Welcome to the Dark Ages

The World Health Organization today reported a cholera case which appeared in Baghdad. It might have been bad enough that Iraq is seeing the re-emergence of a disease that is fatal only 1% of the time if treated and nearly nonexistent in developed countries (Wikipedia never lies). But it gets worse: the reason this is even making headlines is that it means that a disease which had been endemic to northern Iraq has spread south.

Why is this acceptable to us? Why does the mainstream media not balk at the fact that cholera should not exist in the modern world, let alone outside of "third world" countries? What's more, the NYT.com article noted above interviews several who criticize the al-Maliki government for inaction on this point. Where is the criticism of the occupation which is ravaging Iraq so badly that it faces impending epidemic from treatable diseases? The U.S. occupation is the cause of this cholera scare, not the al-Maliki administration.