Iraq Death Toll: 2500 and Counting

June 17 / 8AM

In case you've been living under "Iraq" for the past week or so. Or have been too busy watching the nail biting competition that is So You Think You Can Dance, you may have missed this one. I know there are a lot of important things going on in the world, all vying for your attention, but ...

I hate to be a bummer and I know I'd said that I was reserving all political discussion for Jay Severin Has Issues, but this deserves our attention. The gruesome irony is that our service men and women have done too good a job at making sure that we don't even have to think about this stuff anymore. We're so insulated from the rest of the world's goings-on that global turmoil - including the Iraq war - might as well be taking place on Neptune. It's so far removed from our collective psyche that it's sadly become a non-issue in the mundanity of our day-to-day lives.

But it should be an issue. It is an issue. On Thursday the Pentagon announced that we'd passed the 2500 death marker in Iraq. Two thousand and five hundred soldiers dead. In the coming months, we'll inevitably see that number surpass the number killed in the Trade Center attack. And we continue to feed the blood and bodies or our soldiers into the maw of the hopeless pipe dream that is a "free and democratic Iraq". It's a crime - morally and legally.

Just recognize that number - 2500. How many more need to die before the anti-war movement reaches critical mass? 3000? 4000? 50,000? Have history and, more precisely, the Vietnam War taught us nothing? Jay Severin has routinely and succinctly said: In Iraq, the only thing left within our control is how many names we're going to etch into the Iraq War Memorial. Let's stop it now. Let's put an end to this.

U.S. death toll in Iraq at 2,500 - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

What Now?

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Comments

web | June 19, 2006 02:11 PM

Tough call to chalk everything up to a loss .. because if we walk away from the table now .. in 15 years it will just be another dictator with another impossible to pronounce name. Its hard to say (think) that walking away now will have a positive outcome when all the dust finally settles. But how many more need to die before we pull the plug on this seemingly impossible mission?

Mike | June 21, 2006 02:53 PM

I doubt it'll take 15 years ... or 15 months for that matter. I believe the moment we leave, Iraq will again erupt into violence. Whether it once again becomes dictator-led or is simply a chaotic mess of warring tribes, it will return to its barbaric roots as they have been for the past 4000 years. We, and more importantly our electorate, need to realize that democracy cannot and will not *ever* work in Iraq. Iraqis don't want democracy and even if they did, they wouldn't know what to do with it or how to make it work. I hope I'm wrong about this but in my heart of hearts, I know I'm not. No good will ever come out of our presence in Iraq. The highest level generals in the U.S. army have pretty much been saying this since a few months after we went in. The only reason we're still there is to save political face, so we don't look like the "bullies" the world believes us to be.

web | June 27, 2006 02:46 PM

Yeah - some days I think like that -- but then there are days when I have hope that that entire area will one day not be the stinky armpit of the world. The immigrants that I have worked with and met from that area seem like everybody else, So that makes me wonder why they cant "make it work" then I look at our own government seemingly hanging on by a string and I say .. F THEM .. what about our own country.. shouldn't we fix that first? If we tomorrow decided to concentrate all our efforts internally and not "interfere" with the outside world (as not to be labeled a bully) we would then hear people complain that we are ignoring the rest of the world. I remember someone saying "You can't please everybody all the time .." but recently it seems like we (America) can't please anybody. Except illegal immigrants -- of course.

Mike | July 5, 2006 03:56 PM

The correct term is "undocumented guest workers", Web. I take issue with your racism, you bigoted, immigrant-hating bigot.