploded ordnance in Gaza. That means until 2038 people will be dying due to this Israeli bombardment.
A small Palestinian flag hangs on the mantle of the small living room in the apartment of Anisa and Yusuf. A small piece of shrapnel that struck and destroyed Yusuf’s left eye is next to it. Nothing else is present on the mantle.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, editor of , LeftWord Books  , and , the director of , Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.  , This article was produced by , Globetrotter , and is republished with permission.  ,