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Nobody to match Bush
- Thread starter aphexcoil
- Start date
Quote from Doubter:
msfe - You always know it all. How many?
don´t know - ask Wolfowitz/Freddie N.
http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
In the Sunday book pages of the Strib was an article about the women of Afghanistan. It was discussing the new-found freedoms of women in the post-Taliban society, about girls queuing for school after years of oppression. Quote: âNo matter what oneâs political misgivings about the war might be, the sight of those girls was a thrilling shock.â
That sentence stuck in my head, and made me think back to October 01, to all the discontent over the Afghan campaign. Weâve forgotten what that was like - the marches in Europe, the predictions of mass casualties, the accusations of empire-building, how it was all about (cue Twilight Zone theme) an oil pipeline, how it would become a quagmire, how it was a quagmire, how we should have used international law to bring OBL to justice. It was the dress rehearsal for Iraq. The same blind sputtering fury; the same protests with Bush = Hitler posters and giant mocking puppets; the same inability to accept that a byproduct of the campaign would be a freer society for the very people the protesters supposedly cared about.
Any mass executions at the Kabul soccer stadium recently? No?
Wonder why.
That book-review quote says it all. We have to honor those who had âpolitical misgivings,â because dissent is a virtue too pure to be stained by truth. Nevermind that the end result of those âpolitical misgivingsâ would have been another generation of Afghan daughters beaten with bats for winking at a cute guy. Those âpolitical misgivingsâ would have assured that any young Afghan woman who stepped outside her house and asked to be educated would be whipped with 2 X 4s by the Committee for Flaming Theocracy Gynophobe Committee.
But that canât be said. People who were wrong for the right reasons will always get a pass.
Jim Lileks
___________________________________
At least the "very few" that weren't killed are a little better off, maybe.
That sentence stuck in my head, and made me think back to October 01, to all the discontent over the Afghan campaign. Weâve forgotten what that was like - the marches in Europe, the predictions of mass casualties, the accusations of empire-building, how it was all about (cue Twilight Zone theme) an oil pipeline, how it would become a quagmire, how it was a quagmire, how we should have used international law to bring OBL to justice. It was the dress rehearsal for Iraq. The same blind sputtering fury; the same protests with Bush = Hitler posters and giant mocking puppets; the same inability to accept that a byproduct of the campaign would be a freer society for the very people the protesters supposedly cared about.
Any mass executions at the Kabul soccer stadium recently? No?
Wonder why.
That book-review quote says it all. We have to honor those who had âpolitical misgivings,â because dissent is a virtue too pure to be stained by truth. Nevermind that the end result of those âpolitical misgivingsâ would have been another generation of Afghan daughters beaten with bats for winking at a cute guy. Those âpolitical misgivingsâ would have assured that any young Afghan woman who stepped outside her house and asked to be educated would be whipped with 2 X 4s by the Committee for Flaming Theocracy Gynophobe Committee.
But that canât be said. People who were wrong for the right reasons will always get a pass.
Jim Lileks
___________________________________
At least the "very few" that weren't killed are a little better off, maybe.
Quote from msfe:
don´t know - ask Wolfowitz/Freddie N.
http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Big surprise: msfe links to two sites associated with Dr. Marc Herold, whose triple-counting innumeracy has made him and his followers laughingstocks. His and "bodycount.org"'s methods often insure that guerillas are counted as civilians, that no distinction is made between casualties inflicted by guerillas or indigenous soldiers on their own people.
Just check out the mission statements and the staff bios on those sites, and you'll see how objective they are.
There were undoubtedly many innocents killed as a result of the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The numbers were also undoubtedly far fewer than the innocents killed as a matter of normal policy by the former regimes in those countries, or the innocents who would die indirectly due to those regimes' misrule, or the numbers in other countries who would have been at risk if those regimes had been allowed to remain in place.
Exactly, and what are the count of civilians killed since the wars ended. Compare that to the "normal killing" of civilians before the wars and you have a truer picture of what the conditions really are.
A very good measure is the flow of refugees in or out of a country to gauge grassroots perception of what the conditions are. Last month there was an inflow of 10,000 Iraqis to Iraq. causing a housing and building boom. Also Pakistan shut down a large refugee camp so the refugees must have left. Probably for home now that conditions have improved at home. The Jordan refugee camp never was occupied much so the 10, 000 returnees came from other places where they had been living. If so they probably weren't fleeing the conditions of refugee camps but seeing things much safer in Iraq with SH out of power.
The refugees are voting with their feet and they have more to lose if they are wrong than any lefty theorizer.
A very good measure is the flow of refugees in or out of a country to gauge grassroots perception of what the conditions are. Last month there was an inflow of 10,000 Iraqis to Iraq. causing a housing and building boom. Also Pakistan shut down a large refugee camp so the refugees must have left. Probably for home now that conditions have improved at home. The Jordan refugee camp never was occupied much so the 10, 000 returnees came from other places where they had been living. If so they probably weren't fleeing the conditions of refugee camps but seeing things much safer in Iraq with SH out of power.
The refugees are voting with their feet and they have more to lose if they are wrong than any lefty theorizer.
Allies 'delaying return of Iraqi refugees'
A senior Iranian official has claimed US and Britain are delaying the return of thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled to Iran during Saddam Hussein's reign.
Ahmad Hosseini, Iran's director general for refugee issues, says it means his country has had to postpone a voluntary repatriation programme for 200,000 Iraqis living within its borders.
Speaking before a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Hosseini said: "We're facing problems created by the occupying powers that prevent us from returning these refugees."
He added: "The occupying powers believe it's not the proper time for all Iraqis who reside abroad to go back," but would not elaborate further. He quoted UNHCR as saying repatriation was impossible until the US and Britain agree to it.
A senior Iranian official has claimed US and Britain are delaying the return of thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled to Iran during Saddam Hussein's reign.
Ahmad Hosseini, Iran's director general for refugee issues, says it means his country has had to postpone a voluntary repatriation programme for 200,000 Iraqis living within its borders.
Speaking before a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Hosseini said: "We're facing problems created by the occupying powers that prevent us from returning these refugees."
He added: "The occupying powers believe it's not the proper time for all Iraqis who reside abroad to go back," but would not elaborate further. He quoted UNHCR as saying repatriation was impossible until the US and Britain agree to it.