PZ Myers. 2005 Jan 31. As requested, my statement on the Iraqi elections. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/as_requested_my_statement_on_the_iraqi_elections/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, January 31, 2005
As requested, my statement on the Iraqi elections
I am being berated in the comments for not speaking out about the Iraqi elections. Strange Doctrines is noticing the same phenomenon. I guess some right-wingers feel the need for some appreciation for their great victory, and my silence has put a pall over their triumph.
I am very, very sorry, Mr Wingnut. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
I'm actually happy to see the Iraqis get a chance to vote. After all, GW Bush initially opposed letting the Iraqis elect their own leaders, preferring to see his devious little puppet Chalabi appointed to run the country, and the elections yesterday were actually at the behest of the UN…so the event was really a bit of a poke in the eye to ol' George.
I also think it's only fair. We blew up their country, wrecked their infrastructure, tortured their citizens, killed many tens of thousands, have occupied the nation and are still bombing and killing them, and have fueled generations of hatred, and to pay them back, we let them vote. Yay us. Can we call it even now?
And look at what we've accomplished! We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars, lost over 1400 men and women, had over 10,000 wounded, alienated our allies, bled the treasury, taught our citizens to mistrust the promises of the military…and we're still not done. Our government is talking about expanding our investment of blood and treasure in Iraq. Hell, yeah, I'm glad they got an election—when I sink that much cash into the midway, I want my kewpie doll.
So, sure, it's a good thing Iraq had an election.
The real question is whether it was worth it. I do not think so. The right-wingers may also want others to affirm that this election vindicates their immoral war, their criminal policies, the waste and destruction and grief it has brought us and Iraq. But no, it does not.
Crooked Timber is getting the same strange demands, as are many other lefty sites. Weird. Aren't the wingnuts getting tired of putting up the same old "Mission Accomplished" sign over and over again, and pointing to it in triumph?
I'm also a bit dismayed to see our vote-or-starve policy in Iraq. That rather undercuts the great turnout results, I would think. I wonder if the Republicans will propose similar conditions on welfare for our next election?
Posted by PZ Myers on 01/31 at 06:48 PM
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- BTW out of that 10,000 WIA ... We've seen the traumatic amputations and horrible burns. What we haven't seen are the rumored ward after ward of the victims of serious head injury. Word is there are tons, from total vegetables who will die sooner or later, to guys who can't feed themselves, can't talk, don't know who they are, can't function above the scattered-shallow stage. Basically like serious stroke victims, but in their teens and twenties mostly. I hear it's a real horror show.
- But Iraq had an election!
-
Do we even know who won yet?
I wouldn't be calling this a victory for our cause if an anti-American government was elected.#: Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on 01/31 at 07:13 PM -
LOL ... Yes it is a slap-happy warm fuzzy victory for all that neoconia stands for eh?
I'll tell you, this is it. This is our last, hail Mary, long bomb toss with 12 seconds left on the clock chance, to get things right enough to skedaddle the hell out of there before it crashes and burns with our men and women stuck in the shit.
Except that according to Neocon ideology/dream world 101, we weren't going to ever leave at all. In fact, they've already started building something like a dozen large fire bases out in the middle of nowhereville desert ... many of these opcenters are nicely placed in the center of a triangle with Ghawar, Al-Aberdeen, and Rumalia, forming the points. The three largest producing reserves of oil on earth. What a coinky-dink huh? -
And elections worked out great nearly 4 decades ago in Viet Nam!
(from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/2335/87390)
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
...
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.
Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.
Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.
The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.
American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.
Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.
Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.
#: Posted by on 01/31 at 07:19 PM -
Let me ask you 3 geniuses a question:
1. Do you think the majority of Iraquis, who braved terrorist threats to their lives yesterday to vote, agree more with (a) your view of Iraq or (b)President Bush's view?
Pick one (a) or (b) without all this editorializing nonsense.#: Posted by on 01/31 at 07:21 PM -
I can't wait until they tear the head off of the George W. Bush statue that they're going to build.
And they thought the removal of the Hussein regime was liberating...#: Posted by on 01/31 at 07:22 PM -
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. I guess our friends on the right have so thoroughly bought into all their cretinous rhetoric about liberals and leftists being a bunch of anti-American freedom-hating terrorist lovers that the actually believe we don't want to see democracy succeed in Iraq.
Another point worth making is that, well, OK, so far they've voted. We don't know what the results are, or if the election was fair, or if a legitimately democratic government will ever be allowed to take power in Iraq. Given the track record of the Bush administration in Iraq so far, I think we're justified in putting our jubilation on hold until we see what the actual outcome of this election is going to be.#: Posted by Stephen Stralka on 01/31 at 07:23 PM -
No candidates were even named on the ballots. What kind of election doesn't even feature specific candidates? This is clearly not a Glorious Day for Democracy. It is at best a step - possibly in the right general direction but even that's not certain. The triumphalism coming from politicians and the media reminds me of a now-iconic picture of Dubya in a flight suit below a sign reading "Mission Accomplished". Yeah. Right.
Historion Juan Cole sums it up nicely here:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/mixed-story-im-just-appalled-by.html#: Posted by on 01/31 at 07:23 PM - Well ti's different from Vietnam, although I understand the lesson and your point. The Shi'a defintely do want more self determintion. Hell, given the shit they've been through I can't blame them. But while they all seem like equally fanatical religious lunatics to us, among the Sunni Muslims, the Shi'a are considered bat-shit crazy heretics. A lower form of life, an embaressment to the 'true Islam'. OBL would love for us to go an hit Iran next. They're his biggest concern now that we've taken out Saddam for him. So far things have been going OBL's way. We've left him more or less alone for almost two years now, and gotten bogged down opening up recruiting stations for Al Qeada in Iraq. But if he sees us coming to our sense, even a little bit, and foresees that when everything is said and done the Shi'as will be better off than before. He may read that correctly, and attack us again, bending heaven and hell to frame Iran as complicit, in the hope we'll go off half cocked again. That's what I'd do.
- Dennis I think it depends on which Iraqi you ask. But most of them are so freaked out of their minds and terrified of being killed in their sleep, they'd probably blab whatever they thought the people holding the camera wanted to hear.
-
Dennis Stark: Huh? You're asking people to express their opinions, but without any editorializing?
Well, even though I'm not one of the three geniuses you initially addressed, my opinion is this: I can't pretend to know how the majority of Iraqis see their country. However, to the extent that I myself see it as a place that has been a complete basket case for the almost two years that we've been there, and President Bush sees it as a rosy wonderland, I strongly suspect that the majority of Iraqis would incline more to my view than to his.
This is partly because I've tried to gather as much information as I can about what's actually going on there, including trying to find out what actual Iraqis are saying, whereas Bush's view of Iraq has been formed by sticking his fingers in his ears and going "Yah! Yah! Yah! I can't hear you!" whenever someone tries to tell him something he doesn't like.
That is, I don't think the majority of Iraqis are quite as willfully ignorant as the majority of Americans.#: Posted by Stephen Stralka on 01/31 at 07:37 PM -
Except for Darksyde (who at least answered the question), I have never seen a bigger bunch of Pussies in my life!
Truthfully, I am gone now.#: Posted by on 01/31 at 07:39 PM -
Too bad Stark's gone (not really.)
Because this was written for people like him.
You do not own their courage.
The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to justify lies about Saddam and al-Qaeda, so you don't own their courage, Stephen Hayes. They did not stand in line to justify lies about weapons of mass destruction, or to justify the artful dodginess of Ahmad Chalabi, so you don't own their courage, Judith Miller. They did not stand in line to provide pretty pictures for vapid suits to fawn over, so you don't own their courage, Howard Fineman, and neither do you, Chris Matthews.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line in order to justify the dereliction of a kept press. They did not stand in line to make right the wrongs born out of laziness, cowardice, and the easy acceptance of casual lying. They did not stand in line for anyone's grand designs. They did not stand in line to play pawns in anyone's great game, so you don't own their courage, you guys in the PNAC gallery.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to provide American dilettantes with easy rhetorical weapons, so you don't own their courage, Glenn Reynolds, with your cornpone McCarran act out of the bowels of a great university that deserves a helluva lot better than your sorry hide. They did not stand in line to be the instruments of tawdry vilification and triumphal hooting from bloghound commandos. They did not stand in line to become useful cudgels for cheap American political thuggery, so you don't own their courage, Freeper Nation.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to justify a thousand mistakes that have led to more than a thousand American bodies. They did not stand in line for the purpose of being a national hypnotic for a nation not even their own. They did not stand in line for being the last casus belli standing. They did not stand in line on behalf of people's book deals, TV spots, honorarium checks, or tinpot celebrity. They did not stand in line to be anyone's talking points.
You do not own their courage.
We all should remember that.
- Charles Pierce#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 01/31 at 07:51 PM -
Hmm. Mr Stark asks his question at 8:21, checks back 18 minutes later, decides that not enough people have answered him, and stomps off in a snit. I mean, really...it's not as if a zillion people have had a chance to respond. Traffic isn't that high here. I don't even check the site that frequently, and I get an email notice every time there is a new comment, and I didn't even see the thread between his demand and his tantrum.
As for the answer: I guarantee you that the majority of Iraqis do not see this situation eye-to-eye with GW Bush. Imagine that we were invaded and occupied and bombed by, say, France; would we then agree with Chirac's view of our country if he then graciously allowed us to elect a parliament? -
LOL... it doesn't mean we're engaged Dennis. I just happened to have this thread up because I've been dealing with the science challenged all day, elsewhere, and PZ's place is like a welcome oasis of rationality for the nonsense weary.
I could just about believe Bush was flipped out of his gourd after 9-11 and got taken like most of the rest of us if someone wanted to make that case. Plus he lacked the requisite experience to seek dissenting opinion on Iraq, mixed in with a Freudian issue I won't bother to speculate on. Or he could have been the ringleader for all I know. We'll have to wait for the inevitable books to come out, years from now, as each of the Junta gets paid a million bucks to point the finger at someone else and blame the whole shitty mess on the other guy.
But when they dug up a GDCE rotor bearing sleeve from some guys fucking garden and presented that as a nuke threat, I damn near busted out laughing in tears ... that we'd been suckered into feeding tens of thousands of men, women, and children into a meat grinder for that shit.
I'm a hard-nosed, pragmatic, conservative dick. I really don't care about the Iraqis, especially when we have an enemy at large who has received the OK from his nutball theocratic shit-head religious leadership to nuke us, and is making videos promising to attack us until we collapse economically. If the Iraqis want democracy they could have fought for it themselves, like everyone else had to.
This 'let's save the Iraqis from saddam and pay for the whole shebang by going in hock to the Communist Chinese to the tune of half a trillion dollars ... cuz we're such nice folks' is utter bullshit. It's an ad hoc nervous justification made up after no WMD's were found. It's something I'd expect to hear from a goatee sporting adolescent handing out tickets to a green peace rally in the parking lot of whole foods. Not something I'd expect to hear flow from the mind of anyone remotely conservarive. Thats what Bush is reduced to; a caricature of a liberal, idealistic, hippified 60's dufus, saving the world. -
Thats what Bush is reduced to; a caricature of a liberal, idealistic, hippified 60’s dufus, saving the world.
I wouldn't even say that. The doofus wouldn't have been nearly has sanguine about feeding soldiers and Iraqis into a meatgrinder of a colonial guerrilla war.#: Posted by paperwight on 01/31 at 08:11 PM -
If anti-American groups win in Iraq and the cultists who hijacked our government cry fraud based on exit polling, I'm going to laugh hysterically.
Because I hate crying, man, it stuffs up my sinuses and swells up the inside of my nose and I can't breathe.#: Posted by on 01/31 at 08:45 PM -
Two words: cautious optimism.
As for the question of "was the war worth it?" I think it's worth reminding everyone that some things are too big to judge. Maybe this war isn't one of them, but some things are.#: Posted by on 01/31 at 08:45 PM -
Also, this business of "you didn't blog my pet lizard, so U R BAD OMG LOL" is ridiculous. Bloggers aren't obligated to blog; this is what makes blogging so liberating.
#: Posted by on 01/31 at 08:58 PM
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Blog my guinea pig! Here's a picture to get your blogging gears rolling!
#: Posted by on 01/31 at 09:25 PM -
No, do mine!
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 01/31 at 09:52 PM -
No candidates were even named on the ballots. What kind of election doesn’t even feature specific candidates? This is clearly not a Glorious Day for Democracy. It is at best a step - possibly in the right general direction but even that’s not certain. The triumphalism coming from politicians and the media reminds me of a now-iconic picture of Dubya in a flight suit below a sign reading “Mission Accomplished”. Yeah. Right.
Well, in many democracies elections are party-based. That's how orthodox proportional representation works - you vote for parties, not individuals. The difference between that and Iraq is that in, say, Israel, everybody knows which candidates are in which parties and what their position is, whereas in Iraq people only know who leads each list.
And by the way, in case you wonder how come 70% voted, the answer is that the USA threatened to cut off food rationing for non-voters. I'm beginning to understand Reagan's anti-welfare tirades...
Dennis, how about you ask the 100,000 Iraqis your government murdered to achieve that? They don't care about freedom. They would just care about living.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 12:06 AM -
Chris Clarke said,
No, do mine!
I agree, Chris. That is a nice liver you've got there!
We do need more posts that focus on livers.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 12:16 AM -
I'm staring at the picture of A's guinea pig. I thought they were small critters, that you could pretty much be held in one hand. Maybe I'm looking at the picture wrong, but that looks like one big honkin' guinea pig.
Chris, your pig/liver looks like a baby; is it? I've been considering adopting one or two guinea pigs. - Did you know that in some countries, guinea pigs are considered quite tasty?
-
Crooked Timber is getting the same strange demands
Yeah, and we even had a bunch of posts about the election. But I suppose the facts never stopped anyone.
Also, that guinea pig is the size of a dog. What the hell are you feeding it? -
Jackie has a steady diet of low-calorie pellets, hay, vegetables, and unrequited love for the girls next door. He also steals his (blind, deaf, toothless) brother's special food.
Baby guinea pigs are hamster-sized. Adults are usually 2-3.5 pounds. Isabel, if you're interested in adopting guinea pigs, be sure to read http://www.guinealynx.info and http://www.cavyspirit.com and http://www.cavycages.com which have better health information than most vets and better housing and care info than any pet store.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 08:50 AM -
Harley is getting on five years old. He's a big ol' guy. The camera angle in that shot is a bit deceptive.
PZ, in the last two places we've lived we've had Peruvian neighbors who've greeted the series of guinea pigs we've had with delight and offers of recipes.
Isabel, if you are in fact considering adopting a cavy, interview the parents. The last few we've adopted have suffered congenital dental problems that have seriously shortened their lives. Harley himself has come back from the brink twice already, through careful ministrations, syringe feeding, and his outsized will to live. There's also the expense to consider: tooth trimming is not cheap. Harley has run up about a two thousand dollar cumulative vet tab. (He's a dear thing, and we don't really mind the money: the main consideration is his comfort, and the last episode was hard enough on him that the next will involve a Difficult Decision.)#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/01 at 09:02 AM -
What kind of congenital dental problems?
Einstein (Jackie's brother, a lethal white) has no incisors and has to have his teeth trimmed every month. He's quite friendly and happy, though, except when his teeth are very bad. And luckily, he's in love with his syringe and grabs it whenever it's near him, so syringe-feeding is much easier than it would be otherwise.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 09:09 AM -
Dennis will be back, of course. Not just because he's done it before, but because his kind always does. He's desperate to convince others of the "momentousness" of the elections because he wants validation. If he can truly believe that we went into Iraq out of symapthy for the poor, benighted Ay-rabs suffering under Saddam, solely to bring them democracy, then this becomes a clean victory for America! Hooray!
Except we remember how this war was sold for two years, and humanitarianism never entered into it; at least, not until all the threats about "WMDs" and "terrorism" and "imminent danger" turned out to be as vaporous as the contents of the president's skull. And we know that this war was an utter failure: a failure of intelligence, a failure of leadership, a failure of basic morality and honesty. It has destroyed our standing in the world community and cost an already-strained economy billions of borrowed dollars.
But the wingnuts can't accept that America could possibly be wrong in this -- that they could be wrong, could have been lied to, could have been so blind. So they go around trying to convince others that the elections are the sole justification (while carefully avoiding any mention of all those other nations suffering under brutal dictatorships). And they get pissed, as Stark did, when we turn out not to be as dull and gullible, with memories that are not nearly so malleable. Somewhere deep inside, they know they've been sold a bill of goods, but they can't admit it -- all they can do to make themselves feel better is to get others to swallow the same horseshit. It's understandable, really: the same human nature that says "Hey, that was a great practical joke you played on me -- now let's play it on someone else!" The same sort of wounded pride that can be salved by knowing that others are as easily led.
But we're not buying it, Dennis. Sorry. You'll have to find validation elsewhere. Back to wingnut land with you, where America is always right and Bush shines the purest light of God from his holy asshole.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 09:09 AM -
"Vote or starve?" If the poor could have their basic needs met just by voting, Republicans would be agin' it.
#: Posted by on 02/01 at 09:09 AM
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A - malocclusion, malformation, repeated breakage, and in Harley's case a potentially crippling erosion of the mandible joint.
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/01 at 09:45 AM
-
Reed Cartwright said:
Do we even know who won yet?
Yes, Mr. Cartwright. Yes we do.
Freedom won.
Liberty came in second.
Apple pie and cute baby kitties tied for a distant third.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 10:08 AM - Awww, cute baby kitties in third? What a loss for the forces of kawai.
-
PZ Meyers wrote:
"Imagine that we were invaded and occupied and bombed by, say, France; would we then agree with Chirac’s view of our country if he then graciously allowed us to elect a parliament?"
Considering they'd be, presumably, intent on dethroning Bush, I think I could gloss over any other differences we might have.
... this is how insane the past 4 years have made me. I'm not even sure whether I'm joking or not...#: Posted by on 02/01 at 01:01 PM -
I wonder it there's a clinical term for longing for invasion by the French? Would it be saner (or would it be less sane?) to prefer invasion by someone better at invasions?
#: Posted by on 02/01 at 01:07 PM
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In response to Dennis Stark, who asks if Iraqis agree with PZ's view or Bush's.
Dennis, can you possibly be more full of yourself. Are there no third opinions or fourth or fifth. Isn't it possible they hate what Bush has done to their country, still are hopeful that things will be better after elections? Isn't it possible they have come to terms with the realities of the war, and blame no one, but just want to move ahead?
The point is that you want the world to confirm to your view. Have you stepped in the shoes of an Iraqi? Except perhaps to think that "hmmm well, if I were an Iraqi, I would love to vote than get killed in Saddam's rape house." Open your eyes, things are never black-and-white. You know what I really respect about America and Americans? I was born and brought up in India, and I am a minority and alien here, but still I found people accepted me as a person. That is the greatest thing. Freedom and liberty are not meaningless words spoken from the top of podium, they are lived everyday by Americans.
The elections are a start... a hopeful start, a good start. They never are an end-all, be-all of democracy, just an essential step in the democratic process. And we all, left or right, Americans or French, Arabs or Europeans, ALL of us hope (or rather should hope) that for the sake of Iraqis, these elections mark a start of a peaceful era. These elections are an indication of hope not victory, of a start not an end, of opportunities not accomplishments; and they are also an indication of new challenges that come with opportunities. So, lets all hope (and some of us pray
) for all Iraqis and their future.
Peace! -
PZ, in your opinion, how much better was it to maintain status quo in Iraq. Yes, 100,000 Iraqis have died since invasion, but weren't the sanctions causing malnutrition and hardships to ordinary Iraqis? Was status quo really that much better than invasion to the Iraqis?
[These aren't rhetorical, but honest questions] -
Once upon a time I was involved in a moonlight symposium on a distant beach of Empire. As the clouds rearranged themselves over the Southern Cross on the far side of the lagoon (and our BACs increased) we discussed a proper reaction should a regiment of Indian paratroopers land on the tarmac. Myself and the platoon commanders felt that, with only a slightly reinforced company, the only thing would be to conduct a bayonet assault in dress blues. There was much concerted nodding of heads until the commander of the P-3 squadron wryly suggested we should just bluff, then offer to surrender "in exchange for a better grade of curry powder while in captivity."
So, with that thought in mind, what would we choose as a sufficient reward for surrender? Endless brie? A bottle of Nuits-St. Georges for all? Sophie Marceau movies every night until dawn?#: Posted by on 02/01 at 03:21 PM -
PZ, I've been enjoying your site for a while now, and hadn’t yet commented. When you cited the food-for-vote controversy, I was intrigued. And a little skeptical, considering that both sides (U.S. and THEM) are prone to high hyperbole & propaganda. I did some research, and only the fringe news outlets are reporting the votes-for-food rumors as anything but rumors. Although I wouldn’t put it past our administration to spread those rumors themselves, it seems more likely that they stem from the fact that the United Nations food rations database was used as a tool for compiling a data registration list. This suggestion was made by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a Shiite spiritual leader. According to a November article in the New York Times:
U.S. officials said they were insisting on indirect elections of some form because no voter rolls existed for full national elections and a voter registration list could not be compiled in the coming year. But Talabani said Sistani had suggested Thursday morning that the United Nations food rations registry could be used as the basis of a voter registration. No census has been taken in Iraq since 1998, so that list stands as the most complete count of Iraq's roughly 25 million citizens.
The article, as reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, can be found here: http://www.iht.com/articles/119500.html
In such a circus of misinformation, it’s a small point, but even *if* our own propaganda machine used and was delighted by the rumors, the basis of the rumors is most likely people’s misunderstanding of why their voter registration was tied to their rations.
Then again, even if we didn’t think of it ourselves, maybe we saw a great way to turn Sistani’s suggestion to facilitate direct elections into a great new way to bully the voting-citizenry.
I don’t really have a political point. I just think that when we’re begging for scraps at the table of truth, rumors can’t be taken out of hand.#: Posted by on 02/01 at 06:14 PM -
Who really cares who gets credit for this, 25 million Iraqis are now on their way to freedom. We should all be happy for the Iraqi people and help them anyway we can to make sure their freedom and liberty endures. And we should take lesson from this that sometimes; there is something worth fighting for. I recommend two documentaries: “Voices of Iraq” and “Buried in the Sand”, for insight into life as an Iraqi. These films will open your eyes to whether this war was worth it or not. Bye-bye Saddam Hussein, may your soul burn in hell. George Bush, quite possibly the best president since Lincoln, YOU FUCKIN’ ROCK!!! And to think I voted for Gore...
#: Posted by on 02/01 at 09:11 PM
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George Bush, quite possibly the best president since Lincoln, YOU FUCKIN’ ROCK!!! And to think I voted for Gore...
I call (a) ridiculous troll on the whole statement, and (b) absolute bullshit on the last part.
I wonder how many Americans would have sent their sons and daughters to war for "Iraqi elections for a transitional parliamentary government to draft a constitution to overrule the rabid free market and expropriation edicts left by the US proconsul, which constitution will then govern the next election of a real Iraqi government at some future date."
I think it's to the Iraqis credit that they stood in line for that. Americans can't even be bothered to vote in real elections.
And remember, wartrolls, you don't own the Iraqis' courage. They own their courage.#: Posted by paperwight on 02/01 at 09:35 PM -
Just remember that there are over 100,000 U.S. soldiers over there, protecting the Iraqis as they voted. Would all of them voted if they had no protection?
#: Posted by WolverineTom on 02/01 at 09:42 PM
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All I want to know is if you genii support the position of Dennis Stark, Dennis Moore of the Iraqi people.
Answer a, b or c.
And then, if I could, 100 words each on the topic: "Freedom is on the march. Where is it marching to?"
For extra credit, a short essay on the topic: "When freedom is on the march, does the third amendment apply to freedom? The Geneva Convention?"#: Posted by on 02/01 at 10:16 PM -
"We should all be happy for the Iraqi people and help them anyway we can to make sure their freedom and liberty endures. And we should take lesson from this that sometimes; there is something worth fighting for. "
I'm confused...
what does freedom actually mean?
(And is it more or less important than running water?)#: Posted by on 02/02 at 01:17 AM -
Call it freedom when a liberal democratic party wins and stays in power without a coup. Unfortunately, a necessary condition for that is the existence of a liberal democratic party in Iraq, whereas the parties there that have clout are stooges of either some fundamentalist sect or the USA, which has shown time and time again that it doesn't give a damn about the rights of third-worlders.
In the real world, liberty is not defined according to what Bush calls liberty, but according to the level of civil liberties people have. Gender equality in Iraq is worse than under Saddam, in law as well as in practice. Freedom of speech is nonexistent due to all of the groups out there to terrorize Iraqis (and that includes the US Armed Forces). Freedom of religion is a temporary thing - when the fundamentalists gain power, it'll evaporate.
PZ, in your opinion, how much better was it to maintain status quo in Iraq. Yes, 100,000 Iraqis have died since invasion, but weren’t the sanctions causing malnutrition and hardships to ordinary Iraqis? Was status quo really that much better than invasion to the Iraqis?
My name isn't PZ, but I'll weigh in. You should know is that 100,000 is only the number of Iraqis killed by US forces. Terrorist groups have killed many more who would've stayed alive under Saddam. The sanctions did indeed cause massive malnutrition, but the solution that the USA should've followed was to abolish the sanctions, not to invade the country. The sanctions strengthened Saddam by weakening the people's ability to resist him the way their Romanian and Polish brethren did.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 03:07 AM -
Paperwight,
Hey, don’t be trolling on my trolldom. What’s your problem? Can’t take an opposing viewpoint? Besides I’m not a troll. I’m part of the family, a black sheep member of the family, but part of the family nonetheless.
Americans don’t send their sons and daughters to war, their sons and daughters volunteer to join “the military” all by their lonesome. Obviously you don’t have much faith in the Iraqi people and I contend that you hate George Bush so freakin’ much that it’s interfering with your sensibilities and good judgment.
Go ahead and believe the lies about the Iraqi elections, that they weren’t real. No matter what you say or do can change the fact that there was a 60% turnout and no matter how much that depresses you, from this day forward, the people of Iraq will live in freedom, the kind of freedom that you think only you deserve. How freakin’ racist can a person be!?!? Geeezzzz!
“And remember, wartrolls, you don’t own the Iraqi’s courage. They own their courage”
Boy, you like to throw them right out of left field...don’t you? “Wartrolls”?? I’m a peace loving person as much as you are but what makes you different is this: You’re all for peace as long as it is in your backyard. Who gives a shit about Iraqis living beneath the machete of Saddam Hussein or the Sudanese living in forced starvation and genocide? In the name of “peace”, let them die...right?? To steal a phrase used by our honorable host; you disgust me! And last but not least, the only courage I own, anti-troll, is my own. Dugh!#: Posted by on 02/02 at 03:43 AM -
Americans don’t send their sons and daughters to war, their sons and daughters volunteer to join “the military” all by their lonesome. Obviously you don’t have much faith in the Iraqi people and I contend that you hate George Bush so freakin’ much that it’s interfering with your sensibilities and good judgment.
Go ahead and believe the lies about the Iraqi elections, that they weren’t real. No matter what you say or do can change the fact that there was a 60% turnout and no matter how much that depresses you, from this day forward, the people of Iraq will live in freedom, the kind of freedom that you think only you deserve. How freakin’ racist can a person be!?!? Geeezzzz!
Could you rebut with a logical or factual argument rather than baseless attacks on Bush hatred, psychanalysis of your opponent, or unfounded accusations of racism?
Who gives a shit about Iraqis living beneath the machete of Saddam Hussein or the Sudanese living in forced starvation and genocide?
I know these questions are rhetorical, but I'll answer them anyway. Many people who opposed the war cared about Saddam's oppression of the Iraqis. The typical arguments were that it was wrong to bomb civilians to end it (which was what religious liberals usually said) and that it wouldn't create a democracy (which is what Scott Ritter said). The supporters of the war only started talking about humanitarian grounds when it had become clear that there were no WMD in Iraq. Evidently, now a lot more Americans care about Saddam's having oppressed Iraqis than about the USA's oppressing Iraqis. As for Sudan, a lot of bloggers cared, but the bureaucrats in the EU didn't call it genocide because it'd force them to do something about it, and the USA didn't do anything because Bush had no family feud with anyone in Sudan.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 05:51 AM -
Dvd: Bsh qls Qslng. 10,000 wtbcks crssd th brdr strd. nthr "dvsn" f Mxcns wll llglll ntr tmrrw. Whn th brv sls wh r fghtng ths wr rtrn, thr jbs nd thr wmn wll blng t bnch f crmnl nvdrs. Wk p mn! Cn't s Grg hs sld t fr fw Hspnc vts?
Wh bthr tchng scnc whn w shld b stdng Spnsh.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 10:11 AM - One thing I utterly loathe is racism. Last and only warning: I will ban you for that kind of crap.
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Thanks PZ. He is getting out of hand.
Also, I take the position that the Iraqi's who participated deserve credit for their attempt to return civilization and local control to their country via the only path open to them other than attacking our occupation. Frankly I was surprised at their turnout.
This in no way absolves the US of responsibility for the giant mess we have made of their country in the name of 'freeing' them.
We can only hope and work for better days for them and us, which includes actually letting them have their country back.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 10:39 AM -
Hardly seems like any warning is necessary.
I'll weigh in; Elections went well, seemingly - that's good. One limited success, however, does not make the entire operation a success. If, and this is a big if, Iraq becomes a sustainable, stable, free democracy, then, and only then, can the bushies make some reasonable claim that the balance of rightness has tipped their way. Even then it would take a pretty careful accounting, and would remain solidly in the grey zone. At this point however, their claims are just so much spin.#: Posted by Evan Murdock on 02/02 at 10:45 AM -
Wow, you guys will believe anything, evidently.
First we had two posters buy into the thoroughly discredited Johns Hopkins 'analysis' of 100K 'excess' deaths, but now that's inflated to Alon's claim that Americans 'killed 100,000.'
Not a peep of complaint about these hysterical rantings, except from the judicious Rachelle. Your point was not minor, Rachelle, despite your modest disclaimer.
The voting was either real or not, and that's the major point so far, isn't it?
We now get a chance we do not have often, which is to see whether in fact any Arab Muslims care anything about democracy.
The evidence that they do is thin, and observers like Bassam Tibi, a liberal Syrian Arab Muslim political scientist, have warned us before that Arabs don't care anything about democracy.
Well, it's a noble gesture to let them prove Tibi wrong, and let's hope he is.
But if he's right -- as I believe he is -- then the justification for appeasement of Islam loses all force, with both Left and Right, and we can get down to the business of extinguishing this scourge or so altering it that the infidels of the world -- that's most of us -- can live in peace.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 12:40 PM -
"Misunderstood by posters at Little Green Footballs" is not the same as "discredited," Harry.
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/02 at 01:22 PM
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One thing I utterly loathe is racism. Last and only warning: I will ban you for that kind of crap.
One thing I utterly loathe is censorship. One day it's the racists, the next it's the people who call you a ranter.
First we had two posters buy into the thoroughly discredited Johns Hopkins ‘analysis’ of 100K ‘excess’ deaths, but now that’s inflated to Alon’s claim that Americans ‘killed 100,000.’
Well, surveys of returning American soldiers from Iraq taken around New Year's 2004 show that after extrapolation from a sufficiently large scientific sample, 41,000 US armymen and marines believe that they've killed at least one civilian. Now, choose whatever conversion factor into real deaths you want, but if you use 1:1, it becomes 41,000 dead in 10 months, or 4,100 dead per month, or about 90,000 deaths so far not including bombing deaths. It's thin, but at least it doesn't undercount as long as you can be certain that the conversion factor is correct (which it need not be). That's my methodology. Plus there are some studies from the fall of 2003, which put the number of civilians killed by US forces in the 30s, so extrapolating from one that has 37,000 dead by August 2003 gives 7,400 per month, i.e. 160,000 dead; however, since it includes the bombings, it will suffer from serious overcounting.
We now get a chance we do not have often, which is to see whether in fact any Arab Muslims care anything about democracy.
The evidence that they do is thin, and observers like Bassam Tibi, a liberal Syrian Arab Muslim political scientist, have warned us before that Arabs don’t care anything about democracy.
That is not true. Iraqis don't support fundamentalists out of a desire for jihad, nor do most Islamists. They support the fundamentalists because they are relatively nonviolent (not the Zarqawi types, of course, whom most Iraqis hate, but people like Sistani) and because they appeal to a) their national dick size, b) their newly-acquired anti-Americanism (for some - Sistani's pro-American), and c) their trying to find something to hold on to when times are hard, such as religion.
The Iraqis may in a few years accept liberal democracy even if now they elect religious fanatics. The trick is to disassociate liberalism from the hated US, and to show that liberalism can offer good things in terms of national power and individual welfare. Currently Arabs think that liberal democracy is a) declining because of the "corruption" in the West, b) likely to cause them to have a lower quality of life, and c) a foreign imposition, and so far the West isn't doing anything to calm, let alone reverse these feelings.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 01:31 PM -
PZ: It's not racism, it legalism.
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 01:52 PM
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One thing I utterly loathe is censorship. One day it’s the racists, the next it’s the people who call you a ranter.
One thing I dislike with moderate intensity is people using the word "censorship" to describe the process of editing.
This blog is PZ's publication. He has the right to shape this publication in whatever way he sees fit, including selecting or rejecting "letters to the editor" (aka comments).
I like Richard and have had a number of pleasant conversations with him. And if he'd made that comment over at my place he'd have been banned with no warning and his comment expunged completely.
If someone spraypaints a swastika on my house, it's not censorship to paint it over and put anti-graffiti coating on the wall. And using the word "censorhip" to describe this kind of situation dilutes the word to meaninglessness - and we need the word more than ever.
That all said, Alon, I think the rest of your post is spot on.#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/02 at 01:55 PM -
This blog is PZ’s publication. He has the right to shape this publication in whatever way he sees fit, including selecting or rejecting “letters to the editor” (aka comments).
Of course he does, but that's still censorship. If his son brings a black girlfriend home, PZ has the right to tell her, "I don't want niggers in my house," but that's still racism.
PZ: It’s not racism, it legalism
Talking about learning Spanish may not be racism, but is definitely ignorance, as second-generation Hispanic-Americans speak English rather than Spanish. Besides, Bush's new policy's changing the law, so you can't cling to the law to defend your view.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 02:11 PM -
CC: I agree with you entirely with regard to private property and editing. But I've known "liberals" who constantly prided themselves in their "ecclectic" open homes and the wide range of discourse within, only to throw people out for voicing a contrary opinion. I have never been in a redneck or conservative home where someone was hushed for having a lefty opinion. If PZ wants to have an open house, then he should look closely at what people write before hushing them. I could have watered down my comment and it wouldn't have had the punch that it did. PZ does have a professional position to protect and in todays world, erring on the side of too politically correct is a useful survival trait. It's Darwinian behavior modification in it's most immediate form.
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 02:15 PM
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Have you ever been in a redneck home?
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 02:21 PM
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I wouldn't know from Little Green Footballs.
And Alon's extrapolation is just silly. There are 100K+ Americans in Iraq. Given the ratio of tooth to tail, which is at most 1:10, no more than 15K of them even tote weapons, much less go around using them to kill civilians.
The Johns Hopkins study sank without a trace -- the authors were quoted just two days ago moaning about that -- not because Charles Johnson dissed them, but because even people who would be happy to be able to claim the study couldn't justify it.
A while back, Alon jumped me about my skepticism about 'moderate Muslims.' I have since discovered a phrase in the organ of the moderate Muslims in America (American Muslim) that I love. They are promising that they will bring us a 'genuine rendition of monotheism.'
I don't know who ought to be more worried about that, Christians or atheists.
At least, you cannot say they are not frank about what they think of democracy. They hate it.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 05:37 PM -
A: Yup. Married into the family. I have friends who could be supporting evidence for every Foxworthy stereotype. I've worked with, beside and for the bottom end of tweeker trailer trash, rural coots and toothless UN paranoids, and the worst I've heard is "Oh, you're fulla shit, talkin' that lib crap. If you honestly believe that garbage, you're stupider than I thought. Hand me another beer." In uptight lib housholds it's the same as in old Victorian parlors when someone used the term 'leg' instead of 'limb'. I was accused of sexism at an Echo Park (top of the hills artsy-fartsy) soireebecause I told a girl at the keg that she was "high on the yummy scale". The hostess told me I could only compliment women on their "intellect or their allure'. It's enough to gag a maggot.
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 05:56 PM
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...and uptight conservative households it's ever so much better than uptight liberal households? You see, I've only ever been around the poorer liberal households, so I can't say I've had the same experiences you have. Oh--and if you're going to continue rambling about what wonderful human beings your familial conservatives are for allowing free speech, remember that they confine their censorship to public schools, where it actually is censorship.
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 07:41 PM
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A; Ouch! Touchez!
#: Posted by on 02/02 at 07:57 PM
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And Alon’s extrapolation is just silly. There are 100K+ Americans in Iraq. Given the ratio of tooth to tail, which is at most 1:10, no more than 15K of them even tote weapons, much less go around using them to kill civilians.
There's a lot of rotation going on - if I remember correctly, many more American troops were in Iraq and left then are still there. Plus with so many contractors the ratio of tooth to tail, to use your own words, is much larger than it used to be. You do that and you easily get to 41,000 by the end of 2003. The fact is that 14% of returning Army soldiers and 28% of Marines believe they killed a civilian in Iraq.#: Posted by on 02/02 at 10:04 PM -
My name isn’t PZ, but I’ll weigh in. You should know is that 100,000 is only the number of Iraqis killed by US forces. Terrorist groups have killed many more who would’ve stayed alive under Saddam.
That is incorrect - the number includes excess death, no matter the cause. Harry is of course incorrect in saying that the study is discredited, but he would have been correct if he had arrested that statement.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 08:01 AM -
When the 100,000 is taken directly from that study, it includes everything. However, the 95% confidence level of that study is 8,000-194,000, so any number of excess deaths below 194,000 accords with it. My own 100,000 figure is taken from other sources, which only count civilians killed by the Coalition, and agree with one another far better than the Johns Hopkins study's two edges agree - about 0.25 orders of magnitude versus that study's 1.4.
#: Posted by on 02/03 at 08:48 AM
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Arguing numbers is fatuous. It's all a guess anyway. Lets distill it down to too many good guys and not enough bad guys. I'm wondering why no one is making anything out of the huge mass burial sites left over from Saddam's heyday. There is at least a program or movie or documentary or book per week on the Final Solution of 39-45, but nothing on Iraq's self-slaughter since they finished processing the corpses.
#: Posted by on 02/03 at 09:44 AM
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Richard are you seriously making comparision between Saddam Hussein's killings and the Holocaust? Because that's what is sounds like to me.
#: Posted by on 02/03 at 09:58 AM
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It’s all a guess anyway.
Oh, and for the record - it's not a guess. If you believe so, you haven't understod the whole concept of making such a study.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 10:00 AM -
KW: Asking troops if they "thought" they killed a civilian is ridiculous. Even trained snipers can't rely on their impressions. Right now, the rules of engagement for our guys are that they have to actually see hostile activity, i.e., placing an IED or sighting a rifle. Everyone is wearing civilian clothes and the bad guys don't carry ID. Also, when people are shot at in a war zone, and missed closely, they always go down. Maybe not hit, but they're on the floor. Mortars and rockets are a different story. And in the previous big fights, operations overcame the populous' ability to evacuate.
There is human tragedy on a Biblical scale. But how do you account for the pilots whose bombs fell awry? How about artillerymen adjusting fire in an urban environment and working as a crew lobbing 95 pound shells? Do you take the missed shell and divide by 14? Do you inspect where you thought the round went and look for bodies and then parcel out 4 dead and 2 wounded and devide by 14? How many were civilians and how many were insurgents in mufti? Do you factor in the guys in the FDC who drew up the firing data? What about the guy who clears his weapon and pops a round off in the direction of the souk and figures it had to hit someone? Do we factor in all the rounds that Iraqis seem genetically compelled to fire into the air as a celebration or warning? A good friend told me that falling bullets kill people daily in Iraqi cities.
Our troops are almost as outnumbered as the British were in India, and they're fighting against a religiously motivated enemy who knows he can't win a stand-up fight. They're doing a hell of a good job and rebuilding the country as they go. The journalists aren't covering anything in Iraq but the Sunni triangle, so we're not seeing the success stories.
An English friend pointed out to me that you will never see coverage of a story that is more than one-days distance from an air-conditioned hotel with a bar. To cover Sudan, journalists had to go in by helicopter. A few braves actually stay on site.
And yes, I would say any government killing several hundred thousand of it's citizens in cold-blooded, organized way could be compared to the horrifying specter of the Nazi death camps. How could it not be? The scale is not as large and the process not as sickenly industrialized, but it can definitely be compared. How about Stalin's starving of the Kulaks? Mao? Pol Pot?
Anyway, KW, I opposed the war from before the start. I have routinely posted that. Our troops are fighting the wrong war, but they're doing a darned good job and the vast majority of them are doing it right.
On an odd note, our troops are not allowed to drink in-theatre, but Iraqis, mostly jack-Muslims, do.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 10:35 AM -
Richard, I was refering to the Lancet study, which didn't in any way rely on asking soldiers questions.
Saddam Hussein's killings were not organized in the way you seem to belief, nor were they in the scale you seem to think. SH was a tyrant and a murderer (bost directly and indirectly), but the comparision to the Holocaust is unwarranted, except insofar any state-organized killing is warranted.
Our troops are almost as outnumbered as the British were in India, and they’re fighting against a religiously motivated enemy who knows he can’t win a stand-up fight. They’re doing a hell of a good job and rebuilding the country as they go. The journalists aren’t covering anything in Iraq but the Sunni triangle, so we’re not seeing the success stories.
There are a number of claims in this statement, several of which I find problematic.
I see little indication that the enemy troops, as a whole, are religious motivated. There are some who are, but it seems to be rare.
The success of rebuilding the country is debatable, and I live in a country, Denmark, where success stories are reported, as the Danish troops are located in an area where those successes happens. If you don't believe me, look at the numbers for electricity providance to the Iraqi citizens, or at the oil production.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 11:55 AM -
Also my success criterias don't include near-montly killings of high ranking Iraqi officials, thousands of wounded and killed allied troops, widespread torture in Iraqi prisons, a ever-decreasing safe-zone etc.
I guess we should be covering more paintings of schools.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 11:58 AM -
In post #73 I made a few errors, most of which I hope won't be too confusing, but one might be rather confusing. "bost"="both"
#: Posted by on 02/03 at 12:05 PM
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Y'all made my point. You're just guessing and 100L deaths is hysteria.
The Lancet study discredited itself. 95% confidence with a spread like that? You're better off throwing darts.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 12:45 PM -
KW: The number of foreign "professional jihadists" is steeply on the rise compared to local insurgents. Wahabis, mostly from Saudi Arabia, are the majority. Armed in (mostly) Syria, they make there way through Anbar province and into the cities. The Haifa Street district in Bagdad was referred to as "getting distinctly Old-Westy".
Kudos to your news service. Also, on the subject of WWII, one should always be very respectful of the Danes. Denmark held down more German Divisions per population than any other country, protected your Jewish citizens and maintained your social institutions. Thanks also for your country's assistance in rebuilding Iraq. It's nice to know there are friends out there regardless of our blunders.
Fret not the typos. We all make mistakes.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 12:57 PM -
The Lancet study discredited itself. 95% confidence with a spread like that? You’re better off throwing darts.
Harry, I think you need to read up a little on statistics. Tim Lambert, at Deltoid, have made some good posts on the subject - you might want to go check those out.#: Posted by on 02/03 at 01:24 PM -
Aside from the fact that the methodology was suspect and the sample seems to have included an outlier big enough to bias the results, I know enough statistics to know that if the spread is 8K-194K, you don't get to split the difference and say that's the figure.
#: Posted by on 02/03 at 03:25 PM
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W, BushCo, or, as he is being called in some circles, George II is getting a brain, or has co-opted one, apparently.
#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 02/03 at 03:54 PM
- Um, no. The methodology was sound and they excluded a potential outlier.
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For years, the military of the US and other countries put a tremendous amount of stock in the immediate post-battle research conducted by SLA Marshall. During the Big One, he had assembled companies fresh out of battle and asked them questions, with an assistant counting the number of raised hands. In the 1980s Marshall's work reached an apex of popularity and he was accorded guru status, especially in the Marine Corps. Then men who had been in his sessions started coming forward. They confessed that the troops were so pissed off at being kept from sleep and food that they didn't raise their hands for anything, which invalidated the whole study.
If the current "how many babies did you kill, trooper?" study interviewed men from a line company, and that unit had cleaned out a bazaar, then the data would be completely weirded from, say, a rear-echelon bulldozer repair company. Also, what was the excluded outlier?#: Posted by on 02/03 at 06:17 PM -
Richard, why do you keep focusing on that study, which only Alon has mentioned? We are currently talking about the Lancet study. As to yo question, Fallujah was excluded from the Lanct study as an outlier.
I know enough statistics to know that if the spread is 8K-194K, you don’t get to split the difference and say that’s the figure.
This we agree on, but it wasn't the people behind the study which have done that, it was the people who wrote the headline in the Lance which did that. However, having said that, even if the spread is 8K-194K, the most likely numbers are in the middle - the futher you get away from it, the less likely the numbers are.
The Chronicle of Higher Learning has a great article about the study.#: Posted by on 02/04 at 12:46 AM -
Richard, snipers are in the minority. More likely are engagements in which a few troops kill many people. Even with snipers, a single sniper may shoot at several people. As for civilians, what troop will call an armed militia not in uniform a civilian, especially when it's clear to everyone that it's a guerilla war?
I’m wondering why no one is making anything out of the huge mass burial sites left over from Saddam’s heyday.
If it's an attack on the commenters, I presume it's because this is not the topic of this discussion. Besides, per annum the USA's outkilling Saddam several times over. Finally, while the Holocaust was a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire ethnic group, Saddam's killings were mostly piecemeal thuggery, with an emphasis on mostly. Just note how the most notorious killing method of the Holocaust is the gas chambers, with less emphasis on the einsatzgruppen, which made groups of Jews dig trenches and stand in front of them, and then shot them down. And finally, 6 million people over 4 years is a lot more menacing than 400,000 over 35.#: Posted by on 02/04 at 06:36 AM - Chris and A, thanks for the guinea pig info. I'd actually come across two of the sites you mention and will check out the third. My main misgiving is that I have four cats and wonder how that would be for the guinea pigs. Obviously, they would always be separated, but I wonder if just living in the same household as cats would be stressful for the guines pigs.
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A lot of people have both cats and guinea pigs. cavycages.com has info on making large cat-proof cages; some cats don't care about the pigs, but with four, you're likely to have someone dangerous. Pigs generally ignore or threaten anything they're used to and know they're safe from. Usually, they're more stressed out by humans being five minutes late with their veggie dinners than by the presence of cats.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 09:52 AM
