Reader stands by her facts about the war in Iraq

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to those who are questioning where I got my facts about the Iraqi civilians killed or displaced by the U.S. invasion and the ensuing violence.

It is the sad nature of war that many, if not most, civilian casualties go unreported by the corporate media.

According to "Iraq Veterans against the War" (ivaw.org), even the most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths number more than 100,000. Other estimates are closer to 1 million.

But there is little dispute about the Iraqi refugee crisis. You may have seen Angelina Jolie in Baghdad earlier this month speaking about just that in an interview on CNN. Telling, isn't it, that it takes a People magazine cover girl to call attention to what should be headline news.

According to Refugees International (refugeesinternational.org), the United Nations estimates that almost 5 million Iraqis have been displaced by the violence in their country. Forty percent of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, a population which includes university professors, doctors, schoolteachers and nurses.

Kudos to Jolie for emphasizing the heartbreaking fact that a large percentage of the refugees are children under 12.

Civilian life in Iraq is untenable, and the resulting refugee crisis is exporting the nation's instability to neighboring countries. The notion that a prolonged American military presence in the region will ever produce a stable Iraq would be ludicrous if it weren't so completely tragic.

Every human life is precious, be it the life of a brave and patriotic American soldier or that of a child in Baghdad or Fallujah. Jody Kepple Simi Valley