Every American should have a picture of this Iraqi child in their cubicle, on their dashboard, on their bathroom mirror.

The United States invaded his country. It said Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, and Osama bin Laden—who allegedly pulled off 9/11—were best buddies and in cahoots. Which turned out to be a lie. The U.S.—or shall we say the Bush administration—said that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” Which also turned out to be a lie.

The United States proceeded to completely destroy his country. After the invasion, there was no “exit strategy,” which was code for, let’s destroy the country—or let it destroy itself, stand back and watch as it dissolve into chaos—so we have to stay there. Indefinitely. And anybody who doesn’t like it, we’ll arrest them, torture them, kill them if we have to. And spy on ‘em, over here.

Five years later, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and 4,000+ American soldiers, are dead. And this child has lost his limbs.

But there are people who will tell you “the surge is working.”

Everybody should watch “No End In Sight,” Charles Ferguson’s excellent documentary from last year—now available as a book of the same name. Ferguson, who used to be at the Brookings Institute, got access to a lot of muckety-mucks like Paul Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State, who in his own terse way calls the Bush people a bunch of assholes. Samantha “Hillary Is A Monster” Power also gives some good on-air testimony about how the United States, post-invasion, blew off the Iraqi people and the U.N.

Ferguson delivers a very clear picture of how a few single-minded madmen at the top—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al—made decisions about Iraq thousands of miles away, in Washington, without considering the input of their own advisors on the ground, not to mention, again, the Iraqi people. No, that would have been too democratic. The neo-cons had a plan for Iraq—had a plan before 9/11 ever happened—and they went and carried it out, and are still carrying it out, and it involves oil and no-bid contracts and world hegemony and cares not about little copper-skinned kids with their arms blown off.

So, what now? John McCain says he doesn't care if we're in Iraq for the next hundred years. And how do you think Iraqis would feel about that, Mr. McCain? One thing is for sure, the United States has an obligation to rebuild that country. That doesn't seem to be the Bush administration's goal, right now—most Iraqis still don't have the basic necessities they had under Saddam the dictator (starting with water, food, shelter, and electricity). But then, neither do many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, more than two years after the storm. At the end of the day, the Bush legacy will be judged to be war, neglect, racism and cruelty.