Interesting. It seems the Pentagon blocks US soldiers in Iraq from accessing Web sites that list US casualties in our glorious war. Why? What are they worried about? Bush says freedom and democracy are spreading like wildfire. What’s a few casualties along the way? (As long as they’re in somebody else’s family.) After all, we all know they’re dying for a great cause, and making all of us safer.
Via Kevin Drum.
1
By Jing
Just a heads up, but the south China morning post has now reported that Jiang Zemin has officially resigned his post as Chairman of the central military commission. Jiang apparently resigned at the CPCC plenum on thursday and now Hu Jintao is the commander in chief of the army.
September 17, 2004 @ 2:56 pm | Comment
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By ACB
Just asking, but how many members of the Iraqi police were killed during the last year. It has to be thousends by now.
When we tally up US cassulties we should also include Iraqis who are working with the US. They’re just as dead.
September 17, 2004 @ 11:36 pm | Comment
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By rosignol
Yeah, we should. But that’d go against the “America all alone in a sea of Iraqis who want us out”, and might even result in people thinking that running out on the Iraqis who are on our side, trying to establish a democratic government would be a mistake we don’t want to make.
Remind me, how many vietnamese were purged after the US pulled out of viet nam? How does that compare to the bodycount (US+coalition+pro-democracy Iraqis) in Iraq so far? Is that what we want to do to the people in Iraq? The anti-war side of the Iraq issue is usually happy to indulge in Iraq-Vietnam parallels, so how about this one?
September 18, 2004 @ 3:39 pm | Comment
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By richard
Is that what we want to do to the people in Iraq?
I know it sounds bizarre, but why not listen to what those people want? They have already made clear in a CPA-conducted poll that a large majority wants us out. If we really care so much about what they want, why did Bremer postpone the elections last year? No, what the Iraqis want is the very last thing our leaders care about in this war. If they really did care, they’d have given the people water to drink and restore their electrical power instead of making the oil pipeline their No. 1 priority.
Should we stay in Iraq forever now, losing 1,000 Americans a year and billions of dollars because some Iraqi lives are threatened — threatened only because of our meddling in the first place!? If every human life is so precious, why aren’t we in Darfur? Hell, why not China? No, the humanitarian argument won’t wash — we do not step in and order American soldiers to fight to their deaths everytime people around the world are threatened. There has to be a huge threat, like impending genocide, to warrant such action.
September 18, 2004 @ 5:00 pm | Comment