Baltimore. Fort Worth. Charlotte. El Paso. Milwaukee. Seattle. Boston. Denver. Louisville. DC. Nashville. Las Vegas. Portland. Oklahoma City. Tucson. Albuquerque. Long Beach. Atlanta. Fresno. Sacramento. New Orleans. Cleveland. Kansas City. Mesa. Virginia Beach. Oakland. Miami. Tulsa. Honolulu. Minneapolis. Colorado Springs. Arlington (TX).
What do these 34 cities have in common?
Each has a population equal to or less than the number of civilian Iraqis estimated killed since the US invaded that nation in 2003. That’s 200,000 human lives snuffed out per year in the name of … of what? Defeating terrorism? Eliminating nonexistent, nonconventional weapons? Ousting a “madman” from power?
This can’t all be blamed on internal strife — about 31% of the deaths are due to coalition forces. That’s us. The good guys. The rest … well, not even the most insane right-winger can hope to argue that 450,000 people were killed at any two-year period of life under Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The US destroyed a nation for no reason whatsoever, and is now directly responsible for or complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings.
Il Duce, of course, is claiming the report isn’t credible — as though he’s in a position to judge the credibility of anything — and some Repubs are crying foul, claiming the release timing of the report is supiciously political.
Unlike, I guess, conveniently jiggling the terror-alert scale whenever the opposition party scores a point or two.
This nation should hide its face in shame from the world. There is simply no way to justify the obscene level of carnage that’s been wrought since Bush became obsessed with Iraq. We’ve lost thousands of our own good men and women, and we’ve officiated at the deaths of 185 times the number of civilians killed in the 11 September, 2001 attacks.
Which, by the way, Iraq had nothing to do with.
This means that for every man, woman and child who died in NYC, DC and PA on that day, we have killed or been responsible for the deaths of 185 others.
Everyone who supports Bush is a traitor; Bush himself is an evil, twisted, sick man; and this obscenity must come to an end. Not because we can’t ever win; not because we’re actually driving people into the arms of Qaeda or the Taliban; but because the United States cannot perpetrate mass murder.
Next up: Memphis.
