Letters from a brass watch man

Finally did some research that I've been thinking about for a while. No one really seems to know how many Iraqi civilians have been killed since the U.S. invasion. According to Iraq Body Count, an independent estimate of civilian deaths, somewhere between 87 and 96 thousand Iraqis have been killed. The IBC admits on its website, however, that without definitive data, their estimate is most likely conservative at best. Another study conducted by Opinion Research Business suggests that the number might be as high as 1 million, 120 thousand.

So just for the sake of argument, let's take the ORB number. Add in the estimated number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees, according to this report at the beginning of the year by the UN Refugee Agency, as well as those Iraqis who have been "internally displaced" (or driven out of their homes into other parts of the country). The total number of Iraqis either killed or displaced by the war is then 5,120,000. In a country of 28 million people (CIA World Factbook), that means that roughly one out of every five Iraqis has been personally affected by this war.

I know I'm highballing it here, but think about it for a second. The conservatives - both inside of this administration and without - keep repeating to us that "the surge has worked," that "victory is near" - but they never answer the one key question I've been asking myself for the last several years. Imagine how you'd feel if one in five people in your life went missing. And then ask yourself - how would you feel about the nation that may not have responsible for every single death or displacement, but rather definitively started all of your troubles?

How could anyone humanly expect them to ever forgive us?

PALIN: Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

Okay, you heard the lady, America. Just forget about the whole past eight years. The war and the economic failures and the loss of our credibility abroad - because she and McCain are different, gosh darn it, and just because they're in the same party as what's been in charge doesn't mean they aren't for real change. So down the memory hole it goes. Forget about everything else that's going on in the world; forget what the Iraqis might be thinking of all this, or the tent cities in Columbus, or that McCain has voted 90% of the time with Bush. Forget about the last time you fell for this crap in 2004 and 2000. Just look at the pretty face and the Tina Fey glasses, listen to the smooth Reagan-esque dictation, and know that everything is just gosh darn fine.

Grumph. This whole debate tonight would have disturbed me a whole lot less if Tom Brokaw and the rest of the commentators afterwards hadn't been so taken with her. And how many times did she go back to talking about Energy - whether or not that was what she'd actually been asked about? Talk about a one-trick pony...

Grumpy now. Going to find something else to do.