Don't forget about Iraq

[oberliner]

An average of 100 Iraqi civilians killed every day. Ethnic cleansing?

Excerpt from CBS article: Reporter's Notebook: Iraq Fatigue

But consider this: As awful and tragic as the news has been from Israel and Lebanon — as searing as those images were of Lebanese innocents killed in Qana by that Israeli strike — the violence here in Iraq has been worse. More bloody, not some days, but every day. Qana's casualty count is a relatively "light" day in Iraq.

Lebanon's government says Israel's military has killed 750 Lebanese civilians. For more than a month running, that's roughly the weekly total for Iraqi civilians killed in relentless attacks here. (An average of 100 Iraqi civilians are getting killed every day lately, about half of them in Baghdad.) Since fighting began on the Israel-Lebanese border, 35 Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah. Last month in Iraq, a variety of attacks killed 44 American soldiers; some months, the number of military coffins going home to American families has been more than double that.

This is part of what the Iraq storyline still offers: savage mass killings, a relentless fear factor, death squads, terrorists, ethnic cleansing, kidnappings, a central government in crisis — all of it with political repercussions for the White House and our mid-term elections this November. And of course, there are the 130,000 American troops, often soldiering on heroically in the face of constant threats, and the 115 degree desert heat.

Pay attention to Castro, Israel and Lebanon, and the great American heat wave? Absolutely.

Just don't forget about Iraq.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/01/notebook/main1856826.shtml

[Monkeyman]

1. hard to forget

[NNN0LHI]

2. Negropontes death squads are very busy as of late n/t