THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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Now read this real carefully ican. Each incident, before it can be included in the IBC database must be reported by not one but two news agencies. Only incidents are reported. Morgue reports from the different morgues around the country are not reported.


Read again; INCIDENTS not MORGUE REPORTS.

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IBC's Count of Civilians Killed in Iraq since 1/1/2003
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Code | Date | Time | Location | Target | Weapons | Minimum | Maximum | Sources ||
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k3046 | 17 May 2006 | - | Mosul | Muhammad Awdah and Sayyid Human, students at Mosul University | gunfire | 2 | 2 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 18, May ||

x493a Notes | 01 Jan 2006 - 31 Jan 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 649 | 653 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493b Notes | 01 Feb 2006 - 28 Feb 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 691 | 715 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493c Notes | 01 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 684 | 763| REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493d Notes | 01 Apr 2006 - 30 Apr 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 569 | 645 | REU 04 May, DT 05 May ||

k3045 | 17 May 2006 | - | Al-Mu'alimin, Baquba | bakery, owner and police killed | gunfire, bomb | 4 | 4 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 17 May ||
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x096d | 01 Nov 2005 | - | Civilian deaths recorded in hospital(s) in Madain [newly disaggregated data] | - | - | 71 | 71 | AP 10 June, BG 11 June B]||[/B]
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Quote:

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Says Invasion and Aftermath Are the "Work of Butchers".

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 22: The speaker of the Iraqi Parliament criticized the American government's involvement in Iraq on Saturday, likening the invasion and its consequences to "the work of butchers" and demanding that the American authorities disentangle themselves from Iraq's political affairs.
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xingu wrote:

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Now read this real carefully ican. Each incident, before it can be included in the IBC database must be reported by not one but two news agencies. Only incidents are reported. Morgue reports from the different morgues around the country are not reported.


Read again; INCIDENTS not MORGUE REPORTS.

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emphasis added by ican

Quote:

IBC's Count of Civilians Killed in Iraq since 1/1/2003
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Code | Date | Time | Location | Target | Weapons | Minimum | Maximum | Sources ||
...
k3046 | 17 May 2006 | - | Mosul | Muhammad Awdah and Sayyid Human, students at Mosul University | gunfire | 2 | 2 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 18, May ||

x493a Notes | 01 Jan 2006 - 31 Jan 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 649 | 653 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493b Notes | 01 Feb 2006 - 28 Feb 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 691 | 715 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493c Notes | 01 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 684 | 763| REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493d Notes | 01 Apr 2006 - 30 Apr 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 569 | 645 | REU 04 May, DT 05 May ||

k3045 | 17 May 2006 | - | Al-Mu'alimin, Baquba | bakery, owner and police killed | gunfire, bomb | 4 | 4 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 17 May ||
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x096d | 01 Nov 2005 | - | Civilian deaths recorded in hospital(s) in Madain [newly disaggregated data] | - | - | 71 | 71 | AP 10 June, BG 11 June B]||[/B]
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Note: Hospitals often have their own morgues.

The problem is a large majority of the Iraqi people do not want Americans to leave. Why? Why in the world do they not insist that American butchers leave Iraq?

William O. Beeman

"The Journalism/Think Tank Merry-Go-Round
And the Dilemma of the Academic Public Intellectual"

' [I want to address] the question of the sad, sad state of American academics in policy formation in the United States today. Think tanks, where no one ever has to go through peer review before publishing the most questionable material, are in the ascendancy. Real scholars are derided as the academy is openly attacked by these quasi-intellectual bodies. No wonder! If the think-tankers' shoddy methods and ideological biases were subject to the scrutiny they deserve, 90% of the garbage that is self-published by their house organs and pushed by their publicity machinery would never see the light of day.

It is so sad now that governmental bodies are no longer calling on academic experts for public testimony in even the most crucial matters where they have unique knowledge. On no subject is this more true than in the Middle East area. If you are not in a think tank in Washington, apparently your expertise matters not at all. Never mind that that the think tank denizens were never in the region, don't know the languages, and never did any research in their lives. If their ideology is in line with the White House, that is good enough.

The media bears a great deal of responsibility in this matter. Lazy, news-cycle driven and subject to the pressure of ideology and publicity flackers, it is so much easier to just call the think tank down the street, or a PR firm like Benador Associates where someone is on call and already in suit and tie, or skirted suit to get to the studio within the next 20 minutes, than to spend the extra half-hour trying to locate an ISDN feed in . . . Minneapolis or Austin to get the best possible expertise on a subject at hand. For the print media a quote--any quote--is often good enough to anchor a story. No time to wait for someone to call back after a seminar! If the reporter can't get the quotable phrase on the first phone call, its on to the next, or once again, to the on-call quotables at the think-tank around the corner.

Even when someone with real expertise can be located, the media vitiates the message by making a fetish of "balance"--an odd feature of American public discourse, documented by my colleague Deborah Tannen in her classic book, The Argument Culture. This means that whatever the subject, a pro and con side must be represented--even if one of the positions is absurd, or representative of an extreme fringe opinion. This results in match-ups like Paul Krugman debating Bill O'Reilly on economic matters and other such ludicrous pairings. This situation has created careers for people like Anne Coulter, David Frum and Jonah Goldberg, who otherwise know very little--but they are reliable as "cons" (pun intended) on virtually any topic that requires an expansion of intellect. No wonder the public doesn't know which way is up.

Sadly, the academy has reacted badly to this state of affairs--not by encouraging its members to shine the light on the slime and mold generated by these propaganda machines, but by fomenting retreat into its own dark little corner where it can be safe and "uncontroversial." The better not to run afoul of its more vocal and ideologically driven alumni and trustees, who believe along with Bill O'Reilly that all knowledge is just opinion anyway, so why not just tell the professoriate what they should be teaching, and what positions they should be espousing? Writing for the public is not only unrewarded by the academy, it is absolutely detrimental to academic careers. Thus fine scholars who do decide to speak out are hit both ways--both by the ideological hacks for whom their truths are uncomfortable, and by their own institutions who see their public activities as controversial and undignified.

Contrast this with the situation in Japan, France, Brazil--in fact, anywhere else in the world--where academics are welcomed and respected in the field of public discourse, and move readily in and out of positions of public responsibility. Likewise, scholars of distinction, such as the incomparable Eric Rouleau, are prized and well-compensated members of the fourth estate.

Despite these stringencies, those of us who are tenured at institutions of higher learning have a special responsibility--a sacred duty--to speak out at every turn to defend free inquiry, and solid knowledge. We are privileged to be able to have careers in research, writing and teaching, and are in debt to society for this. We have the obligation as patriotic citizens and seekers of truth to use, as Juan has consistently, the fruits of our research and knowledge to inform not just the dozen or so colleagues who share our academic sub-specialization, but the public who is hungry for this material, and in the current intellectual desert in America, who desperately needs it. '

William O. Beeman
Professor, Anthropology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University

Bush Deliberations: Need for Political Track in Counter-Insurgency

Paul Bremer says he hopes Bush's cabinet summit will develop an effective military plan for defeating the insurgency in Iraq. Bremer came to Iraq saying appalling things like "we will go on imposing our will on this country" or words to that effect, and appears to have learned nothing.

Counter-insurgency is tough. The best the hawks can usually do is cite the British in their colony of Malaya in the 1950s, when they curbed a communist movement. But 1960 was a long time ago. And, the British still got kicked out of Malaysia as a colonial power. And, the British had been there over a century, and had all kinds of linguistic and cultural knowledge. And, Communism mainly appealed to the Chinese minority, 1/3 of the coutnry.

Contemporary counter-insurgency requires not just a military plan but a successful political track, of negotiating with guerrilla leaders and bringing them in from the cold. That is what the US has never developed, and there are structural reasons for which it is difficult. A lot of the guerrilla leaders are Baathists or ex-Baathists, and served in the Iraqi military in ways that make them anathema to the Kurds and the Shiites. So it is very difficult for the US to buck its main allies and try to make up with the Baathis. And what could the US offer the Sunni Arab religious revivalists? The prospect of living under a government dominated by Shiite fundamentalists and Kurdish warlords, which they see as a puppet government of the United States? How could they live with that?

So, Mr. Bremer, the problem is not a military one. The US already has overwhelming fire power. The problem is a political one. And it is not a political problem even the best and brightest will easily resolve.

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq are opposed to the US presence almost to a person. They are 5 or 6 million strong, and probably have 60,000 or so fighters if we count weekend warriors (I know this is higher than US military estimates, but if US military estimates were correct there would not still be an insurgency. The US military tends to grossly underestimate the enemy; one general in spring of 2004 said he thought the Mahdi Army only had 1,000 fighters.) The Sunnis have the best educated managers in their ranks, the best trained strategicians and tacticians, and they probably know where tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions are still hidden. They make enormous sums of money through petroleum and other smuggling, and can easily get big money from hard line Sunni Gulf millionaires. Moreover, the US cannot militarily concentrate all its forces on the Sunni Arab areas, since there is a (Shiite) Mahdi Army low-intensity guerrilla effort in Maysan Province in the South, and Sadr City can't be all that stable either.

The US simply does not and never will have enough fighting troops in Iraq to impose a purely military solution on the guerrilla movements. It must find a political solution. but that in turn would require the kind of willingness to compromise and approach national reconciliation coolly that the Shiites and the Kurds have so far vehemently rejected. The US is as hobbled by its allies as by its foes, in making a settlement.

xingu, your poll numbers regarding whether or not the iraqi people want the USA to leave Iraq are pseudology (i.e., lying or falsifying; lies or falsities). If they weren't pseudology, the Iraqi government would have asked us to leave. No such request by the Iraq governent has been made yet.