Glenn Greenwald on the new Lancet/Iraqi/Bloomberg School of Public Health study of Iraqi deaths, and the right-wing blogosphere’s hysterical response:
But here it has been quantified — their war has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings who would be alive today in the absence of their invasion. That number — 600,000 — just sounds so mammoth, almost Holocaust-like in magnitude (hopefully, it goes without saying that I’m not to comparing the Iraq war to the Holocaust, but merely pointing out why I think this study prompted such an intense reaction).
Like children who want what they want without having to pay any price for it, these Bush followers refuse to accept the consequences for their war. So with blind irrationality, they insist that this study is false without having any real idea of whether it is, all because they want it to be false, because they are incapable of accepting the consequences (including, perhaps predominantly, the political costs) for their actions. A refusal to recognize unpleasant facts is hardly a new phenomenon for them, but in this instance, the need to deny facts seems particularly acute.
One other observation: if it could be demonstrated that the findings of this study were accurate, would that change the mind of a single war proponent? Would they suddenly stand up and announce that the war was not worth the costs? I don’t think there’s much doubt about the answer.