Four years have passed since America launched an unprovoked and illegal act of aggression against a mostly defenseless country. It's cost us over 3,000 men and women, and it's cost Iraq nearly a million with an additional two million displaced.

We'll be at Bridge and Main in Phoenixville at 6:30 for a vigil, if anyone's interested.

-pb

I think I'm getting scandal fatigue.

Fuck that, I have scandal fatigue.

Let's recap 1992-2000, shall we? Feel free to point out things I miss.

Whitewater
Waco
Ruby Ridge
Monica Lewinsky

That's the four major cock-ups of the Clinton years. What was the end result? An impeachment proceeding.

Now, 2000-2007:

Katherine Harris
9/11
Afghanistan
Iraq
More time spent cutting brush than presidenting
Ken Blackwell
Warrantless Wiretapping
Katrina
Secret prisons
Abu Ghraib
Military tribunals
Harriet Miers
Jeff Gannon
Cheney's Got a Gun
Scooter Libby
FBI Patriot Act abuses
Prosecutor dismissals

And that's just the shit I can name off the top of my head. Two stolen elections, two wars, countless violations of the Constitution.

End result? One convicted staffer and a president who thinks that a 30% approval rating is a mandate to ignore the other two branches of government.

I keep thinking "maybe this is the scandal that brings it all down", but I know that it's not. The man was caught lying about a justification for a war that has cost over 3,000 American lives and just south of a million Iraqi lives and over two million refugees. The greatest security breach in American history happened on his watch because he didn't feel like reading a memo, and then any lessons that could have been learned from that were promptly forgotten, leading to the destruction of an entire city.

So no, the scandal du jour is not going to be the one that brings it all down. The only thing that we (hopefully) have to look forward to is January 20, 2009. That is, assuming, that 50.1% of the ballots counted aren't in favor of someone equally as repugnant.

-pb

"How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis"

~George W. Bush, admitting in a speech in Philadelphia on the 12th that we're still engaging in violence against Iraqis

At last! Some transparency from this administration! (please note the puddles of dripping sarcasm)

-pb

Number of Iraq Casualties is Double Official Figures, Says Puerto Rican Government

One of the comments to this is that families of the dead not listed as killed in action would raise a stink. I don't think so, because this article is easy to substantiate from the media reports. You never hear "Three Marines died at Ramstein AFB in Germany today after...". We only hear about the ones who died on the ground in Iraq. The ones who die from wounds after being airlifted out are not part of the official tally. Soldiers who commit suicide are not part of the official tally. More soldiers are coming back with PTSD than ever before, so this rate is up. There are some sources who say that the actual number of fatalities among troops serving in Iraq may be closer to 9,000. 1,800+? That's a giant "+", there.

Considering the Pentagon doesn't even keep official stats on the civilians that we've shot, blown up, crushed, or raped to death with light bars, who knows how many Iraqis have actually been killed as a result of our invasion? We've been there for two years, and we've had about the same effect of curing arthritis by amputating limbs. Mission Accomplished!

-js?!

Got this from liberal. Pretty much sums it up.

Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor

1. given documents he thought were true
2. failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3. reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4. when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation
5. number of Americans dead: 0
6. should be fired as CBS News Anchor

George W. Bush, President of the United States

1. given documents he thought were true
2. failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3. reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4. when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation
5. number of Americans dead: 1100
6. should be given four more years as President of the United States

-pb

Back in May I predicted that the US military death toll would hit 1000 "sometime around the middle of the month". I was pretty wrong, and I guess that's a good thing. I also said I wasn't going to rant about it when it happened. I said I was going to focus on the overall casualties.

So, without further ado:

The death toll.

Stay tuned, Coulter rebuttal coming soon!

-pb

Andrea Mitchell from NBC interviewing an anonymous CIA agent who wrote yet another 'state the obvious book' about how we're not going after Osama bin Laden:

Anonymous: "[I]n areas where we realize our enemies are, perhaps we have to be more aggressive."

Mitchell: "Even if it means civilian casualties?"

Anonymous: "That's the way war is. I've never really understood the idea that any American government, any American elected official is responsible for protecting civilians who are not Americans."

So, we've forced the mantle of world police upon ourselves, but now we're not responsible for protecting civilians that aren't Americans?

It's this kind of thought that is the cancer that will rot us until someone decides to put us out of our misery.

I'm seriously wondering how long it's going to take the world to rise up against our arrogance. I hope against hope that we step back and re-assess before we're the ones on the short end of the invasion stick.

-pb