Transterrestrial Musings

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Absolutely right. The reports of American deaths in Iraq have been greatly exaggerated, just as we know that Baghdad has been restored to its former thriving condition as a center of commerce and intellectual activity. All the problems in Iraq have been fabricated to convince the American public that the US military is really battling an enemy when we know that most Iraqis are baa lambs who love us.

Posted by Offside at January 4, 2007 03:15 PM

In other words, you completely miss the point, and are incapable of engaging in rational discussion on the subject, having to revert to moronic straw man arguments.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 4, 2007 03:23 PM

Come on Rand - that 33% of Americans think Iraq coverage is biased equates to pretty much the percentage of the population who still think the war was a good idea in the first place.

That 66% of the population don't think the coverage is biased is of course the majority opinion and that of course also roughly equates to the percentage of the population who now think the whole idea was a disaster.

That you fail to acknowledge such a basic relationship in the statistical analysis shows quite clearly that it is you who is bringing the straw man and his pals to the party.

Posted by Paper Man at January 4, 2007 04:20 PM

And now Paper Man brings us the Argumentum Ad Populementum fallacy to add another leg to the soon to be complete milkstool of idiocy.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 4, 2007 04:35 PM

Populum.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 4, 2007 04:37 PM

Oh, so you didn't actually read the link. 56% of people think that coverage has been inaccurate. Whether that is biased or not is subject to interpretation, but it's a big number, and a bigger number than your hopeful fantasy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 4, 2007 04:48 PM

Jeez Rand, of course news is biased. News is opinion, by definition 100% of it has a bias.

As we should all know by now, reporting is a process of selection bias in which you cherrypick 'facts' to support that opinion or bias. In example, you could either report the fact that "X number of American troops died in Fallujah today" or the fact that "The Bush adminstration made another boring dog video. Isn't Barney cute."

Posted by Adrasteia at January 4, 2007 04:49 PM

"In example, you could either report the fact that "X number of American troops died in Fallujah today" or the fact that "The Bush adminstration made another boring dog video. Isn't Barney cute."

I suppose you could sayt that if you want to make a highly flawed strawman argument.

Or you could use a correct analogue: You can report that X Americans died in fighting today in Fallujia or your could report that 10X Al Quedia died fighting American troops today in Fallujia.

It is ignoring the latter that is the issue, not ignoring the trivial. It is their blatant selection bias with an agenda.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 4, 2007 05:28 PM

GHDAD (AP) -- The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record [...]

(Funny, Rand was one of the neo-con idiots screaming
that AP was making up the facts. Maybe if
Simberg would go to Baghdad, he could get the
facts on the ground.

Posted by anonymous at January 4, 2007 05:40 PM

Be careful what you wish for, Anonymous Moron.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/210848.php

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 4, 2007 06:02 PM

"just as we know that Baghdad has been restored to its former thriving condition as a center of commerce and intellectual activity."

Just as was in the reign of al-Mamun?

Posted by John "Akatsukami" Braue at January 4, 2007 06:02 PM

"(Funny, Rand was one of the neo-con idiots screaming
that AP was making up the facts. Maybe if
Simberg would go to Baghdad, he could get the
facts on the ground."

See Rand, I told you so. Now the Milkstool of Idiocy is complete. All three legs.

Posted by Mike Puckett at January 4, 2007 06:28 PM

I think arguing over poll numbers and biased reporting is idiotic. It doesn't change the fact that Iraq, as it is currently constituted, is a barely viable state. It only exists as a nation state because there are 150,000 American soldiers on the ground to keep the peace. The country would descend into anarchy with those soldiers.

What I ask the hawks is how long do we continue with the status quo, i.e. keep our troops fighting and dying on the behalf of the Iraqis until the Iraqis get over all their internal hatreds and feuding and corruption? The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We have been doing the same thing over and over in Iraq for three years now. Do we really expect something different to happen.

If we stop being stupid and change strategies what do we do instead? Do we partition the country? Do we abandon the place and hope for the best? Do we install another strongman like Saddam? Come on hawks I want to know.

Posted by Jardinero1 at January 4, 2007 07:09 PM

There were 3 regimes in the Middle east causing most of the trouble. Iraq, Syria and Iran. 1 down 2 to go. Those of you who complain about Iraq and our problems there do not understand the big picture. Either we win now or they might win later. How many times did Arabs try to destroy the only functioning democracy in the Middle East? They are STILL trying for no other reason than that country’s religion. The reporting on the war has been abysmal. I have talked to many people who have BEEN there. You BDS sufferers who mistake glibness for intelligence haven't a clue. Anon still doesn't get the main thrust of the complaints about the AP. Their story was false. There were no burning bodies and 4 Mosques set on fire. They changed their story to one. Why? Come on Anon, why did they wait 6 weeks and if he is the guy, why believe him? It's obvious he was incorrect or the AP wouldn't change their story. You should get out of your mother's basement more.

Posted by Bill Maron at January 4, 2007 07:56 PM

This IDF general proposes building a coalition to do the needful against Iran and despairs of George Bush being capable of doing it. Interestingly he suggests Israel can count on Hillary Clinton.

And remember, I did not write this:

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3346275,00.html

Posted by Bill White at January 4, 2007 09:07 PM

> It doesn't change the fact that Iraq, as it is currently constituted, is a barely viable state.

There seems to be an assumption that a non-viable Iraq is a problem for the US. It isn't.

A non-viable Iraq may be a problem for Iraqis, but US interests are served by an Iraq in so much turmoil that it can't do anything.

We're doing them a favor by trying to get them more than that, but if we fail, the Iraqis will pay the price, not the US.

Posted by Andy Freeman at January 4, 2007 10:40 PM

I wonder what the founding fathers would have thought of Andy's apologetics for the miasma in Iraq. A non-viable Iraq in turmoil is now the GOAL, is it Andy? Isn't that such a grand view of what Amercia brings to the world? Bush has blundered terribly through bad advice and mismanagement but his goals were not cynical. The cynicism of your position is disgusting. It may be, like the indigestible ISG report, the only path out, but it isn't easy to swallow. We had better Americans in Philly 200 something years ago; men of vision and courage who could think and act things through.

Posted by Offside at January 5, 2007 05:11 AM

Sure Bill, he thinks Hillary can be counted on but did you see this part:

..we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly)...

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 5, 2007 05:14 AM

Charles Krauthammer says that Iraq is a mess and the US should withdraw:

The Hanging: Beyond Travesty
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 5, 2007; A17

Of the 6 billion people on this Earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the preeminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein.

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for and against justice itself.

In late 2005, I wrote about the incompetence of the Hussein trial and how it was an opportunity missed. Instead of exposing, elucidating and irrefutably making the case for the crimes of the accused -- as was done at Nuremberg and the Eichmann trial -- the Iraqi government lost control and inadvertently turned it into a stage for Hussein. The trial managed to repair the image of the man the world had last seen as a bedraggled nobody pulled cowering from a filthy hole. Now coiffed and cleaned, he acted the imperious president of Iraq, drowning out the testimony of his victims in coverage seen around the world.

That was bad enough. Then came the execution, a rushed, botched, unholy mess that exposed the hopelessly sectarian nature of the Maliki government.

Consider the timing. It was carried out on a religious holiday. We would not ordinarily care about this, except for the fact that it was in contravention of Iraqi law. It was done on the first day of Eid al-Adha as celebrated by Sunnis. The Shiite Eid began the next day, which tells you in whose name the execution was performed.

It was also carried out extra-constitutionally. The constitution requires a death sentence to have the signature of the president and two vice presidents, each representing one of the three major ethnic groups in the country (Sunni, Shiite and Kurd). That provision is meant to prevent sectarian killings. The president did not sign. Nouri al-Maliki contrived some work-around.

True, Hussein's hanging was just and, in principle, nonsectarian. But the next hanging might not be. Breaking precedent completely undermines the death penalty provision, opening the way to future revenge and otherwise lawless hangings.

Moreover, Maliki's rush to execute short-circuited the judicial process that was at the time considering Hussein's crimes against the Kurds. He was hanged for the killing of 148 men and boys in the Shiite village of Dujail. This was a perfectly good starting point -- a specific incident as a prelude to an inquiry into the larger canvas of his crimes. The trial for his genocidal campaign against the Kurds was just beginning.

That larger canvas will never be painted. The starting point became the endpoint. The only charge for which Hussein was executed was that 1982 killing of Shiites -- interestingly, his response to a failed assassination attempt by Maliki's Dawa Party.

Maliki ultimately got his revenge, completing Dawa's mission a quarter-century later. However, Saddam Hussein will now never be tried for the Kurdish genocide, the decimation of the Marsh Arabs, the multiple war crimes and all the rest.

Finally, there was the motley crew -- handpicked by the government -- that constituted the hanging party. They turned what was an act of national justice into a scene of sectarian vengeance. The world has now seen the smuggled video of the shouting and taunting that turned Saddam Hussein into the most dignified figure in the room -- another remarkable achievement in burnishing the image of the most evil man of his time.

Worse was the content of the taunts: "Moqtada, Moqtada," the name of the radical and murderous Shiite extremist whose goons were obviously in the chamber. The world saw Hussein falling through the trapdoor, executed not in the name of a new and democratic Iraq but in the name of Moqtada al-Sadr, whose death squads have learned much from Hussein.

The whole sorry affair illustrates not just incompetence but also the ingrained intolerance and sectarianism of the Maliki government. It stands for Shiite unity and Shiite dominance above all else.

We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government. This governing coalition -- Maliki's Dawa, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Sadr's Mahdi Army -- seems intent on crushing the Sunnis at all costs. Maliki should be made to know that if he insists on having this sectarian war, he can well have it without us.

Posted by Tim Greeley at January 5, 2007 06:35 AM

The surge is not "in defense of such a government", it is to prevent an AQ victory in Iraq.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 5, 2007 08:19 AM

Cecil, you don't make any sense. Maliki and Moktadr aren't part of AQ. Granted it must be confusing when you don't know exactly what we are fighting for....or who we are fighting for that matter...or whether we are just plunked down right in the middle of a fight that has little or nothing to do with us...

Posted by at January 5, 2007 09:08 AM

Krauthammer has jumped ship?

Wow!

Posted by Bill White at January 5, 2007 09:28 AM

Simberg will be the last neo-con on board as the ship sinks.

All the other rats will have left by then. Then suddenly, you
will see the Simberg "satires" of WW2 quietly disappear.
Simberg will go quiet for amonth and then bang pop up as
a liberal democrat urging the US to send troops to patrol
the gaza and west bank.

Posted by anonymous at January 5, 2007 10:16 AM

Carping anonymous moron
Flatulence on the wind
Brief waft
then, like history, gone
...doomed to repeat

Posted by CJ at January 5, 2007 10:42 AM

"Maliki and Moktadr aren't part of AQ."

Since you're afraid of signing your name to your opinions I'll call you Moron B.

So, Moron B, did I say Maliki and Al Sadr were AQ? No I didn't, but can you deny that AQ is behind much if not most of the violence? Only if you're a moron... oh wait, never mind.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 5, 2007 12:08 PM

Sorry you don't like my name but C'mon Cecil, do you really think AQ is pulling the strings in Iraq all the way away from Pakistan or wherever? Or is AQ an adopted name used by a subset of the Sunnis dissatisfied with the way things are going?

And this surge is going to do exactly what that 140,000 or more troops haven't been able to do before?

Where does the magic dust come from? Somewhere inside Fred Kagan's or your wishful thinking? And when the surge unsurges then what?

Is anyone in this administration actually thinking these things through or are we still operating in fancy sound bite territory? Sounds like more of the same nonsense that told us how easy it was all going to be in 2003. You can believe it if you want, but you might as well believe in fairies.

Posted by Offside at January 5, 2007 01:32 PM

All the way from Pakistan? Wow, we must have some really neat stand off weapons then since the F16 that whacked Z-man was flying over Iraq at the time. And his replacement must be telecasting his message into Iraq from Pakistan just to fake us out.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 5, 2007 01:45 PM

If AQ can't pull the strings inside Iraq from Pakistan, then it's even less likely that a bunch of folks living in caves could perpetrate 9-11, eh Offside?

So, are we going to hear next that 9-11 was a grand conspiracy by the US Government itself (in whole or in part)?

Posted by Lurking Observer at January 5, 2007 03:09 PM

One third, eh? Well, that's about the same number that still support Bush. (No wait, I think Bush is below that). In any event, 33 percent is a pretty low number there, Rand.

Looking at it another way, two-thirds of the public don't think the press coverage is overly negative. Sounds like a majority there, buddy.

I see Michelle Milkin's going over to Iraq. Good for her. Should be good. I imagine she'll find precisely what she already believes about Iraq.

Posted by at January 6, 2007 07:52 PM

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