151,000. That's the estimated number dead, via reporting of the BBC (link enclosed below)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
of how many civilians have died in the Iraq conflict.
Let me be perfectly, explictly clear: I will never, ever, EVER, for ANY REASON, begrudge a soldier self defense. When my father in his numerous drunken rages lunged for me with whatever was nearest to him, God knows I returned the favor--and both of us came out with brusies, cuts, and God knows what else.
But let me be even clearer on this point: **we don't know for sure how many people have died.** This is an estimate of the poorest quality.
I remember being a freshman when the announcement came. I had the (stupidity, according to profs and fellow students) to not support the war at that time when everyone was waving their flags and any sort of non support was seen as betraying the troops. My defense? "No armed conflict will be worth it--in the cost of casualties from our side or theirs. And that's assuming everyone comes out alive."
I hate being right.
We have more "Walking wounded" than in the civil war. And in the age when PT/OT and other various forms of therapy are availible, veterans families are going bankrupt over the therapies. The families have taken it on themselves to deal with the insurances, and have thus lost the jobs that were paying for the services that are rehabing our soldiers.
Our soldiers are finding their marriages, their relationships, sometimes even their jobs (! there's a law about that, dammit!), being taken away.
And the stories they've brought back about Iraq.
In the quiet, some of them will talk. Some of them will say some things. At the end of the day, it's not whether or not you killed someone. It's that you didn't want to to begin with.
Does a war end when there are enough soldiers dead? Or injured? Or, when their are enough civilians that they can't attest to the insanity?
All of the above?