TheAgitator.com
Morning Links
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008- Yet another study confirms the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.
After 4 years of follow-up, new moderate drinkers had a 38% lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease than did their non-drinking counterparts. Even after adjusting for physical activity, Body Mass Index, demographic and cardiac risk factors, this difference persisted.
- Four-year-olds allegedly handcuffed by school safety officer for refusing to take a nap.
- Exhaustive review of 600,000 documents seized after our invasion in 2003 finds no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
- The march to post-reductio America continues. Minnesota lawmaker wants to ban scents in public schools.
- Conservative “Blogger of the Year” and terminal douche Ace of Spades on why he defended GOP hypocrite sex customer Sen. David Vitter but is now jumping all over Democratic hypocrite sex customer Gov. Eliot Spitzer:
“Shut up, that’s why.”
Can’t argue with that!
Ah, if only being a douche WAS terminal. Of course the number of idiotic blog posts would dry up, what with people going to funerals all the time.
How do people like this get an audience and linked to? I’ve never understood why half of the “A-list” got where they are because most of their posts are crap and no more insightful than your average “navel-gazing” blog on blogspot.
I’m guessing that it might have been Spitzer’s vigorous prosecution of prostitution rings. And douche? Didn’t you just post a couple days ago on Patterson’s blog complaining that he doesn’t address your points preferring to insult you instead? It seems that if you compared your viewpoint to his, the reader would be able to make the douche determination themselves.
Only 600,000 documents? Pish tosh. If they’d looked at 700,000, they’d have found it!
Besides, the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. So there!
/break link
It may be cliche, but I am not kidding when I say that if anyone handcuffs and threatens my child, it’ll be one of the last things they ever do. What possesses these people?!?! What is in their heads that tells them, “yeah go ahead and ‘cuff that snot-nosed toddler. He deserves it!”
I am utterly boggled!
Scare tactics applied to 4 year olds work when they are performed by the parents (although I would never threaten to handcuff my own kids, even jokingly), but they have devastating effects when applied by the non-parents, particularly those in positions of authority. I’m sure this will just be passed off as poor judgment on the part of the school safety officer. It’s funny, though, how zero tolerance policies can be applied to 4 year olds that hit, kiss, draw guns, or make threats and result in their expulsion, but poor judgment on the part of a school safety officer that could at least potentially result in severe emotional scarring will get brushed under the rug.
> The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents
> indicating a “direct operational link” between Hussein’s Iraq and al
> Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with
> the report.
IOW, the report’s actual conclusions make no such claim, only some unnamed “U.S. official” (allegedly) “familiar with the report” is making the claim.
IOW, it’s typical manufactured propaganda spoon-fed to the credulous dolts who’ve been buying the Left’s bullshit from day 1, because, well, loathing Bush is so trendy now that the previous contemptible President is no longer in office to be loathed instead.
Suggestion: Everyone who does not know what “Salman Pak” is (tip: Google) should pour themselves a nice, warm, steaming cup of STFU and go drink it while sitting in the corner wearing a dunce-cap — because they don’t know what they’re breathlessly, endlessly talking about; and it’s really annoying to those who do.
[...] Hat tip: Radley Balko. [...]
What if you do know what “Salman Pak” is, but also know that:
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that “Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa’ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qa’ida operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations.”p. 108 The CIA and DIA both told the Committee that their postwar exploration of the facility “has yielded no indications that training of al-Qa’ida linked individuals took place there. In June 2006, the DIA told the Committee that it has ‘no credible reports that non-Iraqis were trained to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations at Salman Pak after 1991.” (p. 108)
Tip: “Iraq + Al Qaeda” is a *red herring*.
The real and legitimate reason for kicking Saddam up the bunghole was that Salman Pak *existed in the first place*. (Not Al Qaeda, not “WMD”, not “how are we screwing up afterward”, not etc. sundry other flavor-text nonsense.) That, and Saddam’s repeated violations of Gulf War I cease-fire stipulations (which is what got the Clinton Administration getting the ball rolling in the UN) — the whole point of a cease-fire agreement is that you have to abide by it for the fire to cease.
– Do you understand?
[...] Randy Balko points out the amusing insanity of right-wing bloggers piling on to condemn and celebrate Spitzer’s [...]
Per Beck: Spitzer chose to live by the sword, so shall he die by it.
(At least he’s not on the cover of Esquire with his crotch spread wide with a leering grin on his face.)
Mike darling:
Just out of curiosity, why would this amorphous “Left” (which apparently includes the McClatchy Newspaper company) need to “invent” a fake U.S. Official (and why wouldn’t the administration just say “No, that’s a lie, no US Official said such a thing”?) just to repeat the same things that other high-ranking officials in the US Government have been saying for YEARS now (specifically in regards to Salman Pak, that there was no evidence of Al Queda being trained there)?
Did the “Left” “invent” the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which concluded in its Postwar Assessment of Iraq’s WMD programs that “Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qa’ida training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qa’ida operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations.” ??
Report here (http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf), quote on p.108 of the report which is p.111 in the pdf file.
A view, I might add, which is widely shared by a variety of significant sources, including a professional journalism trade publication, which investigated the journalistic failures of the flawed reporting and investigation that led to claims of such a link: http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp
I understand that we were told that the “real and legitimate” reasons for going to war (which obviously involves more death and destruction than just kicking one bad guy up the bunghole) was because of Al Qaeda and WMD.
I also understand that even with Salman Pak, Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. or its neighbors.
Finally, I understand that it’s not a good idea to go to war with countries that pose no threat to us, while being led in said war by incompetent liars.
> I also understand that even with Salman Pak, Iraq posed no
> threat to the U.S. or its neighbors.
Leaving aside Saddam’s lobbing SAMs at aircraft patrolling in accordance with GWI agreements — Kuwait, Iran, the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, and every government on earth which attempted to extricate a wanted terrorist from Saddam’s “safe-house” country knew different.
“What is this world coming to? Before long, I predict, we’ll see a President of the United States being fellated in the Oval Office toilet by a White House intern. Mark my words….”
Mike fully understands the propaganda machine:
When you are caught with your hand in the cookie jar, lie….lie often…lie outrageously…everyone will be so dumbfounded by your lies, it will confuse them.
+2
“The first rule of propaganda is to accuse your enemy of doing exactly that which you yourself are doing.” — John Barron, “The KGB Today”, cc1984.
The Soviet Union is long gone, but the Cold War lives on over at the Democratic Underground. Right, EdinTally?
Leaving aside Saddam’s lobbing SAMs at aircraft patrolling in accordance with GWI agreements — Kuwait, Iran, the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, and every government on earth which attempted to extricate a wanted terrorist from Saddam’s “safe-house” country knew different.
Since his neighbors were against our invading and since we house a terrorist or two ourselves (even if you don’t know who Luis Posad Carriles is, you don’t have to drink any of that STFU), I still don’t see your point. There’s simply no evidence to suggest that Iraq was a threat to us.
Also, Mike, I hope you’re not under the impression that you have to be on “the left” to believe the war was and continues to be a huge mistake and that it was started under false pretenses. That would be very silly of you.
> There’s simply no evidence to suggest that Iraq was a threat to us.
There’s simply no evidence to suggest that the state government which put Cory Maye in prison is a threat to me. (And this, unlike your statement, is demonstrably 100% true.) — So why should I give a flip? Eh? Well? C’mon: Why should I care? Make your case…
(Put that in your hookah and bubble it.)
I love that you use everyone else’s words instead of speaking with your own voice.
And yes, the scary monsters on the left are out to get you. BEWARE!!
(EdinTally does poor imitation of The Box Ghost from “Danny Phantom”.)
There’s simply no evidence to suggest that the state government which put Cory Maye in prison is a threat to me. (And this, unlike your statement, is demonstrably 100% true.) — So why should I give a flip? Eh? Well? C’mon: Why should I care? Make your case…
This is a good example of terrible arguing. No one I know of who opposed the war - nor those who didn’t at its outset, but now do - have argued that we shouldn’t have cared or paid attention to Iraq. So, instead of addressing the lack of evidence of an imminent threat from Iraq to the U.S. (despite the dishonest assertions of the Bush administration and its loyalists), you pretend that your opponents support a position (not “giving a flip” about Iraq) that they obviously do not and did not.
Try again, maybe?
Look, Les; if your argument is that the US has no earthly reason to give a damn about Saddam Hussein and shouldn’t have done anything accordingly, then, in order to be logically consistent, you must also argue that the same apply to the great bulk of other moral outrages detailed daily on this site.
– The *purpose* of moral outrage is for it to result in action.
You may quibble all you like over the fitness of a particular agent to undertake the action in question, but not over the moral necessity of the action itself.
Again, Mike, please note where I (or anyone here who opposed the war) have said that we shouldn’t have been paying attention to Hussein, or that we shouldn’t have done anything about him. You can’t because that’s never been argued.
The fact is were were doing something about him, we were containing him (to the point where he had zero WMD’s over ten years after the first Gulf War).
So, let’s be clear that, just as supporting a war doesn’t equal wanting to massacre thousands of innocent civilians, opposing war as a solution (especially when it’s going to be led by incompetent liars), doesn’t equal ignoring the problem.
We can’t argue about he “moral necessity” of an action? Really?
So now we had a Moral Responsibility to attack Iraq?
Does outrage always have to lead to action? Is action always necessary?
It seems to me that you have it in your head that attacking Iraq was the right thing to do. So be it. You are allowed to hold whatever opinion you want. But your rant is all over the place in your attempt to justify (which is usually what happens when an argument is flawed).
> The fact is were were doing something about him, we were containing him…
Well, isn’t that extra special nice?
Guess what: The jerkholes who railroaded Cory Maye are also “contained” in there own state where I don’t live, so the same logic flies.
– You cannot pretend to be morally outraged to the point of demanding action over the matter of a hundreds or thousands of people being unjustly sent to prison (and a couple meeting bad ends there) while simultaneously not being morally outraged to the point of action concerning a genocidal monster torturing and butchering a hundred thousand people.
It’s blatant hypocrisy.
You cannot pretend to be morally outraged to the point of demanding action over the matter of a hundreds or thousands of people being unjustly sent to prison (and a couple meeting bad ends there) while simultaneously not being morally outraged to the point of action concerning a genocidal monster torturing and butchering a hundred thousand people.
It’s blatant hypocrisy.
That’s just silly. We’re not responsible for the actions of other governments. Therefore, it’s reasonable to be more outraged when your government commits an injustice than when another government commits an injustice. That’s like saying you have to be just as outraged at the thousands of cases of domestic abuse around the country as you are at the fact that your sister’s husband is beating her.
You want to know what hypocrisy is? Hypocrisy is protecting the genocidal monster from sanction and making it easier for him to buy weaponswhile he’s being genocidal, then, when it’s politically convenient, deciding that he needs to be stopped. That’s what the architects of this war did.
Hypocrisy is pretending to care about democracy and human rights in the Middle East while embracing Saudi Arabia. That’s what they do.
And I notice we’ve gone from “Iraq was a threat because of Salman Pak” to “Hussein was a bad man who did bad things” since there’s evidence for the latter, but not the former. Well, we agree on the latter, but do we really need to make a list of all the governments that are killing their own people and then invade and overthrow them? Is that really our government’s job?
> That’s just silly. We’re not responsible for the actions of other governments….
I am not responsible for the actions of any government, including the one which put Cory Maye away
> ….your government….
Bullshit.
> You want to know what hypocrisy is? Hypocrisy is protecting the
> genocidal monster from sanction and making it easier for him to
> buy weaponswhile he’s being genocidal, then, when it’s politically
> convenient, deciding that he needs to be stopped. That’s what
> the architects of this war did.
So they’re damned if they do anything about Saddam Hussein but also damned if they don’t do anything about Saddam Hussein.
According to this view, the only person who can possibly come out of the situation smelling like a rose is Saddam Hussein for getting his ass kicked for the wrong reasons, and thus enjoy a measure of martyrdom complex from those afflicted by Bush Derangement Syndrome who were all off whistling “Dixie” while Clinton was bombing the crap out of Yugoslavia and then “bona-fide war-hero” Gen. Wesley T. Clark subsequently sought the Democratic nomination.
Blarg….
I am not responsible for the actions of any government, including the one which put Cory Maye away…
You’re more responsible for this government than Hussein’s, since you pay taxes to support this government.
So they’re damned if they do anything about Saddam Hussein but also damned if they don’t do anything about Saddam Hussein.
No…they’re damned if they protect a mass-murderer from sanctions and help him acquire deadly weapons. And they’re damned if they pretend that they’re removing the mass-murderer because he’s bad after they supported him when it was politically convenient to do so. How is that hard to understand?
Unfortunately, no one comes out of this situation smelling good, because so many people have died for no good reason at all.
The rest of your post assumes that I approved of Clinton’s actions (which I didn’t), and is really irrelevant.
Just to add a couple links….
The police really arent too happy with that ratemycop site posted here last week:
http://cbs13.com/local/rate.a.cop.2.673410.html
What do they like even less than that site? Apparently paying redlight camera tickets:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080308/koddities/oddity_speeding_police
When you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you’re Mike Schneider, every problem looks like a liberal — even when it’s not. How else to explain the obsession with liberal double standards on a libertarian website? The libertarians over at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com (for all their faults), have been entirely consistent in their objection to coercively funded taxpayer assaults on other countries, regardless of which party is helming the machine. But why let reality intervene when there are goal posts to shift?
> You’re more responsible for this government than Hussein’s,
> since you pay taxes to support this government.
(”It’s robbing me, and I’m responsible for it! It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare I tell yeh!”)
That’s Osama bin Ladin’s justification for murdering US civilians — and it’s bullshit.
> And they’re damned if they pretend that they’re removing the
> mass-murderer because he’s bad after they supported him when
> it was politically convenient to do so. How is that hard to
> understand?
How hard is it to understand that Saddam necessarily had to go regardless of who’d make political hay out of it?
> Unfortunately, no one comes out of this situation smelling good,
> because so many people have died for no good reason at all.
Let’s just call them all “people”, shall we? That way it’s easy to sneak past an equivalence fallacy regarding mostly war combatants, then imagine it’s somehow worse than before, when Saddam slaughtered great, heaping mounds of civilians.
Definitely “no good reason at all” for putting a stop to genocide if it kills a lot of the genocidal tyrant’s troops and Al Qaeda’s shipped-in-over-the-Iranian-border fanatics, right? After all, they’re just “people”, eh?
I’ve broken the code! “Mike Schneider” is *really* ace neo-conservative blogger Ace of Spades!
How do I know?
Shut up, that’s how.
Q.E.D.
Bush is a retarded moron.
Happy now?
Wellllll, just from that page for Ace of Spades, the boy has no game. All he brings is the weak.
>blank-out<
Mike, I suggest you study up on WHY you don’t go to war without a proper declaration. We have a process, it’s clearly documented in this thing called The Constitution that hasn’t been followed for 100+ years. You go around being the bully, then what can you expect from those that you bully BUT contempt and eventually a backlash?
Going to war over a UN resolution? What ever happened to the sovereignty of our country? Why are we following orders from a global body?
There was no threat to our country from Iraq. The reasons we were told at the time proved to be lies. This administration has lied so many ties, obfuscated facts, and contorted basic logic that it’s disgusting. There is no accountability because ALL branches of government aren’t doing their job of checks and balances.
This country was founded as a constitutional republic, but has been operating as a democracy (which means mob rule) for a long long time. Whoever is the majority label AND is loyal to that label wins. There goes the sanctity of protecting the individual, hell not even protecting groups of people, it’s all about protecting corporations and the elite power structure.
You should be outraged at what is happening in your own country to your fellow citizens, and doing something about that. You can be outraged at atrocities across the globe, but it is NOT the USA’s job to police the world. You can do what you want with your own resources, but quit supporting this idea that it’s ok to commit other people’s resources using the government as a proxy (called taxation and monetizing of debt to support illegal and immoral wars).
What is so hard to get about the lies upon lies? Unless you enjoy being lied to? You don’t commit an action for a given reason, get proven wrong and/or a liar, then change your reasoning OVER and OVER until you hope no one calls you on it. That is exactly what is happening, but unfortunately the Legislative and Judicial branches are doing nothing to stop it.
> Mike, I suggest you study up on WHY you don’t go to war without a proper declaration….
Lee, I suggest you revisit a paragraph I wrote earlier today: “You may quibble all you like over the fitness of a particular agent to undertake the action in question, but not over the moral necessity of the action itself.”
– That Saddam Hussein be taken down was an ethical imperative. The alleged unfitness of an administration or the United States in general to undertake that action does not render the action itself unnecessary.
> You should be outraged at what is happening in your own
> country to your fellow citizens, and doing something about that.
The difference between you and me is that my outrage over injustices doesn’t stop at the national borders.
These millions of people have every bit as much right to liberty as Cory Maye.
Mike, do you support the U.S. invading North Korea and China and Sudan? Many more people are suffering in those countries than were suffering under Hussein.
Do you think we should have invaded Rwanda in ‘94? Did you support bombing Serbia in ‘99?
How many people must be dying at any given time to justify U.S. intervention? 10,000? 50,000?
Also, Mike, you should note that you’re basically saying that the U.S. gets to decide that a certain number of Iraqi civilians must die so that the Iraqi’s can be free. (And by “free,” I obviously mean, “living in an utter hell of violence and unpredictable death.” Hell, the Iraqi’s are so “free,” they’re fleeing the country by the millions.)
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.”
Would you advocate lobbing grenades into an elementary school where students had been taken hostage? Because that’s what we did in Iraq.
> How many people must be dying at any given time to justify U.S.
> intervention? 10,000? 50,000?
E.g., “How many Cory Mayes must be rotting in prison at any given time to justify robbing the taxpayers for lots of new trials to sort it all out?”
– The fact that the US government rips you and me off does not evade the imperative that *someone* step forward to address injustices.
What the UN and US are really guilty of is *monopolizing* the “justice industry” to the point now where there are virtually no private-sector entities remaining outside of a few small South African units.
> Also, Mike, you should note that you’re basically saying that the
> U.S. gets to decide that a certain number of Iraqi civilians must die…
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.
The fact that the US government rips you and me off does not evade the imperative that *someone* step forward to address injustices.
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.
Mike, I apologize for what I said. I’m really sorry. I also apologize on behalf of the bug up my tuchis.
> No, under my rules of engagement, we’d only go to war with
> nations that threatened us.
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.)
In case anybody is keeping track, Mike Schneider wins points for appealing to directly to principles of morality and justice to justify the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. This shows, at least, that he is capable of reasoning at the appropriate level. In contrast, the lame Constitutional and procedural arguments used by some of his detractors are at best besides the point, and at worst indicative of fetishistic rule/Constitution worship (as if the Constitution has any binding moral force on anybody, which it surely does not).
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.
PS: In some provinces, unemployment has been clocked at about 50% of the population. Iraq’s pre-invasion quality of life indicators have dropped dramatically since the occupation, and in many regions access to basic infrastructure, already in poor shape after years of the inhumane sanctions regime, are minimal to nonexistent. To contend that “arguably” Iraqi civilians have it __better__ than US civilians because the TAX RATE IS LOWER is deeply insulting and profoundly dishonest. Shame.
> Iraq’s pre-invasion quality of life indicators have dropped
> dramatically since the occupation…
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.)
Mikers:
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.
Well, the market-place bombings certainly don’t help.
– But whose fault are they?
Uh… change the goalpost much?
Not at all. (I see little reason to trust Oxfam or the UN, btw, as both have track-records of gross ineptitude, partisanship and outright lying spanning decades.)
“Now, if you have any PARTICULAR methodological problems that you’d like to raise about these particular studies — please feel free.”
If not, feel free to well, cram it!
I don’t really think the onus is on me to explain why I distrust anything the UN has to say on anything, and Iraq in particular.
But this should make you happy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/oct/24/iraq.internationalnews
Mike:
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.
J, I’m not willing to accept, at face, any study which relies upon statistical extrapolation, and particularly not from organizations with historical track-records of cooking their statistics (as both Oxfam and UN agencies do).
Mikers:
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.
> the issue is whether or not there are any specific methodological
> criticisms that can be made of the studies.
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.
Mikey:
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.
> I think your lame organization-assassination tactics are bunkum
*Shrug*.
I don’t really care what you think anymore.
[...] Via Balko, another. [...]