...for those looking for bad news in Iraq. But good news for everyone else.

I'm sure that the Lancet will add this to the count of all the "innocent Iraqis" killed because we removed Saddam:

U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a suspected guerrilla training camp and killed 85 fighters, the single biggest one-day death toll for militants in months and the latest in a series of blows to the insurgency, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

"Among the dead are Arab and foreign fighters, including Sudanese, Algerians and Moroccans, as well as other nationalities," Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim told Reuters.

Isn't that a shame? And they didn't even get to murder children before they died. Maybe they'll get their virgins anyway.

If they can keep things up at this pace, I suspect that they will be killing them faster than new ones are recruited, because news like this makes recruiting a lot harder.

It's probably worth waiting for follow-up news stories before getting too excited. According to one US Army source, they only seized one RPG, one explosive device, and a few weapons. That seems pretty odd if there were dozens of insurgents killed. If this was an insurgent base camp, how come nobody had any weapons? I suspect that the body count may be greatly inflated.

Best wait for follow-on stories.

The stats I heard say most Iraqi war casualties have been women and children. Especially children. So how many of those were gun totting Baathist terrorists?

The stats I heard say most Iraqi war casualties have been women and children. Especially children.

And where do have you "heard" those stats? And why do you believe them? Other (of course) than that you want to, of course, because to believe otherwise might mean that it was actually a good idea to remove a cruel dictator who tortured women and imprisoned children?

You mean you want a link to information pertaining the article published in the Lancet study from the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health you so loathe?

Sure, knock yourself out:
International Herald Tribune
BBC News

Quote from the International Herald Tribune article:
"The fact that more than half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces were women and children is a cause for concern," the authors wrote.

Gojiria is grasping at straws Rand. He needs to read Aesops's fable about the Fox and the Sour Grapes.

He is trying to salvage an increasingly untenable world view. It is becoming apparent to him and other Iraqi 'flat-earthers' that the shape of things do not conform to their ill-concieved beliefs.

Nice non-sequitur Rand.

And why do you believe them? Other (of course) than that you want to, of course, because to believe otherwise might mean that it was actually a good idea to remove a cruel dictator who tortured women and imprisoned children?

I said I heard them, I didn't say I believed them. Heck, whichever numbers I get from the web, they will all be second hand or worse. Let us say I accept these numbers until someone presents me more accurate numbers.

Now let us apply Rand's reasons to invade a country for a minute:

Your country keeps prisoners without chance for trial. It also tortures said prisoners.
It is the remaining supposedly civilized Western country that has the death penalty.

Not to mention that you have funded terrorists in the past, including Bin Laden. You also possess WMD, including chemical weapons and the means to deliver them. Last, but not least, you are the only country which actually *has* used nuclear weapons in combat.

So why are you not begging for someone to liberate you from the evil rulers in your country? Would it be sensible for someone to liberate you against the UN Security Council's will? Thought so.

As for Mike, FYI I was against Clinton invading Kosovo and I was against Bush Jr. invading Iraq. This so called nation building crap is imbecile at best. You can only build a nation or do regime change if the *people* in that place want it.

I was, however, in favour of the Bush Jr. invasion of Afghanistan for very practical and selfish reasons. The place was a cesspool where Al-Qaeda played around, so anything done to it would be an improvement. Something had to be done to prove that you cannot kill thousands of westerners and get away with it. It is the principle of the thing. We managed to get someone else do to most of the fighting for us, these same people will manage to rule the country for a bit. It will all go pear-shaped within a decade I suspect, but it was a nice bargain.

When losing the argument, change the subject. Well played, Gojira, but even the East German judge isn't impressed.

gojira:

Interesting that you use that name, yet display remarkable ignorance of your own purported homeland.

Either you are unaware that Japan also retains the death penalty (and carries it out), or you do not believe that Japan is part of the civilized Western world.

Lurking Observer: I am not from Japan.

Japan is a civilized country, but their civilization is not western. It may seem like it on a superficial glance, but try dealing with Japanese people to see what I mean. They may use similar clothes and advanced technology, but their society is structured differently.

They still have a neo-feudal society organization. One symptom of this is that the same political party has ruled Japan since WWII. Do not forget that it used to be the case that a citizen's life was subordinate to that of the State. On such a society the death penalty comes naturally.

Of course, the LDP has not ruled Japan entirely since 1951. In fact, there was an interregnum during the 1990s when the SDP actually came to power (not that their policies, ironically, were all that different from that of the LDP).

More to the point, while their social structures and mores are different, they have a free press, a democratic form of government, and constitutional guarantees of various aspects of human rights. To suggest that they are still some sort of feudal/samurai society is as inaccurate as to suggest that they are the 51st state of the United States.

To suggest that somehow their retention of the death penalty is part and parcel of not being part of the West is even odder. Does German retention of the concept of Volk somehow distinguish them from the West, since it is not elemental to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the individual? Does the Napoleonic code, including the idea of guilty until proven innocent, disqualify France from membership in the West? Did it miraculously become a member when it chose to eliminate the death penalty by guillotine in the 1960s? Is Israel (which has no death penalty) more or less part of the West than Japan?

Their civilization is not western and the death penalty is about the least relevant aspect of it. They are influenced by Shinto and Confucianism much like the Chinese were influenced by Taoism and Confucianism.

In their case Confucianism values took longer to take root. Hence fanatical devotion to the Emperor as a direct descendant of the deity on Earth in WWII, similar to what you would find in China during the Shang dynasty period.

That said, Japanese culture is different from what you can find elsewhere in Asia, even if they borrowed many elements from Chinese culture. The tyrant Mao realized that.

Their monarchies are quite different and they missed out the age of enlightenment. Liberalism is a foreign entity in nearly all of Asia. What exists are rings of interest groups. Some would claim the same is true of the USA or Europe, but I think there is more to it than that.