Monday, September 05, 2005

Bush fiddles, while hearts burn at home

update - we just hit the 2000 milestone - details here

(greetings Raw Storians - spread the word)



The specific purpose of this blog is to generate media/blog awareness on the upcoming milestone of 2000 dead Americans (not just soldiers) in Iraq.

Its difficult to know how many people have died in Bush's Iraq war - people of many nationalities, most of them innocent, most of them uncounted - but they are not the purpose of this blog.

Virtually all of the bodycount in the american media is focussed on dead American soldiers - I can understand (if not excuse) the focus on American deaths, but I dont quite understand why the dead american contractors are excluded. I'm sure the deaths of contractors are equally real to their families - and the president and his Mission Accomplices are certainly equally to blame for all of these deaths.

Contractor deaths tend not to attract much media attention, but due to Department of Labor reporting requirements, we recently learnt that "113 U.S. contractors have been killed since the March 2003 invasion". For one reason or other, that report was ignored by the media.

Given that the media likes big shiny round numbers, the purpose of this blog is to draw attention, in advance, to the fact that within the next month or so, Americans will soon be crossing the milestone of 2000 dead Americans - comprised of both dead soldiers, and dead contractors.

For whatever reason, we can expect a big media brouhaha when the dead-soldier count hits 2000, which is all fine and good, but that doesnt preclude some attention being brought to this milestone as well.

As of August 10, more than 1950 americans have been killed in Iraq. On this blog, I'll be keeping a track of the latest number, and trying to predict when we are likely to see it click over to 2000. (scroll down below this post for the latest details)

For current purposes, i'll be using the death-rate of 2 american soldiers per day - which is the approximate rate we saw for the 100 deaths between 1700 on or about June 13, and the 1800th death on or about August 2.

As it happens, at the current rate, we can expect to cross the 2000 milestone in early September - about the same time the president finishes his 5 week holiday.

Given the media attention that Cindy Sheehan's campaign is getting, hopefully we can bring attention to the fact that the 2000th family will soon be suffering the same grief. The juxtapostion of 2000 families grieving while Bush gets in touch with his inner rancher is intentional, and entirely of his own making.

And that is why this campaign is called Operation Milestone Millstone.

Bush fiddles, while hearts burn at home


(I'm going to keep this post on top - scroll down below this post for updates)
(you can also come visit my main blog - WotIsItGood4)

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