Thursday, August 09, 2007

1,000,000 Iraqi deaths

The counter of excess Iraqi deaths resulting of the U.S. war and occupation on the side bar of this blog just topped one million. I have no idea what that means.

All those people were someone's child, someone's brother, someone's spouse. And they are dead because our maniac President took advantage of people's historical trust in his office, of people's post-9/11 anxiety, of the weaknesses in our political system, to empower oil corporations and determined imperialists. And they are dead, in part, because the people of the United States have not yet cared enough to restrain our government.

And even if we do eventually tire of afflicting Iraq, those people will still be dead -- and Iraq will almost certainly suffer further bloody rounds of death while it reorganizes itself.

The counter is based on an extrapolation from a 2006 survey by the British medical journal The Lancet. Click on the counter to find out more. Click on the picture of Faiza Alaraji lower on the sidebar to learn about a project by Iraqis for Iraqi refugees of our war.

2 comments:

  1. I have to agree with you. Ms Pelosi is a disappointment. But I'm at the point of total disillusionment with our government. And from what I've seen, 2008 isn't going to bring much, if any improvement.

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  2. THE RETURN OF AN IMAGE

    The little boy upon the road,
    His head bashed in the cobble,
    Remains an image, and a goad
    That it is worth the trouble

    To strive against all forms of war--
    My brethren did excite them
    To rapturous folly, while the whore
    May not so well requite them.

    So she has urged them on to fight:
    Today, as calcified
    The soul is witness, but new light
    Remembers what has died.

    Now, nevermore will I forget
    That sight that I have seen,
    Macabre, red, and oozing yet
    The bursting brains between.

    It was engaged a kind of lark
    As adventitious sold us,
    But when the night has gotten dark
    My memories but hold thus.

    Sweet precious joy, the tarnished dream
    Revokes, and I this load
    Carry, as traipsing by my team
    The dead child on the road.

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