And in reference to the Packer piece which heads up this thread, Michael Ledeen appeared on Hannity tonight propagandizing an attack on Iran.
blatham wrote:oralloy wrote:
Quote:If Iran chooses to side with the Taliban and/or al-Qa'ida, it is fine with me if we directly target their civilians in retaliation for 9/11.
How many slaughtered civilians will satisfy your retaliatory hunger for the 3,000 dead in New York? Serious question. There are already some 100,000 and quite possibly more in Iraq plus unknown thousands in Afghanistan. Could you give us a number please. I'd like to know what marker you see appropriate as a time to stop slaughtering civilians.
I'll have to think about it.
I don't really believe the US has killed 100,000 in Iraq. That many may have died due to a variety of war-related factors, but not due to US weapons fire.
I've seen a couple interesting "Iran war on the horizon" articles over the past couple weeks that I'm not sure have been posted on A2K. I'll try to hunt them up tomorrow.
oralloy, It's okay to be skeptical about information being presented as facts, but you must also realize that this administration works in secrecy, and hides bad news from the American public. Out of site, out of mind - as the saying goes, and it works.
The following also provides estimates. It's up to the reader to decide whether they are true (enough) for understanding the carnage going on in Iraq (and Afghanistan). Don't forget, Bush and the generals are telling everybody "we're making progress." My question is, progress for who?
The more important question is, would any any of us be bothered if these numbers reflected American or British dead? So, exactly what are we? Racial bigots and christians?
. Estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths is based on this study [pdf], published in Britain's most respected medical journal The Lancet in October 2006. The study concluded that 654,965 (at least 392,979 and as many as 942,636) Iraqi civilians had been killed in the occupation, in addition to deaths expected from Iraq's normal death rate.
US authorities, including President Bush himself, have loudly complained that the study is based on "flawed methodology" and "pretty well discredited," but as often happens when Bush speaks, that's simply untrue. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University, used standard, widely accepted, peer-reviewed scientific methodology. Explained very briefly, Iraqi respondants in numerous randomly selected locations were asked about recent deaths in their households, and family members were able to show a death certificate to document 80% of the deaths they described. Results from these interviews were extrapolated nationwide, the same way political opinion polls extrapolate a few hundred interviews to reflect nationwide opinions. It's the same method used by the US Centers for Disease Control to estimate deaths from disease outbreak anywhere in the world, the same method routinely trusted by the US and UK when counting deaths from warfare, civil unrest, or other situations anywhere in the world.
Based on the study's estimate of 654,965 deaths occurring over the first 40 months of occupation, we have extended this rate of civilian deaths (16,374 deaths per month) over subsequent months of the occupation since the study was published. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.
. US and coalition military deaths and US military injuries in Iraq are announced by US Department of Defense and CENTCOM, and tracked by the good folks at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Our heading "seriously injured" reflects DoD listing of injuries described as "Wounded in action, [did] not return to duty within 72 hours," and excludes injuries wherein troops return to duty within 72 hours.
The officially-announced number of US injuries is deceptive, however, because the US military does not include in its figures service members who are evacuated "from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs." This would leave out, for example, soldiers sickened by radiation or injured in transport accidents.
According to this article by Salon reporter Mark Benjamin, an additional 25,289 service members had been evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses, but not included in the official numbers. Based on Salon's article, dated December 2005 and including injuries through the first 34 months of occupation, we have extrapolated this rate of un-reported military injuries (743 injuries per month) over subsequent months of the extended occupation. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.
Coalition injuries are not tracked, and posted number reflects an estimate, per ratios explained below.
. US and coalition civilian deaths in Iraq are tracked by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
Where no credible data on serious injuries to citizens or troops has been made public, our rough estimate uses a conservative, historically-based ratio of 3:1 (serious injuries to fatalities) for troops, 1.8:1 for civilians.
Deaths and injuries included are generally only those resulting directly from military actions -- bombs, missiles, bullets, etc. Civilians' deaths and injuries from the chaos of Afghan and Iraqi day-to-day life after the invasions, from disease, from malnutrition, from depleted uranium, from post-traumatic stress disorder, and other incidental effects of warfare are not included.
Numbers are updated often, so if you find more recent or more credible numbers, please let us know. Our email address is unknownnews at inbox.com.
blatham wrote:And in reference to the Packer piece which heads up this thread, Michael Ledeen appeared on Hannity tonight propagandizing an attack on Iran.
And today, he's up front at National Review...
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2Y5YzI1YmM4ZDhkMWQxNzg4MDVjZDdjM2VhNDhhMTA=
And note the section heading,
Quote:How many slaughtered civilians will satisfy your retaliatory hunger for the 3,000 dead in New York? Serious question.
The event signalled a declaration of war. With an enemy which could field a seemingly unlimited supply of suicide bombers and had, or might have, access to weapons not known at Pearl Harbour. Pollonium for example. And might already have a battalion of sleepers. It's motives were apparent. It is obviously determined and well funded and organised.
How can a Commander in Chief sit back and wait. It's a pre-emptive operation and will probably last for as long as it takes. It is not simply a "retaliatory hunger". That's an assertion.
Nobody knows what's going to happen in Pakistan or what would have happened in Iraq. And our hunger for oil was their main asset. Who can say how Saudi Arabia will pan out.
How many "slaughtered civilians" might there be if we sit back and wait?
I think it is a price we are paying for our failures in the mid 50s.
And anyway-we elect a Government to get on with it how they see fit. Only they know all the relevant facts. All this criticism on policy is pie-in-the-sky. It's selective. It asserts things such as the one above. It takes no notice of alternatives and their outcomes. It hasn't a clue. It's just bleeding hearts hand wringing over the nature of human beings and it's comfortable and fat on the land it slaughtered aboriginals to get hold of and who are still kept under. It just gets on a plane or into a car as if such things grow on trees. Project 300,000,000 (and increasing) 50 years on like the Think Tanks do. And all the pensions linked to the DOW.
Isolationism is no longer an option. It's like fatty food- enjoyable for a while.
The 'tick toc' Ledeen piece is also picked up an run at the AEI site.
For those of you who don't know Ledeen, here's a taste...
Quote:And here there was a chance to turn America's vaunted openness at home and toleration abroad against the United States. So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we'll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans.
The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States.
This required considerable skill, and total cynicism, both of which were in abundant supply in Paris and Berlin.
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen031003.asp
spendi, You're rehashing the same rhetoric as the neocons, but some of us remember why we attacked Iraq: WMDs. Bush changed his justification several times since then, and we're not sure what he's trying to prove in Iraq, since bin Ladin is in Afghanistan - and still alive after five years.
You must learn to concentrate on the "ball," or you're like most everybody else who thinks we went into Iraq to bring democracy to the middle east.
squinney wrote:We will see soon.
The timing makes sense. We all know now that you don't do a product rollout in August.
Presently, they've got their hands full trying to manage opinion on the upcoming Petraeus report (written by the administration). The pentagon and dependable neoconservative mouthpieces (Kagan and Kristol at Weekly Standard, for example) are busy now trashing the GAO report.
It will be tough to run a propaganda campaign for new military action against another Muslim country while the negatives re Iraq remain so high.
Glenn Greenwald has a piece this morning on this topic and there's quite a bit on Ledeen. But he begins by pointing to an editorial in this morning's Washington Post by Hiatt seeking to trash the IAEA and ElBaradei. As Greenwald points out, the following is an unexceptional upside/down argument from the war with Iran camp.
Quote:Mr. ElBaradei was lionized by opponents of the Iraq war for debunking Bush administration charges that Saddam Hussein had restarted his nuclear program before the 2003 invasion.
"Lionized" for being right, that is.
Greenwald's piece, with many internal links including to the editorial above, is here...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/05/hiatt_ledeen/
The main thrust of the report is going to be about "progress," but will completely ignore the increasing deaths of the Iraqis and the starving children.
Looks like some drawdown of troops in Iraq to start Bush's war in Iran.
Makes sense.
It looks from here that you are totally in bed with what you read in the papers you choose to buy and the TV you choose to watch.
What's your policy starting from here. You're all just entertaining yourselves and posing as gurus for something you know nothing about except that people shouldn't get killed or injured, which we all agree about.
And the only response I get is that I'm "rehashing" some neocon stuff. Suppose the neocon stuff is the right policy.
And the neocons have "mouthpieces" as if you lefty appeasers don't have "mouthpieces".
Quote:It will be tough to run a propaganda campaign for new military action against another Muslim country while the negatives re Iraq remain so high.
Well- we are "tough" aren't we?
Quote: Suppose the neocon stuff is the right policy.
Surely there would be objective evidence that this in fact were true, if it were true, but there seems to be a paucity of such.
Cycloptichorn
oralloy wrote:I've seen a couple interesting "Iran war on the horizon" articles over the past couple weeks that I'm not sure have been posted on A2K. I'll try to hunt them up tomorrow.
Actually one of them was posted on A2K. I was the one who posted it (so much for my memory).
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100092
Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran
* Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
* President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'
Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2127115,00.html
Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran
Sarah Baxter, Washington
From The Sunday Times
September 2, 2007
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus".
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust". He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran "before it is too late".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece
oralloy wrote:blatham wrote:oralloy wrote:
Quote:If Iran chooses to side with the Taliban and/or al-Qa'ida, it is fine with me if we directly target their civilians in retaliation for 9/11.
How many slaughtered civilians will satisfy your retaliatory hunger for the 3,000 dead in New York? Serious question. There are already some 100,000 and quite possibly more in Iraq plus unknown thousands in Afghanistan. Could you give us a number please. I'd like to know what marker you see appropriate as a time to stop slaughtering civilians.
I'll have to think about it.
I feel a bit icky trying to come up with quotas of civilians to kill.
I know it's been done with nuclear war planning, because I remember reading about the controversy when the Soviets made provisions to evacuate people to bunkers outside cities, and we were left with the capability to destroy the factories, or kill the workers, but not both. (We solved it by expanding the number of warheads so we could in fact target both.) But I don't think I need a "particular number of civilians dead" to satisfy me.
What I'd like is something that not only smashes al-Qa'ida and/or their allies, but also horrifies everyone who gloated over 9/11.
I think the use of American nuclear weapons on a large Muslim population center might be just the thing.
Not every nuke has the same fallout as a nuclear bunker buster at high yield. A multi-megaton airburst wouldn't be nearly as bad fallout-wise. The damage to the ozone layer would be regrettable though.
So, if Iran ever becomes an ally with Osama, I'd say we should just pop a high yield airburst over Tehran. That wouldn't have to be even considered targeting civilians, since it is a political leadership target.
Tehran would be a good tradeoff for the World Trade Center regardless of how many died there.
