Oct 17 - 46/45 - McCain +01
Welcome to the Tropics!
Today at the BBC:'25,000 civilians' killed in Iraq
The headline is based on a newly released study called:
The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005
Besides the expected tragic numbers, there are some shocking revelations:
#1: "37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by the US-led coalition. Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%."
#2: "The number of civilians who have died has almost doubled in the second year from the first."(Invasion: 7,299. First year post-invasion: 6,215. Second year post-invasion: 11,351)
However, the part of the article that most caught my attention was this:
"Human rights groups say the occupying powers in Iraq have failed in their duty to catalogue the deaths of civilians. But the US and Britain say the chaos of war-torn Iraq has made it impossible to get accurate information."
Come again!?! Hold on...let me clean out my ears cause I thought I heard the word chaos. Because after 2 years, nearly 2000 coalition deaths and $180,000,000, I would hope that chaos would not be a word I would be hearing.
Oh, you have to love these spin doctors! When the report came out a few months back showing that incidents of global terrorism had sky-rocketed, they said that the increase was due to our increased efficiency in recording attacks!!! Last month Cheney uses the words 'enormous success' to describe the war in Iraq. Then when human rights group demand that the military count Iraqi civilian casualties the White House responds that it isn't reasonable to expect them to keep track of every Joe, Dick and Tom who gets blown-up in the streets amid such chaos.
Bravo! Another accountability bullet dodged.
Speaking of that bastard Cheney, I was just reading the interview that he did with Wolf Blitzer on June 24th. When Blitz questioned the treatment of inmates at Guantanamo Bay. Cheney replied: "They're living in the tropics. They're well fed. They've got everything they could possibly want."
If I stumble onto a genie's lamp this afternoon, my three wishes will go something like this:
(1) An exit strategy that works for our troops and the Iraqi people.
(2) The ability to turn invisible.
(3) Dick Cheney sweating his ass off, locked in a tiny cage in Cuba with a sign around his neck that reads, "Welcome to the Tropics, B*tch!"
By Robert - 7/22/2005
9 Comments:
thinking of the civilian deaths in iraq makes me sick. the idea that these people, in spite of no WMD, would still support the war is sick. And even sicker is the idea they claim to be "pro-life"
This report was compiled by the “Iraqi Body Count,” an anti war group out of the UK. They used subjective information to produce biased results that have been denied by all government institutions involved. They even included military recruits and active police officers in the numbers.
This is liberal propaganda, and shouldnt be taken as fact.
Fair enough Chris,
So every group compiling these types of reports IS liberally bias.
Why is it I wonder that conservative groups (or the US military) aren't compiling similar reports of their own? Is trying to count civilian casualites just a hippee, left-wing waste of time? Or is counting the dead unpatriotic? Maybe showing people the horrors of war will derail your holy steamroller of freedom?
Listen the exact numbers aren't the issue. The issue is that the right prefers to turn a blind eye to the bloody reprecusions of this unjust war then face the obvious facts that it was justified by LIES, and is going miserably.
It's called living in denial.
Another thing, Nugent...
You act as if I am getting my info from unreliable left-wing sources.
If you want to know if Iraq is the bloody mess described in this dossier, all you need to do is go to the very mainstream BBC RIGHT NOW. Besides this story, you'll find these 6 other headlines:
1.Iraq's descent into quagmire
2.Is Iraq on the brink of civil war?
3.Bombers one step ahead
4.An upside-down place
5.America's 'dwindling coalition'
6.Surge in Iraq violence
I won't let you write these reports off as liberal exaggerations just because they can't be confirmed by the Republicans, the people who didn't think Iraqi civilian deaths were worth counting in the first place.
Much of this is true. Clearly the president has been painting a rosy picture of this war even before it started.
But one can't forget that this is war, and a war were the line between civilians and insurgents is difficult to draw, and even more difficult if you are a U.S. soldier in a life or death situation.
Before this war began, many "experts" were claiming that this would be another Vietnam. This isn't Vietnam. Maybe one can draw a parellel between the spin various administrations put on the vietnam war, and the spin put on the iraq war, but body counts, civilian deaths, and the overall effectiveness of our troops are far more important components of a sucessful campaign, and in these ways, iraq doesn't resemble vietnam in the slightest sense.
Regardless of whether or not the war was the right thing to do, many in the media are expecting far to much out of the pentagon. A plan is only good untill the first shots are fired. The same experts that alleged we would lose over 10,000 troops before the war started are now saying that this war would have been winnable only if the administration weren't so stupid to try and fight it with so few troops.
I am not in favor of the war, mainly because I cannot believe that an occupying force can instigate social changes in the arab world necessary to take on a successful democratic government work. But I will not sit back and play arm-chair general. The histories of the various wars fought throughout history are full of spectacular upsets, utter dominations, shrewd trickery, and numerous unpredictable events that have changed the course of history. That is why the history of warfare is so intriguing. Some annalysts may have predicted this exact scenario we face now, but most did not. The Pentagon does not have a crystal ball (although they seem to think they do).
Jeff,
I never once dropped the V-word in my post. However, since the cat is out of the bag, let's talk about it...in Vietnam we lost 58,000 troops over the course of about 12 years (late 1961 to early 1973) After 2 years in Iraq, Rumsfeld is now saying that we'll probably be there for at least another 10 years...so 12 years is not a ridiculous time-table.
And if the rate of casualties remains constant (it surely hasn't dropped off yet) we'd be looking at about 12,000 dead Coalition troops!!!
Is that AS BAD as Vietnam? No.
On the other hand, if the US continues to fail to provide stablility, the new Iraqi army continues to falter, the new Iraqi government continues to bicker, the insurgency continues to disrupt everything and the situation completely unravels, the casualties could be as bad as Vietnam. Could be worse.
So it's entirely too early to celebrate the War in Iraq as 'less bloody' than Vietnam and absolutely NO CONSOLATION either way. Vietnam was an absolute blood-bath by all accounts.
(I mean it's like a guy goes to his doctor to get a check up. The doc points out that the patient's lungs are shot from smoking too much and that he's dying from it. The patient's reply is that he hasn't smoked nearly as much as Keith Richards.)
[Also, you were on the verge of putting words in my mouth...I was not blaming the US soldiers on the ground in Iraq for these 25,000 deaths. I don't doubt that it's a near-impossible job distinguishing between civilian and insurgent and I sure as hell couldn't do any better. My beef is with the administration for putting these soldiers in this near-impossible situation (under false pretext) in the first place, and to a much lesser extent: poor planning and execution.]
In closing:
Holding the US military accountable for civilian deaths IS NOT "playing arm-chair general."
This chapter of US history IS NOT "intriguing."
(It's f*cking tragic.)
You always point out that there are no WMDs, but lets remember the entire scenario that launched this war. WMDs were possible at the time- Saddam was being resistant, acting as if he were a threat- terrorists were hopping around unchecked- and the peaceful resolutions were going nowhere when time was of the essence.
As it stands now, Iraq is a matter of patients. Everyday the institutions of modern capitalism take on a more familiar feel to the Iraqi people. Insurgents will continue their resistence and the US will continue to keep them at bay. And in the end we will have a democracy or we will know that the Middle East is hopeless in that regard.
The bigger victory, however, is showing itself in our country’s approach to this whole thing. Bush and Co have shown they will not accommodate your short-sighted compassion. They will not be influenced by shock tactics of the insurgents. And they will not submit to premature troop withdraw based on your hippy ideology.
In a world filled with unavoidable conflict, the ability to fight our battles, despite the Bob Hewitts, is very important.
I know you see this as fascist war-mongering, but remember the opportunity to vote this man out has come and you have failed. Despite the antiwar media markets that the left has created, this thing is the will of the majority. Once the left finds someone else to whine and cry over, history will remember this president fondly
Nugent, I can't believe I have to explain this to you AGAIN!
The "entire scenario that launched this war" WAS NOT that "WMDs were POSSIBLE at the time etc."
(Bare with me, people) The scenario was that Saddam was an "imminent threat" to our national security because he undeniably had chemical, nuclear and biological weapons/weapons programs as well as connections with the very terrorist network we were declaring war on. Maybe you forgot that infamous speech, so I'd like to take us all back to that faithful day when Colin Powell explained the case for war before the UN.
Colin Powell: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence...we confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction and provides haven and active support for terrorists..."
You might remember that the man then spent an hour showing illustrations of mobile chemical labs, satellite photos of nuclear facilities and listing off all the terrible, multi-syllable chemical agents in Saddam's arsenal. The administration (as the Downing Street Memo now confirms) fixed all this intelligence to sell their war to a trusting American public.
If you can't see that by now, you are absolutely hopeless.
By the way, in my post I never compared Iraq to Vietnam and I never called for withdraw of American troops...I was just reminding everyone of the costs of this administrations ass-backwards approach to the War on Terror.
Nugent, I do have to agree wholeheartedly with one thing you said though:
"As it stands now, Iraq is a matter of patients."
13,559 wounded U.S. troops.
42,500 wounded Iraqi civilians.
That's a lot of patients!
Good call, Ivy Leaguer.
Nugent, I found your line "this thing is the will of the majority" to be an interesting observation.
Pew Poll: Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?
35% Approve
57% Disapprove
Let's listen to that majority.
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