The truth is non-partisan

A John Hopkins study this week proposed that the number of dead in
Iraq since the U.S. invasion (liberation) is 655 thousand, of 601
thousand have been from violent deaths. This would mean 500 people
die per day in Iraq.

President Bush last December claimed the number was 30,000. Some
military officials say it is 50,000. The UN counts the number of dead
at 100 a day. The Iraqi group Iraqiyun reports 128,000 between the
invasion and July 2005. "Extrapolated to the present, the figure would
be in the high 100,000s or low 200,000s," says William M. Arkin. So
only about a third of what John Hopkins estimates.

Only a third? The number of 200,000 is astounding. If this was
Cambodia or Rwanda, somebody would be held accountable. But no, this
is the United States we are talking about - and no one will be held
accountable.

Part of the reason is the rhetoric that surrounds this war.
Initially, President Bush claimed we were going to war to stop the
Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and their sale to Al
Qaida. When it became clear that there are no WMDs and that Saddam
Hussein did not support bin Laden, the President claimed that the war
was justified in freeing the Iraqis from a brutal ruler. After Saddam
Hussein was captured, the goal became to spread democracy in the
Middle East. Now Bush is tying the war to the larger war on terror.
He portrays the Iraqi war as a fight between "good and evil." We are
confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at
home," and we are "making America safer." "We're in the ideological
struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this
month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."

But then last week Bush admitted, "We can't tolerate a new terrorist
state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that
could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict
economic damage on the West."

Bush keeps revising the justification of the war. When will he run
out of excuses, admit he made a mistake, apologize to the nation and
the world? When will the Congress begin impeachment proceedings? The
answer for both questions is "never." The reason is that the U.S.
Congress and nation also are complicit in this atrocity. Congress
approved the action and the nation applauded and since has stood by
and done nothing.

// posted by John Fisher @ 1:22 AM