From Think Progress blog in the USA:
Electricity Levels In Baghdad At Lowest Level Since U.S. Invasion
In Sept. 2003, President Bush promised that he would help Iraqis “restore basic services, such as electricity and water, and to build new schools, roads, and medical clinics.”
From The Times in London:
Since the invasion not a single Iraqi hospital has been built, according to Amar al-Saffar, in charge of construction at the Health Ministry.
Think Progress continues:
This effort is essential to the stability of those nations, and therefore, to our own security.”
But three years later, electricity levels in Baghdad are at an all-time low.
Residents of Baghdad are receiving just 2.4 hours of electricity this month, compared to an average of 16-24 hours of electricity before the U.S. invasion.
The lowest level prior to this month was 3.9 hours/day.
According to our chart — using data compiled by The Brookings Institution — electricity levels have been steadily going down in the past two years (data for parts of 2003-2004 were unavailable) and are now at their lowest point since the U.S. invasion
Abuses in building US embassy in Iraq: here.
About a million Iraqis fled their homes since the 2003 invasion.
Saddam Hussein was a bloody dictator.
Who, when he committed his worst crimes in Iraq, was supported by Bush administration people like Donald Rumsfeld.
However, under this despicable regime, Iraqi electricians managed to restore electricity quickly to normal, after the 1991 Gulf war.
Under Saddam Hussein, there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq (a pretext for the 2003 start of the war, admitted to be wrong now by the Bush administration).
Under Saddam Hussein, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (another pretext for the 2003 start of the war, admitted to be wrong now by the Bush administration).
Under Saddam Hussein, gay people often feared the police, but did not fear for their lives. Now, they do.
Under Saddam Hussein, there was terrible torture in Iraq, in Abu Ghraib jail and elsewhere.
Today, it is even worse.
Under Bush, Iraqi women lost rights which they had for decades.
‘Reconstruction’ in Iraq: only prisons are built there.
An estimate of over 600,000 Iraqis were killed since the 2003 US invasion; see comment by Iraqi girl blogger Riverbend; who does not blog often, due to lack of electricity, safety, etc.
Thousands of US, British, and other soldiers died.
‘Mission accomplished‘, indeed, George W Bush!
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
How to Make Hundreds of Thousands of Dead Iraqis Disappear
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@mindspring.com chocoano05
Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:02 pm (PST)
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/43224/
How to Make Hundreds of Thousands of Dead Iraqis Disappear
By Eric Alterman, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted October 20,
2006.
The Lancet study that estimated 655,000 Iraqis killed
since the US invasion of 2003 was based on some of the
most solid research methods possible, but that didn’t stop
the American press from trying to say it wasn’t so.
According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, George Bush’s lies have killed not 30,000 innocent
Iraqis, as the president not long ago estimated, but
nearly 22 times that amount, or 655,000. Neither the
Pentagon, nor much of the mainstream media have made much
attempt to make their own counts — it’s just not that
important to anyone. So how has the U.S. media reported on
these shocking-albeit-necessarily-imprecise findings,
based on door-to-door surveys in 18 provinces, by the
experts trained in this kind of thing? The actual methods
included obtaining data by eight Iraqi physicians during a
survey of 1,849 Iraqi families — 12,801 people — in 47
neighborhoods of 18 regions across the country. The
researchers based the selection of geographical areas on
population size, not on the level of violence. How strict
were their standards? They asked for death certificates to
prove claims — and got them in 92 percent of the cases.
Even so, the authors say that the number could be anywhere
from 426,000 to 800,000.
Well, Greg Mitchell has written two columns on the topic
for Editor & Publisher and he finds, here
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003251404 and here
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003255073 , that:
* The Associated Press casts a very skeptical eye on
the study,
emphasizing the views of one “expert” Anthony Cordesman,
(as the AP describes him) who charges that it is nothing
but “politics,” with the November election approaching.
* The Washington Post, meanwhile, interviewed Ronald
Waldman, an
epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years.
He called the Johns Hopkins survey method “tried and true”
and added that “this is the best estimate of mortality we
have.”
* Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights
Watch in New
York, told the Post, “We have no reason to question the
findings or the accuracy” of the survey.
* Frank Harrell Jr., chairman of the biostatistics
department at
Vanderbilt University, told the Associated Press the study
incorporated “rigorous, well-justified analysis” of the
data.
* Richard Garfield, a public health professor at
Columbia
University who works closely with a number of the authors
of the report, told The Christian Science Monitor: “That’s
exactly wrong. There is no discrediting of this
methodology. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s been
involved in mortality research who thinks there’s a better
way to do it in unsecured areas. I have never heard of any
argument in this field that says there’s a better way to
do it.”
* The sampling “is solid. The methodology is as good
as it gets,”
said John Zogby, whose polling agency, Zogby
International, has done several surveys in Iraq since the
war began. “It is what people in the statistics business
do.” Zogby said similar survey methods have been used to
estimate casualty figures in other conflicts, such as
Darfur and the Congo.
I recall seeing on The Daily Show that when
Bush got done
playing around
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-banter12oct12,1,436045.story?coll=la-headlines-nation with
Suzanne Malveaux and her fashion statement that day, she
asked him about the study. He replied that “their
methodology has been pretty well discredited.” This is a
bald-faced lie, of course. But here’s my question. Were
there any follow-ups? Or was the purpose of the question
merely to get the president on the record without holding
him responsible for anything at all, even the unnecessary
murder of hundreds of thousands of people? What the hell
kind of society kills all these people and cannot be
bothered to care? Cannot be bothered to count them and
when someone does, risking their lives in the process,
lies to discredit them — and no one cares about that
either?
A Republican political consultant seeks to
discredit the
survey in The Wall Street Journal today, here
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009108 , and the madman, Hitchens, writes in Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2151607/ : “The Lancet figures are
almost certainly inflated, not least because they were
taken from selective war-torn provinces. But there is no
reason why they may not come to reflect reality more
closely. It is a reminder of the nature of the enemy we
face, and not only in Iraq, and a very clear picture of
the sort of people who would have a free hand in Iraq if
the coalition were to depart.” In fact, the first claim is
flat-out false.
The study specifically did not pick
particularly violent
provinces, as Hitchens could have discovered if he looked
at the study, not that he gives any impression of having
any experience with this type of statistical sampling. But
even so, the sanctions were a social, moral, and
epidemiological catastrophe as well. I never supported
them either. The sad fact is that Hussein could have been
contained militarily without all of these people dying
unnecessarily. Easily. But our leaders couldn’t prove
themselves sufficiently macho for chickenhawk neocons to
take the necessary steps, and so we have all this blood on
our collective hands, to say nothing of our own soldiers’
deaths, an increased terrorist threat, a trillion dollars
wasted, and the hatred of the world toward our citizens.
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7.
Rumsfeld Takes Orders from God?
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@mindspring.com chocoano05
Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:06 pm (PST)
Rumsfeld Takes Orders from God?
Category:
This. Is. Unreal. Try and wrap your mind around these
statements
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061019/pl_afp/usmilitarypolitics_061019193550 :
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.
“He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country,” said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mind boggling, isn’t it? Every single thing Rumsfeld predicted before the war has turned out to be false. What he claimed would be a quick, easy, $50 billion war has turned into a trillion dollar boondoggle that has made us less safe, nor more safe. Anyone who claims he’s doing what God tells him to do is insulting God.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 09:24 AM
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8.
New improved war slogans
Posted by: “Compañero” companyero@mindspring.com chocoano05
Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:08 pm (PST)
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/sloganvoting.cfm
ONLINE CONTEST
What’s the President’s Plan for Iraq?
It’s Time to Reframe “Cut and Run”
And The Winners AreS
1. “The Rapture is Not an Exit Strategy”
— submitted by Brent C. of Kirkland, Washington.
$5,000 donation directed to the Western
Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation, for the
“Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War” coalition
project.
2. “Bush’s Plan? Our GIs are dying to know.”
— submitted by Gregg G. of Austin, TX. $1,000
donation directed to Veterans for Peace.
3. “Custer Stayed the Course”
— submitted by Melanie R. of San Diego, CA. $500
donation directed to Iraq Veterans Against the
War.
We’ll have links posted soon for bumper stickers
and t-shirts with all three winning slogans.
Working Assets wishes to thank everyone who
submitted a slogan, or voted in the contest. For
your reference, the rest of the finalist and
“honorable mention” entries are listed below.
* Quagmire Accomplished
* Divide & Quagmire
* Stay the Curse
* Deny and Occupy
* Any kid but mine
* Cut and Ruin
* Duck and Cover-up
* Operation: Quagmire
* Occupy and Die
* Bush’s Plan? Only God Knows
* It is Futile, It is Fatal, It has Failed
* Saddam’s Gone. Why aren’t we?
* Bomb First, Osama Later
* Deny and Lie
* Wrong Reasons, Wrong Plan, Wrong War
* Are We Done Yet?
* In it for the wrong haul
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