Posthuman Blues

Study: 100,00[0] Excess Civilian Iraqi Deaths Since War

"Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the U.S.-led invasion last year, American public health experts have calculated in a report that estimates there were 100,000 'excess deaths' in 18 months." (Via American Samizdat.)

I find it significant that the Reuters staffer who posted this article to the Web mistyped "100,000" as "100,00." It's as if there's a collective refusal to look at the Iraq atrocity squarely in its malignant eye. 100,000 is simply too many civilian deaths to deal with without squirming -- whether from simple disgust, sheer horror, or partisan embarrassment.