From what I hear this is all your fault Dan. What, is this bragging?

It would show the utmost respect for the dead, and mark the solemnness of this occasion, if we react to this news as if it's all about Dan.

Only a moral relativist would say Dan killed these 4,000 troops. Only these 4,000 Americans. Or only just those killed in Iraq, on all sides. Only I have the courage to see the extent of it. The fact is Dan is to blame for every death in all wars. Not directly, obviously. Indirectly? Yes, indirectly, Dan Savage is to blame for the 50,000 who died in Vietnam, and all those who died in the Civil War. And not just "real" wars, as the MSM call them. Fictional wars too, past, present, and future, are Dan Savage's fault. My comments are all the proof you need, if you only had eyes to see.

Every time I see the body count I want to scream. Are American servicemen the only dead? In every war, the condition of warfare is far more deadly than direct violence. The best measure of the number of dead as a result of the fact of this war is somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000. Or it was, a long time ago.

I'm not surprised that someone posted that statistic to the SLOG, but I'm a little surprised it was you Dan, after all, if it gives the Iraqi people their freedom it's worth it, isn't it?

Now, I realize you recognize your mistake, and Ryan is being a jerk, but I think in this case, leaving the post to someone else would have been wise. Unless you are such an attention whore that you get off on being attacked.

For what it's worth, I, like Dick Cheney, thought invading Iraq was a stupid thing to do, and like Sen. Obama, I also did not vote in the US Senate to authorize the use of force.

How's that surge working?

I thought about leaving it to someone else to post, Epimetheus, but I knew that if no one got it up on Slog in a timely manner, there would be dark muttering about how Slog was ignoring this news (because it is all my fault), or, being Seattle's only newspaper and all, we were attempting to bury it by keeping it off Slog. After all, if it doesn't go up on Slog, it's as if it never happened at all. So I thought it better that I post it right away.

can we do Iran yet? 4000 is nothing.

Happy Easter.

That tears it.

This is the absolute last time I elect a sex columnist as President of the United States.

53 civilians were killed in Iraq today, as well...

I like #6's style.

Civilians don't count, @11.

None of the hundreds of thousands of them.

And the 30,000 to 50,000 wounded (depending on counting PTSD and other impacts) amongst our veterans don't count either.

Still a waste, no matter how you count it. We could have replaced all imported oil to the US from the Middle East for one-tenth what we've wasted to date in Iraq ...

Mission Accomplished, once again.

does dan not remember when he supported this ?

4,000 is such an understatement of the toll of this war that using it as a towering milestone would almost be funny.

ditto Rain Monkey @4.

During Vietnam the US would release weekly casualty figures and they included not just US soldiers, but N and S Vietnamese combat related deaths. And civilian deaths would also get reported (although not as rigorously).

But in this occupation (it is NOT a war and never has been), nothing but US deaths seem to count. Everything else is brushed aside.

I wish I was religious so I could have some belief that Bush and Co really would suffer for all eternity. Instead, I just hope that somehow Al Qaeda takes them out.

It must be difficult for a man of action like yourself Dan, to be missing out on this glorious effort to bring Democracy to the Middle east. You wanted this war. You advocated forcefully for it. And the damn military wouldn't take you because you are told the world that you are gay. When you outed yourself you couldn't predict that one day it would prevent you from serving freedom. Fuck! Life is so unfair. Man, I'll bet you would have earned the Congressional medal of Honor by now. I swoon over your manliness Dan THE MAN!

It must be difficult for a man of action like yourself Dan, to be missing out on this glorious effort to bring Democracy to the Middle east. You wanted this war. You advocated forcefully for it. And the damn military wouldn't take you because you are told the world that you are gay. When you outed yourself you couldn't predict that one day it would prevent you from serving freedom. Fuck! Life is so unfair. Man, I'll bet you would have earned the Congressional medal of Honor by now. I swoon over your manliness Dan THE MAN!

@7

I see Dan, that you are adopting the tactic of making your critics, seem as if they are saying that all these deaths in Iraq are your fault. And you know better! What they are saying, and have said many times, is that this war was made possible by the support of a large group comprised of individuals. And each individual bears responsibility for the carnage and suffering that has predictably occurred in this war. You could have remained neutral on the matter. You could have used your soapbox to oppose the war. You chose to loudly and arrogantly support the invasion of Iraq. You went so far as to favorably quote Dick Cheney and ridicule liberal anti-war supporters WHO GOT IT FUCKING RIGHT.

You wrote:

Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves.

There is no we're to it Dan. You never had to put your ass on the line. it was always other people who would have to do the fighting and dying and suffering for your glorious war.

More from you:

"War may be bad for children and other living things, but there are times when peace is worse for children and other living things, and this is one of those times."

And so Dan, predictably, children are getting their heads blown off and you think it's good for them.

TOO FUCKING MUCH!

oh it's terrible. i saw some pics about Baghdad bomb on intimatemingle.com which is a dating site for interracial singles. i really can't believe it.

I think this shows why pundits in general are not more careful.

Dan was totally wrong about the war, yet we have only one (1) person still pissed about it. Granted, it's one very obsessed guy with apparently a lot of time on his hands (which is saying something for the slog) but still. Having only one critic left is not bad.

One of my friends got home from Iraq last week. He joined the national guard to be trained as a medic, hoping to treat soldiers with PSD (yes, we told him at the time it was naive of him to think that's what he'd necessarily be sent to do. He's stubborn). Instead he ended up stationed near a prison for detainees. He obliquely mentioned multiple times in emails and locked lj posts he wasn't comfortable with some of what he was being ordered to do, and it got to the point where they had to medicate him for depression. They shipped him home early, so I suspect he might have been getting close to suicidal and they shipped him out before he added to the statistics.

These 4000 deaths, and the loss of many more civilian lives is a tragedy. But even the death count doesn't actually accurately reflect the real damage done to American troops and the Iraqi people. We need to get out of there.

@23 - The thing is, if you're going to line up pundits and reporters in order of influence on the public's view of the Iraq issue, where would the guy who writes "Savage Love" show up in that line? Meanwhile, somehow Bill Kristol hasn't been lynched yet.

That should've been @22.

4000 isn't counting deaths where the military hasn't confirmed the cause of death.

I just read a story this morning about a guy who had severe brain injury from a roadside bomb, was shipped home for medical treatment, and was found dead in his room. The autopsy was inconclusive so his death is "undetermined" and doesn't count as a casualty of war even though it was likely complications from said war injury that lead to his death.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23770512/

So it's sad that 4000 is a very very watered down number.

@25

I guess Bill Kristol doesn't have a blog you can crapflood. I believe Dan was just getting his foreign policy opinions from Andrew Sullivan. If any body's blog should be crapflooded, it's Sullivan's.

Well, and unlike Sullivan's and Kristol's outlets, you can anonymously poop all over the Slog with impunity.

Not that I can understand the point of crapflooding a blog as a way to stop a war. But then if it made sense to me I'd also be retarded.

I wonder how many gallons of cum have been spilled with the posting of these responses.

i would have preferred some symmetry in the death count. 5 years, 5000 dead. catchier headlines are harder to ignore.

Max Solomon you are a true dan-dittohead,. A great great slogger. May you get cancer so we sloggers can make fun of you. But just for a minute or two, then we will leave you to suffer and die as we seek out new entertainment.

i thought the following story was a good part of this statistic to focus on:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/25dead.web.html?hp

I'm not inclined to defend anyone who supported this idiotic war in Iraq that is causing the senseless killing and suffering of many thousands, but it doesn't really seem fair to hold a sex advice columnist to the same standard as the vice president when you are talking about war, and vice versa when talking about sex.