Lament for Iraq

I was directed today by Mahablog to a posting by an Iraqi blogger, at Riverbend, and a reflection on that post by Billmon. Reflecting on the recent Lancet estimate of Iraqi deaths resulting from the war, Riverbend says:

It's very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves.

I started to write more on this, but deleted it: perhaps here less is more. Whatever the number-- 40,000, 400,000, 650,000-- a moment of silence and grief for the dead and the dying and the

Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.