Lies, damn lies, and...
With the release of the GAO report on Iraq coming out, and positioning in advance of next week well underway, you’re likely to hear quite a few numbers being tossed around. When it comes to the surge, keep in mind that even the encouraging news is not quite what it seems.
According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.
What’s more, Matt Yglesias notes, “It seems that when a Shiite kills a Shiite (as happens frequently in the south) that doesn’t count. Similarly, when a Sunni kills a Sunni, that doesn’t count. Nor does it count when the death was caused by a car bomb since, obvious, well, um, I couldn’t even say. The exclusion of Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence seems like a clever-if-underhanded exploitation of critics’ tendency to deploy the phrase “sectarian violence” even though there’s a lot of politically motivated violence that isn’t sectarian in nature. The car bomb exclusion seems entirely unprincipled.”
Great, more lies
I would love to know what the actual numbers are and would love to have the MSM find their peckers and actually report it.
The only number that matters is the number of days left in Bush's Reign.
"You see it is because Iraq is plagued with an extremely high number of mass serial killers that has nothing whatsoever to do with the occupation."
Come on, everyone knows that car bombs are nothing more than faulty mechanics. Nothing to do with homicidal intent. /sarcasm off
lies. is this surprising to anyone?
It's the nature of the beast - politicians, that is. And, even worse in a time of conquest. um, I mean "defensive" war. (defending their profits!)
Maybe these criminals will be a wake up call to us - a reminder that politicians really aren't supposed to be trusted. Guard our liberty with a watchful eye - or something like that.
Politicians and lying have gone hand in hand for ages - it's sad to admit that American politicians are no different.
That's my rant. Read on if you'd like:
"Politicians Lie? Say it Ain't So!"
http://www.populistamerica.com/politicians_lie___say_it_ain_t_so
to even refute part of this "finding" one has to buy into the logic that the pentagon has an interest in publishing, or even caring, about the civilian deaths.
like yglesias said, a lot of 'types" of deaths are not reported or under reported. also, one must factor in the amount of people that have died due to lack of electricity, access to medicine, access to clean water, access to, well, almost everything---due to the invasion and occupation.
and, further, this 1,000, or 1,200 deaths per month doesn't even seem to be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. consider lancet's findings--which came out about 11 months ago--that there are upwards of 650,000 deaths since the invasion. maybe that is high, maybe it isn't. but to trust the pentagon's numbers on the amount of civilian casualties seems to be just plain crazy.
Wait for the report from General BetrayedUS before you judge
Lies, damn lies, and…
and the Whitehouse press corp passing them on as Gospel truth.
I wonder how those 500 deaths from the car bombs in Northern Iraq will be explained? The dead are neither Sunni or Shiite. The killers were probably Sunni insurgents, not al-Qaeda though the administration wants to blame it on al-Qaeda.
No one believes me when I tell them the death toll no longer includes deaths from car bombs. So many unbelievable things have happened and keep happening under this administration, I keep having to go back and recheck my facts because I even doubt myself sometimes.
sounds like the manipulation of vaccine injury and deaths stats
You don't really need to have a host of facts and statistics to know that Iraq's a mess. Your own common sense will tell you all you need to know.
You see, if we include homicide bombings then the terrorists have won.
I guess those 2,600 killed by car bombs are distinct from the 4,000 killed by suicide bombs in the past six months. This all seems like a semi-retarded version of the Pentagon Papers to me.
Oh, man. This article is so full of choice quotes I had to make sure it wasn't from the Onion.
So, car bombs are too hard to eradicate so we just won't count them. The US has reduced Iraq to a game of "Calvin Ball."
Of course there is a certain logic to declining sectarian death rates. They are simply running out of people to kill. Those who were most vulnerable have already been killed. Others have moved out of harms way. Baghdad is a collection of armed sectarian ghettos. People aren't killing their neighbors now because Shiites and Sunnis no longer live in the same neighborhoods. Over a million Iraqi Sunnis have left the country and another million are living in camps within Iraq. The sectarian cleansing that is supposed to happen after we leave Iraq is pretty close to complete now.
I wonder if we are arming any of the Shiite tribes Certainly they would be even more willing to fight al-Qaeda than the Sunnis. There is something strange about only arming Sunnis in provinces where there are both Sunni and Shiite tribes. Are we just assuming that Iran is arming those tribes? If so, aren't we just reinforcing the Sunnis/Shiite split that would lead to a face to face confrontation between the tribes? I just looks like we're setting up a proxy war between us and Iran with the Iraqis as the foot soldiers.
"David Walker of the GAO isn't serious like us"-Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack
Carmikl @ 17:
We took a page from the Saudis. They have us arming the Sunnis, so we are proxy fighting their proxy war. An we please have some of that sweet, sweet oil?
Do you suppose they had a group of west point graduate students working on this? "Okay, somebody find some way to parse this so the numbers are going down..." Rejected ideas included, "deaths on even numbered days are holding steady" and "Friday afternoon deaths in half of the provinces have decreased significantly."
How many solar panels and wind turbines could $400 billion have been spent on, creating an independent and sustainable energy future for America, instead of wasting it on stealing Iraq's oil?
America has become the bitch of the oil industries and they will ride her into the ground.
Remember when America was admired for his innovation, resourcefulness and industry?
Now, her major industrial export is death, weapons and war.
Excuse my ignorance, but how does one tell a dead Shiite from a dead Sunni?
WTF is a Freedom Institute anyway? And HTF does Bush thinks he's qualified to run one?
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