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.

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

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 ...

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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