Well, well, well ... "Jinx" has a point.

Well, how about that? Our favourite wingnut Jason/"Jinx McHue" has a valid objection to something I wrote. Back here, I slapped him around thoroughly and, in closing, was all over him regarding the alleged number of Iraqi "civilian" casualties. He left a comment which I, as I have already explained, deleted. But the gist of that comment makes for some interesting reading.

His point was that the number of less than one thousand Iraqi civilian casualties was not the overall total since the invasion began, just those inflicted specifically by U.S. forces since "the fall of Baghdad," which is, in fact, what that article is saying. So, technically, Jinx is correct. So what happened here?

Well, I definitely have to shoulder some of the blame since, in my skimming the actual claim, when I read, "Over two years of combat since the fall of Baghdad," I kind of missed the "over two years" part and just read "since the fall of Baghdad." And, given how all of us were told how much of a "cakewalk" this whole thing was going to be, I mistakenly assumed that the fall of Baghdad conicided with the beginning of the invasion. Silly me.

I never realized that the "fall of Baghdad" had been redefined to not include the first couple years of intense fighting that killed so many more civilians. It must be wonderfully convenient to be able to pick your starting point when you begin counting the dead, thereby avoiding the really embarrassing periods of massive slaughter.

Of course, even if you accept that definition, this suggests that almost one thousand civilians have died at the hands of U.S. troops even after the city was supposedly locked down. And this is good? This is humanitarian?

In any case, you can read the tables and accompanying text for yourself to see how cleverly the worst part of the killing is simply defined away. Hey, with that kind of selective ability, I'm pretty sure I could make almost anything sound perky and upbeat.