War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000
According to statistics from Iraq's morgues, more than 50,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the US invasion. This is the equivalent proportionately of 570,000 Americans being slain in three years.
And even this shocking figure is thought to be an underestimate. Many more are thought to be simply uncounted as the US has made the shameful decision to "liberate" but not to count the number you kill during the "liberation".
Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west. Health workers there are unable to compile the data because of violence, security crackdowns, electrical shortages and failing telephone networks.When one looks at these kind of figures and try to imagine an American equivalent, it is not hard to work out why the Americans are experiencing such a difficult time in Iraq.
The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad.
In the three years since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, the Bush administration has rarely offered civilian death tolls. Last year, President Bush said he believed that "30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."
Nor why the US should consider a timetable for withdrawal.
Bush wants to "stay the course." For what? The course is the problem.
Bush has said that the decision to leave Iraq will be taken by his successor. He says this at the same time as the US builds permanent military bases and an Embassy that is larger than Vatican city.
I don't think the Republicans have any intention of leaving Iraq, that's why Bush shoves that decision towards his successor. They want a permanent foothold in the Middle East.
But like everything else they do regarding Iraq, they are operating on a policy of deception.
How many more Iraqis must die before Bush realises his folly?
How many more Americans?
The people arguing the loudest that this disaster must continue are people who are thousands of miles away from any danger. They think they are displaying courage. They are actually indulging in the worst form of hypocrisy.
Demanding that young men and women must die rather than them being forced to admit that the invasion was wrong.
It's beneath contempt.
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