How many more Iraqis must die for our revenge?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel12.html

The election is over and so we can forget about the Iraq war. It is no longer a political issue and hence matters to no one. The American electorate has followed the tradition of standing by a wartime president and thus endorsing the president's war. It was once his war. Now the election has made it our war. The issue is closed.

A recent report suggested that if one compares the number of deaths that usually occur in Iraq per year with the number since Bush's invasion, the cost of the war in dead Iraqis may be more than a hundred thousand human beings. Now Iraqi deaths don't count because they look funny and talk funny and have a funny religion. Besides they're Arabs, and we have a score to settle with Arabs because of their attack on the World Trade Center. Yet if we are able to sustain the number of deaths that have happened as a consequence of the invasion, we will soon have accounted for as many as Saddam Hussein did. That's a lot of dead Arabs -- and a lot of bereaved spouses, parents, children, other relatives and friends. How many before will we have to kill before we're satisfied with our revenge?

Someone might say that when leaders of a country have caused so many deaths that they might just deserve to be hauled before an international court of justice as war criminals -- especially if the war was based on false premises and conducted with an ineptitude that staggers the mind. It is an unnecessary, unjust, stupid, sinful war. The majority of Americans have assumed responsibility for the war. Therefore they share responsibility for all the Iraqi deaths.

OK, lets say there's only 50,000 extra dead. So that's not so bad, right? Americans are never going to have to render an accounting to their Creator for having supported such a massacre. Right?

I don't judge the conscience of anyone, leader or follower. I am merely saying that there is objective sin in the Iraq war, and our country as a country is guilty of sin. I'll leave it to God to judge the guilt, because that's God's job. I also leave it to God to judge whether there ought to be punishment for that sin. However, I think Americans -- so serenely confident that the Lord is on our side -- should live in fear and trembling about punishment.

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[ContraBass Black]

1. All of Them!

What, it's not like they're people or anything.

[whistle]

2. How many native Americans died to satisfy America's quest to....

...conquer the west, settle the lands andexploit the environment of the American continent? Iraq and the middle east are nothing but new frontiers for the neo-conservatives, the inhabitants who refuse to allow American corporate and strategic interests to be realized and who resist our occupation and exploitation will be slaughtered and displaced. So far, that number is estiamted at 100,000. Bush's policy, "Whatever it takes!" Be prepared for a lot more wholesale slaughter.

[PAdem2]

3. That argument leaves a lot out..

Such as, how many deaths were civilian vs. combatants (Iraqi military and the multi-national, pan-muslim forces supporting jihad)? Are you assuming that if we had not invaded Iraq the deaths credited to Sadaam would have stopped on their own? Are you taking the "there is no reason for war" approach, which is great in theory but not in practice?

Plus, this 100,000 number is thrown around a lot with no real substantiation. I'm not wild about how the war in Iraq is going down and I'M not buying that number.

As far as the objective sin, I think we may be judged for not using more of our resources to end tyranny around the world.