One who believes:

1. The Bush Administration did not lie to its citizens to blow up iraq

2. the "surge" is working

3. The Iraqis are greeting us as liberators

4. Treetwista

5. stuff like above

10/15/2007 3:42:54 PM

Quote :

"the "surge" is working"

well, I am delusional

Quote :

"3. The Iraqis are greeting us as liberators"

Where are troops are, they like us. Like it or not, we are nice and want to help. They see that. Even if they are scared to show it in some places.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

http://michaelyon-online.com/

[Edited on October 15, 2007 at 3:47 PM. Reason : read]

10/15/2007 3:47:11 PM

you edited your post, but you still didn't fix this?

Quote :

"Where are troops are,"

-------

Quote :

"Even if they are scared to show it in some places."

so you're saying.... where "are" troops and the Iraqi's are happy to see us, that's their true feelings, but where they're fighting us, they're only doing that because they're scared to show us the truth?

10/15/2007 4:01:25 PM

Quote :

"Like it or not, we are nice and want to help."

haha; nice as in playing cowboys and indians with live bullets right. I am sure the troops are doing a lot of good also in Iraq but I doubt most Iraqi's are happy with the continuing US president unless it is in their self interest (ie has US support for their position of power, assets protected by US, gets a lot of business from the US)

as far as teh original post

No x5

10/15/2007 5:13:00 PM

Terp I would consider people delusional who think Bush lied to blow up iraq. Now do I think we made a mistake? sure, however lying.... nah

10/15/2007 5:15:52 PM

toucheeeeeeee

10/15/2007 5:16:21 PM

^^ not enough hard questions were asked, people wanted someone to blame/hate/blowup, and politicians were swept up in the pre-emptive war doctrine that has since become a disaster now referred to as our foreign policy...

10/15/2007 5:18:37 PM

^^^HA! at the very least the whole presentation to the UN was a damn lie

10/15/2007 5:52:11 PM

Odd, I was going to comment earlier today when I saw this that the surge was working, based only on the fact that I hadn't seen cnn/msnbc post as many IED bombing stories lately.

Then on the ride home, npr made it feel like there are still tons of bombings going off (more than 5 today in various locations around Iraq).

So I dunno if it is npr being a bit liberal in their spin, the regular news outlets not covering the stories anymore since the Sept progress report has come and gone, or some combination of both.

10/15/2007 6:15:18 PM

looks like the overall trend (for deaths) is down this year
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

but if NPR is reporting 5 bombings, and there were in fact 5 bombings, then I don't know how that could be construed as spin. Unless, of course, reality has a liberal bias.....

10/15/2007 6:30:39 PM

Quote :

"Where are troops are, they like us. Like it or not, we are nice and want to help. They see that. Even if they are scared to show it in some places."

LOL thats the most kindergarten politics i've ever read.

"They want to be BFF's so they don't mind us being there!"

10/15/2007 6:46:25 PM

^^ Spin for reporting the bombings, sensationally, without mentioning that overall the trend is down.

I didn't listen to the entire story, I just remember the "impression" I got from npr being different than the WPO.

10/15/2007 7:11:11 PM

every time NPR or anyone else reports a bombing incident, are they required to recap the trend for the month or year? What about year over year? Do they have to report the total number of people killed since the start of the war?

i'm not arguing, just throwing out hypotheticals. Is the press not reporting every single bomb now because 1) they are not occurring every day, or 2) because they are still occurring, but it is no longer news? In Washington DC, do they report every murder on the 6:00 evening news, or in Raleigh do they report every break-in or car theft? No, because those occurrences are commonplace enough to no longer be "news". The definition of "news" is something that occurs rarely enough so that when it does occur, it is worth reporting.
I don't know. Maybe we have a "baseline" of 3 bombings a day in Iraq. Anything under that number is no longer sensational enough for cable to report it, unless they are attempting to spin the reports into sounding worse than it actually is?

10/15/2007 7:20:45 PM

Well, that's kinda what I was getting at with my first post.

If the trend is clearly down, significantly down actually as mentioned in WPO, and I have been paying attention to npr lately and they haven't been reporting on bombings daily, then why are they today reporting on all the bombings without mentioning that today was an anomaly, or at least a spurious mention that things are better?

Just seemed odd.

10/15/2007 7:23:44 PM

Quote :

"^^^HA! at the very least the whole presentation to the UN was a damn lie"

no no no...
It was necessary to exaggerate the facts in order to get people on board with the solution.

10/15/2007 9:08:31 PM

Kinda like what Al Gore does with global warming.

The ends justify the means, right?

Well, only if you agree with the ends

10/15/2007 9:46:01 PM

thank you, prawn, for explaining the meaning of my post...

10/15/2007 9:47:32 PM

No problem ...

10/15/2007 10:13:27 PM

Quote :

"re they required to recap the trend for the month or year"

yeah awesome instead of 100 people/month dying; not its 79 people/month. We are winning the war on turrrrrists. MISSION ACOMPLISHED

USA USA USA

<3

10/15/2007 10:45:14 PM

10/15/2007 10:50:58 PM

I think the current attitudes among the Iraqis are probably a bit more complicated than a simple "they love us" or "they hate us." The Kurds like us because we got Saddam off their backs and pretty much saved them after Gulf War I. The other Iraqis probably view us with a swirl of mixed feelings. Most are probably grateful that we disposed of their psychotic dictator. Most are also probably pissed that we botched the occupation and left them with near anarchy and brutal violence. Some of our tactics are not appreciated, and the damned mercenaries need to get out of dodge. They want us to get the hell out of Iraq, yet with all the other newly formed Iraqi institutions proving inept and corrupt, the foreign fighters proving even crazier than the American mercenaries, and the supposedly righteous militias like the Mahdi Army devolving into armed thugs, the United States military is about the only force in the nation that is able to protect them, and if we're going to stay, would prefer to have us patrolling their neighborhoods over the Iraqi Police or one of the various militias.

So I guess their opinions are much like the war: confused, angry, and a rough idea of what they want but no consensus on how to accomplish it.

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 12:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/16/2007 12:26:20 AM

Quote :

"pretty much saved them after Gulf War I"

not in my history books

Quote :

"the damned mercenaries need to get out of dodge"

i'm pretty sure that private U.S. forces outnumber the U.S. military in Iraq. With the military already operating at a pretty severe optempo, getting the mercs (or whatever you want to call them) out of the picture is pretty much a pie-in-the-sky proposition.

10/16/2007 12:49:27 AM

The truth doesn't fit your narrative, I suppose.

Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled

Quote :

"The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/14/AR2007101401245.html?hpid=topnews

Better Numbers
The evidence of a drop in violence in Iraq is becoming hard to dispute.

Quote :

"NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we've said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month -- whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq -- have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that 'civilian deaths have risen' during this year's surge of American forces. A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004. During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success [emphasis added]."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/13/AR2007101301071.html

10/16/2007 1:00:10 AM

This is a hooksaw post of which I 100% approve.

I just hope we can keep it up. We don't want to leave that place in a shambles!

10/16/2007 1:11:15 AM

^ Um. . .thanks, I guess? I'm not used to people here agreeing with me--now I have to run away and hide like King Kong did.

10/16/2007 1:22:55 AM