*Shrug*.

I don’t really care what you think anymore.

An argument, or data, or a position, is true if it’s true, regardless of who said it. To be clear, I think your lame organization-assassination tactics are bunkum (and I can’t help but note the extreme lack of specificity even in those cases). To be even clearer: even if they weren’t bunkum, and even if the Devil Himself wrote those papers, if they’re true they’re true, and if they’re not they’re not. And the only way to actually argue one way or the other is to offer some kind of substantive criticism of the methodology or data. Since you haven’t, and either can’t or won’t — well, that’s that.

No; that’s what you merely *wish* to confine the “issue” to, because you have no cards to play regarding CREDIBILITY of the UN or Oxfam. Oxfam has a track-record of lying going back to its “liberation theology” involvement in Latin America 25 years ago; and the UN, of course, is the UN.

– Once I know somebody’s a slimy used-car salesman which a record of moving junk, I don’t need to weigh the mechanics of Toyotas versus Fords to give his lot a pass.

The issue is not about what you’re willing to accept — you are perfectly free to accept or not accept whatever data you want, for whatever reasons you want — the issue is whether or not there are any specific methodological criticisms that can be made of the studies. Since you haven’t argued any — and in fact you haven’t given any specific reasons to doubt these particular studies — well, that’s that. YOU certainly don’t have to accept them, but you’ve given no specific reason for anybody to doubt them.

You’re not even trying. I cited to two different studies, one from the UNDP and one from Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee. I then asked if you had any _specific_ _methodological criticisms_ of either of the studies I cited.

Since you link to an article about UK Scientists criticizing the Lancet Study — a study I didn’t cite to as evidence of anything, your reply is, at best, a total non sequitur. You’re running on empty, but the question still stands.

But this should make you happy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/oct/24/iraq.internationalnews

If not, feel free to well, cram it!

– But whose fault are they?

This is getting a little desperate. If all else fails, poison the well, eh?
Watching you flail around in an attempt to preventatively discredit organizations who have monitored quality of life in Iraq is interesting, in a Rorschach test kind of way (watch out if you’re based in England or submit your data to peer review, apparently!).

But seriously, wide-ranging international consensus supports the charge that quality of life indicators in Iraq have dropped since the war.

Take, for example, the Iraq Living Conditions Survey of 2004, organized by the United Nations Development Program (Liars all!), which determined that “some basic services — electricity, water, education — have worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003,”

But don’t just take their word for it! You can find a corroborative source in Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee, which released a paper last year, “Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq,” which identified numerous quality of life indicators (access to sanitation, clean drinking water, malnutrition), which has worsened dramatically since the invasion.

Now, if you have any PARTICULAR methodological problems that you’d like to raise about these particular studies — please feel free. But try to avoid transparent, and groundless, accusations of bias without a little corroboration. Thanks.

Because Saddam Hussein’s government or some paid-off UN agency is no longer providing the formerly rosy numbers, and instead we get ‘em now from BBC stringers and Lancet fact-cookers?

Those Kurds were better off before! Eh…no….

>queue the old lady again<

(Nods toward JJH2.)

Now, if we’re going to reason on the appropriate level, what we should be arguing is that:
First, it is impermissible to coercively steal from people to fund any project, regardless of how virtuous that project is. Unicef isn’t morally entitled to take 30% of my paycheck at the barrel of a gun to fund children’s medical services, I’m not entitled do the same to Mike’s paycheck to fund the Cory Maye legal defense fund, and the US Government is not entitled to do the same to my paycheck to fund a war I’d rather not have any part of, please and thank you.
Second, even assuming the justice of the goal of removing Saddam Hussein or the subjective good intent of the people involved (the first probably not that doubtful, the second incredibly so), the methods utilized in the (dubious) pursuit of the first goal (and I say dubious because, as it should be obvious to anyone with two eyes to read, US military involvement in Iraq has clearly never been predicated on the simple premise of removing Saddam Hussein, as evidenced by the fact that he is dead and yet the US military is still in Iraq) are __clearly immoral and unjustified__. Although you could catalogue almost every technique used in the conflict as an example, I will highlight a few: The explicitly terrorist “Shock and Awe” campaign which utilized heavy bombing in a densely packed urban area, the leveling of Fallujah and refusal to allow adult males of “fighting age” to flee the city before it was assaulted, the refusal to allow democratically elected local leaders to take power shortly after the invasion on the basis that they were opposed to the occupation, the expansion of hostilities to all forces military opposed to the US occupation (a perfectly legitimate goal of the occupants of Iraq), the dictatorial restructuring of the Iraqi political order and economy through the guise of Paul Bremer’s Orders, the refusal to withdraw despite the overwhelming desires of the local population, and the refusal to withdraw despite the fact that Saddam is gone and he ain’t coming back, etc and so on, ad nauseum.

No Korean war then….

Hell, if that idiot Hitler hadn’t declared war a day after Japan attacked Pearl, no reason to hit him either.

> And if we did go to war with countries
> that pose no threat to us for purely political reasons, we’d treat
> their civilians with the same care we’d treat ours (hopefully more).

Arguably Iraqi civilians are being treated better than US civilians; after all, they’re not being taxed into five generations of economic indentured servitude. And, while out-of-the-norm stories make the press, over 90% of the bombs and shells used in the Iraq war are guided munitions. (Most of the civilian carnage is caused by Al Qaeda or sectarian bombing attacks on market-places and other areas of population concentration; these get lumped into casualty figures, but the US isn’t responsible for them.)

Sure, but WHICH injustices? Attack Iraq and ignore North Korea and China and Sudan? Which country should we attack next, Mike? You haven’t answered that question.

As far as your video goes, you’re linking to a Fox propaganda piece where one old lady gives the U.S. the thumbs up? Should I link to an Al-Jazeera video of children burned alive and mothers shot to pieces at checkpoints? Please…

Under your rules of engagement, no war anywhere can be justifiably fought because civilians will accidentally be killed.

No, under my rules of engagement, we’d only go to war with nations that threatened us. And if we did go to war with countries that pose no threat to us for purely political reasons, we’d treat their civilians with the same care we’d treat ours (hopefully more).

See, Mike, that’s my point. You think it’s necessary to blow up their children to bring them freedom, but you’d never advocate doing the same for Americans.

I said no such thing.

> It’s really hard to believe that you value the lives of Iraqis as much
> as Americans when you seem to think that the U.S. government
> should get to blow to bits and burn alive a good number of them in
> order to make them “free.”

I’ll let this old lady field my response to that.

Under your rules of engagement, no war anywhere can be justifiably fought because civilians will accidentally be killed. Everybody’s hands are tied, so evil gets to run around and slaughter with complete impunity.