Bush Drowns in the Blood of the Innocent

and plays fiddle while the Constitution burns

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

I've been sitting on this because I don't know quite what to say.  The total deaths caused by our country in an illegal, elective war of invasion, brought about by the lies and bloodthirsty sociopathy of a small number of chickenhawks is beyond my powers of comprehension.

Maybe this will help.  Iraq had approximately the population of California.  Due to our invasion of Iraq we have wiped out the equivalent of most of San Francisco, or all of Anaheim and Bakersfield.  Or Sacramento and Fremont.

All of those people are dead because of us.  Because of Bush.  Impeachment is an insufficient remedy, but it is at least a step towards justice.

Oh, and the story?  It was carried on page <strong>A12</strong> of the WaPo.  A-12, people, so that the valuable front page real estate could carry things like a warning of the demise of handwriting.  What liberal media?