WASHINGTON (AEP) – President Bush announced today he was awarding Iraq Body Count (IBC) co-founder John Sloboda the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Bush said, “It’s very important to every person in America that we continue to minimize the true costs of the Iraq War. Mr. Sloboda has done important work in this regard, by giving us tolerable Iraqi casualty figures to promote, instead of the Godless crap you see in the Lancet or Opinion Business Research. Every single one of the American people owes Mr. Sloboda a debt of gratitude, which is why I’m awarding him this medal.”
In October 2004, the British medical journal Lancet published a study in which lead author Les Roberts estimated 100,000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of the Western military presence there. In October 2006, Roberts and the Lancet updated the estimate to 655,000.
In September 2007, Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency based in London, estimated 1.2 million excess Iraqi deaths. This estimate was based on a random survey of around 1500 Iraqi adults, who were asked how many in their household had died as a result of violence instead of natural causes.
By comparison, in September 2004, IBC estimated around 13,000 Iraqi deaths. In October 2006, IBC estimated around 48,000 deaths. As of August 2007, IBC’s estimate was around 74,000 deaths. IBC collects their data by counting the number of Iraqi civilian deaths reported by media outlets.
Said Bush, “The biggest fear big people like myself have is that the U.S. public will successfully organize a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism – the system that sustains and enriches suits like myself. Now, us important people never know what’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Will it be health care? New Orleans? Global warming? Or maybe Iraq?
“But thanks to God-fearing, freedom-loving Americans like John Sloboda, we can make Iraq seem like nothing more than a family spat.”
John Sloboda is British.
Leading Democrats were completely livid upon hearing today’s announcement by Bush. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “This is totally outrageous. Who does Bush think he is? He can’t award a Congressional Medal of Honor to someone who’s never served in the U.S. military. God I hope the House impeaches Bush!”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Up to now, I’ve told [House Judiciary Committee Chairman] John Conyers to back off Bush – it would be bad politics to impeach Bush now when we’re so close to getting Hillary in the White House. But this latest move by Bush has me very concerned. Therefore, beginning immediately, I am going to instruct Chairman Conyers to form a committee to take Bush’s impeachment under advisement.
“If that doesn’t scare Bush,” Pelosi added, “nothing will.”
Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said, “This almost makes me mad enough to leave the Democratic party. But hell, if I haven’t left by now, then by God, I’m never going to.”
Sloboda was grateful upon hearing news of the award: “Frankly, anything that keeps the spotlight on me and off of those gutter trolls over at Media Lens is a good thing. I’m happy to do my part to help the Western war effort – the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions be damned! Hell, who’s going to hang any of us?”
Media Lens is a small British media-watch project run by David Cromwell and David Edwards. They have done extensive work detailing British media’s preference for IBC’s lower Iraqi-death estimates over the higher estimates of the Lancet or ORB.
When asked about Media Lens’s work, Bush said, “I was going to hit them the same time as Al Jazeera, but Tony Blair talked me out of it.”
Sloboda said, “Certainly, the U.S. and Britain have made mistakes in Iraq. Western foreign policy is always just a series of mistakes, random errors, or confusions. It’s never systematic, rational policy made by powerful rich men who know what they want and don’t care how many people they have to kill in order to get it. And it is never a war crime. Anyone who tells you differently is a whack-job.” Sloboda then left his office for the remainder of the day; his nose kept knocking his flat-panel computer monitor over, making it impossible for him to work.
Bush said, “My favorite thing about Sloboda is that he’s a scientist. His work is scientifically sound – not like that hack Les Roberts. What does Roberts know? Does Roberts drive a cab or something by day, and pretend to do science by night while taking correspondence courses? Who does Roberts think he is anyway?”
Roberts is an epidemiologist at Columbia University, with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Sloboda is an academician whose field is music psychology.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Administration official said the White House hoped to be able to convince Sloboda to start an “Iran Body Count” website within the next few months: “Not that, um, we’re going to need it or anything, you know. I mean, we just want to have it just in case, that’s all.”
The next few months could be critical for the Bush administration. With his poll numbers sagging, Bush may hope that a little music psychology to soothe the “great beast” (Alexander Hamilton’s description of the U.S. population) might be just what the President ordered.