US military Iraq toll hits 4,000

The Iraq war chalked up it's latest grim milestone yesterday with the news that the US death toll has crossed the 4,000 mark.

The latest to die were four soldiers whose patrol vehicle was blown up by a bomb in southern Baghdad on Sunday.

The deaths bring the total to 4,000, according to the US military and independent monitoring groups.

Insurgent attacks and US military operations left at least 47 people dead across Iraq on Sunday.

Anticipating that the US death toll would rise to 4,000, a Pentagon spokesman earlier played down the significance of the figure.

"It is artificial in the sense that somehow the 4,000th tragic loss somehow will be different from the first," Rear Admiral Greg Smith told Reuters news agency.

And, of course, as the recent four deaths take the US total through the 4,000 mark, we can only guess at the number of Iraqis who have perished in this needless conflict. 47 dead on Sunday alone with a specific figure impossible to gauge as the US refuse to count the number of Iraqis they are killing even as they claim to be liberating them.

Of the 4,000 US dead, 97% of them have died since George Bush stood on the deck of that ship with a banner behind him declaring, "Mission Accomplished".

In Sunday's other violence:

• Mortar and rocket fire killed at least 15 people in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone
• A suicide bomber ploughed an explosives-laden tanker into an army base in Mosul, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 40 people
• US troops killed 12 men in a raid east of Baquba, saying that six of them were found to have shaved their bodies, suggesting they had been preparing for suicide operations
• Gunmen travelling in three cars shot dead at least seven shoppers in a Baghdad market.

There's nothing really to say is there? Everything is now on hold until a Democrat can be elected to clear up the mess of this profoundly stupid and messianic little man.

Another four working class families will hear that their lives have been devastated by the death of a loved one.

Bush and the morons who continue to back his illegal invasion will still insist that they were right, because doing so costs them nothing. There is no sacrifice or price that they pay for insisting that this madness continue. They don't even contribute extra taxes as they have chosen to pass the cost for fighting their war of civilisation on to another generation. And they certainly don't pay in blood as their courage is mostly expressed through a keyboard.

I would find it easier to accept that these people really believe that they are in a fight for civilisation were it not for the fact that they insist on having tax cuts at the very time which they claim to be fighting for their existence. That strikes me as bizarre in the extreme and utterly contradictory.

But the 19% who continue to think that Bush is doing a good job have no such qualms. They bravely insist that the war must continue whilst steadfastly refusing to even pay for the war which they tell us is so vital. Hypocrisy on this scale is a rare commodity indeed.

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