According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, 150,000 Iraqi civillians have perished due to violence in the civil war that has torn that nation asunder since the coalition backed invasion of that country in March of 2003.That official number puts the lie to the criticisms of the Lancet study, now doesn't it? With 150,000 confirmed civillian deaths due to violence, 650,000 overall excess deaths since the invasion doesn't seem so far fetched after all. (I told you so.)
For every fatality, three are seriously injured. These are the very real effects caused by the military action undertaken by the United States in your name. Yes, Saddam was a brute. But the country was not mired in civil war and sectarian violence. The place wasn't a huge terrorist training camp that had been ethnically cleansed of the educated and secular, mostly Sunni, middle and professional classes.
The war in Iraq is a human catastrophe of tremendous proportions. There is no easy out. We have options that are bad, worse and catastrophic. We have no good ones. We also have some bitter truths to accept. Chief among these bitter truths: When we invaded Iraq, we played right into the hands of the Mullahs in Tehran. The Iran-Iraq war of the 80's ended, but it was not won. Not until the United States invaded Iraq, anyway; we toppled the one power in the region that kept the Iranian regime in check and emboldened the Shi'ite majority to start extracting revenge against the Sunni minority that had ruled the country since independence.
The Iraq war let a big angry Genie out of his bottle. It also put the largest oil reserves on the planet outside Saudi Arabia under Shia feet and Shia control.
Somebody didn't take their logic problems to their conclusions, and the unconsidereds have proven deadly...To 650,000 Iraqis and the United States Constitution.
Who still thinks it's been worth it?
And how the hell do we get out?
