Oh Really?
I was for the Iraq war back when it started – a fact that I don’t go around blatantly advertising, but also one that I wouldn’t deny if asked (a la Kerry). Certainly things haven’t gone as smoothly as I would have hoped, but whenever someone starts to make me think that maybe it was a mistake, I reflect back on why I thought it was a good idea in the first place. Every time, I’ve arrived at the same decision I did the first time.
And here we go again. This whole death toll thing that Erik brought up got me to thinking, because I had been assuming that despite all their complaining, Iraqis were doing better than under Saddam. But this assumption, I realized, had more to do with the way I lean politically than any factual evidence. So I thought I had better figure this one out.
Well, it turns out that, even if we took Erik’s arguments at face value, fewer Iraqi civilians are dying in Iraq now than under Saddam. But Erik’s numbers are ridiculously skewed (“Iraqi’s deemed enemies”?!?) to try to make his argument make sense.
More realistic numbers put the death tolls somewhere between 25,000 and 45,000 people a year. An excerpt for those who don’t wish to read the whole thing:
Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam’s reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam’s 8,000-odd days in power.
But thats just the beginning. The thing that is really nasty about what Erik is doing here is that he is blaming the United States for the deaths caused by Terrorists that Saddam harbored and criminals that Saddam ordered released before he was removed from power. In the words of Erik’s favorite website, IraqBodyCount.net, the reported death toll “includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.”
Add on to this that Erik takes this website’s highest estimate to do his calculations, and goes out of his way to find a ridiculously low death toll under Saddam – all to try to prove what? That “Finding the difference between Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush” can’t be done?
Well, for most of us, Erik, the differences – and there are many – ain’t that hard to see.
For starters, even your darling John Kerry had the chance to vote in favor of invading Iraq before Bush could do anything. This is as opposed to Clinton, who never even mentioned operation Desert Fox until it had happened. Oh, and there’s that little thing that comes up in about a month, where a few people do that voting thing to decide wether to keep him or ditch him. If it were that easy with Saddam (and if he’s really not such a bad guy, as you claim), then we wouldn’t be in this whole mess to begin with.
Saddam was put into power by the United States, and perhaps for that reason also, this war is a burden the United States had to carry moslty by itself. And that brings me to the final point: No matter how for or against this war you may be, you have to realize that the enitre situation was unneccesary. If the United States hadn’t been meddling with foreign governments in the first place, supporting dictators like Saddam that were somehow “less bad” than some other threat, or at least “stabilizing forces” in their region, then we wouldn’t have to be cleaning up after ourselves now and for years to come. The best long-term policy is the one that the Libertarian Party endorses – and that policy was best summed up by Thomas Jefferson: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
October 8th, 2004 at 06:45:44 am
I was going to write a huge comment here, but it kept on growing and growing, so I think that when it is done, I’ll email it to Ryan and see what he wants to do with it. In the mean time, I want to post a few brief comments.
I was origionally against the war in Iraq for purely selfish personal reasons – not wanting to get deployed was on the top of that list.
Now that I know a bit more about the situation, I am still against the war, but for more objective reasons.
The main ones are:
1. We should have finished up Afghanistan first before moving on (if we needed to more on at all).
2. We were unprepared for the culture in Iraq, and do not do a good job of taking cultural differnces in policy decisions.
3. The troops are not properly trained for occupying a country like Iraq.
4. We are creating a new generation of Saddams.
Hopefully I can flesh out my points and come out with a nice quasi-essay.
On a related note, a nice, liberal-biased site about Iraq is at http://www.juancole.com
October 8th, 2004 at 08:38:06 am
Yikes, bar none the best critique of the war I’ve ever heard Theo. Can’t wait for the email.
October 8th, 2004 at 11:09:00 am
I took the *highest* number offered my IBC because the Associated Press, whome is very highly regarded in the news community, said “The prospect of violent death is the latest burden for a people who suffered through decades of war and a brutal dictatorship under Saddam, whose regime has been accused by human rights groups of killing as many as 300,000 Iraqis deemed enemies.” Please note the phrase “as many as”. I took their high numbers and I took IBC’s high numbers. And I see no reason that you would believe your numbers to be any more realistic as mine come from the Associated Press whereas yours come from “Global Business Network”. I also do not apreciate you calling John Kerry my “darling” as I dislike this man to a great extent. I blame the US because the US brought this war upon Innocent Iraqies and upon good American soldiers. I also did not take to kindly to the atacking nature you took, as you may or may not have noticed I tried very hard to avoid in my post.
October 8th, 2004 at 11:36:48 am
I agree – I was unneccesarily derrogatory. Recently, I’ve been accused of being “feisty” more often than not.
Yet you claim you “tried very hard to avoid [attacking] in [your] post.” Yet the title of your post, and the entire nature of your post, is attempting to cast Bush as akin to Saddam. I interpret that as an attack – just like the picture I posted comparing Kerry to a communist. Even if I think its true, I still understand that its an attack. For all your trying, you were unsuccessful at not attacking from the get-go.
If you were simply trying to point out that Iraqis are still dying at a rate that you claim is closely comparable to pre-war levels, you can do that without blaming anyone in particular. But you chose not to do that. You chose to attack. So I attacked back.
The crux of your argument is this 300,000 “Iraqis deemed enemies” number. Could you please explain to me what “Iraqis deemed enemies” means? It sounds like doublespeak to me. Does it include all the Iraqis that were secretly murdered? Does it include the Iranians and Kurds that Saddam’s regime used chemical weapons on? Does it include the children that died because Saddam diverted all Iraq’s resources towards building palaces and taking pot-shots at American and British planes that were enforcing UN sanctions? Somehow I don’t think so, because that last item alone stands at nearly half a million, well higher than the number you are calling a “high estimate”.
Here is a much more accurate assesment of the situation, in my opinion. If the Iraq Body Count page didn’t have a clear agenda, they might actually include this. But instead, they include “civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order,” which in your twisted logic you manage to pin on Bush. Its all a big sham.
October 8th, 2004 at 05:04:40 pm
Exerpt from my comment on this post: http://blog.freedomdown.net/index.php?p=31
“But I do believe that we both have stated our points to there fullest extent, and I am guesing you (as I have) have now know things we have not before, and have been somewhat pushed to moderation. The main reason I write and read texts such as the items we have made is that it is quite stupid that most people don’t even know the other sides view.”
October 8th, 2004 at 05:08:58 pm
Agreed. Thanks, Erik, for another great one. I learned a lot; I hope you learned some as well.
October 9th, 2004 at 01:57:12 am
Oh yah, and when I said I did not attemped to atack I ment you and my fellow bloggers, not the President :)
October 17th, 2004 at 01:48:36 pm
The U.S put into power and supported Saddam hussien. So, Indirectly they are responsible for the deaths of Iraqis. In the same way they supported Al Qaeda up to literally months before September 11, 2001. All kinds of crap like this has been goign to for years. Problem > reaction > solution… That’s how the U.S has come to dominate the world in almost every respect. Your government solves the problems they create through military, etc… and it’s becoming more blatant then ever now. Militarism is inherintly contradictory to democracy. There is no arguement. There’s no point if you can’t see what your government is doing. You’re arguing with a blindfold.
October 17th, 2004 at 09:26:55 pm
If you took the time to maybe read the wntire post, you may find that I already said the whole “US put Saddam into power” thing. Its hardly news to me (although thanks for pointing it out again). And yes, as I said, we put him in power, so perhaps its our cross to carry. As you probably know, we’ve created an awful lot of crosses that way.
I guess the question really is, so we gain more by trying to clean up our mess in a way that isn’t completely honest, or should we just cut and run, and try to avoid making more problems? Thats a harder one to answer than just “is GWB as bad as Saddam?”
Dittos on the “all kinds of crap” statement. It is sad that the US, through the CIA and its State Department, contuinues to shovel manure throughout the world. Great things will continue to happen to us for doing this. Just building another burden. But that doesn’t mean we cut and run, and pretend there is no problem.