Three and a half years after the Great Liberation, the death toll in Iraq mounts daily. Fifteen killed in a car bombing here, twenty-five dragged off a bus and slaughtered there. Meanwhile, sixty corpses are found somewhere else, be it a construction site or a river. The streets of Baghdad have become almost unfit for human habitation due to lack of electricity, running water and now even waste collection. You see, garbage collectors are refusing to go to work, sensibly afraid of being killed for picking up the trash. Sunnis and Shiites massacre each other by the thousands all over the country, producing new religious enclaves by driving out or simply killing anyone from the "wrong" branch of Islam.
Meanwhile, the British medical journal The Lancet, which a couple of years ago claimed 100,000 civilians had been killed in the Iraq War, has now published a peer-reviewed study giving a rough estimate of 655,000 casualties. With a total Iraqi population of about 26 million, that works out to just over 2.5%, or one out of forty.
Just to give you an idea of scale, the United States' population is just now passing the 300 million mark. A 2.5% death toll for the US would mean about seven and a half million dead (give or take a few tens of thousands), or more than 2500 times the death toll on 9/11.
Think about that. Two thousand, five hundred 9/11s, one right on top of the other.
The number is simply too large for the mind to process.
Of course, the White House promptly attacked the study as "not credible," and indeed the death toll might not be that high - the study was based on representative sampling and not on a comprehensive death count. (It certainly doesn't help that the US government refuses to compile civilian casualty counts, and ordered the Iraqi government to refrain as well.) But no one can deny that this war and occupation, which was originally sold to us as a war of liberation, has gone horrifically wrong, producing for the people of Iraq a liberation of death.
President Bush, secure within his bubble, manfully proclaims that we shall "stay the course" in Iraq. Vice President Cheney, defying all logic and indeed common sense, stubbornly declares that even if he had known all that was to happen (no WMDs, stunning corruption, civil war, ethnic cleansing, etc) he wouldn't change a thing. This is not steely resolve, this is catastrophically inept arrogance.
In an attempt to buy some favorable coverage for a change, the White House some months ago allowed the creation of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel headed by veteran diplomat and Bush family friend James Baker III. The report, now almost complete but to be released only after next month's elections, is expected to conclude that victory is no longer a viable option. Indeed, the only realistic options now are:
Meanwhile, the British medical journal The Lancet, which a couple of years ago claimed 100,000 civilians had been killed in the Iraq War, has now published a peer-reviewed study giving a rough estimate of 655,000 casualties. With a total Iraqi population of about 26 million, that works out to just over 2.5%, or one out of forty.
Just to give you an idea of scale, the United States' population is just now passing the 300 million mark. A 2.5% death toll for the US would mean about seven and a half million dead (give or take a few tens of thousands), or more than 2500 times the death toll on 9/11.
Think about that. Two thousand, five hundred 9/11s, one right on top of the other.
The number is simply too large for the mind to process.
Of course, the White House promptly attacked the study as "not credible," and indeed the death toll might not be that high - the study was based on representative sampling and not on a comprehensive death count. (It certainly doesn't help that the US government refuses to compile civilian casualty counts, and ordered the Iraqi government to refrain as well.) But no one can deny that this war and occupation, which was originally sold to us as a war of liberation, has gone horrifically wrong, producing for the people of Iraq a liberation of death.
President Bush, secure within his bubble, manfully proclaims that we shall "stay the course" in Iraq. Vice President Cheney, defying all logic and indeed common sense, stubbornly declares that even if he had known all that was to happen (no WMDs, stunning corruption, civil war, ethnic cleansing, etc) he wouldn't change a thing. This is not steely resolve, this is catastrophically inept arrogance.
In an attempt to buy some favorable coverage for a change, the White House some months ago allowed the creation of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel headed by veteran diplomat and Bush family friend James Baker III. The report, now almost complete but to be released only after next month's elections, is expected to conclude that victory is no longer a viable option. Indeed, the only realistic options now are:
- Concentrate on fortifying Baghdad while negotiating a peace with the insurgents
- Withdraw American troops entirely and let the Iraqis fight it out
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