Antiwar.com's
Winter Fund Drive
Metrics
of Death
Who's Reporting the Truth About
the Carnage in Iraq?
In
a famous comment on the consequences of his disastrous policies,
and those of the administration he served, former Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bemoaned the lack of "metrics"
by which to measure either success or failure. We couldn't
know if we were winning or losing, Rummy claimed, because
we didn't have the numbers.
Well,
now we do have the
numbers – 2,853 American soldiers killed, an estimated
$2 trillion in costs – and as many as 650,000 Iraqi deaths.
The American military made a great show of not counting Iraqi
deaths, and now that these high numbers are coming out, the
War Party is outraged at the "improbable" death
toll. They think they can get away with it because, after
all, who is keeping track of all these deaths? Who is reporting
the smaller incidents, and meticulously
totaling them up?
The
answer: Antiwar.com. As Tom Engelhardt of The Nation
noted in a
piece posted at CBS.com:
"The
Iraqi killing fields are far from us here in the United States
and, as yet, almost completely unmemorialized. Even to get
a sense of the carnage is hard, but the Web site Antiwar.com
now does a remarkable, if grim, daily job of collating at
least what's reported. It puts out a running tally of the
dead each day – including of those nameless bodies found en
masse, particularly in the Iraqi capital."
Antiwar.com
started exposing the truth about this war long before the
shooting started, and we continue to debunk the lies of the
War Party in a comprehensive daily edition that covers virtually
every aspect of U.S. foreign policy and its repercussions
on the world stage, with a special focus on events in the
Middle East. We started out offering just links and opinion
pieces, but have lately begun to make a real effort to do
original reporting, focusing on areas neglected by the mainstream
media. One
of our newest efforts has been to break the silence about
the true scope of the carnage visited on Iraq.
We aren't
a big news organization – yet – but we have the embryo of
one, and we're counting on you, our readers and supporters,
to help get our original reporting division up and running.
For starters, we can't afford to keep compiling and writing
our daily Iraq incidents report without your financial support.
That's part of the reason why we've upped our goal to $70,000
this quarter – to reflect the increased costs of our expanded
operations.
By giving
as much as you can, as soon as you can, you're helping to
bring a much-needed truth to the American people – so
give today.
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