Month: May 2004

From Friday’s MotherJones.com, the casualty figures in Iraq are: Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 19, 2003: 732 Number killed since George W. Bush declared an end to “major combat” on May 1, 2003: 594 Number killed this month: 136 Paul Wolfowitz, the man considered one of the architects of this war, doesn’t know that. Is it because we can’t hear the names of the dead? Or because we can’t see them? Despite the recent charges against the guards at Abu Gharib prison, the great majority of men and women in…

Two interesting op-eds in the Boston Globe today. The first talks about Karen Hughes equation of the women who marched on the DC Mall last week with terrorists. Regardless of where you fall on the abortion debate, the casual and easy equation of people with different views than this administration is a disturbing phenomenon. (It has happened before with respect to teachers; further proof we are preparing for the Rapture?) The emotional associations with the word “terrorist” after 9/11, across the country, is profound. I think it’s much more evocative than “communist” ever was for my generation. When disagreement becomes…