Outrage . . . Confirmed . . . Understood

MR. RUSSERT: “Imperialist power,” “moving willy-nilly,” “taking down governments.” Is that how we’re going to be perceived this time?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I hope not, Tim. . . . Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

-- NBC News' "Meet the Press", March 16, 2003

Seven in ten Iraqis want US-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year. An overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing. More broadly, most feel the US is having a predominantly negative influence in Iraq and have little or no confidence in the US military. . . . Support for attacks on US-led forces has grown to a majority position—now six in ten.

-- WorldPublicOpinion.org Poll, September 27, 2006

"Goodness", as Rumsfeld would say.

Why in the world would a country subjected to decades of brutal treatment by a despotic regime feel this way towards it's liberators?

Golly, maybe because in a country of just under 27 million, 500 civillians have been dying every fucking day since we've been there? Maybe because they have been dying at this rate because of the second and third-rate planning of Rumsfeld and Bush and Wolfowitz and Cheney and the rest of the war-criminals masquarading as our government?

In 2004, a widely-ignored report was released which estimated 100,000 civilian deaths -- half of them women and children -- caused by the American invasion. Most of these deaths are directly related to the violence of the attack, but the report also measured the increased death rate as a result of the collateral impacts of the preemptive war.

This week, the British medical journal The Lancet released a new report, confirming the 2004 estimates and revealling that the 2004 report may have been understated. The latest report estimated 655,000 civilians are dead because BushCo forced us into this unnecessary war to satisfy the misguided neocon agenda to change the middle east by forcing a democracy on Iraq.

That works out to roughly 500 more dead, every single day of the invasion, than would have died had BushCo not lied us into this morass. Now, I don't know about you, but 500 people dying every day sounds like a lot. I think we would notice if that was happening here and we might even get a little pissed ourselves at whatever was causing it.

But let's put it into perspective -- the United States has ten-times the population of Iraq. To properly understand how these deaths are directly affecting the nation as a whole, imagine if 5,000 Americans civilians, ove half women and children, were dying every day for the last three years.

Think some of us would get a bit ticked off about it?

5,000.

A day.

EVERY day.

For three years.

I watched the second plane hit the Towers in 2001. I knew people in those buildings. A cousin's firefighter-son died that day. My niece would have, also, but she stayed home with the flu and missed her meeting on one of those floors from which occupants returned only as dust. I lost sleep every night for two years after that happened. We all did. It still haunts us.

The point isn't what I went through -- it was minor compared to the horror which directly invaded the lives of thousands others that morning. The point is that the impact was national, direct, visceral. Nearly everyone I know had a direct connection, or had a friend with a direct connection, to the violence that day. It is likely the same for you.

That's how that day affected the nation -- the numbers were so great, the connections so vast, that everyone knew someone, or knew someone who knew someone, who was grievioulsy affected.

Now, to understand what George Bush has put the Iraqi people through, increase the victim toll by two-thirds.

And have it happened every . . . . . single . . . . . . . . fucking . . . . . . . . day . . . . . . . since 2003.

ITMFA

(Credit to abasrah.net for the photo.)