"April is the cruelest month..." — T.S. Eliot
"We don't do body counts." --- Gen. Tommy Franks
This list is a reminder to all the cocky American couch spuds — including George (A)W(OL) Bush, Dick "I had other priorities" Cheney, and Donald "Chickenhawk" Rumsfeld — and the other chickenshit liars, thieves, defacto murderers, armchair warriors, and deluded fools who defend this ridiculous, neverending 'war' in Iraq.
This is a list of numbers that represent real human beings.
Ponder this list, you who like to sit in your Laz-E-Boys talking of "daisy cutters", "democracy", "liberation", "America's obligations", "remaking the Middle East" — while blood flows in Iraq, a nation which was invaded because it had weapons of mass destruction...
...None of which have ever been found.
Here's part of what your some $200 billion has bought.
NEWSWEEK's calculations (as of April 17, 2004):
150,000= The estimated number of all coalition forces in Iraq, of which about 124,000 are Americans and 26,000 are others. A total of 35 countries contributes forces, but most number less than 1,000. Some, like Mongolia, are in the low two digits. Only the British, with about 11,000 troops, have a significant force.
[Shark: "Coalition of the Kinda Willing"]
20,000= The number of U.S. troops who are being told this week that they'll have to stay in Iraq another 90 days, even though they've completed their one-year "boots on the ground" deployment.
8,875 to 10,725= The minimum and maximum estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq so far, according to IraqBodyCount.org, an organization of British and American academics. Other groups have even higher estimates.
3,466= The total of American soldiers wounded in action in Iraq through April 17, 2004, according to the Pentagon. There's a lot of controversy about these figures... Other estimates of wounded American soldiers range as high as 15,000.
793= Total coalition soldiers killed in Iraq since the war began, according to the U.S. Army's Central Command, as of April 17, 2004. Of those, 579 were killed in action. 690 of the dead are American soldiers... ...soldiers from El Salvador, Thailand, Spain, Italy, Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Denmark and Bulgaria have lost their lives.
600= The number of people killed during the current siege of Fallujah, according to hospital officials there. They're estimating though, since many dead are not brought to the hospital but buried immediately according to Islamic traditions. Most of them are civilians, and the majority women and children, according to these officials, whose accounts are impossible to verify since no independent journalists have been able to visit Fallujah.
Article comments
1 - Shark
Just thought I'd update this entry -- and excuse me -- I'm pissed and frustrated and sickened and sad and mad and....
I know Tommy Franks and Donald Rumsfeld don't count the ghosts that hover over their fucking heads at night while they sleep in their comfy beds in Washington, but here's the latest number:
948 American GIs dead in Iraq as of 8/18/04.
And before you start with the "That's not many compared to other wars!" --- don't even fucking go there. That's not many if you're defending Americans or their explicit interests relative to freedom and self-defense. It's a fucking criminal enterprise if you're doing it because you had a neo-con erection that you just had to stick in the oil-filled sand of Iraq -- and lied and/or distorted the intelligence in order to convince the American people that it was necessary.
Iraq doesn't meet that criteria; our soldiers are dying for a hasty decision, a mistake, a mindless gamble based on erroneous intelligence and a distinct lack of intelligence in the Oval Office.
===
I noticed that here at BC, after we spent months and months in daily debates about the war in Iraq, there is suddenly a vast screaming silence about the war.
I know most Americans are sick of hearing about Iraq; it's frustrating; it also appears to be an infinite drain on lives and resources, a vietnam-like quagmire pit from which we'll never emerge victorious -- but that's no excuse. You need to pay as much attention as the parents who hear the doorbell and see two mournful military officials standing on their front porch.
You need to pay attention to our "military strategy" -- how we won't enter a 'mosque' even though it harbors a stockpile of weapons and a small army of murderous fuckers killing American GIs at will.
You need to pay attention to that -- especially if you're one of those blind motherfuckers who denies any similarity to vietnam. ("We could have won if they would have let us. That will never happen again!" Yeah. Remember that shit?)
What's up with that?
And you need to pay attention, especially if you were part of the Garrulous Right-Wing that was constantly telling us that there was really a reason to invade Iraq, that things were getting better, that they would continue to get better, and that after we turned over "sovereignty", things would be fucking hunky-dory.
You need to pay attention, because half a dozen Americans have died in the last few days. They're acting as 'police' in a couple of medieval cities in Iraq, and they're being picked off like fucking flies.
And now I'll pay attention, 'cause I want to hear some Right Wing, Bush-loving motherfucker tell me about Iraq, what a good thing it is, how it's getting better, and how we're ever going to get out of this thing.
I'm all ears, motherfuckers.
2 - BB
Shark: Stop beating around the Bush and just say what's on your mind.
3 - Shark
I can't BB, a "Who's The Boss" rerun is on!
~phht.
Silence.
4 - RJ
"8,875 to 10,725= The minimum and maximum estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq so far, according to IraqBodyCount.org, an organization of British and American academics. Other groups have even higher estimates."
How many of these were killed by the terrorists?
5 - RJ
"3,466= The total of American soldiers wounded in action in Iraq through April 17, 2004, according to the Pentagon. There's a lot of controversy about these figures... Other estimates of wounded American soldiers range as high as 15,000."
Using the John Kerry Standard of Papercut = Purple Heart, I suspect the number is even higher...
6 - RJ
"600= The number of people killed during the current siege of Fallujah, according to hospital officials there."
Not nearly enough...
7 - RJ
"948 American GIs dead in Iraq as of 8/18/04.
"And before you start with the "That's not many compared to other wars!" --- don't even fucking go there. That's not many if you're defending Americans or their explicit interests relative to freedom and self-defense."
But, but...Kerry said he is all for the war, WMDs or no WMDs.
I guess you're in Nader's column now? :)
8 - RJ
Shark:
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting in WWII. Hundreds of thousands more were horrifically injured.
Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor because FDR's policies made it very difficult for them to get the oil they desperately needed. Germany only declared war on the US after the US declared war on their Ally, Japan.
So. I guess FDR really screwed the pooch here, didn't he? He left Hawaii almost defenseless, and arrogantly incited the Japanese into an unneccessary war agains us.
Hey, it's not our problem if Europe and Asia and Africa fall under the thrall of Fascists and Militarists, right?
WWII wasn't a war we needed to fight, according to your "logic."
9 - Shark
RJ, re: WW II
--- your knowlege of history and 'logic' don't even deserve a response. Your rhetorical straw men are breeding like fruit flies.
But thanks for playing; it's not often I get to feel like a friggin' genius.
10 - Shark
...my typo errors being an obvious exception...
11 - Shark
IRAQ: 1000 DEAD AMERICANS
Happy Anniversary, President Bush -- you lying lowlife motherfucker.