Category — Bush — say no more

On Huffington Post today:

A mosaic in remembrance of the 4,000 men and women who died in the war in Iraq — and the two men who would continue this great tragedy.

Click here to see the full (very large) image.

The number of U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq has reached 4000, the US military said today, just days after the fifth anniversary of a war that President George W. Bush says the United States is on track to win.

Four soldiers were killed late on Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad. One soldier was wounded in the attack.

President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the ‘high cost in lives and treasure’ and declared that the United States was on track for victory.

Marking the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion with a touch of the swagger he showed early in the war, Bush said in a speech at the Pentagon, ‘The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable.’

With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his presidency, Bush is trying to shore up support for the Iraq campaign, which has damaged U.S. credibility abroad and is sure to define his legacy.”

Photograph by Kevin Dooley

Within hours, or days, the inevitable will happen … a luckless US military member will be killed and become the 4,000th victim of the war in Iraq.

It is time to look at the real numbers behind this futile, stupid war, a war launched on lies and corruption.

The Cost to US Forces in Iraq

3,990: American troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the war. [icasualties.org, 3/17/08]

29,395: Number of U.S. service members that have been wounded in hostile action since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq. [AP, 3/11/08]

2,100: Number of troops who tried to commit suicide or injure themselves increased from 350 in 2002 to 2,100 last year. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

The Cost to Iraqis and Journalists

8,000: Number of Iraqi military and police killed since June 2003. [Brookings Institute, Iraq Index, March 13, 2008]

82,000-89,000: Estimate of Iraqi civilians casualties from violence since the beginning of the Iraq War. [Iraq Body Count]

127: Number of journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003. [Committee to Protect Journalists]

The Cost to US National Security

1,188: Number of global terrorist incidents from January - September 11th, 2001. [American Security Project, “Are We Winning?,” September 2007]

5,188: Number of global terrorist incidents in from January- September 11th, 2006. [American Security Project, “Are We Winning?,” September 200

The Cost of Funding the War in Iraq

$50-60 Billion: Bush Administration’s pre-war estimates of the cost of the war. [New York Times, 12/31/02]

$12 Billion: Direct cost per month of the Iraq War. [Washington Post, Bilmes and Stiglitz Op-Ed, 3/9/08]

$526 Billion: Amount of money already appropriated by Congress for the War in Iraq. [CRS, 2/22/08]

$3 Trillion: Total estimated cost of the Iraq War. [Washington Post, Bilmes and Stiglitz Op-Ed, 3/9/08]

Economic Costs of War in Iraq

$33.51: Cost of a barrel of oil in March 2003. [Energy Information Administration]

$105.68: Cost of a barrel of oil on March 17, 2008. [NYMEX]

There are many more revealing and scary numbers.

Again. Watch and weep.

Huffington Post’s Barbara Ehrenreich has a way with words:

“With all the talk about how to stimulate it, you’d think that the economy is a giant clitoris. Ben Bernanke may not employ this imagery, but the immediate challenge-and the issue bound to replace Iraq and immigration in the presidential race-is how best to get the economy engorged and throbbing again.

“It would be irresponsible to say much about Bush’s stimulus plan, the mere mention of which could be enough to send the Nikkei, the DAX, and the curiously named FTSE and Sensex tumbling into the crash zone again.

“In a typically regressive gesture, Bush proposed to hand out cash tax rebates-except to families earning less than $40,000 a year.

“This may qualify as an example of what Naomi Klein calls ‘disaster capitalism,’ in which any misfortune can be re-jiggered to the advantage of the affluent.”

Environmentalists harbor no illusions about the Bush Administration; from a 2001 decision to weaken regulations on arsenic in drinking water to its antagonistic performance at last week’s U.N. climate change talks in Bali, the White House has consistently opposed green goals.

But Wednesday’s move by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denying California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles was an unpleasant surprise; even by Bush standards.

The announcement, made by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, temporarily torpedoes state efforts led by California to drastically reduce CO2 emissions from cars by treating the greenhouse gas as a pollutant that could be regulated like any other.

The California initiative, part of the state’s landmark climate change plan, could have provided a nationwide model for cutting automobile emissions, one of the single biggest sources of greenhouse gas in the U.S.

‘The Administration has done a number of indefensible things on the environment and global warming,’ says Jim Marston, director of the state climate initiative for Environmental Defense. ‘But this is the worst in terms of process, and the one that will be most harmful to the health and safety of the American people.’

Watch and listen. This is important.