Iraqi Women Turning To Prostitution To Feed Their Children

I guess this is what democracy looks like.

The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.

"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."

A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.

"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.

Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.

These people were better off under Saddam Hussein. The American people need to understand what a catastrophe this war of choice has brought to the Iraqi people. When the average American finally realizes that the Iraqi people traded one prison for another even worse then they will understand why the insurgency will never end.

We have destroyed a country and its people, then we wonder why they want to kill our soldiers. It is time to draft the young Republicans.