Just like the hind-raker knows, his dream will come true someday…

[Note from the management: Post republished June 1 on account of WP weirdness. The content has not been changed.]

Powerline asks the musical question:

How Bad Is Iraq?

 moonraker.jpg
Why, it’s actually better than people think, isn’t it?…Aha! But that’s not what S.P.E.C.T.R.E. wants you to think. Take it away, John!

The conventional wisdom is that Iraq is a quagmire at best and a disaster at worst. The claim that we have already lost the war is commonly made these days, and I think it’s safe to say that most Democrats, and many other Americans, believe that we should get out of Iraq as soon as possible because our effort there has been a failure. Polls show that most Americans now believe that the Iraq war was not worth the cost, largely, no doubt, because of..

Because of whom? Who are the naysayers and traitors?

…news reports suggesting that both we and the Iraqis are incurring extraordinarily high numbers of casualties.

Gaaah! The M.S.M. — a syndicate rivaling only S.P.E.C.T.R.E. in its Machiavellian maneuverings for blood and power. This claim will, no doubt, stunningly, by Hinderaker, be shown, largely, no doubt, to be wrong.

Gateway Pundit has pulled together data from a number of sources that suggest that the conventional view is far too pessimistic–indeed, that most Americans’ view of Iraq is so distorted as to be unrecognizable.

They’re painting a lot of schools over there, one hears.

Among other things, Jim notes that the violent death rate in Iraq is lower than that in a number of American cities, including Washington, D.C.

Whoopsie. That’s a meme with no legs, isn’t it?

And, while the terrorists have killed far too many innocent Iraqis, civilian deaths in Iraq from 2003 to the present are only one-sixth the civilian deaths in Iraq during the period from 1988 to 1991. (So much for being “better off under Saddam.”)

Okay, let’s go to Gateway Pundit.

Iraq Pre and Post Saddam.2.jpg

The red area represents the estimated average deaths in Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 36 average deaths per day from mass grave discoveries, to 137 deaths per day from a different source. Saddam may have murdered up to 5% of the Iraqi population during his 20 years of rule. The yellow area shows estimated total fatalities since the beginning of the War in Iraq from Iraq Body Count, an antiwar website. Less Iraqis are dying today in war than they were when the Butcher of Baghdad’s bloody reign of terror.

[Emphasis ours.] Welp, unparsed mass grave totals aside, and weird graph aside (many of these mass graves seem in fact to contain bodies from the Iran/Iraq War), what’s this ‘different source?’ Anyone…Buehler? [crickets, a distant train whistle, a breeze sighs through the pines] Any idea? A source from where? Oh, okay — ‘a different source.’ That’s good enough for us. Back to Hindy.

I would add a few more facts.

If I had added any to begin with. However, I will keep talking.

I think that Americans’ weariness with Iraq is driven primarily by near-daily news reports of American soldiers and Marines being killed and wounded there. Of course, we mourn every death of an American serviceman or woman. But those losses need to be put in some kind of context; otherwise, since fighting any war inevitably involves casualties, military action of any kind is impossible.

Um, America’s weariness with Iraq is driven primarily by the fact that all the given rationales for the invasion turned out to be lies. Maybe invading Iraq is smart geopolitically in some way that we haven’t been told yet. If so, we still wouldn’t believe the Bush Administration if they told us, because they’ve lied like gigantic, oomping lie-tubas, over and over, oompah-oomping each new time that they were telling the truth.

A total of 2,471 servicemembers have died in Iraq from 2003 to the present, a period of a little over three years. That total is almost exactly one third of the number of military personnel who died on active duty from 1980 to 1982, a comparable time period when no wars were being fought. Until very recently, our armed forces lost servicemen at a greater rate than we have experienced in Iraq, due solely to accidental death.

Oh no, that one again. [looking at stats, correcting for size of military, crunching numbers] Right. It’s nowhere near ‘one third’ from 1980-82 to to ‘the present.’ Click his own link and check the numbers: The military had a very high rate of accidental deaths in the early Reagan years that immediately started declining, and reached very low levels during the Clinton years. The latest figures are for 2004 (not ‘the present’ but right in the middle of the Iraq War, a year and a half out of date). Yet still, corrected for the much higher number of troops in 1980, the death rate for 1980 and 2004 is very close. (110.7 per 100,000 vs. 110.2 per 100,000.) Good juggling, there! How about that? If one were to say, “Until very recently, our armed forces lost servicemen at a greater rate than we have experienced in Iraq, due solely to accidental death,â€? that would be wrong in the ‘until very recently,’ ‘at a greater rate,’ and ‘due solely’ columns. More accurate would be that troops are dying at the highest rate in 25 years. Civility check: “More accurate would be that troops are dying at the highest rate in 25 years.” You shit-gargling, cum-blorping ass-twat monster fuck, John Hinderaker. You dead-brain mouthpiece. You smug fountain of garbage.

Do you recall that during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s there was any suggestion, from anyone, that our military policies were somehow disastrous due to fatalities among our servicemen–fatalities that nearly always exceeded those we are now experiencing in Iraq? No, neither do I.

Mmmm, yes, actually. Maybe that’s because troop deaths in the 1970s had something to do with a certain country in Southeast Asia. Also, those in the 1990s were much less than now. Just saying.

So, is Iraq a disaster? There is little or no objective evidence to support that claim, but any claim, made often enough, will gain acceptance if the basic data that contradict it are never mentioned.

Posted by John at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Oh, we can do that too. ‘So, is the Earth round? There is little or no objective evidence to support that claim, but any claim, made often enough, with enough gratuitous dependent clauses, certainly, which make one look smart, I imagine, and many might agree, will gain acceptance if…AAAAAH!’ [trap door opens, dropping chair into basement mantis shrimp tank]

 

Comments: 23

 
 
 

Damn, Gavin, I gotta get me one o’ those trap doors. [Voice of Butthead] Those are cool….

mikey

 
 

It’s wet-sheet time for Hindy.

 
 

Also using Iraq Body Count is profoundly misleading (even IBC says so). The only serious attempt to estimate the civilian deaths caused by the Iraq war came to roughly 100K deaths and that was in 2004. IBC is at around 37K now. As civilian death rates have crept up slowly over the past year and a half, the real body count number is probably close to 200K+.

 
 

Now, I’m no statistician, but I’m having a remarkably difficult time reading that graph. Let’s see…The war numbers, yep. Got it. They correspond with the dates on the graph. But once you get to the Saddam flatline — um, what are the dates? Over how long are we talking? What was the Saddam death count in 1988 when the Iraqis were our ‘friend’ in their war against Iran compared to, say, 1998, when Hussein was boxed in by No Fly Zones? Or is it OK, statistically speaking, to simply draw a line for the hell of it, without context to contrast an arbitrary number with an approximate number of Iraqis dying over a defined period of time?

 
 

Ya know, you could add up the IQs of Hindy’s law firm, and still not reach double digits.

 
 

I know that a rational, educated, levelheaded man like Hinderaker has a hard time putting himself in the shoes of the barbarous and primitive Iraqis, but let’s look at something that the numbers don’t show.

Of course, many Iraqis were dying under Saddam, and many were also dying as a result of the sanctions as well. However, (and I know this is weird, and kind of irrational, but bear with me here) when your kid dies because there is a shortage of medicine due to sanctions and a corrupt government, you do get angry. But, when your kid dies because a flaming piece of metal with an American flag on it comes flying into your house and slices him into several large chunks and lots of little pieces, you actually get more upset. Weird, I know. Both ways – still 1 dead kid for the bean counters – but, dead kid in one piece just isn’t quite as upsetting as dead kid in lots of pieces.

Go figure.

 
 

(Sorry Gavin – totally off topic but this link has everything: Lordi, outings, petitions, demonstrations and anger – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5034874.stm )

 
 

I love the largely unsourced information at GP’s website used to develop the graph. I wonder where he got the data from? Strangely the data smell like ass.

A more useful visual aid might be a Venn/Euler diagram illustrating the dishonest,y stupidity and laziness of the wingers. Why do I suspect it would look like a bullseye with the PowerHonkies right in the middle?

 
 

How many more straws do they have left to grasp? There has to be a finite supply, dammit…

 
 

well, as long as they keep creating straw-people and the ultra-dense straw-liberal, they can continue to grasp at them indefinitely.

 
Respectful Dissent
 

And also, umm, not to point out one another crazy difference, but:

I’m fairly certain the statistics will back up that the Soldiers-and-Marines-having-their-brains-scrambled-and-their-limbs-blown-off-and-their-psyches-impacted-by-PTSD rate was lower, in adjusted numbers, in the early 80’s.

-RD

 
 

How many more straws do they have left to grasp? There has to be a finite supply, dammit…

I don’t know. Some of these people (John Hinderaker, above all) seem as completely flawed and amoral as the pathetic Joe McCArthy. He never ran out of staws. He just descended into a nightmare of addiction and faded away.

Assrocket…are you feeling prophetic these days?

 
 

One other little bit of context left out of Mr Hinder’s analysis: even if we grant the entirely fictitious premise of his unsourced statistics, he is still comparing the U.S. death count in Iraq alone with the death rate of the entire armed forces in the early 1980s. Surely a great intellectual like his own self can see that the only proper comparison would be the death rate of the entire armed forces in the two periods under review. But of course, Hinder could easily procure more empirical evidence concerning the inherent safety of Iraq’s palmy streets — by strapping on some of that desert camo and walking them himself.

Then again, if he did that, there is always the remote off-chance that he might possibly become a statistical anomaly by somehow being ripped to shreds in one of the most peaceful places on God’s earth. (“Stuff happens,” as Rummy says; ya just never know.) So I’m sure Casper Buttman will keep his soft and pasty white hide parked on this side of the water, happy as a clam to let darkies and crackers go off and die for him. That’s the Bushist way!

 
 

Alas, straw is a renewable resource.

 
 

Gregor, Gateway Pundit derived his numbers using the time-honored and completely-valid anal extrusion method. Hinderaker has written a thesis on the subject.

 
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
 

What would be the best instrument for smacking some sense into these idiots?

a. Doc Marten stompy boots?
b. A baseball bat?
c. A cricket bat?

I’m leaning toward a cricket bat.

 
 

Pshaw. You can use statistics to prove anything that’s even remotely true.

 
 

There ain’t a big enough bat in the world to knock a speck of sense into that Asscandle boy. When someone comes out with a statement that boils down to “less people are killed in war than in peace and the contents of my pants prove it” you know the only merciful and proper thing to do is sell them to the circus.

 
 

Mantid shrimps are way underestimated in the supervillain henchbeast pantheon. But a tank full of humboldt squid would be even better than sharks with lasers on their heads.

 
 

If so, we still wouldn’t believe the Bush Administration if they told us, because they’ve lied like gigantic, oomping lie-tubas, over and over, oompah-oomping each new time that they were telling the truth.

This is the greatest sentence in the history of sentences.

 
 

I think they use lie-Sousaphones.

 
 

Gateway Pundit notes that: 844 brave men and women from the US were lost in Iraq in 2005, 848 were lost in 2004.

Clearly this is a sign that things are indeed getting better.
At this rate, I expect that we will be down to zero losses for US troops sometime around the year 2216.

 
 

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