[GAsux]

I bet I could write half the responses I will get from this but I'm going to say it anyway.

Being the Lee Greenwood loving right wing fanatic that I am, I think there are a few things to point out here that hold some merit. I'm not trying to demean any amount of civilian casualties, etc., etc. I understand the "one is too many" argument and all that good stuff so don't bother insulting my intelligence with it.

Regardless, I think it should at least be noted that the "tens of thousands" of civilian casualties arguments used before the war were overdramatized. Let's be honest, even here there was a lot of discussion of the overwhelming numbers of civilian deaths many were certain would result from the war.

Second, in perspective, quite frankly given the nature of the conflict and where it was being fought, that is an amazingly low number. Tragic no matter how you look at it, but nevertheless amazing. Under different circumstances, how many other nations would have engaged in such a war with so much conscious effort to minimize such deaths?

Third, this whole "counting bodies" thing is a sham. It could have been 10,000, it might have been 500. There is no way any accurate figures can be done. Just as the article states the number could be lowballed as a result of many deaths not even reported, the number could also be swelled from inaccurate reporting. Iraqi shrapnel happens to look just like U.S. shrapnel. Do you suppose every Iraqi artillery/mortar/grenade round struck Americans? How many of those injuries were caused by Iraqi army/militia?

Again I'm not trying to say that there weren't a significant number of civilian casualties. And I'm not trying to marginalize death. The fact that were so many civilian casualties is worsened by the fact that so far there is still a substantial sense that the war was fought in vain in the first place.

But regardless, it's only fair to keep a little perspective on things. It's a bit of a fraud to insist that war in Iraq would no doubt cause tens of thousands of civilian casualties, then disregard it only to pretend that some 3,000 is just as bad.