Leaving nasty party politics for a moment, John Rentoul claims the government is overestimating the death toll in Iraq.
Yes, you heard it right. A major liberal newspaper's main political correspondent and blogger is actually saying that fewer people than the government thinks have died since the Coalition forces went in to Iraq in 2003. Which is counter-intuitive and thus perhaps an example of rather selfless regard for the truth. It would be further in Rentoul's own interests to claim that there was a massive bloodbath in Iraq and up to a million people have been killed - but no, apparently Miliband is wrong to claim that "many hundreds of thousands" have died, and the true figure is more like 100-200,000 dead since hostilities began in February 2003. (Let's say ~150,000.)
I've left a comment as "Owlqueen" on the post suggesting that a fuller truth may come out when the Iraq War finally gets its own enquiry this coming year. Hopefully there is going to be not only an inquiry but the usual mountain of press reports on how Iraq has fared and is faring since the invasion. Magic had a word for it - Coalition Victory. This is not a random pull - but a card which came out before 9/11 (I believe) - from a set called Invasion - which suggests to me that life does often imitate art with . If it had come out after the 2003 invasion, I would have said there was some kind of conscious or unconscious satire element. But before? Interesting. There is, according to Owlie, a whole other dimension to the human collective subconscious which anticipates major global events in pop culture before they happen, leading to life appearing to imitate art. According to Owlie, it is more a case of our minds foreshadowing great events ahead and planning for them subconsciously, so the shock is lessened when they arrive. Divination is a way of exploring this consciously and deliberately; however we seem to do a lot of it in literature, particularly in literature such as mass-market swords-and-sorcery where the mind deliberately imagines alien situations and alien landscapes. We end up with previously unimaginable events - such as 9/11 and the fallout from that - being predicted and then sadly coming true.
Back to Rentoul: Owlperson and Deep Throat both concur that this may be our Sigiled Paladin standing up for the truth, so there is no need to pull a card for it. I hoped I might pick a diamond out of the rough to find our Pal for today. Of course David Miliband still comes in for a bit of flak, but at least someone seems to be acting contrary to expected interests and expected intentions. Maybe there really is hope.
More later on.
