Thoughts on President Bush's January 10 speech about Iraq

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Ah, now that you comment on actual aspects ... we can make progress!

(Was it the MIT-vs.-Caltech gimmick that snapped you out of the rut?)

Nah, I've nothing but respect for Caltech. I never got into that whole tech school competition deal.

I delayed commenting on the merits of each methodology because I want to have a discussion at a higher level (the responsible way to deal with multiple, conflicting surveys/experiments) rather than the intimate details and possible shortcomings of each method as well as quantifying how much that could affect each result.

[cheesehead]

Wow!

Look how two Financial Times articles link up with a lesson from history:

First,

"Iran's president to present budget"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5718e55c-a7e...0779e2340.html

Quotes:
"President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad will on Sunday present his second annual budget to the Iranian parliament in the face of bitter criticism over his government’s economic mismanagement ..."

"The private sector is demoralised, with the Tehran stock exchange stagnant and down 20 per cent since Mr Ahmadi-Nejad became president. Investors are short of funds as foreign banks limit exposure – due in part to anxiety over US pressure on the banking system – and domestic banks bemoan low liquidity."

"The president’s critics are discussing options like parliamentary impeachment ..."

and then

"Iran tests missiles as fear of attack grows"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e8ce4b7c-aa4...00e2511c8.html

Quotes:
"Iran began military manoeuvres in its central desert on Monday, testing short-range missiles at a time of rising tension with the US and as President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad faces continuing criticism at home."

"Questioned on Sunday by reporters over the possibility of military clashes, a confident Mr Ahmadi-Nejad replied: 'What war?' But he faces criticism over both foreign policy and the budget for the Iranian year 2007-8, which he presented to parliament on Sunday.

Deputies from parliament’s economic committees quoted in Monday’s newspapers were generally sceptical of the accuracy of the budget figures given by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad. One economist told the Financial Times the budget was 'structured in such a way as to hide what looks like a growing deficit'."

---

Could it be that young George is more crafty than I've let on?

Could it be that, paralleling events during the Reagan administration, "W" is trying to scare Iran into bankrupting itself like the Soviet Union did?

Background explanation:

Reagan, by threatening to build the "Star Wars" system (even though it was actually impractical -- for instance: how do you realistically test that the software would work during an actual massive attack?), scared the Soviet Union (using that great acting talent of his) into excessive spending on its military, so excessive that it broke down the already-overloaded communist economic system.

However, Reagan's method also did considerable damage here at home, of which "W" has shown little inclination to understand or repair.

I do give Reagan credit for going along with downsizing the U.S. military (often derisively and falsely credited to Clinton by ignorant or deceptive right-wingers) once a "peace dividend" became available after end of that Cold War.

- - -

But if my speculation is correct, there's the big worry of how similar Iran's weaknesses are to the USSR's, relative to this strategy.

[philmoore]

This reply is specifically in response to George's last post about the Lancet survey.

First of all, the Iraq Body Count is not an estimate, it is more of a documentable lower bound, based on press reports but not including the Arabic press, although they claim that Arabic press reports of deaths that are not picked up in the foreign press are rare.

Secondly, the U.N.'s Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS) in 2004 was a larger survey which included almost 22,000 households. It took place earlier in the war, before an apparent increase in the civilian death rate. The ILCS estimates of excess death rates are around double the IBC numbers. However, it is important to notice that the Lancet studies are not the only estimates based on surveys. The Lancet estimates, based on smaller samples, and the ILCS estimates appear to be much farther apart than they actually are. The differences are mainly due to the assumption of a prewar estimate of 5.5 per thousand mortality on behalf of the Lancet group and a prewar estimate of 9 per thousand mortality on behalf of the ILCS group. Although both estimates sound low compared with mortality rates in the U.S., they don't seem to be so unusual for a population with such a large proportion of young people.

Luke (M29) says he has been following this issue for a long time, and appears to regard the Lancet estimate as bunk. I would be interested to know his thoughts on this.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Look how two Financial Times articles link up with a lesson from history:

BTW, that posting is not completely sincere. There are substantial differences between the USSR situation and the current Iranian situation -- rate of public drunkenness, for example.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by masser

Cheesehead, calm down. Italics, bold print, underline and exclamation points are not going to stop US troops from dying in Iraq.

Back to the topic, I found Bush's speech depressing. The follow-up by the media pundits and politicians (both left and right) further demoralized me. All those media windbags that were so gung-ho, embedded and patriotic four years ago are now so very critical, serious and doubtful of the President's plans. Politicians, left and right, also display this hypocrisy.

It is not hypocrisy.

The attitude of the "media windbags" and politicians, has LEGITIMATELY
changed on the basis of NEW INFORMATION.

We have since found that W & Co. LIED about the reasons for invading Iraq.

We have found out that the reasons W and the rest of the lying scum gave
us for invading IRAQ *WERE NOT TRUE*.

It is quite appropriate to change opinions in such circumstances.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

I unfortunately find reoccurring consistently in American discourse: that the only deaths that matter (i.e. that get mentioned) are those of Americans.

I'd really, really like if every American here questioned themselves whether they do actually care for Iraqis being killed, or any other country's citizens for that matter.
Bruno

Certainly at least some of us care. But *everyone* takes care of his/her
own family FIRST.

However, the well being of American citizens is rightly the concern of
Americans. The well being of citizens of other countries is rightly their own concern.

I certainly put the well being of my immediate family above all others.
There is nothing wrong with this. I put the well being of my compatriots
above that of citizens of other countries.

This is not to say that I ignore the well being of others. But it is quite
proper to have priorities. Everyone prioritizes.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

George,

I'm more than ready to agree that, as a foreigner, I can't fully understand all of the subtleties of American politics. But regarding the ending of your last post (if Bush was lying about the reasons to go to war, why didn't the Democrats point it out to everyone?) I'd ask you: had the Democrats done so, wouldn't they be risking being seen as "unpatriotic", as "anti-American" and so on? Specially because, thanks in part to the media, most Americans were in the mood for a war due to the psychological reactions Cheesehead has described?



I think the most eloquent example that it is impossible for the US to stabilize Iraq - as it is the most important destabilizing force there - is Afghanistan. American occupation there is a year and a half older than in Iraq; not an inch of progress has been made towards changing Afghanistan from a fundamentalist theocracy into a liberal democracy. Taliban still howls from Pakistan; the Afghan groups whom the US has helped into government base their power on drug dealing; there's not the slightest amount of respect to human rights -- I refer here to Abdul Rahman's case. That is, Afghanistan has only changed from a US-hostile fundamentalist theocracy to a US-backed fundamentalist theocracy (a bit like Pakistan, in fact).

So, why on Earth would the Iraqi case be any different?? Does it seem any different so far?

Bruno

Common sense is so refreshing!!!

I agree. I see no hope of the U.S. establishing a stable government in
either Iraq or Afghanistan. There are too many people holding on to
too many hatreds.

[cheesehead]

My subconscious has come through again, this time pointing out that I botched part of my earlier reply to Prime95's accusation re: "reality".

Let's review.

I posted:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I missed seeing where brunoparga used the 650,000 figure, but that figure probably comes from last October's report by a team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists:

... followed by a quotation of parts of the Washington Post article, in which I boldfaced certain passages.

After that quotation, in reply to an M29 response to a garo posting:

Originally Posted by M29

When you cite that figure, it makes it absolutely impossible to take anything you write seriously.

I wrote:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

M29, read it (noting especially the parts I bolded) and weep. This is reality, not fantasy, not "spin", not propaganda.

Note that I wrote, "read it (noting especially the parts I bolded)", so the antecedent of "it" was my quotation from the article, which has "parts I bolded", not the figure 650,000 (or 655,000), which doesn't have any such part. What had I bolded? Passages which I considered to reinforce the scientific validity of the report -- not the figure 650,000 (or 655,000).

Then I continued, "This is reality ...". There is no indication whatsoever, no reason to think, that the antecedent of "this" has switched from my article quotation to the figure 650,000 (or 655,000)!
Clearly my "reality" designation referred to my partial quotations from the article (or it could be construed to refer to the article itself or to the study).

My purpose in writing that was to emphasize to M29 that the study from which garo's 650,000 figure came was "reality" (and I wouldn't have minded a conclusion that I was referring to the article or the whole of my quotations from it as "reality").

But to construe my purpose as having been to declare only the bare figure to be "reality" is unsupportable

- -

So, how does Prime95 justify:

Originally Posted by Prime95

True to form, you've taken the bigger number and run with it. You've declared it "reality".

? I didn't declare the number "reality". What I declared "reality" was the report ... or, one might reasonably conclude, the Washington Post article or my quotations from that article, but not the number itself.

Then Prime95 continued:

Originally Posted by Prime95

Now what would an emotional, irrational Bush-hater do with the information. He would immediately conclude that 650,000 died simply because it is the biggest number. This would be done independent of the relative merits of the studies. All reasons to believe the lower numbers would be marginalized. All reasons to believe the larger number would be accentuated. Then the Bush-hater will phrase his question thusly: "Given that it is proven that 650,000 Iraqis have died in the Iraq war, how can you possibly think the Iraq war was worth the human toll?"

True to form, you've taken the bigger number and run with it. You've declared it "reality".

I think that "true to form" can reasonably be concluded to be a reference to his preceding portrayal of "an emotional, irrational Bush-hater", so that Prime95 is implying (consistent with his subsequent postings) that someone who declared "the bigger number" to be "reality" is an emotional, irrational Bush-hater.

But I did not declare that number to be "reality". Therefore, once again, using the valid logic (A=>B)=>(not-B=>not-A) that I previously explained, by Prime95's own criteria I am not an emotional, irrational Bush-hater -- because I did not do something Prime95 unconditionally declares that an emotional, irrational Bush-hater would do.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I see no hope of the U.S. establishing a stable government in
either Iraq or Afghanistan. There are too many people holding on to
too many hatreds.

I only partly agree with you and Bruno here. Regarding Bruno's point about "no progress in Afghanistan", I strongly disagree - the Taliban may be "howling" from various clan-run border hinterlands (quite possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, according to the latest news reports - but definitely with coordinated assistance of some type), but they no longer run the country, you don't see veil-less women getting summarily executed in broad daylight, girls banned from schools, or cultural legacies not belonging to the Islamic faith being destroyed. I'd call that progress. The two major problems? 1) As Bob points out, deeply entrenched religious and clan hatreds, and 2) The U.S. has been a wee bit "distracted" by its further "adventures in spreading democracy" in Iraq.

Also, Bob's point about "too many people holding on to too many hatreds" is somewhat contrary to Bruno's assertion about the U.S. being the major destabilizing force in Iraq - yes, our toppling of the Baathist regime took the lid off the religious/ethnic pressure cooker - but don't forget that the decades of Baathist repression of the shiites and Kurds certainly had built up a lot of pressure there, on top of ancient and ongoing feuds - but the bloodletting was bound to happen anyway, given the depths of the hatreds involved. If the Americans were the major focus of the hatred, then why is the vast bulk of the ongoing slaughter very precisely along internecine lines? The American presence at this point is the only thing keeping full-scale civil war from breaking out, but at the same time that very fact makes the Americans a convenient political target for the various Iraqi factions. If the Americans left tomorrow, you think peace would break out? No, I didn't think so. Of course, multiple major strategic blunders by the U.S. in the cnduct of the war (including starting it in the first place, on at best extremey dubious pretenses) have not helped at all.

p.s.: Cheesehead, while I appreciate your contributions, could you *please* ease up on the gory after-the-fact semantic dissections-and-further-analysis-in-excrutciating-detail of your and George's exchanges? They make my head hurt, and it seems neither of you is convincing the other at all. Thanks.

[garo]

Divide et Imperia.

[M29]

Originally Posted by philmoore

Luke (M29) says he has been following this issue for a long time, and appears to regard the Lancet estimate as bunk. I would be interested to know his thoughts on this.

Sorry, been busy... coming up for air...

Not so mach as bunk, but highly suspicious. I am oftentimes a cynic, I admit. But I held my tongue until I read the IBC's comments on the Lancer report, here: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php

The IBC politely writes "....the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data." then procede to slash away from there.

I suspect that many of us are old enough to remember the reporting during Vietnam. For you youngsters, during Veitnam the military isuued daily (daily?) body counta reporting the dead on each side. The numbers were on the nightly news and the front pages, often similar to sports scoring boxes.

The anti-war movement was highly critical of the military for issuing these reports.

But today's anti-war movement maintains and publicizes the numbers. I also believe that they exagerate the numbers. For example, less than 2700 US soldiers have died in Iraq due to hostile fire and less than 1000 have lost limbs, but those are not the numbers we hear.

Yes, of course that is a lot of lives and limbs.