A depressing article at The Guardian discusses the death-toll of the Iraq war, in which between 700,000 and 1.5 million people have died. All studies into the human impact of the war except the Iraq Body Count now estimate a death-toll greater than the total killed by Saddam Hussein in 30 years of dictatorship.
There’s your moral intervention.
UPDATE: Bush has given a highly upbeat speech about how it was all worth it, despite “a high cost in lives and treasure” – whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. I mean seriously, fuck. Treasure? What the hell is the man on about?
Will Nick Cohen, who flip-flopped on the war before settling in favour of indiscriminate suffering and death (tough decision so he must have been right… right?) – will Cohen also give a speech to say “Non, je ne regrette rien”…? No doubt it’ll be rammed with ‘thought experiments’ and other nonsense, though hopefully not references to ‘treasure’.
Indeed. At the same time, Jose Maria Aznar meanwhile has just made a quite different assessment of the situation. He says Iraq is not “idylic” but the situation is “very good” there. I wonder what he would call a humanitarian disaster then?
http://www.larepublica.es/spip.php?article10114
I’m surprised, given that things are so good, that Aznar, Tony and George don’t take a stroll through the streets of central Baghdad. In Aznar’s case he must think that Iraq is doing better then Spain, he’s certainly not been so full of praise for his own country.
Never mind that, Aznar reassures us that Iraq is better off now. Iraquis enjoy freedom and democracy. What a world we live in man, what a world!
The only reason Aznar, Bush and Blair don’t stroll the un-pocked boulevards of Baghdad is that they’re too busy.
Take Blair, for example: he’s 100% committed to peace in the Middle East, 100% committed to reducing CO2 emissions, 100% committed to teaching a course in an American college. That’s a hell of a lot of commitment.
Also, sadly enough, they haven’t managed to kill all the evil doers yet. The annoying thing is that however many evil men, women and children you kill, more of the buggers come crawling out of the woodwork.
Hmmm. Sounds like perpetual war for perpetual peace.
Well, that’s the dream.