Bush Wars' American Death Toll Passes 9-11 Tally
By Dave Lindorff
Created Sep 25 2006 - 8:09am
As the administration moves stealthily and deceptively towards war with
Iran, it's worth noting that this president and vice president, who so
adroitly dodged the fighting in the Indochina War, have managed to kill more
American troops in their two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) as of this weekend
than the terrorists managed to kill in their 9-11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.

On Saturday, the 2994th American soldier was killed in Iraq, surpassing the
2993 who died on 9-11. Of course, this grim number of dead is dwarfed by the
100,000-plus innocent Iraqis and Afghanis who have died because of America's
invasions of and continuing destruction of their countries--which is the key
reason a new CIA study is reporting that the Iraq War has made the U.S.
more, not less vulnerable to terror attack.

All this bad news need to be pondered amid clear signs that this war-crazed
president has his sights set now on Iran.

Never mind that the Pentagon says it would be hard-pressed to come up with
more than 20,000-30,000 new combat troops in a pinch, and that Iran is not a
sanctions-crushed Iraq, but rather a country twice the size with a
war-hardened army, equipped with state of the art Chinese and Russian
missiles and other equipment, and a sense of nationalism which will give its
people the will to fight.

Whether or not President Bush and his political strategist Karl Rove are
planning an attack on Iran as an "October Surprise" to swing the
Congressional elections their way in November, the mere fact that most
Americans are ready to imagine them doing such an outrageous and illegal and
bloodthirsty thing speaks volumes about the depths to which American
democracy and politics has descended, and the low regard the public has for
the fundamental decency of the people in the White House today.

Clearly, the White House is terrified at the thought of Democrats winning
the House, which would inevitably lead to bills of impeachment and worse for
a president whose list of impeachable crimes stretches through six chapters
of Barbara Olshansky's and my book The Case for Impeachment [1], and which
have continued to grow even since the book's May publication.

And equally clearly, they are so afraid of that prospect that they don't
care about putting the country into a third and larger war, even if the
military is already being destroyed by the two it already is in the process
of losing. Their fevered minds are focused laser-like on November 7.

The only hope of preventing this disaster is for Americans oppopse a new war
forcefully now. We need to demand that Congress step in and pass a
resolution opposing any attack on Iran without specific Congressional
authorization.

And we need to take to the streets. Actions planned by World Can't Wait [2]
for October 5 would be a good place to start.

Calling public attention to Bush's cynical election strategy is also
important. People need to know that it is important to oust the enablers of
this criminal administration--the Republican majority in Congress--from
office.

Democrats may be a lame alternative, but in this time of crisis, they are,
sadly, the only one available.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson