On a plane circling Baghdad in gray dawn light, a little Iraqi girl quietly sang to herself in the next row. “When I start to wonder why I’m making this trip,” Sean Penn murmured to me, “I see that child and I remember what it’s about.”

After the plane landed at Saddam International Airport, we waited in a small entry room until an Iraqi official showed up and ushered us through customs. Soon we checked into the Al-Rashid Hotel. Back in Washington the sponsor of our trip, the Institute for Public Accuracy, put out a news release announcing the three-day visit and quoting Sean: “As a father, an actor, a filmmaker and a patriot, my visit to Iraq is for me a natural extension of my obligation (at least attempt) to find my own voice on matters of conscience.”

With U.S. war drums at feverish pitch, Sean Penn’s sudden appearance in Baghdad set off a firestorm of vilification in American media. Headlines called him “Baghdad Sean”; pundits on cable news channels called him a stooge for Saddam.

But as the U.S. media attacks got underway, our focus was Baghdad. At the Al-Mansour Children’s Hospital, youngsters lay on threadbare mattresses with haunting dark eyes, mournful mothers sometimes seated next to their tiny beds. As we left, Sean said to me: “You don’t even want someone to slam a door too loud around these children, let alone imagine a bomb exploding in the neighborhood.”

There were meetings with Iraqi officials, including Tariq Aziz, who — with his well-cut suit and smooth talk — epitomized the urbanity of evil. But most of all, we kept seeing children and wondering what would happen to them. The threat of war overshadowed everything.

UNICEF took us to schools in the city, and improvements were striking in the ones being helped by the agency. Sean and I visited the office of UNICEF’s Iraq director, a Dutchman who talked about prospects for aiding the country’s emaciated kids. But what if an invasion happens, we asked. Suddenly, there was silence.

On our last morning in Baghdad, across a breakfast table of pita bread and hummus, I watched Sean write out a statement on a pad. Later in the day, speaking at a huge news conference, he said: “I feel, both as an American and as a human being, the obligation to accept some level of personal accountability for the policies of my government, both those I support and any that I may not. Simply put, if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis alike will be on our hands.”

****

That was 123 months ago, in mid-December 2002. The invasion of Iraq came a hundred days later.

The resulting tragedies have been so horrific and large-scale that the overall reporting by U.S. mass media scarcely provides a clue. In real time and in retrospect, the dominant cliches about this war have stayed in circular motion, self-referential, within American bubbles.

Occasional, usually dimmed, strobe lights flicker on the real suffering of American soldiers and their loved ones. Numerically much larger, the Iraqi suffering gets short shrift, barely discernible in the shadows of U.S. media and politics.

A just-released report, “Iraq War Among World’s Worst Events,” provides a cogent summary of devastation so extensive and terrible that readers will be challenged to not turn away. In the report, David Swanson offers a 10-year overview of human consequences of moral turpitude for which no American official or propagandist has been held accountable.

Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, don’t expect the vast numbers of media hotshots and U.S. officials who propelled that catastrophe to utter a word of regret. Many are busy with another project: assisting the push for war on Iran.

Days ago, speaking of possible actions against Iran, President Obama told an Israeli TV reporter: “I continue to keep all options on the table.” Earlier this month, Vice President Biden told AIPAC’s annual conference that the president “is not bluffing.” Biden said “all options, including military force, are on the table.” Those statements are similar to the threats from President Bush and Vice President Cheney before the invasion of Iraq.

The Washington Post calls it “The Flotilla Fiasco” — the headline over Tuesday’s editorial that condemns the victims of a massacre and complains that the perpetrators were inept. “It’s already clear,” the Post laments, “that Israel’s response to the pro-Palestinian flotilla was both misguided and badly executed.”

As for the hundreds of people who risked their lives to bring desperately needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza’s wretched of the earth, the Post was eager to show its contempt for “a motley collection that included European sympathizers with the Palestinian cause, Israeli Arab leaders and Turkish Islamic activists.”

And so it goes, with much of the U.S. press now busily making excuses for the morally inexcusable. In this country, such media maneuvers are in sync with the usual discourse from elected officials.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

When Israel attacked the Gaza aid flotilla, Congresswoman Jane Harman was engaged in a parallel assault. Israel’s government relied on the efficacy of violence; Harman’s campaign was counting on the power of paid media. In both cases, the targets were advocates of human rights for Palestinian people.

Brandishing guns and stun grenades, in international waters, Israeli commandos rappelled from a helicopter and boarded from a fast-moving boat onto the flotilla’s largest ship. The mission was to halt a Gaza-bound expedition carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid.

The mission of Harman’s campaign strategists — targeting her progressive opponent with a slick TV commercial — was to achieve a related goal in California’s 36th congressional district. Stopping the Gaza flotilla and stopping the congressional campaign of Marcy Winograd are similar agenda items.

Harman, a powerful member of the center-right Blue Dog Coalition, is one of the Israeli government’s most valued allies on Capitol Hill. She’s a standout — even in a Congress teeming with fervent apologists for Israel’s relentless suppression of Palestinian rights.

In sharp contrast, her opponent Marcy Winograd — an outspoken advocate of human rights without regard to race, religion or ethnic background — has been unrelenting in her support for Palestinian rights.

And so, less than two weeks before California’s June 8 election, Harman hit the airwaves with a slimy TV commercial aimed at her challenger in the Democratic primary.

After claiming that Winograd “wants to kill the defense budget, putting thousands more people out of work and exposing our nation to attack,” the commercial declared: “Congressman Henry Waxman says in Marcy Winograd’s vision, Israel would cease to exist.”

Yes, liberal Congressman Waxman has distinguished himself by supplying the most demagogic ammo in Harman’s re-election arsenal. And endorsements from several other members of the Progressive Caucus — including John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jim McGovern and Lynn Woolsey — have given Harman more cover.

The basic difference between Harman and Winograd on human rights is clear in the aftermath of the killing of Gaza flotilla activists.

Harman stayed silent for a day and a half. Then she released a tepid statement; not a word went on her campaign website.

Winograd responded quickly. “I suspect the murders were committed as a warning to others who might want to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza,” she said in a widely posted statement. “Ironically, the killings are bound to heighten awareness about the brutal blockade and to increase pressure to end the imprisonment of over a million people in Gaza.”

And Winograd added: “Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. Enough, we must stop this, and adhere to the laws that have been established by the international community. Working for peace and human rights for all is the only way forward. As a Jewish woman of conscience, I invite my opponent, Jane Harman, another Jewish woman, and all of Congress to join me in denouncing this kind of barbaric violence, demanding an end to the blockade and seeking an international investigation into these murders. I recommit myself to working towards a true, just and lasting peace.”

Subsidized with a few billion dollars from the U.S. Treasury each year, the Israeli government depends on support from high Washington places. And that support, in turn, gets reinforced by the kind of propaganda weaponry that Harman is now firing at Winograd. In the process, the salvos amount to preemptive strikes, aiming to dissuade others in politics who might be tempted to speak up for Palestinian rights.

The so-called smart money is on Harman in next Tuesday’s primary, but the incumbent — like the Israeli government — has reason to worry. Sometimes, moral revulsion can topple defenders of the indefensible.

In any event, no amount of advertising firepower can bring down the high moral ground of Marcy Winograd’s grassroots campaign for Congress.