Thank you for making it real.

The wait for Izzy’s inevitable threat flaming is unbearable.

Yes, thank you for the insight. A soldier’s perspective is a relatively rare one in today’s media. It’d be nice if more journalists went to our most credible sources: the troops and the Iraqi civ’s…

...but then they’d probably cherry-pick which perspectives to air and give the war more bias/spin. Boy, being this jaded and untrusting gets tiring. Thanks a lot, foxnews. Thanks a whole shitload.

Since the Iraq War began at a higher level of forces than Vietnam, today may be comparable to about the fifth year or so in Vietnam, say, around 1967. Today, in comparison, many of the indices of the pain of war for Americans are much lower: troop levels, combat missions, U.S. soldier body count, draft resistance does not pertain. The doubts and recriminations, and the complaints of government anti-anti-war tactics are in play sooner this time, but have shown just as little effect as during year five or six of the Vietnam War. This soldier’s complaints seem to be authentic and accurate and as gruesome as the Iraq Movie should be from his report or even a recent journalist report,
mainly because of the Iraqi children and their families. Nevertheless, this is not an Apocalyspse Now, there is no draft in effect and the deficit spending and defense contracts are what’s been keeping the economy going. For these reasons, the current mini-sixties movement is being checked quite formidibly by a more nearly totalitarian U.S. military-industrial-criminal complex than ever.

“Boy, being this jaded and untrusting gets tiring. Thanks a lot, foxnews. Thanks a whole shitload.”
[Soke]

Yep, I totally agree. The biggest head-fuck is knowing all news is bias and force-fed to the easily-led in society, sadly too many really believe what they see on tv. And when you tell them it’s all bullshit propaganda, they think, “who the hell are you?”, “you’re just a doom-ist!”. For some of these people, the blinkers will never leave them. For some they’ll realise too late.

With regards this soldiers comments on the war in Iraq, I’d like to think that this guy will now refuse to fight this illegal war. “Freedom?”, there’s no such thing, and there never will be until all powers are honest powers.

I read the article that quoted the email from a soldier in Iraq, who was basically saying that all this search for “good news” in Iraq is a “bullshit” endevour. How about a larger emphasis on having more soldiers with similar opinions to his (I would assume..pray..that there are a lot of them) actually get to the media and express how they feel? Of course the media can pick what it wants, but now that it looks like a little battle is arising between the “good news” reporters and the “bad news” reporters in Iraq, it is a good way to get more out to the American public. It would be good to be reminded that a soldier reporting bad news about a war he is fighting in seems more unlikely (and thus more credible) than a soldier reporting good news. GET THE SOLDIERS ON AIR. In effect, you can furhter push the public opinion into an area non-support for the war, which will probably have some type of leverage on our government’s actions and thoughts (right? ...).

GET THE SOLDIERS ON AIR

Soldiers can’t do anything while they are on the ground there and still serving in active duty. To have them come out against the war or at least against this new round of “it’s the media’s fault” is not possible from my experience. My personal experience in the military was “when asked about operations, your answer is always whatever answer we have told you,” which amounts to whatever your platoon leader told you, which came from the Company commander, which came from the Battalion commander, which came from…..you get the point. You are coached if you are interviewed in any form ahead of time.

The thing is we can’t depend on the military that is there now to come out and say anything. It is their ass if they do, plain and simple. Some will say it’s worth speaking out and that is probably true, but if you’re an E-nothing rank speaking out can mean taking food out of your children’s mouth or making your wife struggle that much more. This is the system of the military. When you volunteer for the military you are signing over your rights under the Constitution of the US, so don’t expect them to say anything outside of what they are told.

Translation of Bush’s statement:

If the media just wouldn’t tell American’s what’s going on in Iraq, they would support the war.

LOL! It’s A MOTHERFUCKING WAR!! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THE MEDIA TO BE REPORTING?!?!?

how about talking to Iraqi’s and asking them this question about ‘good news’. it’s a nice try to inject some realism into coverage to get a soldiers’ perspective, but that is hardly the most important pov.

“The bottom line is, the overwhelming majority of people live in fear. We can do NOTHING to help them. We don’t have anywhere near the manpower, and our actions are too severely restricted. Good thing 2500 people died for this.”

it is almost too much to even respond to this. first of all 2500 PEOPLE did not die for this. easily over 250 000 PEOPLE died for this, most of em just trying to get on with their lives. and the ‘this’ they died for is 60 bucks a barrel which has lead to massive profit for the oil whores.

why do you think Canada says nothing? Because they are getting fat off this war as well. EAT FAT NOW is the mantra of these fukin disgusting pigs we have put in charge. Time to consume, time to expand. Alberta is obese with the fat they have suckedd of this situation. still costs 11 buck a barrel to get oil out of alberta, but selling price has gone from 25 to 60 bucks. No one even recognizes the fat they are sucking on is human fat, from the bodies of all those Iraqi’s we have murdered…

The ‘nothing’ that could be done by the US military to ease suffering is quite simply pack up and get the fuk out of Iraq. Your presence is the problem. You are an occupying army with no moral reason to be there and you have totally destabalized the area and are provoking a civil war.

I know it is a shit situation for US troops to have been so sold out by their leadership, and many Iraqi’s recognize that this is the case and there is even sympathy for them (I have had Iraqis refer to US soldiers as bush’s ‘matchstick people’, put in harms way to start a fire), but that 2500 dead comment just proves how invisible Iraqi’s are in this ‘mercy mission’ of the US to better the lot of Iraqi’s.

This whole thing is so sick and everyone is loosing but oil corps and washington based military interests.

There is less coalition force density than there are police density in western countries. Less men, who are less trusted to police a much more violent situation is definitely a good strategy I would imagine. As for the media, is the American public even capable of interpreting a non human interest story. It doesn’t seem like it from here.

What’s most interesting in this debate though is the statement “the deficit spending and defense contracts are what’s been keeping the economy going”. This is a very strange attitude that’s been around for a long time in many forms such as “we can’t shut down this industry which is clearly in no way good for society because jobs would be lost and the economy would shut down” or “the program doesn’t actually accomplish anything but it’s not supposed to, it’s a make work program which is good for the economy”. Though it might be true that deficit spending is keeping the American economy going it doesn’t follow that it doesn’t matter what effort is being spent on. This over abstraction of economic principles is what I call a complete waste of time for all these economists; they can’t agree as to what activities and things have value, so rather than think about the problem further the solution is to detach the idea of value from activity, and try to predict as much as possible about the macro numbers the economy produces. Thus we end up with the wants-supply-demand framework, which has just content enough to seem like it has explainable and mitigation potential if further research is conducted but just lacking in meaning enough to never actually produce a solution to our various problems.

Clearly the money could be spent on something other than defense spending and at the very least the same affect on the economy would be observed. By the logic employed we could pay everyone “jump and role” all day and the economy would function the same.

“As for the media, is the American public even capable of interpreting a non human interest story. It doesn’t seem like it from here.”

that’s exactly why Iraqis are kept from the debate-it would create HUMAN interest. the story above deals with Iraqis as “they” being spoken for by a US soldier from an occupying army. Not exactly who i would chose as a spokesman.

no matter how sympathetic the voice, it is not Iraqi, and when it comes down to it, that’s who has the most right to speak on “them”.

the need to have the story in a human interest form, and then negating the effected party from the arguement is what creates misunderstanding and misrepresentation.

I went to the march on the white house last year, and although I heard from politicians and trade unionists, the only Iraqi voices i heard were those in a private conversation i had with a couple of folks in Amy Goodman’s tent. They were waiting to be overlooked by Amy in her coverage of the event (they waited over two hours at Amy’s request before they gave up and left unnoticed).

It’s time for direct dialogue, it’s the only thing that will really put this shit into perspective…

if this sounds like a plug, i apologize, it’s a rant i have been known to spew.

i just find the lack of even recognition of the fact that we are in a ‘war’ in the east with only western perspectives describing it, and somehow it is expected from us that we can know anything about what the occupation of iraq really means.

line up. curfew. blackout. childhood. same words but with totally different meaning under occupation.

I meant human interest as in “this ‘interesting’ thing happened to this person at this place, and in no way does it necessarilly follow that the whole bears the same qualities.

A human interest story is a type of news story that is concerned with the activities of a few named people. It is often considered to be the story behind the story, in that it shows the personal emotions behind a large news story affecting many people. An example would be an interview with a survivor of a natural disaster.

wikipedia

the whole is totally made up of human interest. that was the sell after WMD’s ran out- that we were so interested in these humans in Iraq that we were willing to blow our cash and sacrifice our sons and daughters to save them, so of course we should be wanting to hear from them, no?

Yes, I would like to hear from Iraqi’s.

My point was not that we should not hear from Iraqis. Here in Canada at least I have read more articles interviewing Iraqis than I have soldiers. My point is that though human interest stories can considered to be the story behind the story more often then not I have observed on your CNN they are not used to gain a picture of the whole, they are simply entertainment. For a human interest story to hold meaning a context is needed which requires other human interest stories, statistics, studies, analogous instances in history, analysis, and so on. That the “human interest” (that the world seen through subjectively, and first hand observation is the foundation of all human knowledge) is the basis of the entire process I am not disputing. What I am disputing is that human interest stories are not sufficient, as there are too many humans of interest and so extrapolation is needed, which I’m sure everyone here agrees with. My point was simply that human interest stories take the least amount of mental effort to understand, and that I have observed on your American media that most stories are human interest stories.

Furthermore, it is you not I who are “willing to blow our cash and sacrifice our sons and daughters”. As for “saving them” I would contend that it was not just liberty at stake as Africa faces the AIDS pandemic alone, it is an entire civilization. Had you spent your money aiding Africa, I can assure you far less “sons and daughters” would have been sacrificed, and far more of your precious “saving” would have been accomplished.

Here’s some human interest. 25.4 million African’s are HIV positive. In about two years 100 million people will have died of AIDS or have HIV. It costs 132 dollars to treat someone who is HIV positive and significantly extend their life (often long enough to raise their oldest child enough to take over the house hold; remember that an eight year old running a house hold is common). Only 8 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa that need anti viral treatment are receiving it. The first case of HIV was diagnosed in 1982. The masses of orphans with no parents are too many for villages to absorb. Before the world banks made it a condition that fees be levied upon any elementary student in order to take out a loan (some crazy ragenomics idea that they later repealed in the nineties, citing it was a big mistake), in the eighties no student fees existed in Africa. When Tanzania abolished school fees, in one year 1.5 million students showed to school that had never been in school before. When a parent has AIDS the children must take care of them, feed them, wash them (especially after incontinence), watch them die, and then are left with nothing, sometimes not even a school to support them. Many do not survive. The social and cultural ramifications of this sort of loss of parenting are nearly unimaginable.

But I guess if other people, often lower class, aren’t dying for a cause it doesn’t instill that exuberant, yet solemn sense of patriotism: the strong, the proud, the single tear.

A billion dollars could save a country in Africa from complete collapse and you guys throw them at defense contractors like it was nothing.

I’ll say it again in case you guys didn’t hear my written words properly: Iraq is not a relevant topic in terms of the world, it is only significant in terms of what such an effort could have accomplished had it been directed towards energy reform, HIV/AIDS, up coming fresh water difficulties … weapons in space … some more senate investigations of drugs in professional sports is always welcome … investing in natural gas power plants … giving money to the “modified coal industry” is always beneficial … can’t forget incarcerating people for life, that always costs a lot … a few interceptor missiles that are mathematically guaranteed to fail with the next improvement in missile technology … a few subs, maybe an aircraft carrier …

Well, at least you’re not wasting money on health care or education. That’d be really bad.

here’s another human interest story

It seems that for anybody but the small majority that’s gotten directly empowered through the American occupation, the Iraqis have only two choices to really control their own country. Either they ignore the U.S. occupation and fight each other to the death and then demand the U.S. leaves, or they unite with each other and force the U.S. to leave. Hearing some journalist or politician’s cherry-picked American soldier or Iraqi’s opinion will not answer the question of what the Iraqi people are living or want. I’d like a really true representative sample of Iraqi voices from the Shiite and Sunni working classes, but they are all beleagured and likely frightened. I think we are going to continue to find that actions speak louder than words through this year and probably next. The American soldier community has a simpler difficult world to cope with and opine about than the average Iraqi.

no statistics, no demographics, only an unflinching look at growing up under occupation. I bet if you watched it ironic, you would learn more about occupation from those kids than any book of stats and in-depth reporting. You can understand the issues till you heard from the participants, and yes cnn et al exploit this as i said earlier, be keeping the most important people in the story out of the image of the event…

and right on chickenma, i’m trying my hardest to give you that opportunity….

The American soldier community has a simpler difficult world to cope with and opine about than the average Iraqi.

lost me 8

Pumo, this is called cognitive dissonance. You were faced with a small anomoly and i think you chose to resolve it as simply as possible by putting the weight on me. With me, you should be able to assume that there was solid, if sometimes difficult, reasoning to support whatever the proposition was. Here, the reasoning was not really difficult. The apparent anomoly is easily solved. I wrote what I wrote intuitively, but I’ll work out the examples now; I hope good enough ones for you, so it would be better if you thought up your own having granted me the benefit of the doubt. The crowded, hustling, bustling restaurant is a difficult world for the waitress, the manager and the owner to work in, but much simpler for the waitress than the manager and perhaps most complicated for the owner. Prison life is difficult for the prisoners and the guards, but much simpler for the guards. The facts about the difficulty of a situation may not always refer to a continuum from simplicity to complexity, but may refer to brutality or confusion, danger or hopelessness and their opposites. Maybe this has made it worse.

I’d like to vouch for this, he isn’t the only soldier who thinks that, I went to camp Casey like 3 times this last summer and there were a lot of Iraqi vets who talked about how they’re basically jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, there were even some people who had fought in Vietnam and Iraq and they said Iraq is beginning to become a lot like Vietnam was

Soldiers, like the US itself, often have a rainbow of beliefs when it comes to their jobs and duty. The military is predominately republican, or so we are told, much for the same reasons mill workers and Mid-west soccer moms tend to vote republican. Because they are grossly uninformed.

When I was in the Army the buzz about Bush coming to office was, “finally the military will get better pay and more money put into it,” which is true but the same people that were saying this did not think more pay would be combat pay for a ground war in the Middle East. It was more of a thought about higher percentage upgrades in pay and better equipment instead of the shit equipment 1/2 the army went out to train with (which is the same equipment they were deployed to Iraq with). Somewhere along the line there was a misconception about Clinton not spending money on the military, which into my civilian life I found to be quite the opposite because Clinton spend a shitload on the military. It just wasn’t where some Joe could see it.

Soldiers do have many different opinions on the what and whys after the fact. But in the middle of the suck what else are you suppose to do? It’s a huge mindfuck to be sitting in a desert and thinking you are fighting for a bunch of lies and such. I don’t really find it the job of ground troops to judge what they are doing as right or wrong. They merely do what is expected of them under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and nothing more or less.

When I hear soldiers on one side say, “I object to fighting for a lie,” then my answer is wtf are you doing in the military? On the other hand when I hear some say, “Be thankful we are fighting for your freedom so you don’t have to,” my answer is don’t be such a self-righteous prick. You do a job most don’t want to do and that is appreciated, but you also volunteer for a job, so really you are fighting for your own freedom or survival not mine. When they hit the shores of the east coast, then you are fighting for my freedom, all those other platitudes are for your own peace of mind.

I think it’s the job of the American people and not the soldier. We can go all into the lackluster candidates and the minute differences between them, but the truth is if we really don’t like republicans and democrats, then quite voting them in office. The people can change the system if they want to. It is the great lie that we can’t change how our government works. If people would quit squabbling over dumb shit and start being informed citizens then tools like Bush and Clinton would never make it to office. I mean you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…

If you have doubts about the corporate interests or lack of true journalism in the mainstream media, support Independant World Television (IWT) which operated from donations.

pumo – 250,000 dead would mean 250 a day over three years.

the only numbers I have are over 18 months out of date. that is 100,000 civillians murdered by the occupation. we have no figures for those that disappeared in free fire zones or during major operations.
we have a figure of 2500+ US dead which precludes many casualties from being counted.

on frontline’s heart of a soldier, we are told about a soldier who claims to have participated in mass murder of detainees.

250,000 may be a stretch, but i doubt it as the 100,000 in the first 18 months was a very conservative estimate

by the way anthony, have you checked out the trailer I sent you??

pumo – 250,000 dead would mean 250 a day over three years.

what is your educated estimate of deaths due to the occupation?

I don’t understand. I never said I was against your so called “in depth reporting”, my point was that it’s simply impossible to make a profile of every single person in Iraq, and thus other types of data are necessary in order to attempt to understand the whole. There is an Iraqi in my unit, and I asked him about everything he knew about Iraq and what his thoughts were. The basic thing he had to say was “everything’s crazy over there, you can do anything. I you want to go kidnap some people you just pick up a gun and fuck.” then he had this look of extreme purtubedness in his eyes. I also play chess with an Afghani and I asked him as many question about Afghanistan I could, his basic point was that the Afghani’s are a stubborn people. I you every thought that I may actually be “interested” in “humans”.

I’m all for a good “seeing how this particular person lives and what they think” and this particular article shows the view of a relevant person in a concise fashion. I just wished to add to the interpretation of the world. I wouldn’t comment on a piece if I thought it was bad, that’s why I wrote a criticism of essentially everybody, so if people want my criticism it is readily available.

my pov is simply that as long as iraqis remain objectified in the coverage of their country during a foreign occupation, we will never gain the needed connection to be able to truly understand what is going on and then to take action.

3yrs into a totally illegal occupation which has lead to an unestimated amount of death and we are still not able to recognize propaganda from reality in the summation of iraqis because the human element needed to really relate to the iraqi’s plight (similar to that of any occuppied nation past and present)...

ps Anthony- are you willing to make an estimate as to civillian death , as the truth you pointed out really is chilling; that the 100,000+ in 18 months would indeed be a staggering number (185/day), and that since things seem to have escalated, the daily tally is probably higher…

and btw- 185/ day for 18 months to put Sadam on trial for what, 153 political assasinations. how many did george put to death in texas alone?

Firstly Saddam killed thousands of his own people, the 153 he’s charged with is just an expedient way to get him convicted and hanged.

And I agree with chickenma, what does it matter what occupying troops think? That’s like asking the Roman legions how they feel after marching on Gaul. It’s totally absurd. The most important – and most ignored – voice is of everyday Iraqi people. The media focuses on American intellectuals, scholars, generals, and soldiers, and sometimes the rare shill from the Iraqi government, but everyday Iraqis are hardly ever consulted. Those are the people Americans should be listening to. Last I checked it was 85-90% of Iraqis wanting the US out of Iraq ASAP. Isn’t that the voice we need to hear?

IroniclyShelfish makes a damn good point. Think of all the shit we could get done with the ABSURD price Iraq has had spent on it (I mean, that number is so big it’s practically IMAGINARY- and I’m sure to Little Bush, it is.)

It’s sort of sad that America will only go to such great lengths to amass such large amounts of money for a war and not humanitarian efforts (although OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM or whatever the fuck it’s called could easily be called a “humanitarian effort”, but you guys get my point)

yes MarchHare,
sadam is bad, no doubt, but the reason he is only on trial for political killings is because the US (CIA) was involved in much of the rest…
the big killings at the end of the first gulf war, the one’s who were killed when they rose up against sadam at the time the US was promising to help them in radio transmissions being sent out at the time…
well, the US did not help, infact they allowed sadam to break the agreement he had come to with the US to end the war, and relaunch his grounded helicopters and move his tanks to destroy the uprising, which lead to the mass graves in the south.
He is not on trial for gassing the Kurds because the US broke international law and sold the gas and trained the troops on how to use the gas, making the US culpable in those killings as well…
nope the only truly sadam killings (without US involvement), and therefor ones that would not open a pandoras box of embarasments for the ‘liberating occupational forces’ are these political killings.

after the first war, the US used sadam and the sanctions to solidify his power over the people (wouldn’t want a democracy to pop up on your long road to war and occupation). it was a most efficient way to kill off the commies, the socialists and everyone else the US would want out of the way for their occupation.
It made survival in sanctioned Iraq dependant upon government handed-out aid, which could be withheld for political, racial or social reasons (anyone or group sadam didn’t like could now be starved).

everyone forgets that the US put sadam in power, that they manipulated his actions like a marrionette during the no fly and sanctions era, and that they gave him the gas, which is a crime in itself.

yes, lets put him on trial for these things, and inevitably the administration and the cia will find themselves on trial as well.

As far as Iraqi civillians being heard, come to SOMA on the 29th of April MarchHare…

ps Anthony,
i really would like to hear your gestimate of civillian deaths…

I agree the money spent on Iraq could be used here in our own country…It is very troubling to have a govt. that is cutting social spending, not raising taxes whatsoever on the richest in the country, and then acting like tax cuts are long term solutions…I encourage people to lsiten to a quick speech by Mumia Abu-Jamal…Whether you subscribe to his innocence or not his speech hits at the core of this war to me…

Linkage

Immortal Technique put a beat to this speech too that can be downloaded that is also quite good

Regarding Casualties in this war:

2500 is currently a round number figure (rounded up). The official tally of US combat related casualties is, as of today 2322 (see icasualties.org).

As for civilians, the Lancet study and its implications have not been widely accepted. However, I feel no qualms about using the body count of civilian casualties compiled at Iraq Body Count because they use a very rational procedure of counting and comparing reported casualties from a variety of sources, generating a minimum and a maximum figure. Currently, their numbers have been estimating casualties of around 250 a week, which is high enough for me. Today’s figures: 33773–37895 dead so far from war-related violence since 2003.

PS every GNNer should buy or rent
Battleground and thank Stephen and Anthony for doing exactly what Paul has done above, but with many more sources, and many more angles on the war. I have never seen anything like this movie, and I have certainly not seen anything like its footage coming out of Iraq. They should win a pulizter prize for this film.

Now boys… when are you going back for more? I don’t want you to put yourselves in harms way but honestly, if y’all don’t do it who will?

As for civilians, the Lancet study and its implications have not been widely accepted.

Honestly I feel this study has been slandered unfairly by the pro-war lobby for obvious political reasons. If you go to the Lancet study online, it is all laid out for you. There is some instances where, to reduce risk to researchers, they would combine two similar provinces into one study group.. That is, the results of one province were assumed to speak as the results, also, of the similar next-door province, if that province had a similar amount of combat in the war and a similar economic condition. Beyond that there isn’t much to attack with the Lancet study, except the fact that the researchers removed Fallujah from the results because they were afraid it would skew the results higher than they were… So you could say that for all intents and purposes, the 100,000 figure the Lancet arrived at is a conservative estimate.

However, I feel no qualms about using the body count of civilian casualties compiled at Iraq Body Count because they use a very rational procedure of counting and comparing reported casualties from a variety of sources, generating a minimum and a maximum figure.

The Iraqi Body Count website only reports on war deaths that are mentioned in the press, and collaborated my multiple newspapers. Their methodology guarantees their number will be lower. There are a lot of good articles that have been posted on GNN lately that discuss how the Interior Ministry is ensuring that hospitals and morgues do not report the large amounts of bodies coming in that were tied up and shot execution-style by the Interior Ministry’s Shiite death squads. Just something to think about.

MarchHare your points are well taken and you may be right about the Lancet survey and the inadequacy of IBC numbers (it’s corroborate, by the way). The point is that I prefer to use numbers around which there is broad consensus. The IBC should be taken as a baseline minimum.

Plus, I would be wary about assuming that bodies found in Iraq are not being mentioned in the press. This war was not brought about by, and its effects have not been hidden by, any conspiracy.

Everything is in plain view. The awful awful truth of this war has always been accessible to those who want to look at what is happening. No, we don’t have the hard details and numbers and knowledge of the inside of the war that we’d always like. We’d like to know whether Cheney discussed his administrations plans with his energy policy commission, for example. But knowing that he did do so wouldn’t alter things; we already know they went in with the plan to topple Iraq. That’s just an example.

Many awful casualties are reported daily. The latest headlines (e.g. this or this) show that nobody is trying to hide the “streams” of bodies that are coming in.

How many people do we have to agree have died before we both agree that enough have died?

“This war was not brought about by, and its effects have not been hidden by, any conspiracy.”

what??????
I don’t think to many people believe there wasn’t a conspiracy to mislead the american public into starting an occupational war with Iraq.

The 10-month old Downing Street Memo, an official document between British intelligence and the PM is supposed to have established this once and for all.

The IBC should be taken as a baseline minimum.

No, it is the Lancet that should be taken as the baseline as that was what it was meant to establish. It is a very conservative research paper accepted by the UN. It was built to be undisputable, so it errs on the conservative (ommission of falluja, etc.).

I was watching weather underground recently and they had a piece of archive footage of ABC or CBS (can’t really tell em apart), and they weere showing US casualties at around 22,000 (half of total), and Vietnamese at 400,000 or something like that. If the final tallies were spread pretty evenly over the war, when the US hit 22,000, Vietnamese casualties were actually around the 2 million mark when they were being reported as 400,000 (1/5 the actual number)...

Lot08 — you make my point for me! There’s nothing “secret” about the Downing Street memo. And frankly, there was nothing secret about the lie of Yellow Cake, and nothing secret about the lies about mobile labs… the “misleading” was not a secret conspiracy. America was handed a blindfold, told, put this on, and it obliged. We were handed a shovel, pointed to the shit pile, given a clothespin for our noses, and told to clip, dig, and shut the fuck up. And we did.

You know about the war. Do you protest it weekly?

We protest the war weekly in my small WNC town. On this, see my blog.

Pumo — I don’t question your reasoning regarding the Lancet number, but consider my larger point. Which is worse: 37,000 dead Iraqis or 370,000 dead Iraqis?

Be careful about how you answer.

In my view, the value of human life cannot be quantified by simple addition, so that 1 life = 1, and 2 lives = 2, concluding therefore, to unjustly kill two men is 2x as bad as to unjustly kill one.

The reason why this must be so is not some mystical mumbo jumbo. When you are only talking one or two, then two might be twice as bad as one.

Let’s say that more than 300,000 Japanese citizens died in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and let’s pretend that 200,000 Iraqis have died so far since the war began. If I follow a mathematical logic, then I have to admit that America has done far worse. This is not as big a deal. We’ve been willing, historically, to kill far more in order to achieve our aims.

Who will you convince, who are you trying to convince, and what are you trying to convince them of, when you quibble about the numbers of causalities?

The point is simple: this war is a result of criminal misconduct by the American government, and every casualty in the war is an infinite tragedy resulting from our criminal negligence. We give our permission, we grant permission to our government through inaction, to commit these crimes against humanity. 37,000… 100,000… 200,000… ???

it’s a sunny day,
just finished work and going outside to interact with the fleshy ones,
but your threat of care in my answer to this attempted downsizing of the calibre of the crimes against humanity being perpatrated by the government of the United States of America against the people of Iraq does need response. It’s the real problem with GNN: energy sucking.
have a nice day cyber people….

lol… enjoy it. See, it really is simple…

ok,
I unfortunately don’t have much time to deal with this, as my efforts to breech the barrier betweeen iraqi’s and the west that disgruntled does not believe exists have hit an impass again.
The civillian media project I have been working on for over a year entitled the iraqi voice (you can view it here ) was doing a fundraiser on the 29th of April. The show included paintings, photos and video, but is now in jeopardy of being cancelled because i included a painter from sadr city…
all i can say is if you believe there is no barrier, it just means you haven’t tested it. anyone actually going beyond rhetoric and into action can tell you multiple tales of how communication is stifled…
as far as body counts and the value of human life, give me a break disgruntled. obviously every life is equal, but to say that this equality somehow negates the need to have accurate counts of how many iraqis have been murdered as a result of the illegal and conspiritoral nature of the actions of the US Government, and the corporate media for that matter, is foolish.
of course every life is equal, but to say that an action created by a group of people which leads to the death of three individuals is somehow as epic as one that leads to genocide is stupid. One is an internation crime against humanity and falls into the catagory of genocide, and one is murder.
I’m tired of this arguement and the desire of many to downsize the epic proportions of this event. It is a way of justifying inaction…
“This is not as big a deal. We’ve been willing, historically, to kill far more in order to achieve our aims.Who will you convince, who are you trying to convince, and what are you trying to convince them of, when you quibble about the numbers of causalities?”
you tell me what the fuk i am supposed to read from that.

pumo — you have consistently misread my posts. Almost everything in your post, I agree with, except where you claim that I have somehow “misrepresented” Iraqi deaths because I prefer counts that are based on different methodology than the Lancet survey, or where you claim that I have put up a barrier between Iraqis and the west.

The Lancet survey uses census methods: sample, predict. It’s not an “accurate count.” It’s a fucking estimate! Iraq Body Count, which has as its mission to do exactly what you would like, create accurate counts of the dead, using all available data, has much lower figures. It’s not an attempt to hide the brutality of the adminstration. It’s about counting the atrocities which can be enumerated and which lie in plain sight. So, you and I. We both decry the war. We both decry the deaths. This isn’t an argument at all! I NEVER said that 3 lives were as epic as genocide. I said it’s not as simple as a 2 deaths is twice as bad as 1.

My point is, that if you make this about some absolute figure, and I make it about some other figure, and then you say, no, your figures are too low, then THAT is defeatist bullshit. If you do that, you are suggesting that 37,000 deaths aren’t enough. But if 37,000 deaths aren’t enough to get fucking mad as hell, then I must be missing something. HOW MANY ARE ENOUGH FOR YOU? Do you have to invent a figure that you are just going to GUESS at before you get mad enough to do something? Does the American public need to accept your GUESS at the casualties, before they will get mad enough?

The ONLY people who are counting confirmed, reported deaths, and not guessing based on their assumptions about Lancet, are guessing around 37-38k deaths. This is a widely agreed upon figure. It is not an attempt to minimize the effects of the war. On the contrary. It’s fucking really real. The point is: isn’t this a goddamn tragedy? Did all these people need to die? No, it’s not as bad as Rwanda… but we weren’t responsible for Rwanda. We are responsible for this.

The Lancet survey uses census methods: sample, predict. It’s not an “accurate count.” It’s a fucking estimate! Iraq Body Count, which has as its mission to do exactly what you would like, create accurate counts of the dead, using all available data, has much lower figures.

yeah, death certificates, etc. how many death certificates did hitler issue for the folks in aushwitz…

“Do you have to invent a figure that you are just going to GUESS at before you get mad enough to do something?”

fuk you, i didn’t invent this war fukwit

The ONLY people who are counting confirmed, reported deaths, and not guessing based on their assumptions about Lancet, are guessing around 37-38k deaths. This is a widely agreed upon figure.

ok, list who has widely accpepted your 37-38k. don’t just allude, do it.

“The point is: isn’t this a goddamn tragedy? Did all these people need to die? No, it’s not as bad as Rwanda… but we weren’t responsible for Rwanda. We are responsible for this.”

who the fuk said we are not responsible for rawanda? you?

“Does the American public need to accept your GUESS at the casualties, before they will get mad enough?’

fuk you again, don’t blame the lack of motion on me. and btw, i think there is quite a bit of grassroots motion it’s just the media that is hiding it. why the fuk are you so scared to recognize that this is a really big deal and that the numbers are really big. just add in all the deaths of children who lost their kemo, the women who have died in child labor, the old men who have died of lack of infastructure to take care of them, and remember the fact that we have dumped shitloads of DU all over em, ripped out their date palms and poisoned their feilds….
the full numbers won’t be back for decades so don’t give me that overestimate shit, this is a fukin genocide and i don’t give a fuk what numbers you believe, maybe you believe that four out of five doctors recommend lucky strike as well, i don’t give a shit. you say everyone is accepting the number you have accepted. prove it.

pumo – my last post on this issue. All I meant when I said we weren’t “responsible” for Rwanda is that no American soldiers swung the machetes. Why do you want to fight with me?

Why do I call the IBC numbers “widely respected”? Any simple search of the available websites reveals it.

Look here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here I think I made my point.

i don’t want to fight with you, and i won’t

first link shows both lancet and IBC (very diplomatic),

this is from the second link:
“IBC follows strict accounting methods, requiring that deaths be reported by at least two reputable media outlets before it will be included in the organization’s database.”

what the fuk kinda database is that in a war zone???

this is from the third:

Regarding the Iraqis, however, information on both military and civilian casualties is both less accurate and less reliable, and given the political significance of these figures and the varied agendas of all parties, no source can be considered free of bias. Estimates of casualty levels are available from reporters on the scene, from officials of involved organizations, and from groups that summarize information on incidents reported in the news media.”

so numbers are given by authorities in the Vichy provisional government and the organizations they set up. 2 casualties were reported in Iron Fists levelling of AlQaim.

You have made no point, and that report you like so much garners no respect. It is the most basic of beginnings and relies on the media, who are the same guys that sold us this pile of shit know as “occupation for democracy” and who are not reporting accurately on casualties, to report accurately on casualties…
i can’t believe the state of denail we are collectively participating in.

pumo –
violating my own claim to be done here…

i can’t believe the state of denail we are collectively participating in.

amen.

disgruntled, I’m not sure your counting methods are very accurate, the Al Jazeera post you’ve included, for one, starts out with a disclaimer that the numbers are highly variable. The lancet medical journal seems to find between 98 000 and 10 000 while other estimates go down to 29 000. That’s a pretty huge disparity. However, If you broaden the period to include the first illegal aggression which expanded the coalition attack beyond the U.N. mandate of expellling Iraq from Kuwait, and the genocidal sanctions period that follows, the numbers swell to over 1 000 000. So really, there’s no point in trying to be “realistic” about casualty numbers. Genocide has been inflicted upon Iraq by the U.S. It’s a simple as that. If we want the world to be a safe place for our children to grow up, we’ll have to work very hard at transforming the political landscape, re-empowering the public and making sure everyone has a strong knowledge of human rights, history, powerful critical thinking skills, compassion and integrity. We’ve got to engender a cultural shift on a massive scale.

JustAGuy — well, if “accuracy” is defined as having omniscient access to “reality,” then nobody can claim that.

Lancet published a mortality study; this is a method of sampling, then extrapolating. So any current estimates based on Lancet are extrapolations from an extraoplation. So there’s nothing “accurate” about that method, in terms of actually informing us of who died, when, etc. It’s an estimate, based on a method designed to produce “reliable” estimates, but it remains an estimate, and the published number reflects the estimate as of the date of the study. So it is also not a “count” in any sense of the word.

On the other hand, there’s also no guarantee of “accurracy” in the IBC numbers. They actually “count” reported casualties. One: there is a discrepancy in their numbers based on variations in body counts in media reports of the same incidents! This is reflected in their minimum/maximum numbers. Two: not every death is necessarily reported. Therefore the numbers they provide have to be taken as “at least X number have died.” But therein lies the advantage! The number is the number of people who have indisputably died.

Finally, when it comes right down to it, IBC is the ONLY organization daily updating their count of reported deaths. THEY ARE THE ONLY SOURCE AVAILABLE. The IBC website is a major public service and should be exploited by anti-war elements, not trashed as if it were disinformation. Look at their site! Look at who cites them! They are anti-war. People who object to their numbers as “inaccurate” have their heads up their asses. If you think more people have died, then you can say so, but to ignore their numbers and not to employ them as a rhetorical tool in arguments against the war is sheer folly.

To everybody: if you, the activist, think we need to estimate civilian deaths based on an extrapolation from the Lancet study, that’s fine, but it makes more sense to put it this way:

Many civilians have lost their lives in Iraq due to this unjust American war. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 37,000 civilians have been killed by violence since the start of the war. But experts on mortality have estimated that, during the first year alone, 100,000 or more people may have died. If that number is reliable, then, in the two years since then, even more must have died than have been reported to have died. In terms of human lives, however you determine the cost of this war, it has been huge.

Just my perspective, dudes. Take it or leave it. One problem with opening up the Lancet numbers and reporting them is that you risk having to defend the number, and that distracts from the goal of our agitprop, which is to draw attention to the deaths of civilians. Get it?

Today, a soldier climbed up a tree to save a kitten… Then he shot at some unarmed Iraqis…

There, see? Balance…

ok last time at the well,
this is a response to disgruntled (who maybe should change his name to mildly preturbed): yer spewing crap.

the media has been caught covering up torture in US facilities, they colluded in the bullshit of WMD’s, and this is the basis for gathering info related to casualties. Hey buddy, why don’t we just save the time and just go along with administration numbers, which are pretty damn close to the numbers you want to rely on.

IBC does state clearly a maximum number, so don’t give me that shit that it is a baseline: it is also giving a ceiling.

What are you a professor of dude?

Finally, when it comes right down to it, IBC is the ONLY organization daily updating their count of reported deaths. THEY ARE THE ONLY SOURCE AVAILABLE. The IBC website is a major public service and should be exploited by anti-war elements, not trashed

what a load of shit. why should i take numbers that are tallied based on news reports in the most embedded controlled coverage of that very same war.

These same media outlets that refuse to deal with the harsh realities of this illegal occupation are meant to be the fountainhead of knowledge with regards to estimating the voracity of the killing machine we have unleashed on the men women and children of iraq. fuk off.

hey buddy, maybe we should rely on philip morris to do cancer research, and haliburton to report on environmental issues.

GE makes the missles and NBC (owned by GE) misreports on their human cost. WOw is that ever hard to believe.

You call yourself a prof which is meant to give you authority, and you use that authority to mislead. THERE IS A CEILING ON IBC, which is based on unreliable data…
I’m guessing you are no science teacher as you would not be condoning that kind of crap.

IBC is updated daily because it relies on numbers reported by mainstream press. Like i said, AP reported 2 casualties at Sadah in the same report that talks about an undisclosed number of ‘insurgents’ killed in missle attacks on cars to start the seige off. They bombarded the place from the air, destroying houses and farms without warning. It was done early in the morning, and AP reports 2 casualties and your telling me i have to accept that because ap was too fukin lazy to report properly and relied on undisclosed sources in an ‘initial report’ to come to that figure of 2.

If you can hear that I am pissed of it is because I am. Professor my ass, and if you are, do your fukin homework.

have a nice day (and i really do mean it)

pumo – I feel sorry that you take such offense.

But you are the one who needs to do your homework. The two numbers on IBC are a minimum and maximum BASELINE ESTIMATE of deaths. The two numbers result from uncertainty that comes when the same event receives two or more different reported numbers. Unreported deaths do exist, or rather, we can suppose that they do. Therefore the real total of deaths is at least IBC+. That’s a fact. Why do you resist it?

What a load of crap

Look at the way you argue. It’s useless. It is the fact that NO other constantly updated and independent source on the death toll exists. Point me to ONE alternative.

why don’t we just save the time and just go along with administration numbers, which are pretty damn close to the numbers you want to rely on

The Administration doesn’t do body counts. They rely on media estimates. Ipso facto, they rely on IBC, since the media relies on IBC. That’s what I meant when I said it was “widely respected.” You imply that it would be a bad thing if the administration agreed with the activists on how many people have died… I’d say, it’s a start.

the media has been caught covering up torture in US facilities, they colluded in the bullshit of WMD’s, and this is the basis for gathering info related to casualties

There are just so many things wrong with this idea that I hardly know where to begin. Let me ask you something. Since you reject the idea that one could tally the dead based on media reports, how would you suggest that we tally the dead?

IBC never relies on only one source for its data, it cross checks different reports of the same incident in order to arrive at its minimum and maximum estimates of how many died in a given day, or period. It isn’t “the media,” it’s an independent group of media analysts (kind of like us, except they aren’t wasting time in spitting contests).

You keep bringing in your anger and attacking me. But your attack is weak. I mean, think about it: who are you trying to convince by questioning the title I gave myself… which I never brought into this. It’s my job title. Yeah, I have a Ph.D. Yeah, I teach in a college. No, my field has nothing to do with statistics or mortality studies… so don’t even bring it up! I didn’t!

How is your level of education and profession relevant to this discussion?

We both need to stop wasting our time here, don’t you think?

you have a nice day too.

yeah,
i am a bit prickly
had an interesting banter with hans von spoeneck right before writing, so i apologize. but as far as your phd, you did bring it up when you decided to put that in the occupation slot. it’s like a talking head from some institute we have never heard of giving report. giving a title like that in a forum without identity is crap. I have no idea if you are a prof or a cia agent. It one of the things that kinda kills gnn.

as far as IBC you say:
The Administration doesn’t do body counts. They rely on media estimates. Ipso facto, they rely on IBC, since the media relies on IBC.

the truth is the administration chooses not to do body counts during an occupational war it sells as humanitarian. why do you think that is??
IBC sets a baseline that is obviously ridiculous, the white house accepts it not because the corporate media whores accept it, but because it is bullshit.
They lied about wmd’s, they lied about their own use of wmd and indiscriminate weapons against the very people they say they are trying to protect, and I am supposed to believe that they are accepting a realistic stat on how many civilians have been killed by their illegal action.

“IBC never relies on only one source for its data, it cross checks different reports of the same incident in order to arrive at its minimum and maximum estimates of how many died in a given day”

what different reports? from who? if these sources are not clearly identified, it is impossible to gauge validity, so it has no value.

“ Since you reject the idea that one could tally the dead based on media reports, how would you suggest that we tally the dead?”

one good way is to look at how many civilians have been killed by similar actions by the United States. 4 million in vietnam, etc. when dealing with a sexual predator or serial killer, one looks at their history, by with the US and it’s track record we are supposed to throw out the book and start from scratch, and be shocked by each repetitive crime against humanity the administration commits…

“ the media has been caught covering up torture in US facilities, they colluded in the bullshit of WMD’s, and this is the basis for gathering info related to casualties

There are just so many things wrong with this idea that I hardly know where to begin.”

well, begin or just shut up. If you say the media has not participated in the cover up, explain why reports of the use of white phosphorus in Falluja were ignored until ! year later when the administration admitted it? most of the newsrooms are filled with guys who started their careers in vietnam. It is a known fact that the US used white phosphorus on civilians in Vietnam. There were pictures of melted Iraqi’s that look exactly like the ones I saw at the American War Crimes museum in Saigon.

I have been reading your posts about ‘human’ as a concept, etc., and i see you enjoy this as an intellectual exercise but i do not. I know these people now and stories of guys watching their daugter’s heads blow up in a stream of m-16 fire have made them human for me. I won’t be dragged down with a bunch of blather like this.
I’m going to cut my connection here, as I find this discourse meaningless and a waste of time (plus it’s pissing me off and making me act like an asshole).
I don’t agree with you, and i won’t without something more than the corporate media and presidential seal of approval you put forward…l8r

“The Administration doesn’t do body counts. They rely on media estimates. Ipso facto, they rely on IBC, since the media relies on IBC.”

so the media relies on IBC which relies on media analysts that rely on reports given by the media as to casualties? what? no wonder it’s crap.

There are no NGO’s left in Iraq, no doctors without boarders, no CPT to speak of anymore. The mainstream media stays within the green zone and reports absurdities that pass as reality to the totally blind (such as 2 deaths in Sadah), and IBC comes along and gives creadability to AP by giving AP the ability to refer to what IBC thinks are the numbers, which of course are based on the original ap reporting. and now the bush administration joins the chorus and we have corporate media, ngo, and administration in perfect harmony…
oh god, I’ve got a headache and alot of work to do…

So a fair headline here should have been: Is the Media only Hinting at the Bad News in Iraq?

lol pumo give it up dude! It’s not good to pick fights with people who are on the same side of an issue. Go stick it to the man or something. The GOOD thing about IBC feeding back the same numbers that the (putatively) bogus media reports fed out in the first place is this: As the death toll and the number keeps rising, the creeps who are responsible are forced to swallow their own shit. They can’t deny a count based on the public record. By the way, if you explore the IBC website, you’ll see that there is a complete record of the deaths reported by the media, on an incident by incident basis from day one of the war… look here. I think you have the folks at IBC wrong, in terms of your negative evaluation of their motives, their methods, and their supposed collusion with the criminal war machine in Washington. They want what you, what we, want… an end to the madness in Iraq.

(Oh, and I disagree that a good way to estimate casualties is based on previous, supposedly similar engagements… especially where casualty figures in those cases were also doubtless estimated. You’ll alienate the people you’re trying to sway if you pull stuff out of the air.)

ok
let me get this straight. the IBC, which you were arguing is the true measure of iraqi casualties, is now “feeding back the same numbers that the (putatively) bogus media reports fed out in the first place”... wtf?
so now you are saying the numbers are bogus, but we should accept them because “the creeps who are responsible are forced to swallow their own shit.”
So you were lying before when you said the numbers were a reliable guage of casualties, but we should go along with that for the greater good?
Bullshit. And BTW, i never said i thought that was what the IBC guys set out to do, i said that that is what they are doing. they are giving the pres a lowball figure that he can agree with. It’s the same bullshit arguement used with the McCain ammendment ; accept this obviously flawed ammendment and it will open the door to bigger things. bs. i can accept the IBC only as an accounting of corporate media’s reportage, not as a figure to guage actual casualties…
i gotta go make dinner

yeah 8, i would say that would be a better headline. i’m checkin out for a few weeks as i’m spending too much time here. peace and love…

i lied, i’m back to flog my latest doc. please read this if you are interested…

oops
link