Things are Going Well in Iraq (but that depends on who you ask and how you define well)

A study led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins University and published this week in the Lancet (one of the world’s oldest and most respected peer-reviewed journals) says that 654,965 Iraqi’s have been killed since the beginning of the US- led invasion of the country in 2003. The study concludes that somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 Iraqi citizens have died and the 654,965 is based on the assumption that the actual number of deaths lies somewhere towards to middle of that range.

Don’t be too worried though, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have dismissed the data as skewed and claim that the actual number of deaths is something closer to 40,000 (or 50,000 if you believe General George Casey…what’s an additional 10,000 dead between friends right?), but don’t have an actual number because as Tony Blair put it, “that is an issue for the Iraqi government”. Phew! This clarification makes me feel much better. 50,000 innocent lives is nothin’! Hang in there Iraq!

Dubya added (as if the Iraqis had a choice in the matter) “I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- you know, that there's a level of violence that they tolerate.”

The dice are loaded and Dubya is staking America’s future and security on his belief that Iraqis are willing to sacrifice 40,000 (or maybe 950,000) of their own in a war they didn’t ask for without harboring any resentment for their “liberators”. If he is wrong and this isn’t a level of violence that they can “tolerate” so help us God we are screwed.