Well duh, the Iraqis have been killed like flies ever since the Bush-Cheney Crime Syndicate illegally invaded and occupied the country and since Bush Sr gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait. How do they get away with obvious war crimes??

The Propoganda machines show them in a manner intended to show respect for these murderers, these volunteers who carry out the wishes of the criminals in Washington D.C. and their backers. They're not soldiers defending their country, they're soldiers of fortune.

I have advocated for a long time now that someone ought to speak out the names of the Iraqis who have died, even if it is a million or more, on the steps of the Capitol, or the Justice Department. It would take days no doubt and a lot of courage, but the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. And most likely the names of all the dead could not be gathered, but surely someone in Iraq has some provable definitive list. This act would give veracity and of course publicity to what is happening.

It is akin to the hiding of the caskets of the American dead (going upwards to 4000) by the administration and MSM. At least the News Hour shows the names and pictures of the dead soldiers, silently I might add, at the end of their programs. I wonder how they do that on their radio show?

Liberal is a dirty word in the USA and who has made it a dirty word the very people who fear it.

Why doesn't the millions of decent Americans get together a political party using the internet to harness support and oust the cabal of criminals now using the countries resources to further their own interests.

I was watching C-Spam this morning for a few minutes discussing, " what shall we do about Iran ". The very idea that Iran should be a subject that Americans should do something about is an indication of the depth of brainwashing the average US citizen has suffered.

Here we have in Washington a group of psychopaths hell bent on armed robbery and mass murder and their SUBJECTS discuss the next victim without any consience or objectivity.

This is the same nation which castigates China for human rights violations yet murders its own citizens in a false flag operation in order to justify the mass murder of Iraqis who somehow got blamed for said false flag.

The so-called news is nothing but propoganda, the so-called terrorist attacks are nothing but frightners to keep the sheeple in line. Where are the trials for the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow?

When will there be a properly conducted investigation into 9/11? When will King George and his merry followers be brought to trial for crimes against humanity.

AmeriKKKa the new threat to world peace!!!!!

Amy Goodman just had a count of two million on her show today I heard. I haven't listened.

Cindy, thank you for your courage, compassion, and intelligence. I pray for your success and safety every day.

Given the money spent on our military a million dead seems low. Add up the bombs, ammunition, and other innovative devices used and the casualties our body armored troops have sustained we would be truly incompetent if we could not have killed a million defenseless civilians.

How about an under cover investigation where a potential buyer gets the figures from the sales department of defense contractors? I bet they brag about a number above a million.

U.S.A. Rogue Nation

Want to do something about it?

Put everything on hold until this crime wave is stamped out.

Go to your elected official's offices, pull them out by there scruffy necks and parade them to the Hague, where they will stand on trial for their criminal acts against humanity, and then to where we care not if God has mercy on their miserable souls.

I heard that one of the first things that the US did after it invaded Iraq is to outlaw Labor unions!

Have we heard any squeaking from our Labor Unions about that?

What were the results of our last idea of a general strike for one day on 9/11?

Lets say a miracle happens and everyone in the US goes on strike until the Congress does it's duty and impeaches the parasites...for things that they have already consented to.

Well, who could hold out the longest in this strike? The millionaires in the government who would all have emergency measures of Homeland Security to cater to their needs or the common folks like us who would be targeted and might not even have any paycheck to live on?

Unfortunately the only result of strikes in America today is either replacement workers or out source the whole business.....just a speedup of the ongoing process and system we are under.

This is gonna be a long long struggle folks and if you are not ready for that and think that there is a quick fix to the fact that there are no laws on the books, or if so being enforced, that makes going to war under false pretense and making war for profit and resources an immediate crime and threat to humanity, then I haven't heard of a quick fix that is in harmony with our situation now in these modern times.

Basically this is still the old Class Struggle...the ruling classes' War on and theft of the un-ruling class that is us.

"We the People" would be a fine name for our latest surge of the revolution...it could be a political Party also...another nick name or more modern one would be "ForUs".

To win though we would have to get the ruled classes who vote on the right and have been tricked by the war machine to join us to end this new imperialism.

Right and Left together...that is how we move or divided we fall.

No matter what race or political party you favor or even if you don't ever vote, we can try and work this out together.

Even many Folks on the right hate the idea of the ruling class profiting from War...they just buy the lie that the war is about freedom....I think many are beginning to see who's freedom war is really about.

If we write in ourselves for President which I would do if the main election were held today, at least My vote would be a virtual "None of the above" protest vote which would be the most practical way to start a coalition of people and organizations, parties and Unions to begin to really organize a force that will someday win.
This is a long fight so get ready for that.

Love, Jim

Common Dreamers ought to know all this discussion about George Bu$h's conscience is as vacuous as George Bu$h's Endological Mental Illness he suffering from... No different to Hitler, Stalin, Musolini, Pol Pot, Idi Amin before him....

ALL SOCIOPATHS without feeling!

Its not a civil war, its an "ethno-sectarian struggle for resourses" according to the lastest Pentagon doublespeakers.

and its not a million innocent civilian deaths, its a million "premature consumers of funeary services"

In addition to all the Iraqis who've been killed, over a million have been crippled for life. Lots of little children are included in those figures.

Sadly, the USA is the world headquarters for horror and ugliness. The darkness of the world is apparently focused on capital hill and the white house. They always cloak their foul and vulgar deeds in fair words.

We need a revolution! Dennis Kucinich would be enough of a revolution for me. He can turn it all around.

Jeffrey Courion @ 12:19pm:
"What is it about the human story that we seek and follow leadership that is obsessed by the pursuit of fear and necrophilia rather than life and its promotion and celebration? And why do we kill visionary leaders who voice and act on behalf of life and its pursuits? What folly! What a stupid, stupid waste of ourselves and the lives we have been given! I refuse to live within the hopeless framing these diseased idiots — our leaders — project on to our world and us!"

Good post! The answer might lay in the basic concept of *good v. evil* Jeffrey? We little beings do not have the oversight to know / see all that goes on 'behind the scenes' - but we have been guided by humanity's wisest Teachers to know that there is both darkness and Light at work on this planet.
Some humans choose to do all they can to enhance Light and LOVE in this world, -but then some other humans, (in their paucity of inner light), choose to exacerbate human problems by aligning themselves with the vile powers of separation, warfare, hatred and chaos.

"Blessed are the peacemakers..."

________________________________

KEM PATRICK @ 11:13 pm:
"I fear Bush will never confess, for he has no conscience or soul to prompt him. That observation is painfully obvious, as stupid and foolish as he is, no one with even his poorly executed education, is that stupid.
No, it is not stupidly, it is being possessed with evil, he sold his soul for power and greed."

...and that is just the simple, awful truth, -well said. And thanks for GOOD IDEAS @ 11:54pm Mr Kem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To those who castigated our Ron: ...er... he *was* being ironic m'dears! - Maybe a little more care and thought before firing from the hip? It can actually save lives you know!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Christian's bible there's a line saying something about, 'God knows when even a little sparrow falls dead to earth.'
- That being the case, then certainly 'Big G' knows (and cares a real lot) every time a little Iraq being is murdered.
And knows, (and actually cares just as much) when a [misled] little American 'soldier' falls to earth.
No human murder goes unrecorded.
- All are noticed.
All are recorded, and the circumstances too are faithfully written down on what might be termed 'heaven's scrolls'.

And those who have been primarily responsible for causing EVERY SINGLE **unnecessary** murder, and act of maiming: their names are written in different colored ink, they are marked down for special attention; -as in: 'Remedial Schooling'...

No one forced our crazed leaders to do and think as they have done, -they did it of their own volition, for their own VERY WRONG reasons, and brought their terrible future demise to themselves. Not one iota of their earthly misdemeanours have gone unnoticed.

*They chose to countermand heaven's writ*, ~ and so will repay in full measure for every last drop of blood ruinously spilled on the distant sands and streets... An ocean of agony, (mental and emotion torment) awaits them, and likewise, ~ for all those who vaingloriously, -stupidly, supported them in their vile, illegal, murderous enterprise.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For the rest of us, our duty, (to ourselves, to our fellows, to our nations, to what ever we might hold as 'holy') - we have to do all we can to put right the wrongs, standing up on every occasion, in any / every way we can, to roll back the tide of menace threatening peaceful coexistence our world. We who are too far distant from yr shores are *very much with you in spirit*.

To you who have pledged to stand up and be counted: *Bless you!* --you have the powers of LIGHT on your side, (- it's maybe worth bearing that inspiring notion in your hearts as you act?) :)

"Blessed are the peacemakers..."

xx

TBONEZ

glad you saw the light. i gave up tv 30 years ago. and yes you begin to wonder if you are insane when you talk to the MSP (mainstreampeople). totally brainwashed and ignorant of the real facts. so it's wonderful that there are sites like this to hear what is really going on and meet with caring people. unfortuately we are the minority at present and i don't believe the others will see the light in time...................

RON, IRS AND DOUGLOS

i was wondering what anyone whose second language is english might think of some of the posts here. especially the ones written sarcastically, as i believe ron's were. (right ron?) i don't know if irs's or douglos's first language is english, but they thought ron was serious. i'm sure no-one here can approve of the slaughter wreaked on the iraqis or would be so callous as to publish their evil thoughts. i hope this is the case.

KEM PATRICK

shouldn't you be getting ready to go on the march??

As a previous patient, now a corpse, is rolled out from the operating room, Doctor George Bush approaches the concerned family outside,
"well I'm happy to say the operation was a success".

Well said Paul, you expressed it better than I. You are correct, in the 1700s we ousted King George, now we have our King George once more. And by God he is a King, he just hasn't been crowned as yet.

You know, a benevoelant, intelligent and honest king might be alright, until we could make a couple of permanent changes to our constitution. Allow the elected to only serve one eight year term in federal office, outlaw lobbying and end the corrupton in DC.

Remember: We Don't Do Bodycounts...
.
...as required by the Geneva Convention!
.
That would be like following the Rules of Law - we're Outlaws now - led by the world's greatest evildoers. Alas.

Kem,

I believe you are correct. Reagan and Nixon never came clean, nor did their lackeys. They take their crimes with them to their graves. Someone posted here a few months ago (I wish I could remember who, it was a key insight) that these people are nihilists. Their actions illustrate a total disregard for the living, their own posthumous epitaphs, the whole works. It may be the byproduct of a run-amok caste/inheritance system in our culture. We've never had an internal revolution against our own monarchy. So there have been subsequent family dynasties of wealth built, and passed on, to descendants who merely inherited their position -- they did not earn it. Insane and incompetent princes in some cases.

Under ordinarily circumstances, Bush would be destitute and on welfare today, given his idiocy. And upstart/enterprising working-class people would be able to rise to positions of genuine leadership if their natural inclinations took them there. But our system is too heavily caste-oriented. There is no meritocracy, only oligarchy and plutarchy.

Hi trails. Okay, my two cent opinon. Make it four cents,___ my wife agrees.

For several weeks now, we here have mostly sported a one day walkout, no work, stay home and buy nothing. Had the vast majority of Americans done that, it would have garnered some press, many of our Congress would have siezed the mikes in an attempt to make some political hay. Would it really accomplish a great deal? ___It didn't, I for one stayed home.

Had the oil companies lost their daily nut, they would have raised the price of gas to the dealers a penny a gallon and ended up making a profit for the day's losses. They may have even raised it a dime or more a gallon to get even with us sheep for our dis-loyalty.

To really make a lasting impression, we need a Teamsters style strike. Everyone stays home, except those who work in protective or essential jobs, doctors, medical personnel, police, fire, utility workers, power and water plant employees, grocery workers and such.

Everyone,including the truckers calls in sick with the orange flu, and not for a single day,__ a full eight days. No one buys anything except essentials, fill up the gas tanks and stock up with a weeks food supplies beforehand, then stay home, or protest peacefully in street marches, saying nothing, carrying no signs, just silent marches, for a week. Or go fishing with the kids. Do waht ever one pleases, but don't go to work.

Meanwhile, select a person who has the highest credability possible. Sonmeone who is well liked and highly regarded by the vast majority. Select an Oprah Winfrey, a Lou Dobbs, President Carter, Lee Iacooca, a Kim Bassinger or a Paul Newman. Whomever it may be, will not please all, someone who has integrity, or one who most believe has.

After three days of the strike, that lone person reads an ultimatum to Congress, either in their hallowed hall or on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, if they refuse to hear it in full session. ___Just that single person, all nice and peaceful, and no arguments accepted. It is from We The People.

That selected person, will read a list of ten grieviences, (10), keep it simple and very fair. The number one would be: Our elected Congress WILL enforce the supreme law of the land and obey the Constitution of the United States of America and begin the impeachment process of Cheney/Bush. Congress has two working days to do so. If they act, the strike ends then, if they refuse, the strike continues until they do obey their oath of office, an oath they ALL swore to obey. Numbers two thru ten are open for debate.

Sadly, most murderers do not repent their sins and find that strong psychic need to confess, until their final minutes. I fear Bush will never confess, for he has no conscience or soul to prompt him. That observation is painfully obvious, as stupid and foolish as he is, no one with even his poorly executed education, is that stupid.
No, it is not stupidy, it is being posessed with evil, he sold his soul for power and greed.

These numbers now tell us exactly who the #1 mass murderer is of the 21st Century--Christian George Bush...and is there now a question about genocide? Gen Betrayous has convinced the pusilamous Congress to go longer and do it harder...so by the time we're finished in Iraq and we have our new oil fields secured, there won't Iraqi alive to care! Whoopee! Ain't we good! Nobody does this sort of thing better than we do (talk out of both sides of our mouths and lie, lie, lie...nothing like being an American in this day and age!! (snort, snort!--disgusting!)

Notwithstanding the prevailing sociopathic horror, I'm confident that there's something about the human character in most people that has a strong psychic need for ethics and morality.

In other words, pure profit and raw worldly power can never be the "organizing principle of society". Isn't ultimately "Justice" the organizing principle of society? People may differ as to what Justice is and may lie about Justice, but the axis upon which human development turns is always Justice, and without Justice (however it is defined) societies start to fall apart, as our's now is.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_financial_paradoxes_of_globalization

saywhat:"A small price to pay for Democracy in Iraq'.

I hope ( for the sake of your own soul -if there be any such thing) you're joking.

If not- God help the rest of us.Things have come to such a pass that the merest mention of words like "Freedom-Liberty-(and of course )Democracy " by a Westerner ,is enough to make the blood of millions of non Westerners run cold.

Because they all know what's coming.

THOMAS is correct on the strike issue. That method will work.

I don't only care about the civilians; the so-called "enemy troops" also have a right to live as humans, and it is murder for the american serial killer army to take that away from them.

Dear trails_end,

Of course, it's not really for me to interfere, or put ideas into other nation's heads. You have your own organisations to represent you nationally, including branches of the CND. But whether anyone reading this agrees with the CND's (peaceful) long term ambitions for global nuclear disarmament, or not, I'm only posting here today, to try and promote peace and common sense, in relevance to this particular article. Not as a 'provocateur', as it were (on this occasion).

But, if you really feel that demonstrating will not work, then why not consider approaching the unions for an organised inter-union general strike? That would make politicians sit up and listen very quickly indeed, I would think. These are legal and peaceful methods of representation, in the UK, for example.

(Anyway, I'm afraid it's very late here, so I must go.)

I wish you all, a very pleasant weekend.

"...U.S. military accused the Islamic Republic of providing the 240-millimeter rocket that earlier this week slammed into Camp Victory, the sprawling base that houses the U.S. Army headquarters."

No victory there!

A small price to pay for Democracy in Iraq

You know its weird because I stopped watching TV entirely about a year ago. It is although a very strange situation when you talk to other people, and start to realize just how brainwashed that propoganda device has made them. It's almost like it's hard to judge your own sanity in relation to how insane the rest of the population is??? You yourself begin to feel insane because you never realized the level of insanity that you were submerged in. Am I making any sense???? I mean there are just so many mindless cogs just walking around spewing all this embedded programmed official line propoganda and now I know why. It's just like in that movie from the 80's "Network" where the guys says "It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love"
Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?

It looks like the US is achieving its true goals in Iraq. US concern about civil and terrorist conflict is a pretense to continuing the occupation, no matter how bad it gets. The worse it gets, the more the US can say it is needed there. The ultimate goal is an empty country, run from the fortress of the Daleks in Bagdad. We will exterminate.

10 years of sanctions and bombing prior to 2003 killed well over a million, mostly women and children. Add on the 1.2 million since 2003 out of a puopulation of 4 million. To me that looks like over half the population. Regardless it is mass genocde. Rwanda, Concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the US now ranks up their with the greatest purveyors of genocide. A modern day holocaust is going on and WE are letting it happen. Now We Americans know what the German people felt like during the reign of Hitler. Why is it so hard for people to see that we are commiting the same attrocities in Iraq that our fathers and grandfathers fought against in WW2. We are the agressors people!! GWB always says that history will be the judge. If there is then any truth to "his-story" then he will go down as a war criminal and a mass murderer.

What is the problem people? You think you can't achieve anything by trying? Believe me, you can.

One voice on a street with a banner, is worth 1,000 messages on the internet. You just have get out on the streets and make yourself heard, maybe with a banner and free cookies. How difficult is that? Take your family. In my experience, you'll probably make a lot of new friends. Ooh. Real people. Scary...

Greetings from the CND, in the UK. ;o)

How many did Joseph Stalin kill in how many years?..or Mao Tse-Tung? Just wondering what the accurate figures are.

Uh, I think Ron was being facetious.

Hey Ron,

You are a sick, deluded individual. Seek out some help as soon as possible.

thank you for writing this article- finally a good source of figures that I have known for some time and wondered why Wolf Blitzer and others can simply state 37 thousand. It is PROPAGANDA.

Not only are Iraqis dying, our free press is dying too. So far we have the internet to read this honest but tragic number of death and the comments about it. Thank you everybody- keep on trucking-keep on being informed as best you can. Information is power- we will eventually win this creepy struggle- tell all your friends: Saddam killed 300,000 in 30 years and now it is three times as many in only 5 years. It is immoral.

Easy for one to write such WALTER HAYUM, but the truth is, we are speaking of humans and most of them were decent people who have died for nothng. Whomever their killers may be, their lives were far far better before Bush arrived to destroy a nation and steal their oil. Over time they had a chance to be as good as any nation can be. What chance do they have now? Would they have perhaps been as good a nation as America, maybe even a bit better? Probably, it don't get much worse than what Bush has now turned us into.

Of course it did and does happen, every day. The horror is just hidden from veiw, by the drifting desert sands.

True, we created the disaster and mess in Iraq.True that the facts about the actual death toll is withheld, but also true must be the conclusion that if Iraqis want to kill
their fellow countrymen they can do so without further loss of American lives and continued waste of hundreds of billions of dollars. This administration will never admit its lies and errors, so congress must do it for them.

Good point Jacob, gives us a rather profound picture in the mind.

Of course on CNN yesterday, there was a 15 minute run of Iraqis' burying unknown dead, the funeral director stated that with Saddam, it was thirty to forty a month, now it is several hundred a month.

A grave is dug by hand and two bodies are then wrapped in clean white sheeting before being carefully lowered into the open hole in the dirt. Lying side by side, the two unknowns were then buried with loose sandy soil. No words were spoken, no marker with a name, no weeping loved ones, no flowers, ___just a huge deserty field, with thousands of mounds of sandy dirt to mark dead Iraqis'.

Most were disfigured, mutilated bodies___ women, men, and many children. ___ The wind came up and the mounds of dirt were slowly being covered by fresh sand.

It is almost as if,___ it never happened.

you don't even get the true count on american deaths.

Jacob, is that math right? If so, then wow, it really puts it into perspective. This of course doesn't count the aprox 1 million Iraqis killed from Gulf War 1. Absolutely shameful!

Anyone have any tips on how to reconcile utter shame and embarassment to be an American, with my love of country and patriatism??? This is crazy!

1,200,000 dead.

It's a lot of bodies.

If we looked at each of them for one second, it would take us about two weeks to see them all.

WALK ACROSS? ___ FRIENDS? __ STARTING TO? ___You are very generous and kind THOMAS.

You also are correct, You just wrote it with toned down words.

You Americans want to start getting your heads together in reality, not virtual reality. Because your friends are starting to walk across the street.

Ron... you kidding or full of you know what. Bible is written for the idiots like you to expand your knowledge and get wisdom and not become a ted haggart. Isn't he the one who claimed homosexuals will go to hell and went to a drug addict and homosexual. The iraqis feel likewise and call us infidels and we call them crazy.

Read and understand bible but do not follow literally unless you want to end up as a patient of a Jewish psychiatrist. Remember it is written by them and for them, we just happen to follow it for our spiritual needs with some modifications.

Thanks USA for saving us!

On a per capita basis, this is equivalent to 13.1 million US deaths. Purportedly a reaction to 3,000 US deaths (if you swallow the lie). Now why do they hate us?

"Note that this is quite consistent with the Lancet study. The main difference is that a year has passed since the Lancet cluster survey (July 2006) and many more people were killed. The ORB number is consistent with our extrapolation from the Lancet study"

Those arguing for 1/10th that number remind me of the old anti-Jesuit witticism that, being accused of murdering a man, his wife, all their children, the family dog, and burning their house to the ground, the Jesuits would produce, in refutation, an undeniably living dog.

John Negroponte ambassador to Iraq 2004-05: 190,000 missing firearms; caches of munitions; and $9 billion in case gone astray=death squads established in the chaos to concentrate Iraqi-on-Iraqi deaths while minimizing deaths among the occupiers.

Add in Blackwater & KBR mercs and the Tiger-force-type groups whose actions will be revealed in the coming years, and the number probably goes up even more.

Hey Cindy I am a great fan of yours.... Welcome to Common Dreams....As always wishing all the best in your political endeavors.....

Cindy this is worse than International War Crimes perpetrated by Bu$hCo....

This is GENOCIDE....worse than Pol Pot in Cambodia {circa} 1975!!!!!

I was watching CNN yesterday and Wolfie said the a study done in 2006 said that 37,000 Iraqis were killed...INCREDIBLE!

I have been to Amman, Jordan twice to meeti with Iraqis...many of them doctors, who say that it is well over a million that have been killed by now.

EVERYONE in Iraq has been personally touched by this illegal, immoral and absolute bullshit of an occupation.

It must end now.

Love
Cindy

The policy being pursued by the United States is systematic genocide. 1.2 Iraqis million have died, more than 2 million have fled the country. 68 percent of Iragis are unemployed, not even allowed to participate in the "rebuilding" of their country by foreign labor. This is not an accident. It is a plan to depopulate and fragment the country, insuring that Big Oil prevails. George W. Bush and all those who enable him to continue with this policy are war criminals and that includes a substantial number of Democrats.

Note that this is quite consistent with the Lancet study. The main difference is that a year has passed since the Lancet cluster survey (July 2006) and many more people were killed. The ORB number is consistent with our extrapolation from the Lancet study:

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Plus another million or so, mostly children, that we have killed under the 'sanctions' of the Bush/Clinton regimes. Are we Proud to be Americans now?

You can't blame Bush for these 1.2 million deaths. To date he has saved at least a million stem cells from the murderous hands of liberal researchers who have no respect for human life, so you see it all averages out. Also keep in mind that most of these 1.2 million have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior so their demise, like that of animals, doesn't really count; they were all hell-bound anyway so it makes no difference when they get there or who dispatches them. God told our President to invade Iraq and He is pleased with the outcome; God hates faggots and Iraqis, as every God-fearing Christian Republican knows. Heckuva job, Mr. President!

Since the US military does not count civilian deaths, how do they know there was a 55% decrease in deaths from sectarian violence?

I guess they only count civilian deaths when it suits them. And to count its own civilian deaths would mean the total US caused civilian deaths exceeds the number of Saddam's murders.

What is it about the human story that we seek and follow leadership that is obsessed by the pursuit of fear and necrophilia rather than life and its promotion and celebration? And why do we kill visionary leaders who voice and act on behalf of life and its pursuits? What folly! What a stupid, stupid waste of ourselves and the lives we have been given! I refuse to live within the hopeless framing these diseased idiots -- our leaders -- project on to our world and us!

It may already be over a million and yet Patraeus, Bush and a very few others think this is a worthwhile venture. What goal, no matter how lofty, could possible be worth a million lives? How many more must be sacrificed for nothing before we physically remove these thugs from power?

'it is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know - or care - about circumstances in the colonies'. The carnage continues almost invisibly by design.

Here is a statistic that puts things into perspective.

If you took the bodies of all the Iraqi civilians who have died as a result of George Bush's war, and laid them head to toe in a line, they would stretch (approx) all the way from Los Angeles to New York - and back again. If you did the same with the bodies of those who died in NY on 9/11, they would stretch (approx)from the White House to the Pentagon.

And, as we all know, the Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, what did they do to the U.S. at all? Nothing.