The Opinionated Bastard

You might like to take a look at this article which presents some very different figures regarding the number of deaths in Iraq.

According to the Baghdad morgue over 4,000 Iraqis have died in Baghdad alone during the first 3 months of this year. And that’s probably an underestimate. I wonder how the media would react if 16,000 people were dying like that in London or New York? My guess is that they wouldn’t be so quiet. See if this report takes off. Ive emailed much of the UK press about it.

“Nearly 4,000 civilian deaths, many of them Sunni Arabs slain execution-style, were recorded in the first three months of the year.

More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime — at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style.”

…….

“But even the grim morgue statistics — 3,472 violent deaths in Baghdad from January through March — do not present the full picture of the violence in the capital.

That number does not include those killed in bombings or during gunfights between insurgents and security forces because they are generally are not brought in for autopsy at the central morgue. At least 351 civilians were killed in bombings across the capital during the first three months of the year, according to calculations based on daily reports by hospital and police officials.

Those reports, considered conservative, did not include slain Iraqi security forces, Iraqis killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, and Iraqis killed outside the capital.

……….

At the central morgue, workers duly noted the deaths. Muazzaz’s eldest son and her husband of 22 years became two more entries, numbers 30948 and 30952, respectively, in the morgue’s byzantine record-keeping system.”

Article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-civilians7may07,0,1349034.story?coll=la-home-headlines

For that matter, Saddam was killing 10-20,000 Iraqis a month when he was in power, so its useful to keep these numbers in perspective. Iraq is more chaotic than under Saddam, but less deadly overall. Strange but true, but the wholesale slaughter of Saddam was worse then this retail mucking about between the Coalition and the insurgents.

i like how you just make stuff up, like thats going to help your argument which has been bad for what, 3 years now?. If Iraqi’s were dying at this rate priot to the US invasion, which they werent (it was more like 5000 a month) it was due to UN sanctions (Read USA sanctions) that were killing Iraqis…thats you and me. Most of these deaths were of the sick, old , and babies, kinda like in hurricane katrina.thats what happens when you pruposefully bomb sanitation, water and electricity generation plants in gulf war 1, and then put sanctions o na nation and disallow them from rebuilding their modern utilities and importing medicine…people die

this is common sense, if saddam was killing people at this rate Bush’s propaganda would have been spitting out this “fact” day and night, which he didnt, why? because it is me and you killing these folks and we dont like to think about that.

anyway, time to look at reality instead of charts.

ernie

You’re forgetting the people killed in the Iran/Iraq war ernie.

Even using your numbers:

5,000/month = 60,000 year, 3 years of war, 180,000 so Bush saved 150,000 Iraqi’s from Saddam?

Oh, no, wait, it wasn’t Saddam it was the sanctions? The fact is that even under the oil for food program, Saddam had more then enough money coming in to feed, clothe, and heal his people. The fact that he chose not to I lay directly at his feet.

I have always said if republicans were smart they would have painted their false reasons for an oil war in saving iraqis from clintons evil sanctions. But this didnt happen for two reasons, 1. republicans arent very smart, and 2. they were in on the megadeath called sanctions so its not wise to bring it up.

Now by your logic, if we blame all the iraqi civilian deaths happening now on bin laden (as you like to do) then yes, republican yes men are the virtuous fictional archetypes they get wet over…too bad its not really the case. arnie for governor!

now, if you honestly believe that the sanctions didnt kill iraqi civilians, then what are sanctions for….i’ll give you a hint…think of the military tactic of the siege. what is it supposed to do?

thats what i thought…see if you reason these things out you will see the world a bit more clearly.

now the iran and iraq war, how much complicity does the US have in this? didnt we arm both sides? didnt we push husseing to invade iran, then sell iran missiles…good ole fox news ollie north? remember?

sure saddam is an SOB, but like we said at the time…he was our SOB, so thats ok.

but the point is iraqi civilains are still dying at a high rate, but maybe at a lower one given all the US war contyractors making billions off of US debt with construction projects, food programs and such, so i guess if we are looking for goodness jesus love, there it is is…god bless bechtel and halliburton!

ernie

First ernie, your comments are vastly improving.

Ernie, you forget that I’ve always argued that the blame for Iraq can easily be spread around, starting with Woodrow Wilson. I remember all of that. I have a long piece somewhere that talks about the full history of our involvement with Iraq, and we don’t come off as angels. But neither do say, the French.

Did the sanctions hurt people? Yes. Did Saddam blow the oil-for-food money on hookers and crack? Yes.

My point ultimately is that at this point, things have improved for the Iraqis. That seems aubsurd, but Iraq has been suffering for quite awhile.

Now sure, we deserve some complicity in the death’s of Iraqi’s prior to April 2003. But the bulk of those deaths have to be laid at Saddam’s feet, not ours. Since the fall of Saddam, a majority can be laid at our feet.

But the total number is lower. So that gives us some perspective. Would I like that number to be zero? Sure. Do I think that will happen? Ernie, its not zero in the US, much less your typical Middle Easter country.

I’ll be happy if it drops to the level of say, Egypt.

“My point ultimately is that at this point, things have improved for the Iraqis. That seems aubsurd, but Iraq has been suffering for quite awhile.”

i think your claim here has to be put in historical context. Saddan Hussein, evil jackass at large…sure..and we supported him. But in the 1980s Saddam actually DEVELOPED Iraq with petrodollars and called for Arab Unity, with a secular posture. Saddam, a good double crossed friend let APRIL GLASPIE know in 1990 that he knew kuwait was stealing oil (with slant drilling technology, provided by….(i’ll let you fill in the blank) and that he considered this an act of war, April’s response was….(fill in the blank here..look it up).

Saddam a madman? yes. saddam a nationalist towards modernity? yes? US destroying Iraq passively, now actively NOT for the oil? NO.

by the way, and i know you know this…there is no free market.

PS…sorry for the earlier responses, but i am real pissed at the warmongers who unconsciously destroy the prospects for us all.

the anglo-saxon empire is built on liberalism, and the common folk hate it…good luck.

ernie

Yeah, I’ve read it, though that’s the Saddam version. Even in that version April comes across as “huh? We don’t want to be involved.” which Saddam read as giving him the green light. So I don’t blame us for that, I think Saddam read into something that wasn’t there. Here’s the WikiPedia entry: April

However up until that, our history with Iraq wasn’t exactly clean. Read my postings: Butcher’s Bill

Debunking Iraq Myths

Why are you upset about liberalism now? What are you advocating instead? Totalitarianism? Catholicism?

Fisrt i wouldnt consider April Glaspie’s dialogue with “Saddam’s version”. OF course the US does not comment on these talks, but they are recorded and published and the US gave has never denied them as false. Admittedly, Saddam could have read her wrong, but again as evil as SAddam was, he wanted to maintain power over all, he was a Machiavellian Prince.

Im not complaining about liberalism, im claiming that the anglo-empire is built upon it, free thought, reason, individual freedom, producing a “free market of ideas” those days are over. I wouldnt promote totalitarianism, but i believe the US has already succumbed to it.

I just read through your “debunking iraq myths” it is pretty good, but i would disagree on some points. First, SAudi Arabia has been under US control since the 1930s, not with WW2, and IRan was really under US control after BP asked the Brits to ask the US to intervene and overthrow Mossadegh in 1953. IRan hats us because we overthrew a democratically elected govt in favor of a dictator with brutal security forces (which gives rise to resistance, a process Saudi Arabia is experiencing right now).

Now, Iraqi about oil. IF not oil, then what? Freedom for IRaqis? IRaq is not about consuming their oil, but to control it and bring it back online under US control. I think this is common sense when considering realist power politics (of whcih the foreign policy establishment operates..under different conceptions: neocon vs liberal internationalists)

States dont act for altruism. They act for power. IF altruism can be applied to the power logic, so the better, but no state spends 100s of billions, thousands of lives, and runs the risk of popular dissent unless its goals are very important to its interests. Mideast oil, and the control over it is a primary security concern of the US. Carter expressed this clearly in the Carter Doctrine.

This stated, we cannot look at intl terrrorism and its causes unless we see what it is a reaction to. 911, a reaction to US support of the house of saud. Iranian nukes, a reaction to US threats. Iraq insurgency, a reaction to occupation…for their oil.

I think the interesting thing is that Saddam could keep out Al Queada, but the US cant, all the while the US maintains that it represents a better life for IRaqis than Saddams tyranny. Why cant the US keep Al Quaeda out while SAddam did? I think Al quaeda here is more of an idea of freedom fighting that the iraqi locals have embraced.

Anyway, this war is a mess, it has already failed, a bad idea, a waste of lives and money. The idea was for neocons to reassert US power unilaterally, and this failed. In fact, what we see is that US military might isnt that great of a power tool. I mean hell, the US cant pacify IRaq, a country with no military and destroyed by sanctions. Some would say, “the US could pacify iraq, but we are too nice”…but this would only increase local resistance and increase sympathy and aid from outside (i.e. pretty soon abram tanks and helicopters begin to be destroyed en masse by Russian weapons).

ernie

So you’re actually pro-liberalism in the classical sense. Welcome to the club!

Saddam didn’t release a recording, he released a transcript, which has been editied. If you read the Wikipedia article, longer transcripts have recently come to light that indicate that April was definitely indicating that the US wanted to stay out of it, but that Saddam should definitely not invade Kuwait. He urged for peaceful resolution.

I think the British had more influence in Saudia Arabia in 1930 then we do today…it’s important to remember that the US didn’t have much influence on world affairs before 1945.

The Iranian people have come to not hate us so much, their government since 1976 has even made them miss the Shah to some extent. Realize that the Iranians had more freedoms under the Shah then they do now. Its rarely so cut and dried Ernie.

I see Iraq as being a mess that’s been brewing since the end of WWI…where we disagree I think is that Iraq is not JUST about oil, its about a whole bunch of things, some of which are trying to fix past mistakes. Thinking that we need to “control” their oil to access it is flawed economics; disproved by Adam Smith in 1776. We buy oil from Hugo Chavez and Iran, and they both puport to hate us. If we hadn’t invaded both the French and Russians were going to be quite willing to sell us Iraq’s oil. I would say that we wanted both Iraq’s oil and Saddam gone, that there was no way we could leave Saddam in power, and lift sanctions.

You can argue that perhaps terrorism is a reaction to US power, but I think that’s projection on your part; we’re not necessarily as important to the Arabs as we think. The Islamists aren’t arguing that Arabs are miserable because the US is keeping their idiots and fools in power, they argue that rather Arabs aren’t miserable enough, that they need to go back to this time in the 1400 (that never existed). Go read the terrorists web sites before you make statements about what they believe; it will make the most rabid Fundamentalist Christian in America seem sane. (As an aside, the lead astronomer for the Catholic church has denounced Creationism. )

Its not the downtrodden who join these terrorists cells, is the frustrated upper and middle class Arabs. Saudi Arabia has more doctors than nurses, hence more unemployed doctors. Its those sorts of people who end up joining Al Queda.

As for Saddam keeping Al Queda “out” of Iraq, I beg to differ. Zarqawi wasn’t part of Al Queda before, but he was definitely in Iraq. Abu Nidal lived in comfort in Iraq for years.

Saddam didnt have kookoo islamic fundamentalists blowing up govt buildings (hell, the right wing in america has already done that right?). saddam had no islamic revolutionary movement challenging him for power. The US occupation govt (which it is ) in IRaq does…i think we have to answer, why?

now for glaspie, i think she was ambiguous, and saddam, being a rational agent who loved his power knew that he needed US blessings to perform any act.

No coup or aggression takes place without US blessing,well except maybe Russian foreign policy matters, but they can fire back at us so they are free to act. Take the coup against Chavez in 2001. US supported all the way. It could be no other way. The business community in Venezuela would have never overthrown Chavez without US blessing, for if the US was against it Venezuela would have been sanctioned and destroyed. Chavez hates Bush and imperialism, but he loves to sell oil to anyone with greenbacks, soon maybe even euros, but thats besides the point. Because Chavez likes selling oil to those with greenbacks does not mean he has to sell it to the US, he can sell it to anyone with stockpiles of USDs accumulated by anyone with a trading surplus to the US, namely china and Japan. Oil and petrodollars is the crux of US power, if the US cannot hold this system, the US is in deep trouble. I think the US dollar is the most important financial mechanism to watch. Watch wall street, last week afraid of inflation, then happy because consumer spending has slowed and inflation is unlikely. wall street….happy about flat consumer spending? Deflation soon? maybe.

ernie

Actually, we have no idea whether Saddam had that or not (there are some hints there were Iranian-funded operations in Iraq pre 2003), but even if I grant you that point:

1. You’re comparing a police state to a proto-democracy.
2. What’s your point? Saddam got along with the islamo-kooks? So what?

Glaspie was more ambiguous in the Saddam transcript, but in the full transcript that’s come to light since, she was pretty specific about peaceful resolution.

No coup or agression takes place without US blessing? Come on ernie, if only we had that much influence, Africa would be doing a lot better.

Do we like Chavez? No, he’s another nutjob. On the other hand, we let him steal his last election.

If Chavez sells oil to someone else, then we can buy the oil from them. That’s how markets works. We don’t need to control Chavez. Again, 1776, Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, read the book Ernie, is available for free online.

Wall Street is happy because that means the Fed won’t raise interest rates any more, not because consumer spending is flat. The daily movement doesn’t mean anything anyways. Remember, I work in that industry.