Good News For People On Book Deadline

I've got about nine days left. Politico reports: "The Iraq war has been a tragedy for tens of thousands, but a boon for book publishers, who have produced one best-seller after another attacking the war’s prosecution, as well as its strategic premise." Really, though, I think it's a tragedy for a wider circle of people than that; the war's produced millions of refugees.

Comments

"Really, though, I think it's a tragedy for a wider circle of people than that; the war's produced millions of refugees."

Sure. But most of those refugees have book contracts, no?

Posted by Petey | May 12, 2007 3:40 PM

what a bunch of punk-assed morons.

america ALONE has tens of thousands of people dealing directly with the tragedy of the iraq war.

Posted by lyle | May 12, 2007 4:08 PM

Grumpy old men who like to be mad all the time have really fattened up on this war, too -- let me tell you that.

Posted by John Emerson | May 12, 2007 4:11 PM

Wait a few years, and they will become 'so-called refugees'.

Posted by otto | May 12, 2007 5:15 PM

I don't want to sound paranoidabout the VRWC or anything, but we all know the politico's roots and management is pretty conservative...and this seems like a great example of potential bias. The assumptions behind "tens of thousansd" are pretty startling. First, there is the on face rejection of Lancet's 600,000 dead (which BTW did seem awfully high, but I've yet to read a coherent debunking of it...so it could very well be accurate) Ok, so a more conservative assumption might be say, 100,000 or even the Bush's administration number of what...25,000 (of course yglesias documented how the DoD doesn't even really try to count civilian casualties...so those numbers are probably BS) But even assuming something between 25K and 100K, surely the tragedy is for the survivors, and i'm sure there's often 3 or some people who are irreperarely aggrieved for each iraqi death. The point is, the politico is almost surely intentionally lowballing the number. There's a HUGE rhetorical difference between "tens of thousands" and "a hundred thousand or more" or even "hundreds of thousands"...and this is just talking about deaths, not even refugees. So yeah, paranoid VRWC media rant over.

Posted by matt z | May 12, 2007 6:10 PM

"Grumpy old men who like to be mad all the time have really fattened up on this war, too -- let me tell you that."

Word

Posted by bob mcmanus | May 12, 2007 6:39 PM

It's death for tens of thousands. Once your dead, well, you don't feel tragedy. (or as the snarky might say, they have been liberated from their lives under Saddam) For millions of their kin and friends it's tragedy. Tragedy too for those who live locked away, poor and hopeless, in fear. Tragedy as well for the near million refugees.

The publishers and authors have cashed in but no more than the media types, like Politico contributers and more so their backers. The huge winners are the totally corrupt who got their hands on the billions in cash floating around the CPA. Big winners as well were the contractors.

So overall it's still a big win for the war supporters. A price I am sure they would be glad to have the victims pay again, if given half a chance.

Posted by rapier | May 12, 2007 7:30 PM