Numbers

While Badass Bush variously huddles, crafts, meets, and whimpers as he gets set to gift us all with his latest Iraq policy – a straining exercise in constipated executive powerthinking that has taken since Nov. 7 to come up with -- the number of U.S. soldiers slaughtered in Iraq has topped the number of U.S. citizens killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in this country.

That’s 2,793 U.S. citizens who died horribly on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001 and 2,983 who’ve died just as horribly since Badass started the war in Iraq in March, 2003. According to icasualty.org, a website that tracks coalition forces deaths and casualties, 100 U.S. soldiers have died this month alone, and it’s not over yet.

Yes, I know. The rightward gang gets their panties in a twist if one of us lefties mentions the two events in the same sentence to make a point.

Tough. It’s relevant. Bite me.

Fact is, Osama bin Laden, the man behind the Sept. 11 attacks, is still at large somewhere, more than five years later.

Fact is, Iraq had no involvement in Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein was a nasty ruthless dictator among many, and no one mourns his fall from power, but his U.S. assisted fall threw open the gates of hell in Iraq, gates that Saddam held closed for decades through sheer brute force.

No valid reason was ever given to the American people for invading Iraq and toppling its leader. All we were given were scenarios of terror and fear, wrapped up in feeble lies.

Many thousands more Iraqis, innocent and otherwise, have died since Shock and Awe than Saddam could have ever hoped, dreamed or dared to murder himself. According to iraqibodycount.net, a website that tracks the number of media reported Iraqi deaths, 57,617 Iraqis have died so far. If you bunch together the number of American dead since Sept. 11 and the war, you get 5,776 (as of today). Also as of today, that’s 51,841 more Iraqis dead than Americans since it all began.

Hoooahhhhh!

The Iraqi death count, remember, includes only those who’ve been reported in the media as having died. The actual count is much, much higher. The Iraqi government is far too overwhelmed to keep accurate counts and of course, the American forces don’t bother counting the “enemy” and civilian dead.

It’s all heartbreaking.

I don’t know about you, but this war and everything to do with it, from Constitutional strip-mining to torture, has darkened the last several holiday seasons for me. It lays like a choking sheen of black oil over the pretty, empty ideals of “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men,” this Christmas most of all, because now Badass threatens to send even more U.S. troops to Iraq as a gory New Year's gift. I guess he’s hoping for double or nothing?

Seems to me the mandate he was given by the people in the Nov. 7 election was “Bring them all home, you fucking idiot!”

This little man, as Will over at Huck and Jim so aptly refers to him, works for us, the American people. We pay his salary, and he serves as our representative, at our pleasure. He seems to have forgotten this, or more likely, gibbering and posturing in his delusions of absolute power, he’s decided to ignore it.

Well, here at the Wren’s nest, where people’s lives mean something, where people are loved and cherished, where their illness, injury or passing are paid attention to with care and compassion, Badass’s name is lumped right in there with Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet and yes, Saddam Hussein. They were all monsters.

George W. Bush fits right in. How many more lives are we willing to watch him destroy before we put him behind bars forever? How much more blood are we willing to have on our hands -- and our souls?

Somehow, this has to end. And soon.