Jackson Free Press

Thunder rumbles over Fort Carson as Pamela Knott weeps inside the Army base's chapel. Minutes later, she tells television and newspaper reporters that the pouring rain soothed her during the memorial service for her son, Pfc. Joseph Knott, who was killed by a remote-controlled explosive device while on patrol in Iraq.

Journalists hover, adjusting cameras and scrawling in notebooks, asking the same questions and getting the same sorrowful responses, again and again and again.

With the war unofficially in its 29th month—though President George W. Bush was seen under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" more than 26 months ago—1,854 American troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Of those, 121 have been memorialized on the base in southeastern Colorado Springs, near NORAD, the nerve center for the U.S. military tucked inside Cheyenne Mountain.

The Knotts, whose son was honored with three other soldiers on May 24, say Joseph's death is part of the price Americans must pay to bring freedom to a people oppressed by former dictator Saddam Hussein. Pamela Knott says her son helped make the United States safer.

Not everyone feels this way. Polls this month show that only 37 percent of Americans believe Bush is handling the war in Iraq well. In another poll, 57 percent of respondents said they believe the world has become less secure because of the war, which Bush maintains is a major and inexorable component of the nation's broader fight against terrorism.

Amid such plummeting poll numbers, mother Cindy Sheehan has set up a vigil outside Bush's vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, drawing attention to a deepening distaste for a war with vague reasons and no end, or end strategy, in sight, and a casualty list mounting by the day.

The presence of Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq days after arriving, may be, finally, starting to draw Americans out of a code of silence that has permeated the U.S. since the war began in March 2003—an unwillingness to criticize the war or, in many cases, to even acknowledge the lengthening list of civilians and dead soldiers, American and otherwise.

NUMB TO SUFFERING?

Embedded deep in opinion polls is an indefinable malaise, where Americans somehow have become numb to the great human suffering taking place in Iraq, says Robert Schulzinger, director of international affairs at the University of Colorado.

"I'm only speculating, but I wonder if people are not talking much about the war out of some kind of embarrassment for thinking they were wrong," he says. "They're now changing their minds. They're now thinking it wasn't worth it. They're now discouraged."

In the past, soldier memorials were limited to foreign battlefields and bases. In Vietnam, they came to include a downturned rifle and a helmet balanced on the rifle's end. The tradition began on the battlefield, as a tribute from one soldier to another.

Today, one might see a similar display in a formal service at a U.S. base. Holding a domestic memorial represents a change for the Army, one made when the bodies started coming back from Iraq.

"The change is basically on the basis of compassion for the families," says Fort Carson chaplain Col. James Ellison. "The families are here, and they are concerned. The other families, whose husbands are deployed, they're concerned, and they're grieving, too. ... Other posts are doing somewhat the same."

A MEDIA-SAVVY WAR

John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia nonprofit that tracks the military, says the ceremonies help shape perceptions about the war in an era when the military is extremely media-savvy.

"I think everybody understands we did not lose Vietnam in Vietnam. We lost it in America," Pike says, alluding to the loss of public support.

Devastating photographs of tearful mothers clutching their sons' dog tags, trumpets playing taps and troops lining up to pay their respects—these are the images the public is given, and they cement a perception that the nation must stay the course, Pike says. The sense is that ultimate sacrifices shouldn't be in vain, and winning the war is the best way to ensure they won't be.

Grieving family members rarely talk about controversial aspects of the war. Lt. Justin Journeay, a press officer for Fort Carson, remembers just one situation where a father told the press he didn't approve of his son's choice of a military career.

Karen Fallahi, a counselor with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance of Colorado Springs, says family members, coming to grips with their loss, may feel they are in a whirlwind from the moment they get the news of the death to the time the Army transports them to the service.

"What do you expect a family to do?" she asks. "They just lost someone. They may feel numb for a long time."

Paul Rieckhoff, who led a combat platoon in Baghdad in early 2004 and now heads Operation Truth, a New York City-based soldiers' advocacy group, says he feels for families. He blames the press for telling the same story over and over again. He says people need to hear more about the unseen and unforeseen costs of the war.

"The human costs of this war have largely been hidden," he says. "People are becoming desensitized to a large extent."

For the troops, war is hell—a hell often unseen by the American public, he adds.

THE HELL OF WAR

A difficult decision newspaper editors face when deciding how to present war coverage is whether to publish graphic photographs of soldiers injured or killed on the battlefield.

Rieckhoff understands editors don't necessarily want to publish gory images, but says they are instrumental in telling the stories of the soldiers who lose their lives nearly every day on Iraq's dangerous streets. "Those images help show people what's really going on," he says.

The Los Angeles Times recently tracked six large U.S. newspapers, including itself, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and two magazines, Newsweek and Time, to determine how often graphic photographs were published. The newspaper found that during a six-month period when 599 Americans and Western allies lost their lives, only the Seattle Times printed a single photo of an American who had been killed in action.

The photo was that of Army Spc. Travis Babbitt. Babbitt's mother, Kathy Hernandez, of Uvalde, Texas, is disappointed the photo ran prior to her son's funeral, but nonetheless told the LA Times she appreciated the point of printing such images.

"I do think it's an important thing for people to see what goes on over there," she says. "It throws reality more in your face. And sometimes we can't help reality."

Rieckhoff also says there are too few stories about injured troops or soldiers suffering with stress disorders or other psychological problems after they return. He points to a study by The New England Journal of Medicine, which last year reported that troops who had been to Iraq had 15 to 17 percent higher rates of major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder than troops who had not been to the war zone.

When Rieckhoff's "guys" returned, they were still fighting the war, in the forms of depression, divorce, suicide, alcohol abuse and combat stress. "When you come home, you don't just put away the uniform and everything's all right," he says, noting the battle for benefits and quality medical care.

The Pentagon reports that more than 6,550 soldiers have been wounded in action and have been unable to return to the front lines. Another 7,000 have been wounded but able to return to duty within 72 hours.

LIES AND MISCALCULATIONS

Back in April 2003, a Gallup poll found that 73 percent of Americans supported invading Iraq. Little more than two years later, only 42 percent of Americans say the war is worth it. If the polls can be trusted, support obviously has waned, Schulzinger says.

Spc. Brian Wozny, a Bradley armored vehicle driver who remembered his friend, Sgt. Jacob Simpson, at a June 21 memorial at Fort Carson, appears shocked and seems to take it personally, when asked about such popular opinion polls.

"It's their opinion," says Wozny, who served in Iraq. "If they don't want to like the war, it's cool with me—as long as they have that right to choose."

The war isn't really the hectic fighting often portrayed in news reports, he adds.

"Bullets aren't flying every five minutes—things aren't blowing up on you every two seconds. It's like this," he says, referencing the tranquility outside the chapel following the memorial for his friend. "And when it happens, it happens out of nowhere, and it's done in five minutes or less."

Wozny maintains the United States is winning the war, that Iraq slowly is becoming safer.

Still, some leading lawmakers are calling for a pullout. Among them is Congressman Walter Jones, R-N.C., the same man who led the charge to rename French fries "freedom fries" in the month the war began.

The failure to locate weapons of mass destruction and the leak of Britain's Downing Street memo, which alleges that intelligence was fixed to rally support for going to war in Iraq, were among developments that led 122 members of Congress to gather in the basement of the Capitol in mid-June to ask Bush to explain his actions.

"We are here because many of us find it unacceptable for any administration, be it Democratic or Republican, to put our troops in harm's way based on false information," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in a statement. "The fact that our intelligence turned out to be flawed in no way absolves those who would intentionally mislead our nation or its allies."

Bush didn't specifically address the points raised by these members of Congress, but continues to defend the rationale that led the nation to war.

Schulzinger says tremors like these shake up American support for the war. "There's this cumulative evidence about the misstatements, the lies, the miscalculations before the war," he says. "Now there's a sense that Bush doesn't know what he's doing and can't solve the problem. We just had an election, so now there's not an alternative."

25,000 IRAQIS DEAD

George Esper, a 44-year veteran of the Associated Press who spent 10 years covering the Vietnam War, bemoans the many stories going untold, especially those about how the war has affected the people of Iraq.

"The big story I don't think is being told is civilian casualties," he says. "The U.S. has covered those up. How many civilians have died there?"

Exasperated by the Bush administration's reluctance to produce the number of Iraqi civilians who have perished since the war began, a British research group formed Iraq Body Count. The group reports that an estimated 25,000 Iraqis lost their lives between March 2003 and March 2005.

About 5,000 of the dead were women and children. And roughly 42,500 Iraqi civilians have been injured in the same period, according to the group.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the popular media has presented in excruciating detail stories such as the Michael Jackson molestation trial and the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

The focus, Schulzinger says, seems like a good starting point for a sociological study. Perhaps, he says, people don't connect to the war in personal ways that transcend the predictable platitudes of their ideology simply because they don't know anybody who is serving.

Maybe they haven't had to consider the option themselves, he adds.

"I think the most obvious difference between the Iraq war and the Vietnam War is that there is not now a draft," Schulzinger says. "So for people who do not have loved ones in the military—in Iraq—they don't talk about it. They try to put it out of their minds because things are not going well. It's not a personal matter for them."

Fort Carson Chaplain Ellison sees it like this: "We live in blissful peace here because of the sacrifice and dedication of our soldiers."

For Chuck Goldberg, the loss of his son, David J. Goldberg, is deeply personal. The 20-year-old died in the war in December 2003, only days after getting married. He was memorialized the following month at Fort Carson.

A neighbor near Goldberg's home in Layton, Utah, keeps a daily tally of the troops that are killed.

Some think the display is unpatriotic, Goldberg says. But he doesn't. "The last time I went by there, it's at 1,703-something," he says. "My first thought was, 'What will it be like when it reaches 2,000?'"

Previous Comments

ID

78858

Comment

I'm flummoxed by your citing Iraq Body Count's "figure" of 25,000 civilians dead. IBC was long ago discredited as using faulty methodology. For example, they routinely count as dead or injured those Iraqi's who have been targeted by terrorist suicide bombs and car bombs. I'm really surprised that you have chosen to rely on their figures here in August 2005.

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-19T20:09:10-06:00

ID

78859

Comment

1. IBC relies only on press accounts of civilian deaths. This is a pretty conservative methodology, and leads to a pretty conservative figure--25,000. I suspect the figure is substantially higher than that, but since the dead don't talk, I have no way of proving it. 2. IBC is not some random moonbat anti-U.S. site; it tallies all Iraqi civilians who have died as a direct or indirect result of the war, regardless of who perpetrated the actual violence. Since it does not claim to do otherwise, that's not "faulty methodology." 3. If you're aware of a site that does a better job of counting Iraqi civilian casualties than IBC, I'm all ears. But if you're trying to get us to forget about the whole question of Iraqi civilian deaths in general, then you'd have better luck trying that on a forum where people don't really give a damn how many Iraqi civilians die. There are plenty of forums like that out there, where conservatives lament that we didn't just nuke all of the major cities and save ourselves the trouble of a cleanup. You're not going to find many people sympathetic to that point of view on JFP. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-08-19T23:27:24-06:00

ID

78860

Comment

Mr. Head, The faulty methodology I refer to is more precisely the type where, as you say, IBC relies on press reports to tally deaths. Ther have been numerable cases where the IBC receives a press report for, for example, 12 dead in a roadside bombing. Later, the toll will be adjusted downward to, say, 5. But the IBC doesn't adjust its toll downward - it keeps it at 12. That's just one of several problems with the group. They also include in their figure those killed by common criminals, in acts entirely unrelated to the war. With all due respect, I take exception to your charge that I want you "to forget about the whole question of Iraqi civilian deaths in general." On the contrary, I feel civilian deaths are too imprtant to be so careless with, as IBC has been shown to be. By willfully exagerrating the number of civilian deaths in Iraq, IBC trivializes them. I just feel that if the author wants to advance the case that things aren't going well in Iraq, he should cite a respected source. Let's put that aside for a moment. Let's say just for the sake of argument the figure of 25,000 civilan dead is accurate. Saddam is known to have killed an average of 5,000 civilians a month, over a span of decades, through torture, assassination, and other atrocities (e.g., gassing the Kurds). We are in the 28th month of the war. If Saddam were still in power, he almost certainly would have killed about 140,000 civilians during these past 28 months. So even if IBC is correct, 115,000 fewer civilians have died since the U.S. invaded, than Saddam would have killed in the same period. If the U.S. is going to be criticized for 25,000 civilan deaths, shouldn't it also be credited with saving 115,000?

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-20T08:41:14-06:00

ID

78861

Comment

IBC was long ago discredited as using faulty methodology. On the contrary, I feel civilian deaths are too imprtant to be so careless with, as IBC has been shown to be. Justin, these sentence are good examples of what's wrong with the passive voice. I don't believe you have said anywhere in your comments who discredited IBCóyou've buried the fact that you are not attributing your comments by using the passive voice, purposefully or not. It could be anybody from Drudge to O'Reilly to Coulter to the Government Accounting Office. Could you provide links and actual sources please so that we can all become more enlightened? As it is, this could be just more right-wing rhetoric. Who can tell? Thank you.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T14:01:37-06:00

ID

78862

Comment

Big news this a.m. on political talk shows: Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel compared Iraq with Vietnam, and criticized Bush's "stay the course" rhetoric. AP reports: A leading Republican senator and prospective presidential candidate said Sunday that the war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and is looking more like the Vietnam conflict from a generation ago. Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing. "We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur." Hagel said "stay the course" is not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq ... we're not winning," he said.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T14:03:18-06:00

ID

78863

Comment

More Hagel from the AP report: Hagel, who was among those who advocated sending two to three times as many troops to Iraq when the war began in March 2003, said a stronger military presence by the U.S. is not the solution today. "We're past that stage now because now we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam," Hagel said. "The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have." Allen said that unlike the communist-guided North Vietnamese who fought the U.S., the insurgents in Iraq have no guiding political philosophy or organization. Still, Hagel argued, the similarities are growing. "What I think the White House does not yet understand - and some of my colleagues - the dam has broke on this policy," Hagel said. "The longer we stay there, the more similarities (to Vietnam) are going to come together." Quote o' the week (year? war?): "the dam has broke on this policy" I've always liked Hagel -- in a matchup between him and Hillary, I just might have to go GOP this time around.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T14:12:31-06:00

ID

78864

Comment

Argh. This is simply disgusting. From the New York Times editorial today: The Bush administration has announced plans for a Freedom Walk on Sept. 11, which will start at the Pentagon and end at the National Mall, and include a country music concert. The event is an ill-considered attempt to link the Iraq war to the terrorist attacks of 2001, and misguided in almost every conceivable way. It also badly misreads the public's mood. The American people are becoming increasingly skeptical about the war. They want answers to hard questions, not pageantry. It is perfectly appropriate for the Defense Department to organize a memorial for Americans who died on Sept. 11, since many were Pentagon employees. It is also fine to pay tribute to the sacrifices being made by the troops in Iraq. What is disturbing is the Bush administration's insistence on combining the two in a politically loaded day of marching and entertainment. Having failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the administration has been eager to repackage the war as a response to Sept. 11. The Freedom Walk appears to be devised to impress this false connection on the popular imagination. The walk will end with a concert by the country musician Clint Black. Mr. Black is a gifted entertainer, but his song about the Iraq war, "I Raq and Roll" - which contains such lyrics as "our troops take out the garbage, for the good old U.S.A." - sends a jingoistic message that is particularly out of place at a memorial service. President Bush, the American people are not stupid. And we ought to have more plain old good taste than this. This administration will do anything for politics and to try to justify their failing Iraqi War. - Out CIA Agent (check) - Demonize soldier's mother for political beliefs (check) - Stage tacky, tasteless, jingoistic "memorial" to victims of 9-11 to try to tie their horrible deaths to a bad war that used their deaths for an excuse (check)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T14:17:14-06:00

ID

78865

Comment

The link to the editorial, and some excerpts from its end: The Bush administration took the nation to war on the basis of a bundle of ever-changing arguments, few of which stood up once the fighting began. Ever since, the White House has tried to shore up its positions by discounting all bad news and shielding the civilian public from any war-connected inconvenience. But that strategy has very clearly stopped working. It is time for a somber acceptance of the war's costs, and some specific talk about what the nation's goals and strategy are in Iraq. The Defense Department's ham-handed mixture of mourning and celebration, and its misleading subtext, feels as if it was dreamed up by an overly slick image consultant. It is not the kind of program the administration should be sponsoring, unless it wants to give the impression that the Pentagon's mood is less serious than the public's. This really sounds like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. Who thought this #$%@ up? Will someone please sit down this administration and have a good talk with them? Hagel? Snowe? McCain? Daddy Bush? Somebody???

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T14:19:47-06:00

ID

78866

Comment

Justin, unless you can suggest a serious attempt to tally Iraqi civilian casualties that does a better job than IBC, then I'm not sure what you're getting at. Even if Saddam killed 10 million people a year and the U.S. only killed the Iraqi water polo team, we still need an accurate tally of casualties. As far as adjusting up and adjusting down goes: If I understand right, that's the reason why they have minimum and maximum casualty numbers instead of a single figure. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-08-21T14:25:43-06:00

ID

78867

Comment

Ms. Ladd, With all due respect, I don't believe this is a right-left argument, and your injecting that presumption into the debate (at this time, at least) seems premature to me, and perhaps counter-productive. Also, and again with all due respect, can we save the Hagel discussion for later? It's not germaine at all to the problems in this article, which, after I explain further, I believe you'll agree are serious enough to warrant further discussion. Let's go directly to the source - the IBC report itself: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr12.php IBC's web site says: "US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims." So even if we give them the benefit of the doubt on their 25,000 figure, they admit themselves that U.S. forces are responsible for only 37%, or about 9,300 deaths... not the entire 25,000, as many people assume when the figure is cited without further explanation. Mr. Head, please read my post again. You'll notice I didn't say we don't need an accurate tally of civilian deaths. While I maintain that IBC's methodology is faulty (aside from including garden-variety criminal violence, your assumption that press reports of casualties are, by definition, accurate and reliable is not a widely-held belief outside of the press itself), I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on their figures. I am happy, for the sake of argument, to proceed on the assumption that their figures - that there have been 25,000 civilian deaths since the U.S. invasion. But IBC's own breakdown of the figures actually underscores my point even more. While there is some debate as to the _exact_ number of Iraqi civilan deaths under Saddam Hussein, there is no debate over the fact that the number is staggering: http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=2400&msp=1242 "Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. 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." I'd like to concentrate not on the political agenda of the IBC, but on the pure mathematics of the situation in Iraq. Let me do some more precise calculations based on all of these figures - If you take the midpoint between 70 and 125 - call it 100 deaths per day - then you have about 3,000 deaths per month under Saddam. So over every 28-month period under Saddam, about 84,000 civilians were being killed. If, as IBC claims, only 9,300 civilian deaths have been caused by U.S. combat actions over the last 28 months, then 74,700 _fewer_ civilians have died in Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion, compared to the number killed in the same period under Saddam. That's a reduction in civilian deaths of 88%. Eighty-eight percent! There's much more to talk about re this article, but I'm hoping we can take one thing at a time. So back to my original point... Ms. Ladd and Mr. Head, if we take IBC at its word about the figures it released last month... and if we take the above human rights organizations at their word (remembering they did their studies and released their figures _before_ the war), then don't we have to conclude that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has resulted not in a dramatic _increase_ of civilian deaths, but in fact a dramatic _reduction_?

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-21T20:14:51-06:00

ID

78868

Comment

Please, call me Tom. And I repeat: Unless you can provide an alternative source of Iraqi civilian casualties that does a better job of tallying them than the IBC, then the issue becomes one where you are suggesting that we use no tallies at all. That is unacceptable to me, particularly since I am well aware of how the IBC does things and do not consider it the least bit disinguous. I am actually one of the rare liberals who was not sure, in the early days of the war, whether or not he supported it. I'm still not sure that the Iraq War, in principle, was wrong. I think it was conducted in the wrong way, but I can't say for certain how history will look back on it. Hussein was not a humanitarian; this much we know. Clinton was willing to bomb the bejeezus out of Iraq, too, even though he never formally declared war; this much we know. The sanctions were most likely indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and were not a viable long-term option; this much we know. The fact remains that we need an accurate count of Iraqi civilian casualties. We need to know the true cost of this war. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-08-21T20:25:19-06:00

ID

78869

Comment

All those words, Justin, and still no attribution for who or what group has discredited the IBC, other than your own personal math. With due respect, you're not the moderator here. I am. So I will respectfully, first, tell you that I will mention the "right wing" whenever I feel like itóespecially since that seems to be the source for your arguments about the IBC. If not, you're doing a good copycat job of using their arguments and subterfuge. In addition, it is not up to you to tell me what other quotes to post here, either. You are being a tad arrogant in trying to declare what is and is not appropriate for comments after an article you did not write and on a site you do not own and do not moderate. So I suggest you stop that annoying little habit right now if you'd care to continue blogging here. As for Hagel, I think it's terribly appropriate to an article that is about whether or not Americans are paying attention to the deaths of our soldiers in a poorly planned war that we post and discuss the comments of a Republican U.S. senator who seems to have come to a very important conclusion. In fact, that is more relevant than the parsing of numbers to figure out if too many Iraqi civilians have died. If you want to continue that discussion, please go start your own thread about it in our forums. Otherwise, I will continue to keep this one on target. Tom, I tend to agree with you about the war. Beyond the fact that I'm never a fan of war, I can be convinced that they're necessary. But I want the right information about the justification, I want to know that our administration has exhausted all possible options, with the help of the world community, before we start sending our soldiers to be killed and to kill theirs (and their civilians). Clearly, this war has never passed any of the tests for a just war at least as it's been sold and foughtódidn't in the beginning and doesn't now . It's good to see most of the American people finally catching onto that fact, as depressing as it will be for more and more of them to realize what a mess the Bushies have gotten us into on this one.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T21:14:45-06:00

ID

78870

Comment

Oh, and call me donna or ladd, please. No courtesy title needed.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T21:17:05-06:00

ID

78871

Comment

I should also add that I think you're setting up a faulty comparison, Justin, when you start trying to figure out if the civilian deaths now are "lower" than the civil deaths under Saddamótherefore, this is a good thing. That is rather painful logic to me, however the math works out. And it sounds like some big ole rationalization. The point should not be whether fewer Iraqis are dying during a poorly planned war; therefore, it is still a good thing. The question, as Tom alludes to, should be whether we did everything we could ahead of time to plan this war well, understand the contingencies and get the world community on board. Clearly, we did not. Another source to add in the mix is the Johns Hopkins study of last fall.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T21:29:06-06:00

ID

78872

Comment

"Unless you can provide an alternative source of Iraqi civilian casualties that does a better job of tallying them than the IBC, then the issue becomes one where you are suggesting that we use no tallies at all." Tom, I never wrote, nor implied, that we do not need an accurate measure of civilian deaths in Iraq. I did raise an objection to the validity of IBC's figures, but once again - I am assuming for the sake of argument that IBC's data are correct. I am willing to accept them at face value. 9,300 civilan deaths over 28 months caused by U.S. forces works out to about 10 a day. I think's a bit high, but let's go with them. (Sanctions are a separate matter. It's easy to claim that X number of children 'may' have been killed by sanctions, because 'killed by sanctions' is such a slippery definition. There's also the issue of the oil-for-food program, which was devised to alleviate whatever suffering may have been caused by sanctions. If after the oil-for-food program was up and running, any children died 'because of sanctions,' the only party to blame is the Iraqi government, who stole the oil-for-food funds. They had billions to feed children, and virtually none of it went to do so. Sanctions are unrelated to civilian deaths caused by war, torture, and assassination - let's leave sanctions for another time, please.) We're still left with these facts: - Before the U.S. invasion, several human rights organizations independently concluded that Saddam had been killing an average of about 3,000 civilians a month over his 24-year reign. (Again, these are solely deaths by war, torture, and assassination - not starvation, disease, or garden-variety crime.) - After the invasion, even IBC's _highest_ estimates of civilian deaths caused by U.S. forces come to about 330 per month. - So the number of post-invasion civilian deaths caused by U.S. forces in 88% less than pre-invasion civilian deaths caused by Saddam. Please, do not mistake me again for having said that I'm not interested in an accurate tally of civilian casualties. Forget I ever called IBC's methodologies into question. I am giving you your IBC figures and basing my calculations on them. As I said earlier, there are other things to talk about regarding this article, but I want to take one thing at a time. Can we, or can we not, agree that the number of civilians killed per month by U.S. forces is about 88% less than were killed by Saddam when he was in power?

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-21T21:48:46-06:00

ID

78873

Comment

Donna, Thank you (and Tom) for the invitation to drop formalities. About suggestion that decreasing Iraq's civilian casulaties by 88% is not, in and of itself, a good thing, I respectfully disagree. Conservative or liberal, I think we would all agree that sparing 2,600 Iraqis _every month_ from death by war, tortue, and assassination is a good thing, no matter what our objections to the way in which it was done. (Obviously if it involved, say, the deaths of 2,600 of our own soldiers every month instead, you would have a point, but that's not happening.) I should point out that I have plenty of objections to the way the administration has handled the war, and I'd like to talk about those with you later, but I want to 'take one thing at a time' ;) Allow me to suggest - as respectfully as possible - that the last section of this article doesn't make the case that post-invasion civilian deaths prove that the war is going badly. I could see the point if, say, the difference in reduced civilian deaths was only a few percentage points, but at 88%... heck, even at 48%... that seems like proof of success, not failure. If you don't mind, let me proceed to my next point. In the section "The Hell of War," the author seems to be implying that news media are not giving us 'the whole story' because they don't generally publish graphic photos of soldiers killed or injured in combat. That much I'll give him. The media don't generally publish graphic photos of soldiers killed or injured in combat. But to be fair, they don't publish graphic photos of everyday citizens killed in drunk driving accidents. According to the Center for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm), 17,000 people were killed in 2003 in drinking-related traffic accidents. That's an average of 46 people a day. About 1,800 soldiers have died in the roughly 840 days of combat in Iraq, which works out to a little over 2 per day. So drunk driving - which takes the lives of many people who aren't drunk at the time of the accident, indeed some who have never taken a drink in their lives - kills 23 times as many Americans as the war in Iraq. (And remember, those killed in Iraq are all adults who willingly volunteered for service, and knew the risks of war when they did.) Is the author suggesting that we might also increase awareness of drunk driving fatalities if the media published graphic photos of drunk driving victims? One might even ask the question - "Why doesn't the Jackson Free Press publish photos of soldiers killed in combat?" (Not picking on this publication... replace "Jackson Free Press" with any number of publications opposed to the war.) Just a point a I thought needed making... but put that aside for a moment.

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-21T22:49:51-06:00

ID

78874

Comment

- continued from above - Would the author be open to a deal in which the media published the photos of the two soldiers killed in combat every day in Iraq, as long as they also published the photos of those 100 or so people who were killed by Saddam before the invasion? Or of the 10 or so people currently killed every day by the insurgency? Something tells me he would not. But even if he were, don't you think the effect wouldn't be what we he seems to want? Something tells me that if you saw a page filled with photos of 110 Iraqis who were once killed every day by Saddam and are now being killed by the insurgency, and on the next page you saw photos of the 2 American soldiers killed in combat that day, it would not cause Americans to rise up in protest against the war. I bet they'd be more supportive than ever. What's my point here? It's that showing more photos of dead soldiers is not telling the truth any more than suppressing those photos is. The author is obviously sympathetic with Paul Rieckhoff saying more photos of dead soldiers would "help show people whatís really going on," when what it would really do is help the author (and Paul Rieckhoff) show the world what _they want them to think_ is going on. Please don't misunderstand me - I'm not saying that we _shouldn't_ show more pictures of dead soldiers. I'm just saying that if want to give the American public the truth - the whole picture, the broad sweep of history so they can put it all into proper context - then let's show photos of _everyone_ whose life was taken by war in Iraq, be it the U.S. invasion, or Saddam's killing of 50,000 Kurds.

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-21T22:51:08-06:00

ID

78875

Comment

"The point should not be whether fewer Iraqis are dying during a poorly planned war; therefore, it is still a good thing. The question, as Tom alludes to, should be whether we did everything we could ahead of time to plan this war well, understand the contingencies and get the world community on board." Yes, I understand that's _your_ point, and one well worth debating at some other time :) , but that's not the point the author was trying to make in the last section of his article.

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-21T23:06:07-06:00

ID

78876

Comment

Donna writes: Tom, I tend to agree with you about the war. Beyond the fact that I'm never a fan of war, I can be convinced that they're necessary. But I want the right information about the justification, I want to know that our administration has exhausted all possible options, with the help of the world community, before we start sending our soldiers to be killed and to kill theirs (and their civilians). Clearly, this war has never passed any of the tests for a just war at least as it's been sold and foughtódidn't in the beginning and doesn't now . Agreed. My position (and possibly yours) is roughly equivalent to that of Molly Ivins, who once said that invading Iraq might actually be justified on humanitarian grounds, but never was justified on humanitarian grounds. Instead we got all that garbage about WMDs. And Bush was so busy hamming it up, and building policy around political concerns rather than military concerns, that his handling of the war has unquestionably been responsible for countless American and Iraqi deaths. I would say that's the sort of thing that should weigh on his conscience, but I'm not entirely convinced that his still works. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-08-21T23:08:33-06:00

ID

78877

Comment

Justin, if you want to make the case that Saddam Hussein was a monster, you'll get no argument from me. He was, at best, a bargain brand Stalin. I wish Mossad had put a bullet in him 20 years ago; that would have saved us all a lot of trouble. But the key issue to bear in mind here is that we are not Iraq. The people who die in Iraq as a direct or indirect result of our intervention should get more attention from us than the people who died in Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's policies, because we can't be a moral nation unless we are at heart a self-critical nation. Morality is fundamentally about self-criticism, not other-criticism; it is about what we do as agents of moral change. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-08-21T23:13:58-06:00

ID

78878

Comment

The people who die in Iraq as a direct or indirect result of our intervention should get more attention from us than the people who died in Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's policies, because we can't be a moral nation unless we are at heart a self-critical nation. Thank you, Tom, for yet again making the point in so few words that I waste so many on. And as we can all see, lots of words are not necessarily convincing. And, yes, Ivins was right on. As usual. And, yes, Saddam was a rotten, murderous scoundrel. Always has been, even when the U.S. dug him. Still no reason to go in there nearly alone with our soldiers under-equipped while thumbing our noses at the world. Meantime, Justin, I believe I mentioned that you are welcome to start your own thread in the forums to parse the IBC numbers and do your personal math equationsóespecially if you resist providing those sources that I asked for; then you just changed your point. Your bait-and-switch logic has left me uninterested in your comments. That meant, in case you're not keeping up, that this thread is going to stay on-topic. So please adhere to that, so that your posts don't start disappearing altogether. I suggest you get to it, if you want to keep up your own little BodyCount game. It's over on this thread. This is a cover story, not a place for unattributed attacks on other people's points. One other suggestion: Make your own points, and do not try to tell me, the author or anyone else what our points are. That's not up to you to do and violates the User Agreement.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T23:37:32-06:00

ID

78879

Comment

Yes, I understand that's _your_ point, and one well worth debating at some other time :) , Justin, your arrogance is breaktaking here. You are not the moderator of this site, or editor, or owner, and being that that is the case, you are way out of line in telling me when it is OK for me to say a damn thing. Move along, little doggie. Or learn some manners when you're a guest in someone else's house. You are wearing out your welcome here fast, and I'd like to see you stay around long enough to say at least one convincing thing. Seriously, lose the arrogance and stop trying to run my site. Last call.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T23:41:19-06:00

ID

78880

Comment

_breathtaking_

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-21T23:42:23-06:00

ID

78881

Comment

Donna, My apologies! Honestly, I didn't mean to try and tell you what you could and couldn't say on your own site. I'm sorry. Thank you for pointing that out. Please accept my apology. You say, "I'd like to see you stay around long enough to say at least one convincing thing." May I say, without fear of sounding bad-mannered, that this sounds a little insulting? I've tried to be polite and respectful, and I will continue to do so (and be grateful when you call me on it! ;) ). I would hope we can both continue this conversation with respect for each other's opinions. I guess what I mean is - I thought my point about civilian deaths _was_ convincing. You even said yourself: "the math works out." And I wasn't trying to make the point that lower civilian deaths equated to the entire war in Iraq being a good thing. I was simply taking issue with the author's point that IBC's civilian death statistics weren't sufficient proof that the war in going badly. On the contrary, I think it's evidence of something hugely positive in Iraq, lowering civilian casulaties 88% from pre-invasion figures. When I made my last comment about debating your point some other time, it was late and I was very tired. My mother, who is recovering from a broken hip, has also come down with some kind of cold, and she had just called to say she misplaced some medicine. It's very frustrating when she does that (especially when I had just been over there labelling and arranging all of it). I should have taken a minute (and a few deep breaths!) before I responded. What I probably should have said was... I don't wish to take issue with _you_, but instead with the author and the case he's trying to make with this article. I promise I'll keep my remarks focused on the article from now on.

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-22T06:11:53-06:00

ID

78882

Comment

I also should have said... I'm new to "blogging" and I find it difficult to handle more than one topic at a time. I have a lot to learn - please bear with me!

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-22T07:11:58-06:00

ID

78883

Comment

Justin, you also seem to be new to listening to what people say. You took my statement: That is rather painful logic to me, however the math works out. and turned it into this to try to show that I agreed with your personal number-crunching: You even said yourself: "the math works out" Uh, no I didn't. Ummm, you are twisting my words and lifting a partial quote out of context. In the journalism world, we would call that unethical. In the blogging world, I call it trolling, whether you mean to or not. It's not your opinions here that are at issue, Justin, it's how you are delivering them and using faulty and offensive tactics to try to discredit others. Ain't gonna fly here. Otherwise, you haven't said anything convincing to me. You haven't attributed any of your theories to anything other than your own math, and you've used faulty logic throughout your posts, which have gone on and on, taking away from anything intelligent that could be discussed, pro or con, this piece. You have been arrogant; you have told people what they can and cannot discuss, and when. I'm sorry your mother has a broken hip, but you are done on this particular thread. You are truly making it spin out of control while offering very little of substance. Again, I make the offer: If you would like to go to the Forums and start your own thread so that you can practice your discussion skills, I will allow you to do that. Ultimately, I believe you mean well, and I'll give you a chance to show that. But you're done on this particular thread; I've already given "last call." Seriously, do not post another thing here unless it's a link to your new Forum thread. And remember the same rules apply there, but it's a good chance to practice your blogging skills while not disrupting another story while you learn the rules.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-22T09:37:12-06:00

ID

78884

Comment

Donna, I apologize again if I came across as arrogant. I honestly wasn't trying to give people orders, it's just that I was overwhelmed by the number of different things you and Tom wanted to talk about. My daughter says I'm a poor "multi-tasker" and I guess she's right! Please don't take offense - all I wanted to do was try and focus on one thing at a time. Before I go to the forums, though, can I ask you to point out one or two places where I've used faulty logic? I just try to use my best reasoning skills and to write as clearly as I can, so if you could point out some of the errors I've made, I could probably learn a lot about how to proceed in the forums. Also, are you and Tom in the forums? Will we be able to discuss things there like we do here?

Author

Justin Wright

Date

2005-08-22T10:00:07-06:00

ID

78885

Comment

I have already pointed out errors, Justin. Anybody can post anywhere on the site if they want to. I'm not particularly interested in discussions with you, however, based on what I've seen. Tom is his own person. And harassing people to talk to you and respond to your questions is considered trolling. Now, move on. Further posts here from you will be deleted without comment. And I'm not kidding.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-22T10:06:32-06:00

ID

78886

Comment

For anyone interested, Justin's has moved his math discussion here as I suggested. Please go there to discuss that issue if you please. If I get a chance later, I'll move his comments from above over there in order to keep this thread on topic. ó Ed.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-22T12:38:10-06:00

ID

78887

Comment

Re Hagel, the Austrailian Herald Sun had this to say today: Nebraskan senator Chuck Hagel, who received military honours for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the US needed to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Senator Hagel scoffed at the idea that US troops could be in Iraq for four more years, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing. "We should start figuring out how we get out of there," he said. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilises the Middle East. "I think our involvement there has destabilised the Middle East. And the longer we stay there I think the further destabilisation will occur." Senator Hagel said "stay the course" was not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyse 2 1/2 years in Iraq . . . we're not winning." Iraq war protesters camping near President George W. Bush's ranch yesterday took support from a prominent figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement -- folk singer Joan Baez. Baez held a free concert in Mr Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, Texas. "You know, in the first march I went on against the war in Vietnam there were 10 of us," Baez said as she met a group of women whose sons died in Iraq or were being deployed there. "This is huge," she said. The part about Baez is interesting because it reminds people who may not remember (or know) that the anti-Vietnam movement was very small in the beginning. It seems that the public is beginning to wake up from a long Republican snooze. Something's going on here.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-08-22T12:57:47-06:00