Iraq casuality rate dropping

Memnoch

http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2007/08/more-fuzziness.html

I'm not at all surprised to be honest. Just like the Bush administration to try and redefine "casualities" to massage the figures before an election year. Meanwhile people are being murdered in Iraq. It's actually gotten to the stage where it isn't even shocking or news worthy anymore.

Does anyone even care any more? Will anyone ever be held accountable for the blood bath the American Government have wrought on this country?

Mick86

Memnoch wrote:

Will anyone ever be held accountable for the blood bath the American Government have wrought on this country?

When they get back on their feet the Iraqis could try invading the US and hanging GWB. Or maybe not.

But you are aware that it isn't the Americans planting all those car bombs aren't you?

tallus

Mick86 wrote:

When they get back on their feet the Iraqis could try invading the US and hanging GWB. Or maybe not.

But you are aware that it isn't the Americans planting all those car bombs aren't you?

There were no car bombs before the americans arrived. You're aware of that aren't you?

Sesshoumaru

How much of the Pentagons budget goes towards supplying car bombs to the Iraqis then? :rolleyes:

tallus

I'm sure they had plenty of munitions left over from previous sales from the U.S.
Not to mention current sales, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/25/national/main3203792.shtml

Manic Moran

Has anyone actually looked at that beyond the fact that he's got a graph, and says things are screwy? I opened up the various reports and attempted to follow his logic, without relying solely on his graph.

He openly admits that he has no evidence that the drop starting in February of this year is caused by dodgy activities or anything else. He is in effect saying "I don't trust them, it shows a drop, it must be fudged"

Doubtless he is correct that there was some reclassification of what constitutes a sectarian killing between the March and June reports to explain the differences, but that would only be an issue if the June report used different methodologies within the one graph, changing part-way through. i.e. Let's say the March 07 report claimed "1,000 Sectarian Murders" for January 07, and the June report using a new methodology also claimed "1,000 Sectarian Murders" for March, then changing to the dramatically successful figure in May 07. The differences are evidence that the June figures are consistent for whatever definition they happen to be using for the June report.

In the meantime, in the Times today, they visit Ramadi, a town famous for the death toll on US Marines a year ago.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2358061.ece

NTM

Liam Byrne

Manic Moran wrote:

In the meantime, in the Times today, they visit Ramadi, a town famous for the death toll on US Marines a year ago.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2358061.ece

NTM

With all due respect, what does that link have to do with the topic being discussed ? Does it provide insight into how the method used to compile the Iraqi casualty statistics can be proven or disproven, or is it simply a way of saying "we lost people too y'know".

Deaths, on either side, cannot be balanced out by highlighting the opposing angle;

Patient: "Doctor, I'm in agony, I broke my arm in 17 places"
Doctor: "That's nothing, I broke mine in 18 places a year ago"

Also, on another deviation on the OT, I notice that the Times throws that phrase "antiAmerican" in there again, and that's becoming a sickening trademark of the invasion.....what if they're not anti-American, but just hate having their country invaded.....is it OK to be "insurgents" then ?

I'm by no means anti-American....iffy on unbridled greed and capitalism, but lots of countries fall under that banner nowadays....but if the Americans invaded here for no reason and started killing people [sorry, "damaging collateral"] then I'd probably throw my lot in and fight against them.....

BUT THAT IS NOT "ANTI-AMERICAN"....it is standing up for yourself.

Back on topic. People died and are dying - needlessly and for reasons which still aren't clear. Statistics are being skewed to hide the facts (yet again). That is the gist of this thread, and it will be Bush's legacy.

RedPlanet

Is it even true?
This article claims the civilian casualty rate is raising.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-violence1sep01,0,3069115.story?coll=la-home-center

Mick86

tallus wrote:

There were no car bombs before the americans arrived. You're aware of that aren't you?

Ah right. So things were better under Saddam Hussein. The citizens of Halabja might dispute that with you.

jonny72

Mick86 wrote:

Ah right. So things were better under Saddam Hussein. The citizens of Halabja might dispute that with you.

The situation in Iraq now is much worse than when it was under Saddam Hussein, as dreadful as that sounds, it is the truth.

The difference now is that thousands of civilians are dying through suicide bombs, carbombs, gunfire, even chemical explosions, thousands more are suffering horrific injuries and maimings, millions are fleeing, torture/executions are rife, prisons completely jammed, more children can't go to school, more students can't go to university, there is little or no basic electricity/water, the infrastructure is getting worse, disease is rising, corruption is off the scale, the health service is completely swamped, the police force is getting slaughtered (but whos counting)..

The occupying army is getting more and more frank about the fact that many soldiers don't give one damn about the local populace anymore..

There is a low intensity civil war...

Al Qaeda are killing as many civilians as they can...

The US administration, like any other government, is trying to skew the facts, trying to paint the rosiest picture they can, and trust me, if the country was anyway like it was under Saddam, Cheney, Bush & co would be celebrating, declaring another victory for freedom, etc.

Mick86

jonny72 wrote:

The situation in Iraq now is much worse than when it was under Saddam Hussein, as dreadful as that sounds, it is the truth.

So the Iraqis were actually better off under Saddam Hussein then. Pity they hung him really, he could have been re-instated. Remove the television cameras and he'd have the place pacified in no time. And the world wouldn't open it's mouth.

jonny72 wrote:

Al Qaeda are killing as many civilians as they can....

I don't think you're allowed say that. The consensus is that it's the Americans who are slaughtering all they can.

Manic Moran

With all due respect, what does that link have to do with the topic being discussed ?

Not a hell of a lot, but unlike other people, I don't open up a new thread every time I want to post some Iraq news, so I just post it in whatever today's Iraq thread happens to be. You have to admit, opening up a thread just to link to whatever article is of note that day is annoying.

RedPlanet wrote:

Is it even true?
This article claims the civilian casualty rate is raising.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-violence1sep01,0,3069115.story?coll=la-home-center

And with 520 Yezidis killed in that one incident, that accounted for over a quarter of the entire month's casualties. It was a huge bombing, and something of a statistical blip. You might as well say the New York City murder rate shot up in Sept 2001. It's true, but does kindof skew the numbers.

NTM

Liam Byrne

Manic Moran wrote:

It's true, but does kindof skew the numbers.

Erm.....no.....it adds to the numbers - like it's meant to, if you're counting how many people died as a result of the violence......they're not just numbers, y'know - they're actual people that had actual lives.

It may skew the percentages, trends and statistics that Bush & Co would like to trot out, or force people to rethink having their PR office come out to say "things are getting better", but unless it's simply not true, then it doesn't "skew the numbers" whatsoever :rolleyes:

banaman

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN3127691220070901

Of course reuters could be wrong, or perhaps anti-american

jonny72

Mick86 wrote:

So the Iraqis were actually better off under Saddam Hussein then. Pity they hung him really, he could have been re-instated. Remove the television cameras and he'd have the place pacified in no time. And the world wouldn't open it's mouth.

Theres a vicious dictator in North Korea who everyone appeases, even the US.

sovtek

jonny72 wrote:

Theres a vicious dictator in North Korea who everyone appeases, even the US.

And a vicious authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia...they smoke cigars with the Shrub.

Mick86

jonny72 wrote:

Theres a vicious dictator in North Korea who everyone appeases, even the US.

Thye've got nukes.

You don't argue with people who are nuclear armed.

sovtek wrote:

And a vicious authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia...they smoke cigars with the Shrub.

There are vicious authoritarian regimes everywhere. As long as they massacre their own people quietly and don't endanger western prosperity nobody really gives a damn.

Liam Byrne

Mick86 wrote:

Thye've got nukes. You don't argue with people who are nuclear armed.

Mike, you cynic! That's SO not the case....Bush invaded Iraq because he had WMDs!

Mick86 wrote:

There are vicious authoritarian regimes everywhere. As long as they massacre their own people quietly and don't endanger western prosperity nobody really gives a damn.

Again, you must be wrong.....Bush invaded Iraq to free the Iraqis and he hung Saddam because of genocide and stuff, and wanted to get rid of the authoritarian regime; he told us all this, remember ?

I'm sorry to contradict you so much, Mike, but if what you were saying was true America would not have invaded Iraq (because of the weapons) and they would not have tried to liberate the Iraqis from the authoritarian regime.

For your opinion to be true, there would have had to be no WMDs in Iraq and the invasion would have had nothing to do with liberation or democracy......

jonny72

Mick86 wrote:

Thye've got nukes.

You don't argue with people who are nuclear armed.

Thats not the reason. They only recently 'supposedly' acquired nukes.

There are vicious authoritarian regimes everywhere. As long as they massacre their own people quietly and don't endanger western prosperity nobody really gives a damn.

True and the US, China, Russia and Britain are leading culprits in supporting these regimes. You want to oppress your own people? make sure you buy arms off at least one of the above, then you generally have the green light.

sovtek

Mick86 wrote:

But you are aware that it isn't the Americans planting all those car bombs aren't you?

Actually there's evidence they are responsible for some of them.

Sesshoumaru

sovtek wrote:

Actually there's evidence they are responsible for some of them.

Would you mind providing some links to this evidence? I could use a good laugh today.

sovtek

Sesshoumaru wrote:

Would you mind providing some links to this evidence? I could use a good laugh today.

Nope because it's been posted many times over.
Google the SAS that were "rescued" several years ago when the brits smashed an Iraqi prison with a tank. They were caught in an explosive rigged vehicle and dressed as "natives".
It's very tredious having to constantly remind of this inconvenient fact.

Manic Moran

Despite the fact that the SAS aren't Americans, it is always conceivable that the reason they had explosives in the car as as part of their job of interdicting the supply routes from Iran. When equipped as a small team, explosives are a great force multiplier in conducting an ambush. The detonator (Or 'clacker') for a Claymore, for example, can easily be descibed as a 'remote explosive detonator' as that's exactly what it is.

NTM

sovtek

Manic Moran wrote:

Despite the fact that the SAS aren't Americans, it is always conceivable that the reason they had explosives in the car as as part of their job of interdicting the supply routes from Iran. When equipped as a small team, explosives are a great force multiplier in conducting an ambush. The detonator (Or 'clacker') for a Claymore, for example, can easily be descibed as a 'remote explosive detonator' as that's exactly what it is.

NTM

Pure supposition.

Liam Byrne

sovtek wrote:

Pure supposition.

Probably appropriate, since "pure supposition" was viewed as enough of a "justification" for the invasion.

Manic Moran

sovtek wrote:

Pure supposition.

And the claims of agent provocateur are more solidly grounded because...?

NTM

banaman

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24BD0D96-88ED-4731-8326-3BDE774DAEEA.htm

rickybutcher

History tells us everything we need to know. Google for "salvador option" and "iraq". Google for "collusion" and "British" "northern ireland". Google for "death squads" and "central america". Google for "nicaragua". Google for "contras".

It is an undeniable fact, FACT, that the British and Americans have been involved in assassinations, death squads, deliberate targetting of civilians via proxies (one site is about 2 miles away from where I am now, in Dublin city centre) in the past, very recent past. Why is Iraq any different? Have they suddenly developed a conscience and ceased these activities? Have they ****. Nobody is saying the US and British are behind every single sectarian attack, but I believe they were behind a number of the earliest attacks, such as the attack on UN headquarters and some other high profile attacks by supposed Al Qaeda, in order a: to justifty the original invasion itself and b: promote themselves as protectors of Iraqis and justify continuing occupation in order to protect Iraqis from Al Qaeda.

From the very first days of the invasion the US employed Iraqis assassination squads - Badr Brigade, the best of the Saddam's security services (a lot of them Sunni, they were employed to hunt down members of the regime and former comrades who were and would resist occupation) and later formed paramilitary type death squads (again, may Sunni or Sunni led) like Wolf Brigade to round up, detain, torture and even kill Sunnis en masse. There are at least 24,000 Sunnis detained without trial in Iraq. Probably way more. Anyway, from the first days of the occupation it was policy to hunt down and kill any resistance to the occupation. This took the form of simply gunning down in the street, arrest, mass arrests and round-ups but also car-bombings that killed indiscriminatly. But the US was behind these types of things, if not directly via their proxies, Shias in the Badr Brigade and Saddam's former security services. At some point though the wheels came off and this thing took a life of itself, groups like the Mahdi Army got in on the act, and killings went off the charts. The Americans were no longer in control of these groups.
It got to extreme levels, Mahdi Army / police / paramilitaries attacked Sunni neighbourhoods across Baghdad, you found tens of bodies turning up every single (at least 100 per day for a period) day dead, bound, shot and with drill-holes in them. These people were ostensibly working for the American-backed Iraqi state but the Americans had little or not control over them, they had begun the process that lead to it however.

It is unsurprising that in this environment some Sunnis became radicalised and targetted Shia, who in their eyes had sided with the occupation against them, attacks like suicide bombings on police recruitment queues and on Shia day labourers were justified in their eyes in this environment. Disgusting and all as it is it is not surprising. How radical and bloody would the IRA have become had the same sort of thing been inflicted on West Belfast during the Troubles. However, the truth is that these Sunni extremists are in a minority, while it's true that 80-90% of civilian deaths are a result of sectarian attacks, 80-90% of attacks are actually carried out on security forces. Not civilians. The insurgency is not equivalent to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is a high profile group but not a major force. The insurgency is and always was led at the highest level by former Iraqi army officers, generally nationalist, not Al Qaeda Sunni extremists.

This form of sectarian violence is hated by pretty much all Iraqis, you have Shia sectarian elements and Sunni extremists who were behind it on either side but most Iraqis, truth be told, were and still are not sucked into it and do not blame the other side for causing it.

Here is an example, before the abuse starts:

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/61694/

The situation in Iraq is incredibly complex.

FYI

Manic Moran wrote:

And the claims of agent provocateur are more solidly grounded because...? NTM

"The two soldiers are believed to have been investigating a corrupt police unit in Basra that was colluding with Shia militia leaders."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,16678785-2703,00.html

For which they needed an arsenal...

http://dc911truth.org/index.php?p=evidence2c

including a rocket launcher!!

jonny72

The truth is often ugly, as in the case of Pat Tillerman, Jesscia Lynch, etc, however we have people who can 'mold' the story so it is much more palettable for the general public.

It seems to me that right wing pro war types nearly always have a tendency to swallow these kind of stories, despite however many times they are proven to be skewed or utter lies.

rickybutcher

They've all quietened down since they've been confronted with some evidence. As you say, they swallow whole any thing that fits their view, as you never get anything critical of the war on BBC or Sky it's not surprising because everything they hear does fit in with their view.

Manic Moran

FYI wrote:

"The two soldiers are believed to have been investigating a corrupt police unit in Basra that was colluding with Shia militia leaders."

It is believed by who? The reporter? The Iraqis? Was an official announcement made to that effect? However, even if true, that is far from acting as a provocateur by planting bombs.

For which they needed an arsenal...

http://dc911truth.org/index.php?p=evidence2c

including a rocket launcher!!

Why not? There's an old phrase which says 'Better to have and not need, than need and not have.' If they ended up in a firefight, why not have a rocket launcher along? They can be quite handy. I certainly carried more than I expected to use, you just never know.

NTM