Saturday, April 22, 2006

Well, well, well ... "Jinx" has a point.


Well, how about that? Our favourite wingnut Jason/"Jinx McHue" has a valid objection to something I wrote. Back here, I slapped him around thoroughly and, in closing, was all over him regarding the alleged number of Iraqi "civilian" casualties. He left a comment which I, as I have already explained, deleted. But the gist of that comment makes for some interesting reading.

His point was that the number of less than one thousand Iraqi civilian casualties was not the overall total since the invasion began, just those inflicted specifically by U.S. forces since "the fall of Baghdad," which is, in fact, what that article is saying. So, technically, Jinx is correct. So what happened here?

Well, I definitely have to shoulder some of the blame since, in my skimming the actual claim, when I read, "Over two years of combat since the fall of Baghdad," I kind of missed the "over two years" part and just read "since the fall of Baghdad." And, given how all of us were told how much of a "cakewalk" this whole thing was going to be, I mistakenly assumed that the fall of Baghdad conicided with the beginning of the invasion. Silly me.

I never realized that the "fall of Baghdad" had been redefined to not include the first couple years of intense fighting that killed so many more civilians. It must be wonderfully convenient to be able to pick your starting point when you begin counting the dead, thereby avoiding the really embarrassing periods of massive slaughter.

Of course, even if you accept that definition, this suggests that almost one thousand civilians have died at the hands of U.S. troops even after the city was supposedly locked down. And this is good? This is humanitarian?

In any case, you can read the tables and accompanying text for yourself to see how cleverly the worst part of the killing is simply defined away. Hey, with that kind of selective ability, I'm pretty sure I could make almost anything sound perky and upbeat.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute...

If US forces have killed only about 1000 Iraqi civilians since "Mission Accomplished," and the US has lost over 2000 troops since then... That means the Iraqis are winning the war!

Quick, someboy start dropping some cluster bombs!

MgS said...

Of course, we always hear how bombing a village/neighborhood killed so many "insurgents". I'd love to know how they got so precise that their explosives only affect their adversaries...

Anonymous said...

What a freaking mess this is. It's not bad enough that Iraq has become Fantasia, but there is no Falkor, Bastien or Atreyu to assist.
Beg you pardon, but this whole mess seems to be out of a Grimms Fairytale, so couldn't resist. I'm dismayed that there are people out there who still insist that the American administration is right in whatever they do, in spite of all factual information to the contrary. I'm even more disturbed that the Canadian government is becoming as secretive and divisive as their american masters.
Do any of these people read the few blogs that are being posted by ordinary Iraqi citizens. If they do, then shame on them, if they don't, then shame on them.

Anonymous said...

goodgrief. The conservatives in Canada do not have any masters other than the people who voted on the policies they adopted, and the people who elected them, and the leader. If you were a CPC member you would know what was going on. Harper is going to run the country like a business, and he will do a great job if allowed. He has seen how the MSM make mountains out of mole hills, it is the MSM fault, the Harper is hostile. They are all most always negative toward him. The MSM media is the mess. They all think they are watergate journalists, but there is no watergate, so they like to write opinion instead of news. If they want to write opinion, get a blog. I have read blogs by Iraqis that say things are alot better, some say things are worse. I'm not there so I don't know which is correct.

Rev.Paperboy said...

"Jinx has a point"....yeah, but if he combs his hair just right, no one will notice.

And Wayne, for the four millionth time since the election of Brian Mulroney, Government should be run like a government, not a business. Governments are democratically elected to serve all the people in the country, businesses are autocratically run to turn a profit. The business model is not an apt one for running a country, so stfu.

CC said...

wayne wrote:

The conservatives in Canada do not have any masters other than the people who voted on the policies they adopted, and the people who elected them, and the leader.

That statement is demonstrably untrue. Given that the Conservatives have already broken a number of campaign promises, it's safe to conclude that even those people who voted for them were lied to.

MgS said...

Sez Wayne:
If you were a CPC member you would know what was going on.

WTF? Since when did I need to be a member of the governing party to have any insight into government?!

When did Canada become Communist Russia?

Stephen Harper's actions to date have bespoken an autocratic approach to governance that is at odds with many spoken promises about a more open, accountable government. (and there's holes in the "accountability act" that his government just unveiled that you could drive a truck through)