THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Depends on where your mind is ... Truth, freakin lie, propaganda, eye opener, mind closer, ...... for the actors on the stage ......freakin reality ..

Start here: http://www.real.com/

Then go here: http://www.journeyman.tv/download.php?id=10477

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Oh, and one more thing: it doesn't make any more difference than a fart in a cornfield if there were a couple hundred Islamic radicals freezing their asses off in Northern Iraq and Saddam knew or didn't know about them. The country was and is crawling with pissed off Islamic men of every stripe of Islam and they all have guns and think they are the next caliph. What we've given them by invading Iraq on the pretense of WMD is the chance to be the next Osama.

Joe, I agree somewhat with some of your strongly-expressed views, but I think there is always a chance that moderation will prevail. What causes me to be majorly skeptical is the tribal nature of the country known as Iraq.

However, I see a glimmer of hope in a front-page piece in today's NYTimes about those running the show insisting on a secular gov't in the country. We all know, of course, that the US is heavily inflluencing the election, and that this issue would be our administration's pressure point. If there is, even for a while, a strong secular influence from the governing body (the article states that the prime minister as well as the heads of the ministries will not be clerics) would go a long way toward uniting the Sunni and Kurd factions in support of the new government and might allow some of them to participate without the taint of allying themselves with religious Shi'a.

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Ge, I just looked at all of the maps you posted. Excellent. Thank you.

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William of Occum wrote:

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Blatham, in your desire to cast a shadow over the whole affair; are you really now going to argue that capturing the Tyrant that spent the last 30 years suppressing dissention in Iraq with rape, murder and all manner of heinous oppression is irrelevant in terms of promoting their free will? Really? I like you too quite a bit actually and respect your intelligence as well which is why it strikes me as utterly preposterous when you suggest I have to prove that such an event has a positive effect on millions of people who will vote their will next week for the first time in their lives. Think it thru and concede this foolishness.

Deep down, you're as happy as I am for the Iraqis who've tasted freedom for the first time in public demonstrations and will now take the most important step of their lives towards securing that freedom for future generations. Sure it's only one step of many... but if you're an Iraqi, or Iraqi sympathizer, it's a friggin giant step for mankind!

I am happy for the Iraqis who get to vote. But the voting list won't include the approximately 100,000 who are now dead (a toll nearly that from the Indian Ocean tsunami). It also won't include the many more who can't arrive to vote because their legs are gone.

The costs of this campaign - in lives erased or ruined, in dollars, in the decline of US prestige and influence in the world, in the hatred it has instilled or made more acute against the US and the west, in damage to international institutions and laws, in damage to the soul of the US (abu ghraib) - have not been worth it, bill, because initiating this mess was unnecessary, and many of it's consequences predicted by voices ignored. What Iraq will look like in a year is unknown. The arrogance that directed these policies is criminal.

I would have, if I had my wishes, Iraq free and orderly. And I would have Bush and members of his administration before an international court.

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Welcome Panzade .....Welcome B.
lots of good linkage there too. Wink

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Can we find a source for the number of dead in Iraq that we can all agree on and reference for future comments?

I would suggest iraqbodycount.com. It seems to be the one most commonly referenced and I believe it is run by liberals.

This way, when we talk about the dead in Iraq, we can all reference the same data?

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Iraq Body Count does not include casualty estimates or projections in its database. It only includes individual or cumulative deaths as directly reported by the media or tallied by official bodies (for instance, by hospitals, morgues and, in a few cases so far, NGOs), and subsequently reported in the media. In other words, each entry in the Iraq Body Count data base represents deaths which have actually been recorded by appropriate witnesses - not "possible" or even "probable" deaths.

The Lancet study's headline figure of "100,000" excess deaths is a probabilistic projection from a small number of reported deaths - most of them from aerial weaponry - in a sample of 988 households to the entire Iraqi population. Only those actual, war-related deaths could be included in our count. Because the researchers did not ask relatives whether the male deaths were military or civilian the civilian proportion in the sample is unknown (despite the Lancet website's front-page headline "100,000 excess civilian deaths after Iraq invasion", [link] the authors clearly state that "many" of the dead in their sample may have been combatants [P.7]). Iraq Body Count only includes reports where there are feasible methods of distinguishing military from civilian deaths (most of the uncertainty that remains in our own count - the difference between our reported Minimum and Maximum - arises from this issue). Our count is purely a civilian count.

IBC link
Lancet link

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Blatham

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What Iraq will look like in a year is unknown.

Look to Sumeria .... Muslims walk the wheel, always stepping in the same past. Been that way for thousands of years.

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So we should agree to use the factual numbers and not the projected numbers, right?

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McG

It depends on whether you wish to have an accurate picture of reality. "Factual" is an inappropriate term here in the manner you use it, as it really means 'bodies counted'.

'Bodies counted' produces a figure that wouldn't be disputable, but if what we wish is to understand how many we've killed/maimed if for no other reason (morality aside) than to properly gauge how much hatred amonst Iraqis that we've managed to engender, then it is dangerously delusional to use that figure.

Though the Lancet's figures are projections, they are the sorts of projections that medical and other scientists have considerable history with, and which we depend on with some confidence in non-politically sensitive areas.

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InfraBlue wrote:

Your "fact" no.7 is incorrect, ican. US ground attacks in Afghanistan did not remove al Qaeda camps from Afghanistan. The evidence indicates that the al Qaeda leadership is still camped there.

Your argument is predicated on leaps of logic, assumptions, and outright falsities, ican.

FACTS:
1. AL Qaeda declared war on Americans.
2. Al Qaeda declared that American civilians and military must be killed wherever they can be found.
3. Al Qaeda murdered American civilians.
4. Al Qaeda murderers were trained in al Qaeda camps.
5. Al Qaeda were encamped in Afghanistan and in Iraq prior to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
6. US air attacks on Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan did not remove al Qaeda camps from Afghanistan.
7. US ground attacks in Afghanistan did remove al Qaeda camps from Afghanistan.
8. Kurds defeated al Qaeda in northern Iraq by 1999.
9. Al Qaeda reformed in northern Iraq by 2001.
10. The US requested that Saddam Hussein's regime extradite the leadership of the al Qaeda encamped in northern Iraq.
11. Saddam Hussein’s regime did not attempt to extradite the leadership of the al Qaeda encamped in northern Iraq.
12. Saddam Hussein’s regime did not attempt to remove al Qaeda camps from northern Iraq.
13. The US invaded Iraq on the ground and in the air in 2003.
14. The US removed al Qaeda camps in northern Iraq.

ARGUMENT
The US's discovery and destruction of the al Qaeda encampment in northern Iraq is evidence that at the time of the US's invasion of Iraq 3/20/2003, the al Qaeda were encamped in northern Iraq;
That in turn, plus the fact that Saddam Hussein NEVER claimed that the taQeinI (i.e., the al Qaeda encamped in northern Iraq) were NOT so encamped, plus the fact that Saddam NEVER claimed he tried to remove taQeinI, are evidence that Saddam did NOT attempt to remove taQeinI;
That in turn is evidence that Saddam tolerated taQeinI;
That in turn is evidence that Saddam harbored taQeinI;
That in turn, plus the fact that the Kurds were NOT able to prevent the taQeinI from reforming by 2001 after the Kurds had defeated taQeinI by 1999, are evidence that a US invasion of Iraq was required to remove taQeinI;
That in turn, plus the fact that air attacks in Afghanistan were insufficient for removing al Qaeda camps from Afghanistan, plus the fact that a US ground and air invasion was required to remove al Qaeda from Afghanistan, is evidence that the US had to invade Iraq on the ground and in the air in order to remove taQeinI from Iraq.

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blatham wrote:

McG

It depends on whether you wish to have an accurate picture of reality. "Factual" is an inappropriate term here in the manner you use it, as it really means 'bodies counted'.

'Bodies counted' produces a figure that wouldn't be disputable, but if what we wish is to understand how many we've killed/maimed if for no other reason (morality aside) than to properly gauge how much hatred amonst Iraqis that we've managed to engender, then it is dangerously delusional to use that figure.

Though the Lancet's figures are projections, they are the sorts of projections that medical and other scientists have considerable history with, and which we depend on with some confidence in non-politically sensitive areas.

Problem is that ONLY Lancet uses those figures. Well, unless you count those that want to stretch the number of deaths to emphasize their point.

I would just as soon use actual numbers though. Like the numbers of US casualties. Perhaps we could ask people in various military bases how many deaths they are aware of and project numbers from the information we gather. I am sure the 100,000 dead US service men and women we come up with can be used in some sort of propaganda.

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blatham wrote:

... It depends on whether you wish to have an accurate picture of reality. "Factual" is an inappropriate term here in the manner you use it, as it really means 'bodies counted'.

'Bodies counted' produces a figure that wouldn't be disputable, but if what we wish is to understand how many we've killed/maimed if for no other reason (morality aside) than to properly gauge how much hatred amonst Iraqis that we've managed to engender, then it is dangerously delusional to use that figure.

Though the Lancet's figures are projections, they are the sorts of projections that medical and other scientists have considerable history with, and which we depend on with some confidence in non-politically sensitive areas.

Britannica Book of the Year 2004 wrote:

Iraq
Demography
Population (2003):24,683,000
Vital statistics
Death rate per 1,000 population (2001): 6.2 (world avg. 9.1)

USING the 2003 population figure (it's greater than the 2001 population of 23,332,000), and using the 2001 death rate,
THEN the approximate number of deaths in Iraq due to other causes than the US Coalition invasion were:
2003 = 153,034
2004 = 153,034
Total = 306,068

QUESTION
What are the additional number of deaths in Iraq in 2003 and 2004:
caused directly by Insurgent actions?
caused directly by Coalition actions?

I bet you really don't know! Shocked

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Noone really knows. That's what happens when you start dropping bombs and attacking cities; people just turn up missing, buried under rubble, shot in the head and unidentifiable, other assorted nasty ways to die.

Face it, you hawks; our presence has lead to the untimely death of at least dozens of thousands of innocent people, if not more. It's sickening.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Noone really knows. That's what happens when you start dropping bombs and attacking cities; people just turn up missing, buried under rubble, shot in the head and unidentifiable, other assorted nasty ways to die. Face it, you hawks; our presence has lead to the untimely death of at least dozens of thousands of innocent people, if not more. It's sickening. Cycloptichorn

Face it you pidgeons, our absence would have probably led to "the untimely death of at least dozens of thousands of innocent people, if not more. It's sickening." More sickening than that is the fact the presence of insurgents desperate to stifle the Iraqi people's yearning for democracy, "has lead to the untimely death of at least dozens of thousands of innocent people, if not more. It's [more] sickening." Even more sickening than that even is you pidgeons' mindless, bushwacking induced, refusal to face the reality that our invasion of Iraq is justified.

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There's no evidence whatsoever that Saddam would have killed 'dozens of thousands' of people over the course of any amount of time in the future; while he was a terrible man, you are purely speculating. Especially if we had kept a close watch on him internationally.

You can revise history however you want, ICan, in your fantasy world; but the US citizen was lied to in order to support a war of ideological expansion, and it most certainly is not justified.

Why don't you sign up and go fight, seeing as you believe in it so much? Right.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

There's no evidence whatsoever that Saddam would have killed 'dozens of thousands' of people over the course of any amount of time in the future; while he was a terrible man, you are purely speculating. Especially if we had kept a close watch on him internationally. You can revise history however you want, ICan, in your fantasy world; but the US citizen was lied to in order to support a war of ideological expansion, and it most certainly is not justified. Why don't you sign up and go fight, seeing as you believe in it so much? Right. Cycloptichorn

That whole response of yours is nothing more than a bushwacking induced fantasy. Using your logic, there is no evidence whatsoever that the universe will continue its trend and exist after January 30th. Nonetheless, I think it a good bet that the universe will continue to exist after January 30th.

Under Saddam, thousands of Iraqi citizens were murdered annually. I think it a good bet this trend would have also continued.

If I were revising anything, it wasn't history, you pidgeon. I was predicting Iraqi future in our absence.

You pidgeons continue to chant that old bushwacking, mindless diatribe about Bush lying. Everyone, but you pidgeons of course, understands that the false intelligence information of which Bush and the rest of us were victims, was caused by the 30-year history of prior administrations dismantling and handicapping our intelligence capabilities.

Do you think our military would accept me, a 73 year old aviator, if I were to sign up? Hmmmmm! Cool

I'd do it in a New York minute! I'd do it in a New York second, if they would agree, if I were to survive, to train me to fly their newest fighter jet. Wow! Shocked

By golly, that's sure worth a day dream or two!

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Why don't you sign up and go fight, seeing as you believe in it so much? Right.

Cycloptichorn

Cyc., that is like telling you that if you don't like America, don't let the door slam you in the ass on the way out.

It's meaningless.

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One has to wonder which is worse: a hawk convinced of the rightness of his/her yet-to-be-determined-effective cause, or the dove (pigeon?) who refuses to consider or even see the probable alternative to the hawk's initiative.

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Welcome back, missed your balanced posts.

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THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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