The Grin on the Grim Reaper's Face Is Getting Bigger and Bigger

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, civilian casualties

Reports of slaughter and carnage in Iraq are quite routine; a daily occurrence. An AP article like this one, telling us that there were 16,273 REPORTS of Iraqis killed in the past year does not have the same power to shock that it would have had even a year ago. You sit there, staring at the headline, feeling so blue, so incredibly depressed -- but you ask yourself, What's the point of even blogging about this? What am I going to say about this that's different from all the other hundreds and thousands of posts that I and others have written about this constant, endless, never-ending river of death?

And here is something else that never changes: the excuses, rationalizations, and endless strawman arguments the right throws out to try to argue that the U.S. is not responsible for these deaths -- that they are not and should not be on our conscience. Others twist and pervert numbers and ignore the realities of counting civilian casualties in the middle of a war to tell us (and follow this link only if you have a really strong stomach; I could only give it a quick scan and had to click my Back button because a wave of nausea swept over me) that 16,273 Iraqis dead in the last year is actually good news.