THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

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But the Bush administration, during the past five years, [has] increasingly thrown away this asset, and now is in danger of losing a close and valued ally altogether. It is unclear what US interests are served by this repeated and profound damage inflicted by Washington on Turkey, or what Ankara ever did to us that we are treating them so horribly.

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The the US Congress abruptly condemned modern Kemalist Turkey for the Armenian genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire. I have long held that Turkey should acknowledge the genocide, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more hundreds of thousands.

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Lancet did an alleged random sampling, house-to-house poll to get its statistics about deceased family members. They did not use hospital, morgue or police statistics. For that reason plus what I do not know about the actual operation of the Lancet poll, I do not trust the Lancet poll.

armenians deserved to die.

Quote:

Lancet did an alleged random sampling, house-to-house poll to get its statistics about deceased family members. They did not use hospital, morgue or police statistics. For that reason plus what I do not know about the actual operation of the Lancet poll, I do not trust the Lancet poll.

I don't understand the reasoning behind your decision to implicitly trust hospital, police, and morgue statistics. There is as much if not more room for error and manipulation of numbers in their setting as there is in a random sampling.

Yes, the opportunity for fraudulent manipulations of statistics is the same for all collectors of statistics. Some do it. Some don't. Fraudulent counts are difficult to get away with when those counts are verifiable or refutable by others examining the same data sources. Fraudulent counts are easy to get away with when those counts are not verifiable or refutable by others examining the same data sources. In Lancet's case, their statistics are based on confidential, random sampled, or otherwise unverifiable sources.

I think that if you looked deeper into the methodology used by Britannica, you will find that they used the same methods as Lancet to come up with their numbers.

Britannica alleges they get their data from public records available in each of the many countries for which they publish population and vital statistics. I personally, of course, cannot verify the accuracy of their work in each country over the last 30 years (that's how long I've been a subscriber), because I do not know how they access those public records. Even if I were to know, I cannot access those public records at a cost I'm willing to pay. But others can and do access those same records at costs they are willing to pay. Britannica wants to sell their yearbooks each year, so they are highly motivated to be as accurate as they can be.

By the way, statisticians and other scientists support the methods used by Lancet; they were scientifically correct according to sources I trust. I'm more willing to take their word for it then I am yours.

What statisticians and other scientists support Lancet's methods? ... That's a rhetrorical question.

If you were to list a thousand such statisticians and other scientists by name and web address, I wouldn't take their word for it. The reason for that is that my scientific, engineering, business, and aviation training has well educated me in the perils of trusting scientific or any other consensus rather than personal scientific re-verification.

Some consensus examples:
(1) The scientific consensus once was that the earth was the center of the universe;
(2) The scientific consensus once was that the sun was the center of the universe;
(3) The scientific consensus once was that the our Milkyway galaxy was the center of the universe;
(4) The scientific consensus now is beatsthehelloutofme what is now the center of the universe.

Oh, and let's not forget the alleged current scientific consensus on what is causing global warming. The previous alleged scientific consensus declared humans a major cause. Recently it has been alleged by a group of 500 plus scientists that humans have been and are trivial contributors to global warming--Al Gore notwithstanding.

Hey! It is current scientific observation that Mars is warming too! Could it be that Mars is causing the earth to warm, or is it some cause that both Mars and Earth share? Could it be the sun? Naaa, that's too simplistic an explanation.

Oh gosh, according to what is currently being advocated by some be done about guys like me, I may eventually be arrested for even appearing to suggest that the sun instead of humans are to blame!
Cycloptichorn

This is astray from the thread, but one would think that the measurable output of the sun would have to change in some way in order to cause increased warming on the surface of planets in its' vicinity; this doesn't seem to have been the case.

The sun's radiation has fluctuated periodically over millions of years. Before humans evolved or were created--more than a million years ago--and after, there were both tropical ages and ice ages occurring about every ten thousand years. Also there is an observable fluctuation of sun radiation that occurs about every eleven years thought to be due to variations in the density of sun spots on the sun.

Nobody is advocating that you be arrested for your views, you old gasbag!



Not me in particular perhaps, but there are people publishing articles in the newsmedia who are advocating such folks like me, this old gasbag, should be arrested for denying that humans are a significant cause of global warming. I've read about such articles. I'll search the internet to see if I can find one to show you.

I trust statisticians who allege that the methodology of the Lancet study is a statistically valid way of getting information. These statisticians are more likely to be correct then you are, as they are experts in the field of information collection while you are not.

Well, good for you! You got that right! I'm not an expert in the field of information collection. But the people at IBC and Britannica--and maybe even Lancet--are.

If you have to pay large amounts of money to access information, then the records aren't public, sorry to have to point out to you. You still have not addressed the fact that there's no data available to back up the claims of Britannica.

It will cost me more than I can afford to travel to the places where I can access the original public records stored in Iraq. But just because I'm not willing to spend the money to do that, doesn't mean those records are not public.

That data has been and is available to Britannica et al. That data is not yet on-line. Of course to get it put on line has a cost also. So the availability of that data is not determined by anything I or you do or don't do.

Cycloptichorn

dyslexia wrote:

armenians deserved to die.

What about the Russian, Chinese, European Jew, and Laosian genocides led by, respectively, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Hitler, and Pol Pot

ican711nm wrote:

dyslexia wrote:

armenians deserved to die.

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Btw who are the laosians?
Ican you're not keeping your nose up.
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Laos is a country in southeast asia bordering on the Mekong river in what was once a part of French Indochina. A guy by the name of Pol Pot mass murdered about 2 million Laosians (or Laotians) in Laos in what has been subsequently called the "killing fields" there.

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dyslexia wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

dyslexia wrote:

armenians deserved to die.

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Btw who are the laosians?
Ican you're not keeping your nose up.
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Laos is a country in southeast asia bordering on the Mekong river in what was once a part of French Indochina. A guy by the name of Pol Pot mass murdered about 2 million Laosians (or Laotians) in Laos in what has been subsequently called the "killing fields" there.

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In the pipe, 5 x5.

Cycloptichorn

THEORY



My theory is that this Democrat leadership action is designed by them to deliberately alienate the Turkish government so that they will stop helping the USA win and succeed in Iraq.

ican711nm wrote:

THEORY



My theory is that this Democrat leadership action is designed by them to deliberately alienate the Turkish government so that they will stop helping the USA win and succeed in Iraq.

The vote in the Foreign Affairs Subcommitte was 27-21 in favor of calling the Armenian affair genocide. Eight Democrats voted against the measure, joining 13 Republicans. Eight Republicans voted in favor, joining 19 Democrats.

The theory that this was a Democrat attempt to lose the war seems to be a bit of a stretch.

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Here's some straight talking from Gen. Sanchez.

Sad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7042805.stm

A former US military chief in Iraq has condemned the current strategy in the conflict, which he warned was "a nightmare with no end in sight".
Retired Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez also labelled US political leaders as "incompetent" and "corrupted".

He said they would have faced courts martial for dereliction of duty had they been in the military

Western analysts are forever bleating about the strategic importance of the middle east. But despite its oil, this backward region is less relevant than ever, and it would be better for everyone if the rest of the world learned to ignore it

Edward Luttwak

Edward Luttwak is a CSIS senior fellow and has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, and a number of allied governments as well as international corporations and financial institutions. He is a frequent lecturer at universities and military colleges in the United States and abroad and has testified before several congressional committees and presidential commissions. In 2004, he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Bath (United Kingdom).

Civil war: the only way to bring peace to Iraq
By Edward Luttwak
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/05/2006



Civil wars can be especially atrocious as neighbours kill each other at close range, but they have a purpose - they can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight, and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.

England's civil war in the mid-17th century assured the country's political stability under parliament and a limited monarchy throughout the subsequent centuries. But first there had to be a war with many bloody battles and casualties on the side, including the execution of Charles I, who had claimed absolute power by divine right.

The United States had its own civil war two centuries later, which established the rule that states cannot leave the union alone, abolishing slavery in the process. The destruction was vast, and the casualties immense, given the size of the population at that time. But without the decisive victory of the Union, two separate and quarrelsome republics, periodically at war with each other, might still endure.

Now it is the turn of Iraq, the most haphazard of states, hurriedly created by the British after the First World War with scant regard for its rival nationalities and sects. The Kurds were never at ease under Arab rule - at least some of their tribes were already fighting for independence more than 60 years ago. But it was not until the land expropriations, deportations and massacres of the Saddam years that most of the Kurds united to demand the right to rule themselves. After decades of suffering, it is nearly over: it only remains to be determined if the Kurds will have their own state within a loose Iraqi confederation or outside it, in full independence.

As for the Arabs of Iraq, the Shia majority has always been ruled by Sunnis, first under the Caliphs, then under the Ottoman empire for more than 400 years, and finally under Iraqi kings and dictators. But the sectarian difference was not always so significant. Among the more Westernised and better educated Iraqis, social mingling was normal and inter-marriage not uncommon. It was three relatively recent developments that brought the two communities into conflict.

First, Saddam Hussein's vigorous attempt to modernise Iraq in a secular direction - before he turned to war and rediscovered Islam - infuriated Shia prelates, who protested against village clinics headed by female doctors and other such abominations. That, in turn, triggered brutal repression by the regime, which most of the Shia viewed as yet more Sunni oppression.

Then, the spread of Salafist fundamentalism - they view the Shia as heretics deserving of capital punishment - incited the Sunnis to inter-communal violence.

And finally, while today's theocratic Iran is not necessarily viewed as a model, it demonstrates to the Shia that they need not always be ruled by Sunnis - that they can govern themselves. That in turn provokes the ire of the many Sunni Arabs who believe that Iraq belongs to them regardless of the fact that they constitute just 20 per cent of the country's population (or 25 per cent, if the Kurds, Turkmen and Christians are not included).

The resulting sectarian hatred is now inflicting a heavy toll of casualties by way of shootings, bombings, and the execution of captives. Attempts by US and British forces to stop the killings are feeble and declining: it would take many times as many Coalition troops as remain in Iraq to make any difference. Nor can the factors that are causing the violence be reversed at this point, certainly not by fielding more Iraqi army and police units. Except among the Kurds, they are nothing but Sunni or Shia militias in official uniforms, and they are responsible for some of the worst massacres.

Physical separation is therefore the only way to limit the carnage. That process is now under way. Most Sunnis and Shia already live safely among their own, behind increasingly effective security barriers. Mixed communities are rapidly becoming unmixed, as minorities abandon their homes. In this way, the opportunities for violence decrease. It is an extraordinarily painful and costly way of interrupting the cycle of attacks and reprisals - and especially cruel for mixed marriages and their children - but it is how civil war achieves its purpose of eventually bringing tranquillity and peace.

If the kings of continental Europe, royal cousins to Charles I, had combined forces to save his life, the principle of absolute monarchy, and Britain's peace, they could perhaps have prevented the civil war, but only at the price of perpetuating strife by blocking progress towards stable parliamentary government. If the British and other European great powers had sent expeditionary armies to stop the enormous casualties and vast destruction of the American civil war - as many argued that they should - they could have prevented the eventual emergence of a peacefully united republic and perpetuated North-South hostility.

That is the mistake that the United States and its allies are now making, by interfering with Iraq's civil war. They should disengage their own troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive check-points and patrols that are failing to contain the violence anyway, and abandon the futile effort to build up military and police forces that are national only in name.

Some US and allied forces will still be needed in remote desert bases to safeguard Iraq from foreign invasion, with some left to hold the Baghdad "green zone", where all Iraqi politicians can gather safely. But for the rest, strict non-interference should be the rule. The sooner the Kurds, Sunni, Shia, Turkmen and smaller minorities, too, can define their own natural and stable boundaries within which they feel safe, the sooner will the violence come to an end, allowing mutual cooperation to resume, and neighbourly fellow-feeling, too. That is what happened in Lebanon, once outsiders stopped trying to interfere.

Iraq's civil war is no different from England's or America's. It, too, should be allowed to bring peace.