Fourteen of the Biggest Myths About Iraq

pretty good!

 

Why bother?

 

Copying and pasting unsupported statements is not myth busting, it's myth building.

 

Unsupported? Did you not click on the link in Capro's post?

 

Yeah.

Take the first one: Americans have killed 100,000 Iraqi Civilians. The link says:

Further down, the article correctly attributes the claim that 100,000 extra Iraqi deaths due to the invasion to a research article in Lancet. Notice that there is no link to the article itself, just to a right-wing diatribe against it (which also does not link to the actual article, but only a BBC article about the article ).

Here (linkie - pdf) is a link to the Lancet study - really not hard to find.

Since the author evidently is aware that the number came from a particular study which was completed at a particular point in time which was cited, Oct 2004, why would the number change? If subsequent studies were done, then they might rightly question the unchanging number, but since all references are to that particular study that number will not change.

The article that the author does provide a link for, the Orwellian-named LogicTimes, disputes the Lancet study by doing a retro-analysis of a report by IraqBodyCount (linkie - pdf) of civilians who were killed by bullets, bombs, mines, and other combat-related means, while the Lancet study counts deaths within the target households. The Lancet article addresses the discrepency:

The post falsely states "The group Iraqbodycount.net [for which they supply a deceptive link not to the real Iraqbodycount.net, but to their own fake one of a different name -ed.], for example, meticulously traces news sources for any death, from which it (presumably) culls redundancy and then posts the totals." The real Iraqbodycount.net explicitly states on its logo "Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq" - quite a difference from "any death".

The article was written by Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham. On page 8 of the article under the heading "Contributors" is the statement:

Followed by:

This paragraph hardly seems anti-American:

No evidence is provided in carpro's article to dispute this.

The "outrageously tiny sample" is described in Lancet: "We assumed that every household had seven individuals, and a sample of 30 clusters of 30 households each (n=6300) was chosen was chosen to provide a safety margin. We selected 33 clusters in anticipation that 10% of selected clusters would be too insecure to visit. (pg1-2 Methods)" Is that really "outrageously tiny"?

The silly article states, "..households that were disproportionately located in the violent Sunni triangle..."

Compare map of Sunni triangle (linkie) with Figure 1 on page 3 of the Lancet study, which is shows the mapping of the areas surveyed.

That is true, but people aren't less dead for having died there.

Now, does any of that mean anything to you? I'm betting not.

Nevertheless, it's always edifying to read and understand the original source that provide the basis for other articles. I recommend it.

 

Gee wiz, Daisy

Did you happen to take a good look at www.zmag.org ? It looks like a radical left-wing mag to me. :laugh:

I read through all of what you had to say. I don't think it is necessary to write a newspaper if you have nothing of substance to say.

You have failed to knock down one of the fourteen points. Try another one. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Do you know what Lancet is? For goodness sakes, it's a medical journal. Furthermore, the article was the subject of the first point.

Wow, great refutation, Blammo!

Well, seeing how thoroughly you understood the last one, I'll take a pass.

 

Daisy -

Your attempt to negate the first point failed. I don't need to re-write the points for you, do I? I read what they had to say, and then I read what you had to say. That's the way most things go these days; Two opposite views on everything, you have to hear both sides and make up your own mind. Some people are just more open minded than others. If what you had to say was more compelling, I would have given in more weight. But, it sounds to me like you have your feet firmly planted on the anti-american side of every issue. So, of course you are going to ignore the 14 points and make a futile attempt to dispute one.

 

Really? Which of the many points I made do you disagree with and, more importantly, why?

No, you need to come up with points of your own, agruments supported by evidence. Assertions are not arguments - merely saying "you failed" without showing where and how is just lame, totally lame.

Would you mind telling me what I did say in your own words? What points did I try and fail to make?

The views weren't exactly opposite - are you sure you read both?

Osh gosh, Blammo -- now I gots to get me a new Irony Meter cause that done busted my old.

Again, what is it you thought I said, in your own words?

Which of my points were anti-American, Blammo, and in what way? That there statement leads me to believe that you didn't really read more than a couple of sentences of what I posted and that you didn't read the article at all because I posted the part that was complimentary to American soldiers - did you miss that?

I won my bet. :thumbs:

 

We can argue over this and that about Iraq but the sooner we withdraw our troops from the Bush debacle in Iraq the better.

 

Ken

I really think we need to focus upon what the radical Islamic militants have been accomplishing - divide and conquer the USA. Personally, I wanted our boys (& gals) out 30 days after we went in. I do not like our blood spilt for foreigners.

President Clinton said during an interview about a year ago that he would have invaded Iraq. Come to think of it - so did the Senate and the Congress - overwhelmingly.

I wish that our boys could be celebrating the 4th here at home. But, soon - they will.

 

Yep. Except for a few exceptions - Democrats and Republicans - flip sides of the same wooden nickel.

 

Posting deliberately false and inflammatory manure to provoke a reaction again? Feeling trollish today, are we?

 

http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm:laugh:

 

Ok, explain how American liberals pose a greater danger to America than Islamic extremists in this war.

Very Coulterish.

The old "I'm rubber you're glue" defense? Yeah, that always works.

 

Yea! I've wanted to use that a few times.:laugh: