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Although often dismissed as absurd, these numbers have not been seriously challenged. Those dismissing the numbers also tend to either be members of the administration, or journalists who regurgitate the words of those administrators without question. No one else has bothered to take seriously the deaths of Iraqis. Apparently the suffering of people under the heel of American military power isn’t newsworthy, although even the 3,000-some American troops who have died in Iraq receive little attention.

Author Dalton Trumbo wrote, regarding another country destroyed by American aggression, “Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles up our share.” Two to four million Vietnamese died in that war; now we have 600,000 dead Iraqis from this round alone. The sanctions and bombings between Gulf Wars I and II killed from 500,000 to one million (whose deaths were “worth it,” according to Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright). I have no idea how many Iraqis died in the first war in Iraq. I wonder if anyone does.

I can’t even grasp these numbers. The number of American troops dead, 3,000, is the same as the population of the town I grew up in. Think of it: everyone in my hometown dead. The million Iraqis? The several million Vietnamese? Add them together and you’ve wiped out the entire state of Minnesota. And our government did this.

In Turkey, it is illegal to talk about their government’s genocide of the Kurds in the early 20th century. The United States doesn’t need to make laws like that. If a journalist writes about Iraqi dead, and an editor takes a chance by running the story, advertisers get angry and cancel accounts, or the journalist is suddenly cut off from government sources. Or perhaps their stock value goes down or the editor gets reassigned to Iowa.

So our government continues dropping bombs on weddings, using radioactive bullets manufactured in Edina on residents of Fallujah, sending cruise missiles made near Denver into slums in Baghdad. General Electric, Boeing, Edina’s Alliant Tech, and dozens of other companies make a killing. Literally. War is good for business.

I wish I could just say, “Elect so-and-so and all this will go away.” But it won’t. It never has. I tried to think of a 20th-century president who didn’t attack another country, or pay for someone else to, and I couldn’t. This isn’t a George Bush problem. President Clinton, remember, oversaw weekly bombings of Iraq, sanctions that killed at least half a million in the same country, and bombed or invaded half a dozen other nations resulting in civilian casualties that no one bothered counting.

And no wonder! Our government doesn’t represent us, it represents business. Making weapons is lucrative. Drilling for oil is lucrative. But so are the countless other businesses on behalf of which our government intervenes. President Nixon, with the help of Henry Kissinger, in large part paid for the overthrow and murder of Salvador Allende in Chile because ITT, PepsiCo, and Chase Manhattan were upset with Allende’s mildly socialist policies.

To end war, terrorism, inequality, climate change, worker oppression, and many of the other evils in the world, a big first step is opposing the business interests who benefit from it and the government that represents those business interests. Next time you’re thinking of buying Pepsi (or Coke), or any other branded product, try to imagine what country the United States invaded to secure the resources needed to manufacture it. There are still some Iraqis left alive, who would very much like our troops and corporations to leave before they die, too.