http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/wrd/iraq-women.htm Under the previous government (especially before 1991, it seems), Iraqi women had more opportunities and better education than any other area in the middle east. For all the things Hussein did wrong, this was one area (and maybe the only one) he got right.
To expand on this, towards the end of the Saddam era, you may be right about the limitations on women and schooling. It seems to help consolidate power over the past 5-10 years, he undid much of the progress he had made. Bizarre.
So, I'm taking it by this response that you were NOT aware of this fact beforehand? Why? My guess is because you don't care and drown that stuff out. Their lives are worthless statistics to you because you can't see any political gain out of it? Right? I will admit that I don't really care that much either as it's hard to add these people in to the estimated 30-40,000 civilian casualties and feel much worse. I made my decision a long time ago that this war was a tragic mistake, I thought this kind of thing would happen beforehand, and it did, and it continues. Addressing your point, which is off topic and makes no sense, they're casualties of the civil war, chaos, and bloodletting currently ongoing, which is due to the inability of the US to provide basic security that it is obligated to provide as an occupying power under the Geneva convention. But for the US invasion and occupation, this kind of civil war, anarchy, and chaos would not have occurred. Is this actually in doubt or have you been asleep for 3 years? This inability to provide security is due to the mistakes and incompetence of the Bush Administration, which has finally begun to admit as much, - as well as its poliltical supporters. Again, what are you doubting here? How does the "blame the media" playbook apply? Fighting against reality is a losing battle every time, and is one of the reasons why this war is such a mess.
I don't care about the (American) politics surrounding the war, so you pretty much could not be further off the mark. I don't tend to track which months have more Iraqi civilian casualties because it just doesn't have that much bearing on my life. If you choose to focus your time on how many Iraqis the enemy kills, that is up to you. I'm not doubting anything. The people you are talking about where by and large not killed by American military forces. They were killed by other Iraqis mostly, with a few foreign terrorists thrown in. Unlike you, I do not blame Americans for teh actions of other people. Just because we removed Saddam from power, that does not force groups of Iraqis to blow up their neighbors with car bombs. We have created a set of circumstances. If another chooses to do evil because of those circumstances, that is on them. As for being off-topic, this is exactly the topic. You are blaming the US for the actions of the terrorists. X number of civilians die and you use that to bash the administration. The administration didn't kill them, the terrorists did.
Wow, this post says a lot. You're sliding into rather callous territory. I thought you were all about Iraqi human rights and against genocide and protecting fetuses, etc? Now you just gave up on protecting life when it's inconvenient for you to care about it? Is this like your on-again/off again opposition to affirmative action? Wow, this remarkably warped theory of causation is laughable and not generally the one under which we exist as a society (legally, anyway) but I guess a necessary rhetorical invention from you. By your logic, I could be a prison guard, let the inmates out of their cells, and then when they kill each other and riot, be absovled of all responsibility? The Geneva convention does not allow for this, nor do the legal rules under which we generally operate as a society. Honestly, you're smarter than that. Why don't you just admit that things in Iraq suck, and a lot of this is due to mistakes that the US has made? Even President Bush himself admitted this.
How is it callous not to track the number of Iraqi civilians killed by the insurgents by month? I don't want any of them to be killed. I wish the insurgents wouuld just stop their stupid attacks and realize that their enitire effort runs counter to their stated goals and their best interests. I am still for Iraqi human rights, still against genocide, and still for protecting babies. I just don't see the point in my tracking civilian casualties in Iraq, since I don't have any effect on them, outside of my votes. Oh, and I do not have an on again, off again opposition to affirmative action, despite your childish efforts to prove otherwise. Things in Iraq do suck. Mistakes have been made. Some of those mistakes may have resulted in an increase in civilian casualties. On the other hand, we have not let the terrorists loose (because we never held them), and we are not standing back and letting the violence happen. Maybe we could be more effective in combating the terrorists, but I am not certain of that, and I find it hard to pass moral judgement on the administration/military for possibly not fighting the insurgency at peak efficiancy. Whether society or the Geneva conventions agree with me is irrelevent to my internal morality. As a counter analogy I give you this. If CPS orders the children removed from a home after one or more of their siblings were killed by a parent, and they are sent into the foster parenting system, where one of them is then molested by a foster parent, I do not hold the officers of CPS responsible for the child being molested. They removed the child from a terrible situation, and tried to put them into a better one. The foster parent then did a horrible thing to the child, for which they are responsible. The situation sucks for the child, and a mistake has been made, but CPS didn't molest the kid and they should not be bashed for the outcome, they are just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Be honest, you don't care that much in the grand scheme of things. Nor do I . I didn't prove it, you did. I find that pattern of making grandiose statements of policy/morals/truthiness and then discarding them when inconvenient to be familiar. So then your diatribe about the evil media reporting that is now retracted? No, we're even more culpable than a hypothetical prison guard because the prison guard didn't create the inmates. We provided the impetus for terrorism by invading Iraq and dismantling its internal security structures. This was forewarned by people from Osama Bin Laden all the way to Colin Powell (Pottery Barn rule). This was not heeded. That's nice. Is that what you tell them at the Pottery Barn when you smash a bowl and refuse to pay for it? What do the police say to that when they come to haul you in? Really? What if the CPS was forewarned that the foster home was potentially dangerous, both internally and externally, and the CPS devoted insufficient resources to monitoring the foster home, despite warnings otherwise? Becasue that is what happened here. I have a feeling if that happened, people woudl be fired and prosecuted.
It is abstract to me. It doesn't really touch any aspect of my life. In that sense, it causes me less consternation than less important things which are closer to me. That does not mean that I don't care. Truthiness Who am I, GWB? I have never made any statement in favor of Affirmative Action. There was one incident which you feel is an example of my support for AA, and I disagree with your assessment. Your occasional return to that well is about as meaningful as CF's harping on Hayes for not ignoring him. It is weak and meaningless. I never said the media was lying when they reported bad things happening in Iraq. I said that the media didn't put the bad things done by Americans in Iraq perspective by showing that the overwhelming majority of Americans in Iraq are doing good things and focusing only on the minute number of bad apples. There was terrorism before we invaded Iraq. We didn't create the terrorists. Hell, there were Iraqis fighting against the established order in Iraq before we got there. I don't shop at Pottery Barn. I am assuming you are talking about a "you break it you buy it" type of policy. That works on the level of a single person dealing with inanimate objects. On the other hand, if I call someone in Pottery Barn an ******* and tell him his mother is a w**** and he picks up a bowl and heaves it at me, you bet your ass I am not gonna pay for it, even if I was the impetus for the bowl getting broken. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Just like the insurgents are responsible for their actions, US invasion or not. CPS in fact does know that some of the kids they send into foster care are going to be mistreated. It has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Just like the US knew that some of the Iraqis may cause trouble post invasion. In both cases it is a small minority. The majority of Iraqis and of foster parents are good people, and we proceed accordingly.
In Iraq? Really? Outside of a few fringe groups operating in the kurdish areas, I am hard pressed to identify any active terrorist groups carrying out attacks within Iraq proper, much less ones that would result in 10's of 000's of casualties per year, in the preceding decade. Can you? Hmm,now that's actually not a bad analogy to the way US foreign policy has worked in the ME over the last few years according to much of the intended audience. Yeah, sure, now THAT really helps to fight terrorism... Anyway, you're saying that you're absolutely blameless in this case? I doubt many people would agree with you. Let's discard the pottery barn example, Let me make this simple, clear, and plain: Prior to the US Invasion, Iraq had a barely functional, if brutal, state, with electricity, relative civil order, and many other things that you and I take for granted. It did not have IED's or sectarian slaughters on a daily basis, or lots of (any?) car bombs. After the US invasion, the US removed the Iraqi state, and put: well, nothing effective in its place. This is despite the fact that the US was forewarned (and ignored), NUMEROUS times that it was dealing with a volatile situation that required massive resources and planning. This removal of authority, while the US was an occupying power, created conditions (that the US was warned about) where terrorism and anarchy would reign. Anybody with common sense can/could see that. Quite honestly, this is open and shut and not worth arguing about; The US had a duty , which it failed, therefore it's liable for the foreseeable consequences of that failure. Your individual absolution of blame is great but really is meaningless in the sense that absolutely nobody who matters will share it [quote CPS in fact does know that some of the kids they send into foster care are going to be mistreated. It has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Just like the US knew that some of the Iraqis may cause trouble post invasion. In both cases it is a small minority. The majority of Iraqis and of foster parents are good people, and we proceed accordingly.[/QUOTE] You're distorting the hell out of the analogy. CPS places hundreds/thousands of children per year. Of course it will not be perfect. The US does not invade and occupy thousands of large sovreign nations per year; rather has only done it on a few occassions, and it should (hopefully) deliberate much longer and harder than a CPS caseworker. If CPS was credibly warned that it was sending a child to a bad home, and failed in its subsequent monitoring function to the point of being grossly negligent - OF COURSE IT BEARS RESPONSIBILITY. Really the point yoru arguing is so absurd in practice it feels silly to even discuss it.
You called RMT an *******? What happened to our, "ceasefire?" And RMT?? Golly, that wasn't in the least deserved. Guess I'll figure you had a bit of a stumble, a knee-jerk reaction, if you will, and assume it wasn't a thought-out post on your part. The ceasefire continues. Oh, and what FB said. All of it. Whatever it was. Keep D&D Civil.
Not in Iraq, worldwide. I would say I am not ultimatly responsible for whatever got broken. Just because someone does something you don't like (calls you names, has troops on your soil, whathaveyou) that doesn't make them responsible for whatever actions you take (breaking stuff, blowing up innocent people, attacking a spectator at a sporting event). The insurgency could legitimately attack the US military, and all of the military casualties we have brought upon ourselves. They cannot legitimately attack Iraqi civilians, nor are we responsible if they choose to do so. If history ended today, you might have a point. As it stands, a lot of infrastructure type things are worse now than they were pre-invasion, and certainly pre-Gulf War. It is a work in progress, and the goal is to leave Iraq a stable democracy where the people are not living under the heel of a brutal dictator, in a state of civil war (yes, the Kurds were in open rebellion against the regime), and with no hope for teh future. The main impediment to freedom was removed, and now we have to deal with the insuing chaos. We are not to blame for the chaos (IMO), but we can and should help to clean it up. The US did remove millions of Iraqis from under the rule of Saddam Hussein. I am linking the war to the function of CPS as a whole, not to an individual case. Most of the Iraqis who were freed from the tyranny of Saddam are going into a better situation in the future, while a small fraction have turned to crime and murder. I guess the administration decided that the number of insurgents would be acceptable, and I agree. That doesn't make the interim chaos any less sucky, but it does show the reasoning behind going forward with the occupation despite warnings of what would happen following regime change.
SM, I have to hand it to you. Your version, no, dammit, I meant vision, of pre- and postwar Iraq is stunningly stunning. Keep D&D Civil.
Who cares about worldwide? I'm saying that the war made Iraqis who weren't terrorists into terrorists, which it did, just like it contributed to making British, Canadians, and others into terrorists, no doubt. It is a matter of black letter law that as an occupying power, the US has been responsible for the security of civilians in Iraq. This is why we are paying massive human and economic costs to do so. This is plain and simple, and there is really nothing more to say on it, regardless of whatever personal theories of causation that you can rationalize out of it. Actually they were pretty much independent and kept to themselves in northern Iraq which was out of Saddam's control and there was no open fighting amongst Kurds and Arabs in Mosul, e.g. Now there is. No, actually you linked it to an individual case, then you changed it when the analogy failed for you. Again the analogy fails because we're talking about one decision, in which the US failed to heed advice about the impending anarchy, and failed to take steps to stop it when it was happening. One case. Iraq. That's it.
What difference does it make if the terrorist attacks are happening in Iraq, as they are now, or in the US or Yemen, or somewhere else, as was happening before the invasion. I say that we do not create terrorists, we expose those who have the mindset of a terrorist. Yes, as an occupying power, we are required to attempt to provide security. That no more makes us responsible for the actions of the enemy than the police in America are responsible for the actions of the criminals. Exactly, they were independent and out of Saddam's control, just like the south in the Civil War. That there was no fighting going on probably has something to do with the NFZ that was being enforced by the US as part of our containment strategy (which is not sustainable in perpituity). The single case was a setup. The whole was the follow through. Just as there are many individual foster care situations, there are many Iraqis. It's my analogy, I can draw the comparison however I choose.
Again with the inapt analogies. if the police go to an area, remove the police that were there, put up nothing effective in its place, despite being legally responsible for it, and chaos ensues that leaves the area worse off, despite being warned to the contrary that those were the possible consequences of their actions, then they are definitely both responsible and blameworthy. Common sense. This is all hideously tangential and illustrates my point. You can split rhetorical hairs and try to make out some difference between "blame" and "responsibility", but reality indicates otherwise.
