PS—-When speaking of all the gratuitously slaughtered innocents in Iraq——remember that it was a country with 26 million population….one tenth of the population fled as war refugees…..with over one million slaughtered by GWB’s phony war that’s the equivalent of ove 60 million in the U.S. if we were invaded, illegally occupied and slaughtered. How would you feel about the First Lady of a country that did that did us in that turn-around situation?? Why is so DIFFICULT for blind Americans—-read Rethuglicans and thank god I am not among them—-to CONNECT with their BASIC HUMANITY. Julia Reed….I wouldn’t be so congratulatory about praising a woman married to the mob but doing some serious soul searching. Palu Krugman had it absolutely right. Monster Era and you’re praising it’s Stepford Wife Window Dressing. Laura Buh is Imelda Marcos without the shoes.

Suzanne The Lancet numbers were the issue of research by the NY Times and they concluded they were very wrong. The studies that you site were based on researchers interviewing Iraqis and asking if they had a relative, or knew of anyone in the neighborhood that had been killed. The system of relatives, especially, cousins and in-laws in the middle east, is much different than ours. When I talk to my Iranian friends about it, they sound like they are related, when in actuality, they have distant in-laws (a distant cousin’s cousin’s in-law) that have in-laws in common. So your agencies asked the population about relatives, many of them were talking about the same person. One person could have been counted several times. Due to those facts, at this point, many of the numbers above have changed, and are and were exaggerated. The NY Times based it’s study on hospital and morgue numbers, as well as regional population numbers. But that is not my point, we won’t get concrete numbers for a long time because it is hard to get in there and do a real viable study. Sorry, You won’t get an argument about the war from me, nor that it is justifiable to kill people in order change a situation. I did not want them to go into Iraq. I wrote countless emails about it and knew it was the wrong action from the get go. I agree. What made it worse was the blundering execution of the war. I never liked Rumsfeld, nor, by the way, did the GI’s, I wanted him replaced after he had pushed the forces to get into Baghdad so quickly, leaving them unequipped to deal with the looting. Right then and there is where our biggest problems began. I did not want our country there,I did not want my country bombing Iraq, I did not want our country bombing Bosnia, I do not want our country bombing anyone. (Nor do I like green eggs and ham - Frannie I am…….oops I digress) If you think that I have the idea that “Bush was saving the people or protecting us is also ridiculous”, think again, that is not what I believe. That is not my point. My point is we won’t get concrete numbers for a long time. Also, a lot of the killing was Muslim against Muslim. Before, and since we have started on this blog, as you mention, there have been several very desperate situations in the world. Pakistan, Darfur, the Congo, Tibet, Burma and No Korea to name a few. When each of these stories hit the headlines, many on this site start complaining that if we weren’t in Iraq, we could go in to these other countries and help to settle the disputes, or put down the forces that are killing, raping, burning villages, and remove the despots that are wreaking havoc. Yet, the problem is, we would send our military in, and the military is firstly a combat force, which would probably be met with resistance. Lots of people would die. Until finally, once the dust has settled from battle, they work with the civilians. Civilians and soldiers die in those situations, and it is wrong. If we went into those countries we would have spent at least billions and probably up to trillions, because that is the way we do it. I do not agree with it. It is stupid. Take another scenario, sooner or later one of Saddam’s own, or even one of his even more diabolical sons would have taken him out. Then what, good old Oude or Couse murdering people, the Iranians invading Iraq, and the Saudi’s vying for a piece of the pie? A bigger war over there and more civilians dead? Which in most likelihood would have resulted in what is going on in the Congo now. Then everyone would have cried out something like “you knew this was coming, why didn’t you do something about it before?” So then we have to go in, and it is a worse situation? All of those situations would be wrong. You know as well as I that until we get off of the oil tap, it will be like this. Until we stop making plastics out of oil, it will be like this. YES, IT IS WRONG. Until China gets off of the oil tap, this will continue. You mentioned all of the lack of services for Iraqis but you forget to mention how much sabotage has been done to them. They get a sewer line going, and then the insurgency blows it up. On and on. So you can repeat and repeat and bomb the site with your anger, but until we are off of the oil tap, it will be like this. There will always be nations trying to protect their resource interests in the world. Russia, with Putin’s help, have built a nuclear power plant in Venezuela, and I think there was talk about Russia moving a battle ship into the area. My son was in a very hot province on his last deployment - The Diyala River Valley. It was a tough area. The Iraqi Army was doing the majority of the heavy lifting. The people there hate Al Quaeda for killing their families, raping their wives and children and on and on. When he was there, he said that residents were turning AQI in more and more everyday. I heard a BBC report last week reporting that Afghanis and Pakistanis have recognized that AQ is the enemy and they want them out of their countries. They are beginning to turn in information. Once the information network grows then Nato and our military are able to use less force. The report was mostly about Pakistan, so hopefully the movement is starting to head into Pakistan.