Saturday, September 09, 2006

Who Knew?

This just in:

U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren't counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country's sectarian violence.
In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.


That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.
But it eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Not included, for example, are scores of people who died in a highly coordinated bombing that leveled an entire apartment building in eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.


So bombs are not used in sectarian violence, but torture is? That must mean that Americans are perpetrators of sectarian violence all over Eastern Europe and in Gitmo.

The torturous definitions of very simple words such as "torture" and "violence" defy anything Big Dog did when he tried to parse the meaning of "is". We are parodying ourselves, and it will not get any better for years.

Even if Democrats win both houses of Congress this November, we have a long hard slog ahead of us as a country, trying to mend the damage this amoral cabal has done to this country. Funny thing, morals. Those who have them do not have to spend any time trying to get others to believe they do, because they define every aspect of a person's behavior. We live our morals, or we don't have them.

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