Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300

Morgue Count Eclipses Other Tallies Since Shrine Attack
Photo Left: The bodies of 12 members of an Iraqi family lie on the ground outside a hospital in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, on Feb. 25, after gunmen stormed their house and killed them.

Washington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, February 28, 2006
BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.
Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

RELATED EDITORIAL REPORT: Good news, we found the body Rama Schneider
I'm not sure how much evidence it'll take to convince us, the people of the United States, it is up to us to literally force our government to end its (and ours by the way) warlike ways. I'm not sure what it'll take to convince our nation's youth poor job prospects are not a legitimate reason to kill and maim folks who never attacked us. Maybe what people in Baghdad are grateful for nowadays will help ...
There's yet one more telling story discussing Bush's (and ours) viscous, torturous, bloody Iraqi war. "Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue.The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media." (Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300, Washington Post, 02/28/06).
The article goes on to discuss hundreds of unclaimed bodies that included "blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads." I pointed out in a previous post (We could've just left Saddam in place) none of this should be surprising. The formula is very simple: violence begets more violence, and extremely few in the U.S. government appear to have the courage, intelligence, honesty and moral backbone to realize we need to change our own ways to effect a positive change in the situation in Iraq.
Simply put how much more pain, death and destruction must we help inflict upon other people?The final sentence of the above referenced WP story reads '"Good news, we found the body," another man called out. "We found him."' Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we as a people are in great part responsible for the circumstances in Iraq that led to that sad statement.