On this the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq War & protests around the world marking the occasion, I thought I'd point at the ~210,000 individuals whose lives were probably most directly affected by the war -

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) in Kadhimiya has been set up by Iraqis themselves from the ashes of Baathism. They have been going methodically through the massive - and previously unexplored - archives left by the regime, which document every killing in cold bureaucracy-speak. The HRC have found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam's tyranny alone.

"Even once you factor in the war and everybody who has died since, it's not as many people as that," Sama explains. "So this war has indisputably saved lives over the past year. Saddam's victims might not have been appearing on your TV screens, but they would be just as dead."

Even if many on our side of the pond don't recognize the strategic end game, it's always interesting to note that the other guys do -

..the US plan was "to build an Iraqi state as conceived by the United States...and enslave Saudi Arabia politically, fight against Islamic proselytism as a salafist and jihadic movement."

"This would be (for the US) the first step toward the eradication of hardline Islam in the entire world," it said.

Couldn't have said it better.