I have noticed an interesting trend among apologists for the left lately. When referring to the Iraqi dead, they will often use the number of 1.5 million, rather than the 30,000 acknowledged by even LIBERAL estimates to have died since our invasion of Iraq. When pressed, they will acknowledge that the 1.5 million number includes those estimated by the UN to have died as a result of sanctions.

Why is this ironic? Well, all it requires is a memory span of just over three years to understand this. You see, it was just about three years ago when the debate on invading Iraq began to gain serious momentum that the left argued that continued sanctions against Iraq were preferable to the invasion. Yet, by their own admission, sanctions have cost 50 TIMES the number of lives as the invasion has. Now granted, sanctions have been in place longer than the amount of time we've been in Iraq, but still, when you consider 12 years of sanctions, the body count in Iraq averaged over 100,000 per year by the UN's own estimates, vs. the 10,000 per year since we invaded Iraq in this conflict. That means over 90,000 Iraqi lives were  SAVED by our intervention. I believe if you were one of the more than a quarter million Iraqis who owed their lives to our intervention, you'd be the least bit grateful.

In attemtping to mount their argument AGAINST the war, then, ironically the left has mounted probably the strongest argument FOR the war. The fact is, the authors of these talking points HAVE to have seen it. My guess is, they were hoping to shock us with the 1.5 million number without having us ask questions. Congratulations to those who were smart enough to ask.