One million +

Shock and Awe...

Come on now, he may be a mass murderer, but he's not as bad as an atheist...

It's only murder if they're not poor or brown.

Not just those few guys. Bush was re-elected.

Bush was never elected. He cheated twice.

Well, that's only if you count Bush responsible for deaths directly caused by internecine attacks as well as by the US military.

It seems to me that he's competing with god for worst evil-doer. If anything, this makes him more christian!

What? Give an atheist credit for wiping out that many Muslims? That would be downright un-Christian. This guy's gunning for a penthouse in Heaven, and by God, he's gonna earn it!

Well, that's only if you count Bush responsible for deaths directly caused by internecine attacks as well as by the US military.

Is there good reason to believe those people would still be alive if Bush hadn't invaded Iraq for oil-profiteering and penis-size reasons, or isn't there?

We are a horribly violent, reactionary nation.

We should be extremely worried about that.

We aren't, and millions die as a result.

Yes, its all George Bush and the American army who are doing the killing, there are no evil, murdering scumbags who happen to be Iraqis or Iranians, or any other race. It is all George Bush.

"We are a horribly violent, reactionary nation."

Yes, I agree. Perhaps we should commit mass suicide; for if America didn't exist, the bluebirds would come out again and everything would be peaceful and people would lay down their arms and grenades and embrace each other.

Let's also add to the list of dead Iraqis all the dead Germans and Japanese. Reactionary, indeed.

Paul

Donalbain, read comment 9 again.

Paul, learn to distinguish your country from your fictitious president.

"Paul, learn to distinguish your country from your fictitious president."

~My~ president? If you are referring to Bush, I did not vote for him.

Paul

Wooo-EEEE! Dubya's the NEW "Butcher of Baghdad"! Yayyyyyy!

Suck on this, libruls! Your boy Saddam can't compare, he done been beat!
.

Your country has not killed that many, at least half are the result of crazy religious affiliation. If the police went on strike and 60 people got murdered because they were not around, you would hardly say they killed them.
This is not to support the inane attacking and occupation of Iraq, but you cannot hold America guilty for every death - much of it they did to each other in the name of their prophet's relatives if I understand correctly. Let us put the blame for that part where it belongs - on religion.

Not all of the Iraqis would be dead had we not come to liberate them from Saddam - however, quite a few less would be had we taken the time to think our actions through (what will happen if we aren't greeted as saviors? who gets to run things after we leave? how do we facilitate a democratically elected government in a nation where there has not been one for some time?) rather than to jump in and assume that verything would somehow take care of itself. We did not even take the time or money to protect our own people properly, much less those we had come to liberate. Our arrogance has cost many lives that would not have been lost as violently or as early as they would have been if we had gone to war more honestly and with a clearer understanding of what we were to do and how it was to be done. Since President Bush has been the chief architect of the war and how it has been waged, he deserves the lion's share of the blame for its outcome, particularly when the outcome can be traced in large part to his decisions and his dishonesty.

Donalbain, read comment 9 again.

You're being facetious, aren't you? The second word was a dead giveaway.
.

Once upon a time the United States of America was a law abiding global citizen.
We now seem to have descended to the level of an international pariah.

"To initiate a war of aggression," said the judges in the Nuremberg trial of the Nazi leadership, "is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In stating this guiding principle of international law, the judges specifically rejected German arguments of the "necessity" for pre-emptive attacks against other countries.

Excerpted from an article on ZNET titled Crime Against Humanity by John Pilger

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3426

"Let us put the blame for that part where it belongs - on religion."

Oh no, we can't do that. We must blame America, we must. We thrive on self loathing and guilt and to attribute any blame to any other source than ourselves would deprive us of our mental food source.

Paul

Yes, its all George Bush and the American army who are doing the killing, there are no evil, murdering scumbags who happen to be Iraqis or Iranians, or any other race. It is all George Bush.

Somethings tells me that if everything worked out perfectly and we were greeted with flowers and candy and democracy swept across the middle-east, there wouldn't be quite so much hesitation in calling Bush a "genius" and a "visionary".

Tough to have it both ways, no?

Hmm, I usually like this blog. This time however I'm a little dissapointed.

Did you follow the link, then follow that link?

The one million+ number comes from a poll (!?!) of 1700+ people.

What the hell? That isnt data. If china attacks us, squanders our resources, and makes it so that your neighborhood is lying in ruins and someone comes along and asks you "how many people died as a result of this war", you think people arent going to exaggerate?

How many people would have been killed if the war didnt happen? There is no way to know? Perhaps Saddam would have gone on another rampage? Perhaps the sunni/shia conflict would have rose on its own. Perhaps iran would have gotten sick of their neighbor again anyway.

I would have been more impressed if the verified the answers.

I too am dead set against this war (because any rational person would have insisted on real data before taking us to war). we have squandered the goodwill we had when we went into Afghanistan, we have wasted 500 billion dollars which could have been spent on far more useful things that improve our economy and security.

I was just sad to see this blog and much of its readership fall right into this poll.

Germany has already issued an arrest warrant on war crimes charges for Rumsfeld. How do we get them to indict the rest of the Executing branch?

I too will echo the comments of some other posters at PZ's knee-jerk statement of "our country seems to have killed at least a million Iraqis". Obviously, many (and probably the vast majority) of these Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis and foreign fighters (to a lesser extent). Too often when the US is blamed (and there is definitely a lot of blame we deserve), it is forgotten that religious, douchebags (who are much more evil than our troops and generals) are a big problem. If there was no possibility of sectarian warfare, then the removal of Saddam Hussein would have gone very smoothly and we wouldn't be having problems and it would be quite a noble thing to do. It is the "religious douchebags" causing the problem and killing their own people. Would we have the same problem if Canada came under the sway of a dictator which we removed? Having said that, I have always been and continue to be against the Iraq war for the obvious reasons.

it is forgotten that religious, douchebags (who are much more evil than our troops and generals) are a big problem.

We tend to forget that often our own troops and generals are also religious douchebags. Keep in mind the Air Force Academy issues with evangelicals harrassing anyone who wasn't, General Boykin, etc.

Anyone have any thoughts on this Wall Street Journal article?

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118972683557627104.html

We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong. Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye. ....These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."

Would we have the same problem if Canada came under the sway of a dictator which we removed?

Yes.

I wonder how the US would react if the world got together and removed its current dictator (I mean, 'Decider'.)

Physician, heal thyself.

This is the most absurd thing I've heard in a long time. What kind of moral myopia is necessary to blame George Bush for the fact that religious fanatics would rather tear their society to shreds than participate in its consturcution? An you as an atheist think your clear headed. Your giving us atheists a bad name with this kind of partisan crap. You not only uncritically accept the statistics but also uncritically put the blame on Bush. I fail to see how it is Bush's fault that a great number of people think the Creator of the Universe commands them to blow up innocent people over a disagreement about a 7 century succession dispute for a caliphate. Absurd. As occupying powers go I challenge someone here to find an example of one that has worked harder and sacrificed more for the society under its control? The British? They simply killed outright for nothing more than disloyalty to the crown. The french? Not many colonial powers have become as good at torture and mass murder as they became in Algeria. Germany? Well lets not list their horrors. The blame for the vast majority of the civilian death toll lies with the Iragis. Give me a break. This is excuse making worse than the religious apologists you decry. "No their not killing eachother because of their infatuation with insane religious myths. Its because George Bush invaded." Yeah's its only murder when their not poor and brown, and their only to be blamed for their religious hysteria when their white and Republican and American apparently.

http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/

What kind of moral myopia is necessary to blame George Bush for the fact that religious fanatics would rather tear their society to shreds than participate in its consturcution?

I suppose it would be the kind of moral myopia that recognizes that forcing democracy without any kind of power sharing agreement onto a region with stark racial, cultural and religious divides will cause either a permanent hegemony of whichever group happens to have the most members, or a civil war perpetrated by the groups who don't want to live under that hegemony. Does that help?

What kind of moral myopia is necessary to blame George Bush for the fact that religious fanatics would rather tear their society to shreds than participate in its consturcution?

He, and he alone, made a decision. The direct consequences of that decision led to the deaths of many thousands of people. Doesn't seem like a particularly difficult moral calculation to me.

"Obviously, many (and probably the vast majority) of these Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis and foreign fighters (to a lesser extent)."

No, the point is that many of those people wouldn't have been killed either, if Bush hadn't initiated this war in Iraq. This war has had consequences, which has resulted in the deaths of scores upon scores of innocent people in Iraq - who would still be alive today - if Bush had not insisted on this war. Whether they were killed by Americans or other Iraqis or foreign fighters does not serve to undermine that fact.

Now do you get it?

Suggesting that George W. Bush was responsible for the deaths of millions of Iraqis is like saying Tim McVeigh was responsible for the deaths of 168 people. All McVeigh did was set off a bomb -- it was the bomb and debris from the building that killed everyone.

What kind of atheist uses the term 'moral myopia'?

So your argument boils down to "we're above reproach because others are/have been worse"?

Should we have a system of law in which any crime that is not worse than the most heinous crime so far committed is immediately dismissed?

Bring in the neurobiology students. I'd be most interested to find out what the fuck your brain is running on.

I'd like to see statistics for shia/sunni violence in Iraq before we toppled their civilization, disbanded the army, and pissed on the ashes.

Everyone knew that shia/sunni violence was going to be a huge problem if we invaded, and Bush the Lesser decided to prove his penis size rather than leave the powder-keg alone.

Do try to keep in mind that America, and America alone, started this war. For those of you who think killing the innocent is the path to peace, you can go fuck yourselves. Iraq was not a threat to us. Not at all, and it's been proven time and time again. Iraq did not, and could not, attack us. That's been proven time and time again.

Keep that in mind the next time you get on your damned knees to worship this worthless, murderous, treasonous president.

Bring in the neurobiology students. I'd be most interested to find out what the fuck your brain is running on.

I have this funny idea that this is outside of their realm of expertise, and that we'd ought to talk to a zoo keeper instead.

Bill C. said (#29): I fail to see how it is Bush's fault that a great number of people think the Creator of the Universe commands them to blow up innocent people over a disagreement about a 7 century succession dispute for a caliphate.

Nice straw man, Bill. Nobody claims that. However, Bush is clearly responsible for the disaster we are currently engaged in down in Iraq. Deaths have resulted from his decisions, that number in the thousands, if not millions.

And I'm assuming comment #29 is not actually you, but somebody parodying your earlier comment. People don't kill people, guns kill people...ha!

Now PZ, let's get real.

Since when did you have to be an atheist to kill Muslims?

As far as I can tell, that's the one thing that his "former friends" seem to think he's done right. If anything, he probably hasn't killed enough of them yet.

(And yes, to people arguing upthread - anyone with half a brain and a MINIMAL understanding of the history of Iraq - or even a minimal understanding of the history of Islam - would have known what a powderkeg was going to be set off by toppling the strong man WE helped build to power in Iraq. Hell CHENEY KNEW that this was the inevitable outcome - he said so himself back in 1992. Either Bush knew that the Sunni/Shia infighting would be inevitable and he didn't care, OR he didn't know and invaded anyway. Neither explanation makes him out to be anything good. So yes - Bush is responsible for the deaths of folks due to "sectarian" violence - as the chief cheerleader for this invasion, and the only person who really could have started it, the buck stops with him. I wish I still believed in a hell, because I'm fairly certain that there will be no justice meted out against him in this life, and that whatever rudimentary conscience the man has will never cause him enough grief to even start to try to atone for what he's done.)

Everyone knew that shia/sunni violence was going to be a huge problem if we invaded, and Bush the Lesser decided to prove his penis size rather than leave the powder-keg alone

Everyone who knew anything about the region or religion knew that, or who paid serious attention to such folks. Pretty much excludes Shrub and his advisors (and the 29% backwash).

"...before we toppled their civilization..."

And what a lovely civilization they had! The trains ran on time, and there certainly wasn't any secterian violence. Of course, there was that whole totalitarian regime thing, but hey. The UN certainly had no problem with it.

Paul

Donalbain, read comment 9

Fuck that. The rest of you read PZ's astoundingly stupid post.

"Our country seems to have killed at least a million Iraqis at the whim of George W. Bush and his cabal of neocons."

"Our country"(America) hasnt killed that many people. Not even close. The VAST majority of the deaths are by internicene murderers and sectarian fighting. THIS is exactly why the anti-war movement hasnt made the progress it could have done. You seem obsessed with one man, George Bush and blame him for everything, no matter the details or facts. When you say GWB has killed 1 million people, you make it so easy for the other side to say "Err.. no, he didnt. Look at the facts. Why would anyone trust people with such a pathetic grasp of reality ANY semblance of power. Vote Republican!"

The blame for the vast majority of the civilian death toll lies with the Iragis.

George Bush completely destabalized Iraq. He destroyed the infrastructure, he dismantled the government, he created total chaos. He created a failed state. He sparked a civil war.

If someone came to your town and did the same thing, would you not blame that person for the ensuing mayhem?

Those deaths are on Bush's fundie head. That doesn't mean others are not also to blame, but he and his band of neocons share in it fully.

"Nice straw man, Bill. Nobody claims that. However, Bush is clearly responsible for the disaster we are currently engaged in down in Iraq. Deaths have resulted from his decisions, that number in the thousands, if not millions."

Straw man? Did you read PZ's post. He claimed exactly that.

When an Iraqi, or a foreign fighter, straps a bomb to a car and explodes it in a crowd of people I blame him. Not George Bush. His attachement to psycopathic religious doctrines does not excuse it. But to you it may as, according to comment 33, Iraqis are not more capable of human agency than pieces of flying debris.

Donalbain: Why would anyone trust people with such a pathetic grasp of reality ANY semblance of power. Vote Republican!

Wow. The irony there almost exploded my head! Not that it would have mattered, I'm just a dumb lib-rul!

Donalbain: You seem obsessed with one man, George Bush and blame him for everything, no matter the details or facts.

Um, no, it's not just GWB, it's mostly Cheney, Rove, Perle, Rummie, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the neo-con cronies in Washington.

Paul,

Yeah,let's also go kick some butt in North Korea. And Iran... And whatever these other damn countries around there are called. We can showcase our great success in Afghanistan too. Man, at least we won't run out of dope now that they have our style of democracy over there. Oh yeah, we also liberated their women. Bush deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, at least. Heil to the Chief!

Good point, Bill C.

You're right, I take back what I said about GWB. He hasn't actually killed anyone, at least not with his hands.

When you think about it like that, Hitler wasn't such a bad guy either! I mean, he didn't ACTUALLY kill anyone.

Oops, Godwin's law... I guess it doesn't matter, because I already admitted defeat. I can't compete with these intellectual heavyweights.

Well, the sad part of it is that the premise was that this was going to help the Iraqis. Let's see.... The choice is:
- Oppressed by Saddam
- Dead

We're from the government and we're here to help.... sounds like it applies.

"George Bush completely destabalized Iraq. He destroyed the infrastructure, he dismantled the government, he created total chaos. He created a failed state. He sparked a civil war.

If someone came to your town and did the same thing, would you not blame that person for the ensuing mayhem?"

They really are obsessed aren't they. "He" created a failed state. "He" sparked a civil war. "He" caused total chaos. You would get the impression there was no one in Iraq until "He" decided to invade.

264,126 killed by car bombs is approx. 165 people a day.

Reasonable?

"You're right, I take back what I said about GWB. He hasn't actually killed anyone, at least not with his hands.
When you think about it like that, Hitler wasn't such a bad guy either! I mean, he didn't ACTUALLY kill anyone."

Are you that blind? Is this the kind of idiotic hysteria you feel proud of? Intellectual heavyweights? Yeah we are compared with this drivel.

"Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who."

The sad thing about this series of comments is that even though the people making them generally see clearly enough through all of the BS of religion, most writing here are still slavishly tied to the "religion" of nationalism. As Marx essentially said, people will maintain illusions about their conditions as long as their conditions require illusions.

Poverty breeds ignorance and is further a breeding ground for religious fanaticism. Capitalism long ago outlived its usefulness for generating wealth, as witnessed by the pathetic GDP and the boom/bust cycles. The natural tendency of capitalism is to concentrate that wealth and lead to imperialism (the international competition for markets and/or resources). When normal trade and competition is carried to its logical conclusion, we end up with international imperialist war.

The only way to break the cycle of war and poverty that not only generates but is also supported by ignorance and religious fanaticism is to develop a class-conscious party that can lead the working people to overthrow capitalism through socialist revolution.

And don't fall into the nonsense that because Stalin, Mao, et. al. were horrors that communisum MUST be that way. They evolved out of particular historical conditions and it didn't have to end up as it did. Saying that the "experiment" of socialism failed and therefore Marx is "wrong" is like saying that the first times people rubbed sticks together and all they got was a splinter means that you can't make fire by rubbing sticks together.

What needs to happen is that the working class needs to remember its past, learn from its mistakes and move forward, not give up and roll over.

I invite the people of Iraq to occupy the USA...fair is fair after all.

Anyone have any thoughts on this Wall Street Journal article?

Sure. It's all about medicine (I've read about it months ago in more serious sources than the WSJ). That's where people have an interest in certain outcomes. In most of the rest of science... what do I really care where the turtles come from? That's a highly interesting question that will make up a large part of my Ph.D. thesis, but I'm not going to gain or lose money depending on what the results will be. If anything, that will depend on how robust the results will be, whatever they will be.

I think there was a review in Nature about it a few months ago.

...he didn't ACTUALLY kill anyone.

Let's not forget the folks no longer on death row in Texas.

The count goes up.

Poverty breeds ignorance and is further a breeding ground for religious fanaticism.

Then why were the folks involved int he English airport bombing plot middle class professionals (doctors as i recall)? Why were the majority of the folks who hijacked the flights on 9/11 from middle class families?

Why are so many vile mega-churches arising in affluent American suburbs?

Yes, class matters. But, religious idiocy and evil don't recognize class boundaries.

Bill C.

They really are obsessed aren't they. "He" created a failed state. "He" sparked a civil war. "He" caused total chaos. You would get the impression there was no one in Iraq until "He" decided to invade

You know, Bill, on one level you're quite right. People are obsessed with Him. I think your criticism is off the mark.

Nobody is suggesting that GWB went into Baghdad with a pitchfork and killed one million people all by hisself.

People say "He" because GWBush represents and leads the adminstration that has made all the decisions since January 2001. If you don't think that supports of Bush praise "him" for all "his" courage and tough decision-making, then you're not really being honest with yourself. "He" gets as much credit as he does blame. It just depends on who's doing the talking.

The fact remains that He (Bush) or They (the neocons) or We (the people) or It (The military of the United States of America) deposted Hussein and destabilized the country, and it's been a bleeding mess ever since. The fact remains that many of the deaths have been the result of internecine violence, and that those who perpetrate that violence are responsible for the deaths the cause. These two facts are inextricably intertwined. The USA created a situation in which civil-war conditions would INEVITABLY OCCUR. "We" have to be responsible for that, and "He" represents "Us".

Split the hair that Bush didn't actually kill anyone himself all you like. It doesn't change the responsibility matrix. He's The Decider. He WANTS credit (blame).

Oh, by the way, didn't you know that 9/11 was actually all Bill Clinton's fault?

Yecch... bad editing, lotsa typoes. Sorry.

- "I think your criticism..." should be "But I think your criticism..."
- "supports" should be "supporters"
- "deposted" should be "deposed"
- "the deaths the cause" should be "the deaths they cause"

Donalbain, read comment 9

Fuck that. The rest of you read PZ's astoundingly stupid post.

"Our country seems to have killed at least a million Iraqis at the whim of George W. Bush and his cabal of neocons."

Fine, then let PZ read comment 9, too.

Nice try at covering your errors Kseniya, but the typo police have already been alerted and are probably on their way to put bamboo splinters under your fingernails as I write this.

For all the offence you've given us, you might as well have ended your post with 'God bless.'

C+

bamboo splinters under your fingernails

Ack!!! Who are you - O'Brien?! That's my worst nightmare! (Well, almost.)

C+

Sigh. There goes the GPA.

Bill C and Donalbain attack myself and others here for being partisan because we think W has done a terrible job.

Let me try to explain something to you. Looking at a situation and coming to the conclusion that someone has royally fucked up and we're paying for it is not partisan. Ending your posts with "Vote Republican" is.

Perhaps you should get out a dictionary and read up on the terms you're using before posting.

"He, and he alone, made a decision."

Guess again.

You overestimate the power of the presidency. There was a vote to put up the funding for the undeclared war, and a majority of both houses went for it. The only congressman who attempted to require the congress to exercise their constitutional duty and power over whether to declare war was Ron Paul: he introduced an amendment to the Iraq funding bill which was a declaration of war, and he got shouted down.

So, GWB was never the sole decision maker of whether the USA sent troops into Iraq. Nor is he the person who decides to detonate human bombs in markets, schools, and mosques.

-jcr

So, GWB was never the sole decision maker of whether the USA sent troops into Iraq.

Oh come on. Congress didn't pass a declaration of war, they passed an AUMF, which put the decision into the hands of the President. Yes, they abdicated their oversight and a large part of their appropriations responsibility, for which they should be judged harshly, but once that AUMF was passed, the decision to go to war was Bush's, and his alone.

Thank you Syntyche, seems like some people can't quite grasp that rather simple fact.

Anyone have any thoughts on this Wall Street Journal article?

yeah, if your post was something other than a ridiculous attempt at trolling, what are you doing getting advice on science from the wall street journal?

moreover, isn't this just a rehash of a similarly ridiculous article that made the press routes over a year ago?

not one of your better attempts at trolling, GWW.

This is the most absurd thing I've heard in a long time. What kind of moral myopia is necessary to blame George Bush for the fact that religious fanatics would rather tear their society to shreds than participate in its consturcution?

yeah, what kind of myopia must one engage in to think that tearing down a dam would result in the flooding of towns downstream of it.

surely one can examine exactly that kind of myopia from a historical perspective, right?

moreover, isn't this just a rehash of a similarly ridiculous article that made the press routes over a year ago?

Chill the fxck out, dude.

I'm just noting that the article was published. Last time I checked this blog was about science and the relationship between science and public, to some extent. Where else am I supposed to ask a question? How is it trolling here to point out that the article was published, in a relatively widely read forum?

I agree that there is a whiff of "anti-science" about the article (the WSJ article). I am curious what, if anything, is known about the author of the "study". Has he published anything like this before? What was the previous reaction?

Poverty breeds ignorance and is further a breeding ground for religious fanaticism.

so do fear and uncertainty, quite independent of income levels.

I am skeptical of these kinds of statistical body counts. The Lancet study done last year on the same topic was pulled apart here.

These kinds of studies suffer greatly from self-selection and polling locations. I'm not saying its wrong necessarily, but gross exaggerations weaken the position of those that oppose the war on the grounds of terrible cost it inflicts on the Iraqi people.

How is it trolling here to point out that the article was published, in a relatively widely read forum?

because we know you, and know that you know better. No way are you that uninformed nor had completely missed the many threads about that paper that appeared months ago.

I still call BS if you claim you posted that as if you were asking an honest question.

chill out??

right...

stop trying to yank chains.

Martha,

Actually, the Lanet study was NOT pulled apart by any reputable group in any scientific way. Check the link http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/44454/ to learn more.

Obviously Lancet, not Lanet...

Yes, its all George Bush and the American army who are doing the killing, there are no evil, murdering scumbags who happen to be Iraqis or Iranians, or any other race. It is all George Bush.

Posted by: Donalbain | September 14, 2007 3:30 PM

Idiotic troll. Hitler didn't personally kill six-million Jews, but he was damn well responsible. Stalin didn't personally kill seven-million Ukranians, but he was responsible. Pol Pot didn't personally kill one-and-a-half million Cambodians, but he was responsible.

Bush, leading the USA, caused the problem, we're responsible. End of story.

"...before we toppled their civilization..."

And what a lovely civilization they had! The trains ran on time, and there certainly wasn't any secterian violence. Of course, there was that whole totalitarian regime thing, but hey. The UN certainly had no problem with it.

Paul

Posted by: Paul | September 14, 2007 4:45 PM

When the fuck have we ever cared about a totalitarian state? We've supported tin-pot dictators around the world as long as it meant cheap labor and resources. Hell, we over-threw DEMOCRACIES in Iran (installed the Shah) and Iraq (installed the Baath Party (you know, Saddam's Party)) so we could have unfettered access to oil.

So, really, we're seriously fucking responsible for the entire fucked-up middle east. We've been fucking things up since 1948. We're responsible for setting up the oppression in Iran that lead to the over-throw of the Shah. Responsible for putting a Fascist (yes they were allied with Nazi Germany) government in Iraq that, naturally and inevitably, lead to Saddam. Responsible for engendering the bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine and the rest of the Arabs.

Bloody fucking hands for almost 60 years.

So, yeah, what civilization? They've never had a damn chance. Pawns in a geopolitical/economic game not of their making.

Learn some goddamn history before you spout off.

Looking at a situation and coming to the conclusion that someone has royally fucked up and we're paying for it is not partisan. Ending your posts with "Vote Republican" is.

He was being ironical- not actually campaining.

Who are these new-names demanding a more reasonable assessment of Monster Dudya? One-time troll whom we shall never hear from again, because even going 24/7 from mom's basement they can't maintain the fiction that the Bushite religion is not dead on the vine by signing into every major blog and newspaper on earth.

Any who pretend to excuse, much less support, the Iraq war and our criminal, evil-is-banality-itself pResident is nothing but different sorts of cocktails of ignorance (the otherwise "nice" Republicans are veritable Martinis of ignorance), hatred, insanity, and greed.

No debate possible or needed with your kind.

Kseniya, in Southern white mericun dialect the word hissef is preferred over hisself by an overwhelming majority of red neck speakers.

a nony mouse,

But of course he was! I'm afraid that I'm just an idiot. (sigh) Thanks for pointing that out. And of course, an abject apology. I got distracted during reading...and lost the thread...oh well. At least nobody died because of my mistake...

Crap, now I have to go back and re-read this whole thing and see what else I missed.

Personally, Lancet's numbers sound a bit high - but, then, the blindness of the media to massacres is nothing new. So, I think, like most of us, I am dumfounded and have no idea what the casualties likely are. That makes me uncomfortable, but - as I said earlier - "oppressed beats the hell out of dead"

What IS a good way to determine casualty rates? Presumably, if there was census data you could start subtracting. But that doesn't account for people who left the area of conflict. And you can't exactly send people in with clipboards to count the bodies.. The statistics Lancet threw out look dodgy (estimating deaths in an entire country by interviewing 1,500 people?!) to me. But I'm not sure how you'd "do it right."

All the accounts I've read (and I have talked to a friend who was there) our initial forays into Baghdad were one-sided and bloody.

War sucks. Governments and religions cause wars. Therefore governments and religions suck.

George Bush is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States. That is his legacy. If you want to know what all the lying and deceit was about to get us into this war all you have to do is follow the money, who's proffited from this disgrace Bush has tricked the nation into? War profiteers...arms manufacturers, Haliburton, etc. Bushs' peers. This whole abomination was an effort to increase Haliburtons' bottom line. These neocon pigs should all be tried for war crimes. Lying bastards, not a one served in the armed services, or their children. In fact Bush broke the law to get out of Viet Nam, and has no qualms about sending a generation of young people to that cesspool of sectarian violence and creating another Viet Nam scenario. Fucking lying coward.

Now I feel a little better.

Dahan,
You aren't very bright it seems. I didnt attack anyone for being partisan. In fact, I have never seen a decent explanation of what partisan means other than thinking your side of an argument is right. Whiich everyone does.

What I criticised (not attacked) was the idea that Bush and America, killed all the people who have died in the tragedy that is Irag. My "Vote Republican" quote was in quote marks and was thus NOT meant to be my own speech, I was demonstrating how easy essays such as Pee Zed's made life for Republicans.

Yes, I am the idiotic troll...
Because of course I am the one who suggested that George Bush personally ordered the deaths of the 1 million people who have died since the start of the war.

What? You mean I didnt suggest any such thing? But then surely the analogy between George Bush, Hitler and Stalin would fall apart, making the person who suggested such an analogy look stupid.. we cant have that!!

Myers, how many Loki Points do you have now? This is one of your better trolls.

It's like this folks; PZ Myers has made an indepth study of the situation in Iraq and come to a momentous conclusion. One that threatens to overturn the liberal-leftist world. In order to prepare people for this, he is presenting grossly overblown postings such as this one in order to illustrate the ludicrous claims of the anti-war crowd. PZ is using sarcasm and hyperbole to alert people to the bloviation of groups such as Moveon.org, and prepare the American public for the long and difficult struggle against bigotry, tyranny, and bad airline service.

And it also boosts commenting like nobody's business.

Actually, the Lanet study was NOT pulled apart by any reputable group in any scientific way. Check the link http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/44454/ to learn more.

Ok, "pulled apart" was bad phrasing on my part. Also, I'm not saying IraqBodyCount.org (from my earlier link) is a scientific organization, but they raise some very good questions about the implications of the John Hopkins/Lancet study that gives me pause about the 400,000 - 900,000 number proposed in 2006. They really don't go into the methodology of the study, they look at the lack of/contrary evidence from other sources. They themselves don't come out and say the report is wrong, they merely say that before accepting such an extreme number, more evidence should be gathered.

I dunno, I'm just some pleb without the time or resources to pull the truth from the web of lies and deceit that are spun from every person with an agenda. All I have is my skepticism.

And what a lovely civilization they had! The trains ran on time, and there certainly wasn't any secterian violence. Of course, there was that whole totalitarian regime thing, but hey. The UN certainly had no problem with it.

Paul

Ah, great minds think alike! I was rationalizing...er...thinking today that it's completely fine to initiate the ruin of someone else's country as long as it's shitty to begin with. Onward to invade Mexico and North Korea, faithful soldiers!

because we know you, and know that you know better. No way are you that uninformed nor had completely missed the many threads about that paper that appeared months ago.

Really? There were many threads here about that paper months ago? Okay. Cool! Thanks, asshole.

"Learn some goddamn history before you spout off."

I am quite aware of all that you hysterically and feverishly typed. Now what has it to do with my response?

P.S. Don't forget about the Zorlons on Mars. We kilt them, too.

Paul (Popping anti-depressants in order to cope with the shame that he lives in such a horrid country.)

No way are you that uninformed nor had completely missed the many threads about that paper that appeared months ago.

Search for Ionnidis scores no hits. So, uh, maybe you are the one that is uninformed. Or at least confused.

" Onward to invade Mexico and North Korea, faithful soldiers!"

Iraq aside, do you think there is ever a time to intervene on the behalf of a people? European Jewry? The Balkans? Rawanda? Sudan?

Paul

Is there good reason to believe those people would still be alive if Bush hadn't invaded Iraq for oil-profiteering and penis-size reasons, or isn't there?

-Azkyroth

Do I even need to ask whether the hecklers actually answered this simple question during my absence?

"Iraq aside, do you think there is ever a time to intervene on the behalf of a people? European Jewry? The Balkans? Rawanda? Sudan?"

Make a list of the countries the United States has intervened in, overthrown the governments of, etc.
Now, from that list, make a subset of those interventions done on behalf of the people of that country.

Then, stop to realize that a fire fighter who initiates more house fires than he extinguishes should perhaps no longer be allowed to be a fire fighter.

Do I even need to ask whether the hecklers actually answered this simple question during my absence?

Fuck no.

All our pissy little troll-babies are just making a squealie because now we have reputable numbers that put the War Criminal in Chief in the same league as the other famous despot/mass murderers.

"Then, stop to realize that a fire fighter who initiates more house fires than he extinguishes should perhaps no longer be allowed to be a fire fighter."

I wasn't even referring to America. I was asking a simple question, should countries intervene on the behalf of people? What is an acceptable level of opression before another country should step in? Should they at all?

Paul

"the War Criminal in Chief in the same league as the other famous despot/mass murderers..."

So Bush is directly ordering the execuction of his own citizens? Packing off Jews to the midwest for internment in death camps? Sending liberals to Alaska to work to death in the freezing cold? Yanking citizens out of the cities to work in rice paddies on the Delta? Declaring Year Zero?

I would have been convinced a long, long time earlier as to the faults of Bush and Iraq if it weren't for the drooling, convulsing hysteria and shrieking madness of his detractors. This thread is very similar (in tone) to what I used to hear listening to Hannity.

Paul

Once upon a time the United States of America was a law abiding global citizen.

Really? When was that?

Yes, Bush IS executing his own citizens by standing in the way of universal health care in this country. The US is now no more than a warmongering medieval theocracy compared to all other industrialized countries.

You neocon social darwinists could learn something from the rest of the world. You jerks get no protection from illness unless you cough up the bucks that you made on the backs of littler people. Enjoy your single week of unpaid vacation while Europeans get their mandatory six weeks. Also pray that your employer will not lop off your dismal medical insurance. Yeah, we have FREEDOM and they don't, right?

"the War Criminal in Chief in the same league as the other famous despot/mass murderers..."

So Bush is...whine whine whine

Lying to get us into a pre-emptive war? Beating the drums on a second? Ordering the deaths of a million people to steal their oil and funnel the national treasury into his cronies' pockets? Rampant warrantless spying on American citizens? National Security letters? Denouncing dissent as treason? Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo? Torture? Haditha massacre? Shitting on habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions? Flying innocent kidnapped foreigners to Eastern Europe so the CIA can torture them even harder? Probably stealing two elections?

Looks like my list is bigger than yours. Any one of those is necessary and sufficient for impeachment. Half a dozen are sufficient for war crimes trials.

Ordering the deaths of a million people to steal their oil and funnel the national treasury into his cronies' pockets?

[preemption-of-hairsplitting]This presumably means "Ordering actions any reasonable person would have recognized as likely to lead to the deaths of a very large number of people, with a subsequent toll of over a million, for no better reason than stealing their oil, funnelling the national treasury into his cronies' pockets, and salving his ego."[/preemption-of-hairsplitting]

Ordering the deaths of a million people to steal their oil and fennel

Why the heck would we want to start a war over fennel? I don't get it.

Martha and others who have expressed skepticism regarding the study's methodology and validity should follow developments on the thread linked to by PZ over the next few days. You could also check out older deltiod threads on Iraq mortality denialism here for statistically literate discussions of the subject.

I particularly recommend this thread where one critic of the earlier "Lancet" studies - David Kane, who is an Institute Fellow at IQSS Harvard - is exposed as both ignorant and intellectually dishonest in the comments. This guy certainly put a dent into whatever respect I had for Harvard as an Institution.

Apparently Cheney's penis still isn't big enough. He's been pushing for an attack on Iran for some time now, and The Guardian is reporting an attack seems very likely at, the latest, early next year--Proxy war could soon turn to direct conflict, analysts warn (emphasis added):

US strikes on Iran predicted as tension rises over arms smuggling and nuclear fears
...
The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.
US-Iranian tensions have mounted significantly in the past few days, with heightened rhetoric on both sides and the US decision to establish a military base in Iraq less than five miles from the Iranian border to block the smuggling of Iranian arms to Shia militias.
... [T]he Bush administration is running out of patience with diplomatic efforts to curb the nuclear programme. Hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are intensifying their push for military action, with support from Israel and privately from some Sunni Gulf states.
"Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets," said [Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies]. "In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to 'do something about Iran' before it will be looked at as a purely political issue."
...
Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: "The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions."

The article concludes with a less alarming observation:

Hopes that a new war could still be avoided have also been boosted by Gen Petraeus's claim that Iran's covert Quds force alleged to be supporting Shia attacks on coalition forces had been pulled out of Iraq. If true, it could be that in the stand-off between the US and Iran, Iran has blinked first.

The article also quotes Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's "supreme leader", as saying:

"I am certain that one day Bush and senior American officials will be tried in an international court for the tragedies they have created in Iraq."

(I note he forget Afghanistan.) I wish I could be as certain!

Hmmm, interesting that you should mention Cannistraro. His name was mentioned by a friend of mine in response to a claim someone made that we had gone into Iraq to "free the Kurds" or some such thing. It's old news now, but of some interest.

We didn't invade to make Exxon rich, any more than we invaded to free the Kurds - but the oil does matter. Oil is power, in every sense, and we need access to it. The strategic importance of Iraq and our irreparably hostile relationship with Saddam are what drove the invasion. But altruism? No.
We reserve the use of military force for protecting American interests abroad, and will use degrees of force up to and including "creative destruction" - Michael Ledeen's trademark phrase which describes America's violent manifest destiny as he envisions it. This is what we're engaging in, in Iraq, and is what neoconservatives like Ledeen are pushing for in Iran and beyond. "Faster, please!" writes Ledeen.
I believe that Ledeen, who was a player in the illegal Iran-Contra dealings under Reagan, is a dangerous man. He's a leading neoconservative theoretician who has the ear of Karl Rove and of the men Rove works for. He's beneath the radar of mainstream America, and I think he, and the Administration, prefer it that way.
Why? Because he espouses values and philosophies that are not traditionally viewed as "American." He's a dedicated Machiavellian, an advocate of "total war", a dominionist, a believer in the necessity of temporary dictatorship, a proponent of Washington as the New Rome and of Italian Fascism in the mode of Bottai and D'Annunzio. At least two sources (former Military Intelligence officer and CIA Anti-Terrorist official Philip Giraldi, and former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro) name him as the man who orchestrated the creation of the allegedly forged Niger uranium documents that helped justify the Iraq war in the first place. These allegations may not be true, and of course Ledeen denies them - but they do fit Ledeen, for whom the ends will always justify the means.

Casey #25 says, "Obviously, many (and probably the vast majority) of these Iraqis were killed by other Iraqis and foreign fighters (to a lesser extent)....Having said that, I have always been and continue to be against the Iraq war for the obvious reasons."

Well, "obviously", you'll have to admit that Dubya sure gave 'em the chance.

Well, to sum up at a convient point:

Hitler didn't personally kill six-million Jews, but he was damn well responsible. Stalin didn't personally kill seven-million Ukranians, but he was responsible. Pol Pot didn't personally kill one-and-a-half million Cambodians, but he was responsible.

No, what those gentlemen did was institute policies whose sole and only purpose was to slaughter various people. Those death counts represent the _sucessful and intended_ results of those policies.

Now, if you want to posit that Bush is a maladroit dilettante whose idiotic fumbling, hubris and incredulity have resulted in a whole lot of human misery, and I'll agree whole heartedly. Call him a Nero-in-cowboy boots, who is apparently willfully blind to the injustices his will to power causes, both at home and abroad, and I'll agree.

But if you want to claim that this six year, cluster-fuck of horror was in any way part of an intentional and deliberate pogrom- or even particularly well thought out- well that kind of statement is more than a little questionable.

The same with the "Our country seems to have killed" in PZ's opening salvo. Sometimes the passive voice is the most accurate, even if not as flashy. Contributing to a situation that enables a behavior is a different thing than actually pulling the trigger. It's exactly that kind of reasoning that leads to that whole "darwinism leads to stalinism" meme. Which is absurd.

And this kind of over-reaching does play into hands of war-apologist's desire to paint any opposition to the war as wild-eyed lunacy on an intellectual par with the truthers. Just turn on talk radio some time. They love deriding this kind of rhetoric from war opponents- it gets the red white and blue pumping through their veins.

Not to say you can't make these comparisons if you want- if only because righteous indignation is cathartic. But don't be outraged when others point out that they may not necessarily be accurate or helpful- or assume that observation in any way equates support for the boy who would be king.

As far as the fennel thing goes- well the importance of a quick and dirty substitute for aniseed is obvious on its face. 'nough said.

Suggesting that George W. Bush was responsible for the deaths of millions of Iraqis is like saying Tim McVeigh was responsible for the deaths of 168 people. All McVeigh did was set off a bomb -- it was the bomb and debris from the building that killed everyone.

Indeed. If they hadn't insisted on serving a corrupt government (according to McVeigh's definitions) by, you know, going in to work, they wouldn't have been killed. When you think about it, it's all their own fault rather than McVeigh's.

As occupying powers go I challenge someone here to find an example of one that has worked harder and sacrificed more for the society under its control?

Nazi Germany. After all, it had a draft and spent considerably more national blood and treasure bringing the joys of National Socialism to the criminally unwilling Europe than the US has spent bringing Democratic Liberation to the criminally unwilling Middle East.

They really don't go into the methodology of the study, they look at the lack of/contrary evidence from other sources. They themselves don't come out and say the report is wrong, they merely say that before accepting such an extreme number, more evidence should be gathered.

Such as, say, the ORB survey?

You can find an online version of the Nuremberg trial papers included with a lot of other "Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy" from the 18th Century onwards (and some earlier) at the Avalon Project at Yale Law School (www.yale.edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ avalon.htm). They're listed under ' Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals. That quote from comment #20 about starting the war being the root & ultimate crime is under the sub-heading "The Common Plan or Conspiracy and Aggressive War"
Link: www.yale.edu/lawweb/ avalon/ imt/ proc/ judnazi.htm#common

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Take, say, industrial poisoning. If a company deliberately ignored industry guidelines, deliberately ignored their own "in-house" specialists and then, when the problem was known, deliberately failed to take action, I don't think anyone would claim that they were not responsible for the results.

"Killing" and "murder" ar not synonyms.

Donalbain,

If you will look at post #80 you will see that I admitted to being an idiot and apologized. Thanks for the heads up again though...

Well, to inconvenience you maybe a little bit further, uriel:

YOU say: "...what those gentlemen did was institute policies whose sole and only purpose was to slaughter various people."

Really? You pick a PARTICULAR policy of these "gentlemen" (as you put it) that has no OTHER possible intent OTHER than mass genocide, then pretend to score by characterizing these policies with the phrase "sole and only purpose[s]"?

Then go on scolding us about "flashy...over-reaching" etc etc???

My oh my, but you certainly have a knack for pinning down what monsterism is REALLY all about, don't you? I had no idea it got THAT deep.

Why don't you just let others speak in their own way, warts and all? Don't have to worry, you know - most readers can sift out the chaff unassisted.

Trust me.

Look. The gung-ho asshole hate-monger talk-radio personalities and elsewhere ALWAYS make things up as they go along. Although they will use it, they don't NEED the opposition to trip up in order to advance their arguments.

Integrity in any form simply doesn't matter to them. Its a political game with these shmucks, and the object is to shove the scrimmage over a grid iron delineated in terms of public perception thats polarized according to THEIR view of the direction of the winning goal line, NOT the facts. NEVER the facts.

These guys are deceivers and NEVER utilize factual evidence unless it happens to square with their rant. On those rare occasions they'll happily jump on it as another game advantage. They're in the business of screwing with people's minds, period.

In the meantime, we - who have to deal with this huckster-like game-playing - don't need to hear any tedious pronouncements about what is "fair" in the playing of it. Screw that man!

This is a good spot to reiterate what PZ has pointed to in Lambert's blog. And to those who protest that this is merely some kind of poll and cannot be trusted (as we all know polls in this country aren't worth a damn): NO! This is NOT a mere "poll". Are we THAT cynically insane to think that a house-to-house SURVEY should be regarded as equivalent to an American poll that asks whether you like one American Idol contestant over another? I'm betting PRECISELY that is what the perception-tweakers are betting on.

No. What they've been doing is much more in the form of a CENSUS, house-to-house, home-to-home, (such as these oppressed folks have managed to preserve) and I've been following it since they started. The numbers have stacked up consistently. Something like 1.2 million DEAD PEOPLE, ACCOUNTED FOR. (Never mind the EXCESS due to the prewar indigent and homeless, vanished, without a hope of a trace - would anyone hazard a guess on that overage?). That is a statistical figure that is (thankfully) independent of "official sources"...

Now, that's a big fucking number. Right up there with the Big Kids On The Block, those gentlemen you mention who instituted "policies whose sole and only purpose was to slaughter various people." But just because its a big number doesn't mean its inaccurate.

Guess what? In case it hasn't occurred to you, you can kill lots of innocent people over a policy whose "sole and only purpose" is to MAKE MONEY. Thar's OIL in them thar hills, ya know.

Wow. Paradigm shift! To THINK that a PARTICULAR policy can have a corollary effect totally unrelated to the originally intended "PURPOSE" (whether via ideology OR subterfuge) that pretended to enhance this country's interests...WELL, that's just merely fantastic, isn't it?

Lets face it. Why can't we just face up to what we've allowed? Its easy. Its TRULY "cathartic" - especially when its based on an earnest respect for truth.

There's no other way to survive past a lie. We have to be able to admit we're RESPONSIBLE. The bigger the lie, and the more we deny it, the more likely it will extinguish us. Just watch. At SOME point we have to vomit all of this nonsense out of our system, or we will face something infinitely worse: oblivion.

"You jerks get no protection from illness unless you cough up the bucks that you made on the backs of littler people. Enjoy your single week of unpaid vacation while Europeans get their mandatory six weeks. Also pray that your employer will not lop off your dismal medical insurance. Yeah, we have FREEDOM and they don't, right?"

This is hardship? To you, this is opression? To me, it's life and not a problem.

Imagine if our early hunter gatherer ancestors had this worldview. We wouldn't be here, for they would have lolled around in their caves bemoaning life and waiting for another tribe to come along and feed them, because after all, they are entitled to it.

Paul

Imagine if our ancestors had this "everymanforhimselfImalrightJack" attitude.

We'd be extinct.

"Imagine if our ancestors had this "everymanforhimselfImalrightJack" attitude."

They did. And those that hunted and gathered with more fevor and ingenuity than others survived. The others had a really hard time of it, or they didn't survive.They didn't expect the caveman government to provide them with every need...or want. They had to "work."
If Ogg wanted to eat, or feed his cavewife and cavekids, he had to go hunt. If Ogg didn't, Ogg wouldn't eat. Evil, huh?

Paul

And there is a striking difference in Ogg and Ugg and Bam all hunting to provide for the whole tribe (who all worked at some productive project while the hunters were out)and Ogg hunting to provide for the whole tribe while the Ugg and Bam and rest of tribe did nothing but hang out in the cave, complaining about how slow Ogg is in bringing home meat and how heartless and cruel Ogg is in admonishing them all to do something productive while Ogg is out hunting.

Paul

Yes Paul, you are so right! But, yYou know, sometimes Ogg would go hunt and gather in cooperation with other cavemen and women, while Oggla and her sisters and neighbors stayed behind and looked after the children together.

How pathetic and weak they all were.

Hmmm, we seem to have partially overlapped points due to simple timing issues. ;-)

How pathetic and weak they all were.

Well, in Paul's world, people who work 60 hours a week at minimum wage are lazy, but people who inherit money and don't work at all are exemplary.

I'll leave you to decide who is pathetic and weak, but I will note that even H erectus looked after their disabled, which is more that Paul would do.

They did. And those that hunted and gathered with more fevor and ingenuity than others survived. The others had a really hard time of it, or they didn't survive.They didn't expect the caveman government to provide them with every need...or want. They had to "work."

Of course, don't let your argument be tainted by the fact that human civilization really only developed when we (most of us at least) outgrew this primitive philosophy and developed... you know, collective agricultural societies based on providing for the group and not the individual.
There's a reason they called it "the stone age" and not "the golden age, where everyone was free to look after number one"

Tell me, did the cavemen actually have copies of Atlas Shrugged in their loincloths?

If you really think primitive societies were about group survival only, and disregarded individual needs, you're out of your mind.

Why can't you people familiarize yourselves with game theory?

"Of course, don't let your argument be tainted by the fact that human civilization really only developed when we (most of us at least) outgrew this primitive philosophy and developed... you know, collective agricultural societies based on providing for the group and not the individual."

Ummmm...#117

Paul

Paul

"Tell me, did the cavemen actually have copies of Atlas Shrugged in their loincloths?"

Fascinating. All I mentioned originally was that I had no problem with the idea of working and providing for myself. Is there something wrong with that? I don't think so. Yet the responses imply that I advocate every man for himself in the most selfish sense...without ~any~ regard to anyone else, including family or community. Why the knee jerk reaction? Why the assumption?

As an aside, the caveman had no need of Atlas Shrugged, because at that time Ogg could still reason; he intuitively knew that he had to work to feed himself and his family/tribe, and if he didn't work, he wouldn't eat. And h probably would have been shocked if someone were to suggest that he shouldn't work. Of course, many of us have de-volved in this regard.

Paul

"Well, in Paul's world, people who work 60 hours a week at minimum wage are lazy, but people who inherit money and don't work at all are exemplary."

Really? Your telepathic powers are impressive.

Paul

uriel,

Now, if you want to posit that Bush is a maladroit dilettante whose idiotic fumbling, hubris and incredulity have resulted in a whole lot of human misery, and I'll agree whole heartedly....But if you want to claim that this six year, cluster-fuck of horror was in any way part of an intentional and deliberate pogrom- or even particularly well thought out- well that kind of statement is more than a little questionable.

So, essentially, Bush is guilty not of mass murder but of mass involuntary manslaughter.

If the Chimperor's intent was to mass-murder the various peoples in Iraq, and the U.S. has the weaponry to kill most of the 25 million people in Iraq. Then the death-toll of 1 million is an indication that the Chimperor is an incompetent mass-killer.

It's just my ill-informed theory though.

Fascinating. All I mentioned originally was that I had no problem with the idea of working and providing for myself. Is there something wrong with that? I don't think so. Yet the responses imply that I advocate every man for himself in the most selfish sense...without ~any~ regard to anyone else, including family or community. Why the knee jerk reaction? Why the assumption?

Pattern recognition?

Notably, your comments definitely imply the attitude that people who aren't able to afford adequate health care are all "refusing to work and expecting everyone else to support them." Are you or are you not arguing from this perspective?

Azkyroth nailed it. I read it much the same way, and wished to ask the same question. Paul can answer it as he sees fit.

"Pattern recognition" indeed. It sounds absurd, but there are people out there - and most of us have banged heads with them here on the web - who believe that anyone who needs or consumes social services is little more than a lazy parasite. (This mindset is, of course, the foundation of Compassionate Conservatism.) Those of us in human services know differently.

So, essentially, Bush is guilty not of mass murder but of mass involuntary manslaughter.

Well, IMOO, is a bit more convoluted than that, given the fact of his deliberate and willful ignorance of the outcome of his actions. But that works.

"Mass negligent homicide" would be a much better fit, since it gets to the heart of what Bush _did_ clearly and deliberately do- fabricating wildly deficient rationals for this horrifically idiotic adventure in unsupportable utopianism, and intentionally hand-waving away even the most obvious predictions of what the clear outcome of his actions would be, given the situation at hand.

Especially when you consider the administration's eagerness to throw the traitor label at anyone who possessed the temerity to suggest that the polly-annaish scenario that Rummie et. all was selling regarding this little adventure in empire, was was at best intentionally oblivious to the actual facts of the matter, and at worst spectacular bullshit of the most odious kind.

Like I said, I'm not a fan, in any way.

Well, IMOO, is a bit more convoluted than that, given the fact of his deliberate and willful ignorance of the outcome of his actions. But that works.

"Mass negligent homicide" would be a much better fit

I'm no legal expert, but I believe "involuntary manslaughter" and "negligent homicide" are synonymous.

I'm no legal expert, but I believe "involuntary manslaughter" and "negligent homicide" are synonymous.

I'm assuming you mean involuntary manslaughter here. Ultimately, it depends on the jurisdiction, in a pure legal sense. Often the one is conflated with the other in much the same way assault gets conflated with battery.

However, in the abstract, there is a difference. Negligent homicide implies a level of abdication of responsibility that involuntary manslaughter doesn't. Involuntary manslaughter involves complete disregard for the effects of a situation, where as negligent homicide implies deliberate inaction in a case where ones fore-knowledge of the outcome is certian.

An example of involuntary manslaughter would be a drunk driving fatality- you just didn't care what the results of your actions, even though you might have made it home without incedent.

Negligent homicide would be letting your bedridden child lie in his own feces until infection took over. In this case, you knew the result- you just refused to act. in this case, inaction in the face of certain harm or death is the main issue.

Legally, both are generally punished similarly. Morally, I'd argue, the latter is worse than the former.

You pick a PARTICULAR policy of these "gentlemen" (as you put it)

That was just a form of whistling through the graveyard. Gallows humor. nothing more.

These guys are deceivers and NEVER utilize factual evidence unless it happens to square with their rant. On those rare occasions they'll happily jump on it as another game advantage. They're in the business of screwing with people's minds, period.

Agreed. My point was only that (1) helping them in their aims might not be the best thing to do, and (2) tamping down the rhetoric on the anti-war side might just serve to bolster the argument, in the eyes of the public. This is clearly a case where simple reason happens to overwhelmingly be on the side of righteousness. It's a strength. We cast it aside at not only our own peril, but at the peril of others.

As far as the numbers go- I have no problem with the study. At all. I'm not questioning it in the least. In fact, my position is far more in line with it's findings than PZ's- If you'll look, the study clearly spells out that the vast majority of the killing done is sectarian, Iraqi on Iraqi killing. It's not a matter of the "white" U.S. types killing "brown" people indiscriminately, to borrow an idiom from above- It's a matter of the U.S. allowing things to degenerate to a point of lawlessness where internecine car bombings become a fact of daily life.

It's wildly f'd up agreed- but comparing it to Hitler, Stalin, Algeria or the Congo is just simply off base. There is a fundamental difference between "what we've allowed" and what we've actively done. Frankly put- wile the blame must be _shared_ by the current administration at least, true- it is still just that. Shared. And unwillingly at best, given the huge efforts at spinning the safety of Iraq. It's clear that the reality of the situation is not only unintended to the administration- it's pretty embarasing.

The brunt of the blame still lies on those actually pulling the triggers. Which is not anyone affiliated with "our country."

That's not excusing it any more than pointing out that the actions of Christian Scientist parents withholding treatment from their children is demonstrably different than the actions of Jack the Ripper- even though both are reprehensible.

It's just reality.

Involuntary manslaughter involves complete disregard for the effects of a situation, where as negligent homicide implies deliberate inaction in a case where ones fore-knowledge of the outcome is certian.

Sorry- I should have said "fore-knowlage of harm could be assumed to be certian" here.

Also, sorry. I noticed post-post that you did, in fact specify involuntary manslaughter. Sorry 'bout that. Sometimes I get ahead of myself. It's a problem.

I invite the people of Iraq to occupy the USA...fair is fair after all.

Oddly enough, that might have been a cheaper and more effective way to take control of the oil resources in the first place! It would add a few percent to America's population, but we have a fair bit of desert we could have settled them in. And once they settled in, they'd be clamoring for their SUVs and Plastic Penny dolls as loudly as the natives... and could pressure their relatives back in the Gulf for favorable trading terms!

Oh, but wait... then the ShrubCo folks wouldn't get to share all that oil money out to their buddies!

Almost any rational approach to the Gulf would have been better all around, even one that was overtly aggressive but better planned. But the PNAC Gallery don't care about "better all around". They want absolute power, and all the money, and their true enemy is anyone who won't obey them.

I wasn't even referring to America. I was asking a simple question, should countries intervene on the behalf of people?

Let's apply your caveman argument here:

Did our caveman ancestors Ogg, Ugg and Bam run around the world liberating other tribes "on the behalf of people", risking their lives while their own tribe got poorer? They would have scoffed at such nonsense!

As an aside, the caveman had no need of Atlas Shrugged, because at that time Ogg could still reason; he intuitively knew that he had to work to feed himself and his family/tribe, and if he didn't work, he wouldn't eat.

Then why are there so many "caveman" remains that show that they had previous life-threatening injuries, indicating that someone took care of them while they healed?

(now, I'm not saying that humanitarian intervention is silly or that primitive groups were always altruist. I'm wondering at the cognitive dissonance here that one can advocate one very risky kind of altruism and scoff at another one because "cavemen didn't do it".)

uriel,

An example of involuntary manslaughter would be a drunk driving fatality- you just didn't care what the results of your actions, even though you might have made it home without incedent.

Negligent homicide would be letting your bedridden child lie in his own feces until infection took over. In this case, you knew the result- you just refused to act. in this case, inaction in the face of certain harm or death is the main issue.

Legally, both are generally punished similarly. Morally, I'd argue, the latter is worse than the former.

I would say this is somewhat morally worse than either scenario, because the Bush administration acted to cause certain harm and death, which they also knew would lead to more harm and death. It's not like they just assassinated Saddam and then stood back and watched the country fall into chaos; they went in there, guns blazing, attempting to instill Shock and Awe by demonstrating our sheer destructive capability. That was an inherently harmful act, and even in a best-case scenario thousands of Iraqis would have died. The ostensible justification was that the future benefit to Iraq and ourselves would outweigh the blood initially spilled--so not only is the administration culpable for ignoring the harm to come, but for failing to do the good it would have to do to make the harm it had already done worthwhile.

It's as if you fired into an angry crowd, hoping that by killing and wounding some of them, you can pacify the rest. Instead, some of them charge you and are gunned down, while others trample each other in panic. It's not just your inaction for which you deserve blame.

If you'll look, the study clearly spells out that the vast majority of the killing done is sectarian, Iraqi on Iraqi killing. It's not a matter of the "white" U.S. types killing "brown" people indiscriminately, to borrow an idiom from above- It's a matter of the U.S. allowing things to degenerate to a point of lawlessness where internecine car bombings become a fact of daily life.

Where are you reading that? So far as I can see, they didn't ask any questions about what group was responsible for which death, probably because it was dangerous to do so, and make no claim to have determined responsibility.

Are you assuming that the coalition-caused deaths are usually from airstrikes? The second Johns Hopkins study, which found a very similar breakdown in causes of violent death over the most recent period (53% gunshot, 18% car bomb, 12% airstrike), also found that 26% of recent violent deaths, and 31% of the total, were directly attributed to the U.S.' coalition. Doesn't seem to me like the "vast majority" of killing is sectarian.

Donalbain, read comment 9 again.

Paul, learn to distinguish your country from your fictitious president.

Anyone have any thoughts on this Wall Street Journal article?

Sure. It's all about medicine (I've read about it months ago in more serious sources than the WSJ). That's where people have an interest in certain outcomes. In most of the rest of science... what do I really care where the turtles come from? That's a highly interesting question that will make up a large part of my Ph.D. thesis, but I'm not going to gain or lose money depending on what the results will be. If anything, that will depend on how robust the results will be, whatever they will be.

I think there was a review in Nature about it a few months ago.

Donalbain, read comment 9

Fuck that. The rest of you read PZ's astoundingly stupid post.

"Our country seems to have killed at least a million Iraqis at the whim of George W. Bush and his cabal of neocons."

Fine, then let PZ read comment 9, too.