What (Not) to Make of 600,000 Deaths in Iraq
The study suggests once again that we have little idea what's going on in Iraq. Yesterday Gen. George Casey Jr., the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he doesn't imagine the death toll is higher than 55,000. That's a tenfold difference, between 55,000 and 600,000. But not a controversy in the papers. What if people on the Upper East Side said they thought 20 people, not two, had died in the Corey Lidle plane crash yesterday, wouldn't the discrepancy be in the headlines?
I wonder if the press's general indifference on this study doesn't reflect its inhibitions about describing the Iraq war: if we come out and call it a disaster, then there will have to be major consequences domestically, and we're not ready for that. Too many important people are implicated.
Even more significant, as the writer Dan Swanson points out, the argument against withdrawing completely has been that U.S. forces are all that's preventing a bloodbath. These figures suggest that that argument is an imperial vanity.
If they use the same method for the WTC event on 9/11, then there would be no more than 200-300 deaths on that day.
Mr. Weiss, it's almost like poetry the way you put words together. I just discovered you, thanks to my sister who lives in Brooklyn.
As for 600,000 Iraqi deaths...add to that the half million who died due to economic sanctions between this war and the Gulf war, then add to that the numbers who died in that war, and you could call it genocide. 55,000 is genocide. Iraqis never attacked the US. But we are all so de-sensitized by the sanitized news. We don't care...they're a bunch of Arabs. What an Anti-Semitic attitude. Because as everybody knows, Arabs are Semitic. Right? But back to de-sensitivity, we get more violence and blood lust on fictional TV than in real life news. This unconscienable war is the only subject that is not a reality TV show. And though I believe the neocons and the Israel lobby had a strong hand in pushing for the Iraq war, there are also other corporate interests that were salivating to start this war..hugely profiting them. And they hold no allegiance to countries or ethnicities or religions. Or decency. Thank you for your honesty.