Mark Morford- Dead Iraqis, Just Like Jelly Beans

[n2doc]

Dead Iraqis, Just Like Jelly Beans
50,000? 500,000? How many have been killed in our miserable war? Bush tries to count
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, October 18, 2006


George W. Bush was confused.

It certainly wasn't the first time. He was muttering a sullen response to a reporter's question about some big new study. He was saying no, he really didn't believe that it was possible that the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq had resulted in the brutal deaths of more than half a million Iraqi civilians, about 650,000, or 2.5 percent of the entire Iraq population, or one heckuva lot more jelly beans than you could fit into that giant glass jar at the county fair. Wait, what? Where did that last part come from? Did he just say that out loud? Check the icky media people: No one was looking at him strangely. No reporters were dialing their cell phones in a delirious rush to call their editors with a crazy new Dubya quote. OK. Whew. Must have been in his head. Thank goodness.

Back to business. No, he told the reporter, he could not believe that 650K number, partly because one of his top generals said that number was probably all wrong and that the real number was probably closer to 30,000 or 50,000, even though the general had no real research to back that up and even though this general is one of the best yes-men money can buy. Not that George was actually thinking any of that, exactly. That would be far too complicated. But he could feel the negativity coming at him like a dank breeze, a nasty mosquito in his ear, a hot rash on his skin. And man, he was itchy.

Oh no, he thought. It was happening again. He was saying one thing to the press but his mind was drifting over to something else, this time back to his silver-spooned youth, how he used to stare longingly at that giant jar at the county fair every year, the one filled to the brim with colorful jelly beans and you paid the big scary guy a dollar and you got to take a guess as to just how many jelly beans there were and if your guess was the closest, you won the whole thing. Wow! 50,000? 500,000? How could he possibly guess? It was a lot of jelly beans, that's for sure. He wanted that jar so bad. He could eat them all in a few days, easy! Jeb would beg for some and George would maybe let him have just a few, but only if Jeb knelt down before him and kissed his shoes and told George he was the greatest brother ever and even then he'd only let Jeb eat the little brown ones, which George didn't even like anyway. Ha! Oh, the power of it.

But OK, this was a little different. This death toll thing, he didn't really know how to process it. Why were the reporters all staring at him like that? After all, there was no way to guess, no victory jar of jelly beans to haul home in satisfied glee. Who would want a giant jar full of dead Iraqis? He couldn't even eat them. And where would he put such a thing? In the bedroom? The kitchen? Laura would be furious. Wait wait, what was he thinking? Must ... focus. Must get back to reality. The reporters waited, but George's mind could not clear. What does half a million bodies look like, anyway? Certainly not like jelly beans. Where do those Iraqi people put them all? Was Iraq big enough to hold them all? Wait, of course it was. Wasn't it?

George didn't know. But one thing was certain: It sure sounded like a lot of dead bodies. He heaved a sigh. How could he possibly be responsible for the deaths of so many people? Answer: He couldn't be. No way. Not with God on his side.

More at the link:
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

[liberal N proud]

1. Let me get this straight, Dead soldiers = comma dead Iraqis = jelly beans?

[n2doc]

2. read the whole op ed

He is not suggesting that he thinks that. He is suggesting that W's attitude towards the two is the same. * just could not care less about the actual number of dead iraqi's except to the extent that a high number embarrasses his regime.

[liberal N proud]

3. Yeah, I understood that

It just blows my mind that these people can use terms like that to justify the killing of a life. This when they tell the wingers out of the other side of their mouths that they are pro-life.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I often wonder how Mark Morford can get inside of Bush's head like

he does.

[gratuitous]

5. I'm thinking massive ingestion of something

But the 1970s are still a little fuzzy for me, so I won't hazard a guess as to exactly what.

Six hundred thousand people who were never any threat to us, never meant us any harm, who couldn't fight back effectively and can't get away. And we exterminated them. Either directly, through our taxpayer-funded military bristling with armaments, or indirectly by setting up the situation where these people would be killed. And even though it was all based on a lie, as even the doughy pantload Jonah Goldberg now grudgingly acknowledges, it doesn't mean that going in was wrong. And if you can decipher that last sentence, the Bush administration needs you desperately right about now.