Thursday, September 23, 2010

I Hate The War

Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports that today's violence included a Baghdad car bombing which claimed 3 lives -- all three of them Anmar Taha Ridha's children. (In addition, another adult died in the bombing.)

The Iraq War isn't over. And it's a rare day where that isn't the topic of the e-mails, often with, complaints about the person claiming otherwise. Why, they always wonder, does someone claim otherwise.

The Iraq War is a painful thing. It is illegal. It cost a lot of lives. And much more. For those reasons, some really want to just ignore it. Others want to ignore it because they were guilty of pimping the illegal war. Some are more invested in Barack than they are in reality. And some are just weary of the never-ending war and are looking for a reason to believe.

But you can't follow the news and not have it register that the Iraq War continues. The dying continues, all the things that we've grown to expect in and from the Iraq War continue. (Anthony Shadid was pointing that out yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air.)

And pretending doesn't stop the war. Quite the opposite, pretending and the silence that follows that prestense translates into a war that goes on and on, not one that ends.

At Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers) an Iraqi correspondent notes Sunday's violence and what appears to be a fudging of the numbers by Nouri and company:

The Iraqi government said that only 15 injured were hospitalized but today I saw more than this number in one section of one hospital of Baghdad. Maybe the Iraqi government’s counting methods are different and you need a different kind of education to understand them.

Journalists were kept outside with their cameras waiting to be allowed in. Guards were told in front of me that the head of the security force responsible for the hospital wants a lieutenant and a soldier immediately to his office for allowing a journalist into the hospital.

I wonder what the Iraqi government and its allies are doing?!

Find anyone else besides McClatchy making that catch. When so many outlets don't have staff in Iraq or have staff determined to look the other way, you have to wonder how much more of the war is now hidden that was visible even five months ago?


It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4422. Tonight it's 4425 -- we've switched to the DoD count and are done with ICCC. You can [PDF format warning] click here and add 1 for today's reported death (from yesterday).



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