So Saddam Jr. and Saddam Jr. II are dead?

**graller** · 07-24-2003, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by bago

Are you joking? The average man in the streets in Iraq sits around the cafe sipping espressos, while chatting on his cell and watching espn on Satellite TV? No one over there can afford any of that. The majority of the people are living in buildings with no power, tv's, phones or anything else....take off the rose colored glasses. Can one person provide proof that terrorist funding has declined?

No, I'm not joking. You can see the pictures for yourself. If you recall, Saddam offereed to pay 25,000 dollars to hamas for every suicide bomber that went off. Now that saddam is no longer in power, he cannot pay hamas. Simple proof that "terrorist funding has declined".

But why are you talking about the average Iraqi? The point is you asked for differences, and I provided a simple list of easily provable improvements to life in Iraq over the past three months.

You ask for proof of Television, power, decreased terrorism funding and I provide proof of each.

And what is with your obsession over Starbucks and McDonalds?

Oh yes, some Iraqis hanging out in an electronics store - clearly things are better. Do you call 25000 significant funding? Also seeing as this was money Saddam "pledged" to give them, not actually delivered currency? Seeing as 90% of the financing comes from Saudi Arabia? Bago - I am not a moron, nor gullible. I have never said getting rid of Saddam was not a bad thing or could lead to a better life for Iraqis - but there has been no real concrete improvement to date. There is an equal amount of danger, LESS services....Before we bombed the crap out of their infrastructure a lot more worked then today. And we have not delivered the stability and safety our supposed liberation was going to be. For every article like the one you linked I can find five quoting lack of water, food, police departments quitting etc...

**Jason McCullough** · 07-24-2003, 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by jeff lackey

Originally Posted by quatoria

Originally Posted by jeff lackey

Originally Posted by Tim Elhajj

Oh, we're going to do a my administration is better than your administration thread! And the topic is (survey says) exaggerations!

Well, perhaps one difference in our thinking is that I don't consider one administration "mine" and one "yours" - like 'em or not, as an American, they are all "our" administration.

I dunno, Jeff. I think I'd be more likely to consider this "our" administration if the chief officer had actually been elected.

Well, he won the election, he won the recounts, and all of the re-re-counts showed that had the Gore folks gotten the recount they wanted, he would have won that. I think he was elected, like him or not.

If the overvotes were counted, that put Gore on top by a few hundred. Kaus had a lot on this.

Of course, the Democratic complaint isn't that Gore lost; it's that the SC stepped in and threw out the recount process with asinine, blatantly political "reasoning." If the recounts had proceeded, regardless of who won, I don't think you'd see anywhere near as much anger on the left about this.

There's still be the butterfly ballot and voter roll purges, but those can't hold a candle to the ref stopping the game.

**Brad Grenz** · 07-24-2003, 11:19 PM

Of course you can't ever actually count the overvotes because there is no way to be absolutely sure who was intended to recieve the vote. Anecdotal or even statistical evidence can't be used as a basis for counting so many over votes as votes for any one person.

Before we bombed the crap out of their infrastructure a lot more worked then today.

I'm sure that's true to a degree, but I heard a report on NPR a little while ago about the continuing power problems which said that even before the war Iraq didn't have the infrastructure to power the entire country 24/7. Saddam had power generated throughout the coutry diverted to Baghdad to keep those lights on all the time. Right now they do rolling poweroutages to give everyone some electricity during the day. Sure to piss of the priveleged in the capital use to getting their juice at the expense of everyone else, but the must be people in outlying areas glad to be getting any right now. And this is something you can't fix overnight. We have enough trouble keeping the A/C running in California, we can't be expected to have new powerplants up and running over night in Iraq.

**Jason McCullough** · 07-24-2003, 11:22 PM

The "overvotes" aren't a punchcard with two clear holes; they're usually a case of one clear hole and a slight dent put in another by the machine.

And the Leon County judge in charge of things might have included them.

**bago** · 07-25-2003, 04:06 AM

graller: 10,000 - 25,000 dollars US per bombing. That totalled up to over 35 million dollars. A signifigant source of funding.

Oh yes, some Iraqis hanging out in an electronics store - clearly things are better.

As opposed to being shot for getting un-authorized news, yeah, I'd say that's a tangible improvement.

And as far as services go, there are more tangible services now for the non-baathis than there were before. I have listed them and shown links proving their existence. All you have is irrational hatred of franchise businesses and wild ass unlinked/verified claims about deprived Iraqis.

It's obvious you do not wish to talk about facts, but rather sling emotionally charged invectives claiming that a non-baathist Iraqi was better off under Saddam. Perhaps you should read up on the marsh-arabs.

I think you should start yelling at pepsi-co next. I hear pepsi is a briskly selling item in Baghdad.

**quatoria** · 07-25-2003, 04:21 AM

Originally Posted by bago

I think you should start yelling at pepsi-co next. I hear pepsi is a briskly selling item in Baghdad.

Pepsi? My GOD. As if they hadn't lost enough, this new evidence makes it clear that Iraqis have LOST THEIR TASTE.

**graller** · 07-25-2003, 05:43 AM

Bago - clearly you don't understand that I was pointing out your spin on services as being Western based civilization and not the reality of Iraq in 2003. They don't have McDonalds on every corner, they don't have espresso cafe's. Your initial post about cell phones and satellite tv's was just stupid. Maybe one person in 100 has the wherewithal do actually own these things. So using them as an example of improved services for the 'common man' in Iraq is plain stupid...but of course the point seems to have sailed over your head. You want links - you got em:

Phone Services are useless Strangely the dozen or so people with internet access are doing great business opening internet cafe's as it is more reliable then the phone lines that just don't work.

Here are some nice quotes. I really liked these:

And Paul Bremer, chief US administrator in Iraq, [on Wednesday] set out a 60-day plan for restoring the power supply to prewar levels and meeting other reconstruction objectives.

"Yet almost three months after President George Bush declared the end of major combat, much remains to be done ... Mr Bremer's plan to restore basic services to a semblance of normality in two months serves to underline the slow progress ... Faster progress requires help from the wider international community ...

Of course having the support of the international community would have helped wouldn't it?

I liked this link as well.

The young cleric called several thousand on to the streets of Najaf last week The deaths of three American soldiers yesterday, men from the same division which killed Saddam Hussein's sons, are an early blow to American hopes that resistance to occupation will fade now these key leaders of the former regime are dead. Five Americans have died since Tuesday, and 11 in the last week, the highest rate of killing since the war officially ended.

Occasional comments by Iraqis that "things were better under Saddam" are not an indication that they want to restore his regime. They are more a rhetorical way of highlighting disappointment at the lack of security, the collapse of public order, problems with water and electricity, fear of unemployment, as well as the daily indignity of seeing foreign troops on their streets.

Here is a nice article from the NY Times on this exact subject and our failings so far and what we hope to do to fix it.

Here is a nice article on how safe it is right now

Had enough yet? This was a nice one - some choice quotes

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the administration has no current plans for such a four- or five-year budget.

''We don't know what the costs are,'' Buchan said. ''We've talked about the '04 budget process. We haven't even put forward costs for '04, because at this point we can't accurately estimate them.''

Administration officials are beginning to provide a glimpse into the level of need in the war-torn country. On Wednesday, L. Paul Bremer III, the administration's civilian administrator in Iraq, said $13 billion will be required to meet ''foreseeable power demands,'' and another $16 billion will be needed over the next four years ''just getting decent water to the population.''

Lugar, who said that he still supports the US military action, said that a White House budget on reconstruction that lays out spending over four years would demonstrate to critics that the United States has ''staying power'' in Iraq.

''If there is security, if there is a plan, if there is a certainty that the US and a growing number of countries were going to be involved for years, that's different,'' Lugar said.

Sounds safer doesn't it? Sounds like we have delivered right? This is the result of 5 minutes of searching on just the major news outlets I read regularly.

**Reeko** · 07-25-2003, 06:53 AM

Well that Bremer quote is nice. But I heard him state in an NPR interview that Iraq already had serious water and power shortages before the invasion. Those numbers are to fully provide services. I suspect they would be much lower if we only wanted to return things to pre-war levels. Also, much of this money will be provided by Iraq's sale of its own oil. There are pipeline and operations sabotage issues, but nothing insurmountable. The pipelines in South America (Venezuela, I think) are sabotaged often and yet they still export substantial amounts.

**graller** · 07-25-2003, 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by Reeko

Well that Bremer quote is nice. But I heard him state in an NPR interview that Iraq already had serious water and power shortages before the invasion. Those numbers are to fully provide services. I suspect they would be much lower if we only wanted to return things to pre-war levels. Also, much of this money will be provided by Iraq's sale of its own oil. There are pipeline and operations sabotage issues, but nothing insurmountable. The pipelines in South America (Venezuela, I think) are sabotaged often and yet they still export substantial amounts.

Reeko - in the article he states that the money from oil will only be enough to support rebuilding the oil industry to pre-war levels - the rest of the funding will have to come from somewhere else.

**Tyjenks** · 07-25-2003, 07:03 AM

I thought General Sanchez announced during his press conference after the death of Fred and Barney that many public services were at pre-war levels and improving every day. Conditions were far from ideal before any military action and in 2-3 months after "bombing their infrastructure to the stone ages" and while still fighting a war things are back to where they were before. Maybe I am just being all silly and optimistic again, if so, I am sorry.

**JeffL** · 07-25-2003, 07:35 AM

Originally Posted by Jason McCullough

Of course, the Democratic complaint isn't that Gore lost; it's that the SC stepped in and threw out the recount process with asinine, blatantly political "reasoning." If the recounts had proceeded, regardless of who won, I don't think you'd see anywhere near as much anger on the left about this.

There's still be the butterfly ballot and voter roll purges, but those can't hold a candle to the ref stopping the game.

Let's agree that we won't hijack this thread and go back to this tired old topic - in the interest of that purpose, I'll say my piece here and let you have the last word. Remember that the SC ruled 7-2 that the recount process that Gore's folks were pushing through, and that was in progress, was unconstitutional. That was 7 to 2. Everyone seems to "forget" that the clear majority of the court said that the recount in Florida, the way they were pushing it through, was unconstitutional. The 5-4 vote was whether they could continue to come up with new ways to recount the votes.

And there was only one, very unlikely manner in which Gore would have come out on top. Just about every recount that was done gave Bush the votes. What is ironic and what people conveniently leave out is that, had the SC ruled that the recount as pushed by Gore's folks been allowed, the after-the-fact recounts showed that Bush would have won. The only chance Gore had, based on the later counts, would have been if the entire state had been recounted (as the Bush folks were pushing) AND you included ballots that were questionable. But you and I both know everyone was surprised when all of the agencies, companies, etc. came in and did recounts and Bush got the majority of votes - a LOT of Democrats were VERY dissapointed, because they expected to be able to trumpet that data all over the place.

OK, Jason, you can talk about the recounts that included dents and chads etc. as why the SC gave it to Bush, and get the last word (we should waste our energy arguing about more current events. ;) )

**Tyjenks** · 07-25-2003, 07:41 AM

To quote Rory Culkin in Signs:

Jeff, "I wish you were my Daddy."

What happened to all the pained cries of, "Why didn't we try to capture them?" with regards to the Hussein boys. Mysterious, is it not, how quickly that point quieted.

**ydejin** · 07-25-2003, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by Tyjenks

What happened to all the pained cries of, "Why didn't we try to capture them?" with regards to the Hussein boys. Mysterious, is it not, how quickly that point quieted.

Well, if we couldn't use gas on them, I'm not really sure how we would have captured them if they were insistent on resisting. We could have sent massive numbers of troops in to overwhelm them, but I'm sure that would have gotten a lot of US troops killed. I know we have been experimenting with non-lethal weapons, but I'm not really sure what's in the inventory right now.

**Tyjenks** · 07-25-2003, 08:10 AM

Originally Posted by ydejin

Originally Posted by Tyjenks

What happened to all the pained cries of, "Why didn't we try to capture them?" with regards to the Hussein boys. Mysterious, is it not, how quickly that point quieted.

Well, if we couldn't use gas on them, I'm not really sure how we would have captured them if they were insistent on resisting. We could have sent massive numbers of troops in to overwhelm them, but I'm sure that would have gotten a lot of US troops killed. I know we have been experimenting with non-lethal weapons, but I'm not really sure what's in the inventory right now.

I agree completely. That did not stop the knee-jerk accusatory tone that branded the troops and their commanding officers as cowboys who went in shooting first. Immediate negative reactions can seemingly be thrown about at will and then downplayed later if proven wrong. Positive news is not allowed, I am afraid.

**Jason McCullough** · 07-25-2003, 08:52 AM

7-2 or not, the SC shouldn't have stepped in. Have you seen legal scholars try to defend the reasoning? It's not pretty.

Oh, and this "non-baathist" Iraq trope is wierd; it kind of implies that excepting a few small Saddam-loving holdouts, everyone's behind us. What is really means is "don't pay attention to the middle third of Iraq, which has half the people."

**TimElhajj** · 07-25-2003, 09:08 AM

Your daddy gave Jason the last word here, Ty.

**JeffL** · 07-25-2003, 10:16 AM

7-2 or not, the SC shouldn't have stepped in. Have you seen legal scholars try to defend the reasoning? It's not pretty.

(bites tongue until blood comes out corner of mouth... LOL)

**bago** · 07-25-2003, 01:24 PM

Your initial post about cell phones and satellite tv's was just stupid.

Yet entirely factually correct. If you notice, I provide links to facts, you provide links to opinions and conjecture.

The point is that these things exist, where before they did not, and it CLEARLY answers the question you posed of "what is better now?" There are over 75 newspapers in baghdad alone. Before there was one. CLEARLY a factual victory for freedom of speech.

Your comparison basis of this chimerical "average Iraqi" to the "average westerner" is patently silly. Of course things are going to be a bit rocky and shakey for the next few years as things are sorted out. Nobody is arguing that it's a paradise for the "average joe".

The point is that "What is possible" has changed and expanded greatly. "What is" will fill the space of "What is possible" over time. As it stands Iraq is the only Arab nation with a free press.

I seriously don't understand what you mean when you say "my spin on services as being western based civilization and not the reality of Iraq in 2003".

And you still mention chain based resturaunts in every post. WTF?

**graller** · 07-25-2003, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by bago

I seriously don't understand what you mean when you say "my spin on services as being western based civilization and not the reality of Iraq in 2003".

And you still mention chain based resturaunts in every post. WTF?

No - You missed the point again. You are viewing "improvements" in the eye of a westerner. You are thinking in terms of cellphones and such as being measuring sticks for improvement. This is not the case in Iraq. We bombed them into the stone age. These people do not care so much about cell phones - by the way they clearly don't work as I pointed out in one of the factual articles you must not bothered to have read. They want BASIC services. Water, Police, Electricity, Security. Do you think they really care that they have 75 newspapers now? Does the fact there are hundreds of newspapers available in Boston excite me in the midst of a blackout? No it doesn't. And I am not arguing that IF we decide to stay in Iraq and spend billions of dollars over the next 5-6 years that the situation will be better. I am talking about right now this minute. I am also talking about what motivates someone to go out and kill the next american soldier they get the chance at. Believe me they are not thinking "But I got my satellite TV service back".

I am enjoying your backpedaling from your initial stance as well. You have gone from saying everything is peachy keen and better now to:

Of course things are going to be a bit rocky and shakey for the next few years as things are sorted out. Nobody is arguing that it's a paradise for the "average joe".

The point is that "What is possible" has changed and expanded greatly. "What is" will fill the space of "What is possible" over time.

I can only hope it does not cost us too much in money, people, and international goodwill in the meantime. Which has always been my point.

Yet entirely factually correct. If you notice, I provide links to facts, you provide links to opinions and conjecture.

You must not have gone to the globe story about the real Iraqi family that was killed by our soldiers - not an opinion piece

or the one about the Senator discussing the facts regarding planning and budgeting for Iraqi reconstruction?

Or the one from the Guardian where in a very matter of fact way they quote the feelings of local Iraqis to the occupation? Or if an Iraqi is quoted is that not factual? Where as a picture of two people watching TV is evidence of a great renaissance of Iraqi living conditions where everyone is now sitting around and watching tv 24x7?

**bago** · 07-25-2003, 06:07 PM

We bombed them into the stone age.

A stone age where you can get your wireless internet and cup of coffee at the internet cafe. A stone age where there's traffic jams in Baghdad. A bombing campaign that left well over 90% of the city intact. If this is being bombed back to the stone age, I'd hate to know what you'd say about Dresden.

Do you think they really care that they have 75 newspapers now? Does the fact there are hundreds of newspapers available in Boston excite me in the midst of a blackout?

If you've never had a free newspaper, and could be killed for publishing opposing views, it might be a bit of a big deal. It seems like you're the one using western values here in your boston blackout. Of course why take my word for it. Why not read the translations of the newspapers and see what Iraqis have to say.

I am also talking about what motivates someone to go out and kill the next american soldier they get the chance at.

I'm sure this is why attacks on American soldiers have dropped by over 50% in the past month.

I am enjoying your backpedaling from your initial stance as well. You have gone from saying everything is peachy keen and better now to:

Oh really. My 'initial stance' was a flat factual observation. Allow me to quote myself.
[color=blue]Actually Saddam had Stalin as his role model.
Regardless, you can now buy and use a cellphone in Iraq, where they were outlawed under Saddam.[/color]
I never said things are peachy keen.

What I'm saying is that there are more measurable choices in Iraq today than there was a year ago. Complete cessation of the activities of the Baathist secret police, with their torturing, beating, raping and kidnapping is also an important fact. This gives rise to many more choices that would be impossible under a stalinist regime.

Choice being the underpinning of freedom, and freedom being a good thing are assumptions that I hope you share. However judgements drawn from this are opinion and are not what I have been saying.

It seems to me your argument could be distilled down to "at least he made the trains run on time..."

(abstract enough not to invoke Godwin's Law I hope...)

**bmulligan** · 07-25-2003, 10:25 PM

quatoria and McCullough had unwittingly revealed their brotherhood, and achillies heel. Having both lost popularity contests in their highschool yearbook elections as most likely to succeed, both took solace in the fact that they would have indeed earned the endowment, had they been allowed to re-count the the ballots of the disinfranchised, the absentees, and the special ed class. Even now the word 'bush' brings back memories of things they were denied in their adolescence.

**Brad Grenz** · 07-25-2003, 11:11 PM

bago's right, just thought I'd add that. He's clearly right that much has improved, and graller apparently has an unrealistic picture of what it was like in Iraq before the war. As several of us have mentioned, apparently Iraq didn't actually have the capacity to generate power for the whole country before the war, so the fact that it still doesn't isn't proof of American failures. It's proof that Iraq was in sorry shape under Saddam, and unless you lived in the capital, you learned to live without.

**quatoria** · 07-25-2003, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by bmulligan

quatoria and McCullough had unwittingly revealed their brotherhood, and achillies heel. Having both lost popularity contests in their highschool yearbook elections as most likely to succeed, both took solace in the fact that they would have indeed earned the endowment, had they been allowed to re-count the the ballots of the disinfranchised, the absentees, and the special ed class. Even now the word 'bush' brings back memories of things they were denied in their adolescence.

The Narrator, you ain't.

**Jason McCullough** · 07-26-2003, 12:12 AM

Some of us spent our high school years chucking smoke bombs at people.

**graller** · 07-26-2003, 04:42 AM

Originally Posted by bago

I'm sure this is why attacks on American soldiers have dropped by over 50% in the past month.

Did you read the article you linked? Or the one I had earlier on this very topic? There is nothing in that article about a 50% reduction in deaths this month. All it says is they captured 10 bad Iraqi men. However in the article I linked it actually mentioned that this has been the deadliest week in Iraq for US Soldiers since the end of "hostilities" in May - Maybe you should work on your readers comprehension?

**Rywill** · 07-26-2003, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by graller

Maybe you should work on your readers comprehension?

Wow, thats a zing.

**graller** · 07-26-2003, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by Brad Grenz

bago's right, just thought I'd add that. He's clearly right that much has improved, and graller apparently has an unrealistic picture of what it was like in Iraq before the war. As several of us have mentioned, apparently Iraq didn't actually have the capacity to generate power for the whole country before the war, so the fact that it still doesn't isn't proof of American failures. It's proof that Iraq was in sorry shape under Saddam, and unless you lived in the capital, you learned to live without.

Brad - I suppose I should have expanded on the theme a bit - as Bago made reference to my "bombed them into the Stone Age" as well. Things were poor before the war - I agree. A lot of that was because of Gulf War 1 and the havoc we unleashed on their infrastructure at that time. Between the damage and the embargos after the GW1 Iraq was in very bad shape before the start of this war. I am not suggesting GW1 was not a good thing by the way or the embargos. My point is we have not made substantial improvements since. We don't seem to have a plan in place for doing so, and given how much animosity in the region we have earned with our actions so far this year I would think the most important thing we could be doing was restoring basic living conditions as soon as possible for whatever public relations win we can get. But we seem to be failing here, in my opinion, just as badly as we did in the prewar diplomacy. Will we eventually get something done? Yes? I only hope the outcome is better then our diplomatic efforts. That make sense to you - as an opinion of mine?

**James Gutierrez** · 07-26-2003, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by graller

Did you read the article you linked? Or the one I had earlier on this very topic? There is nothing in that article about a 50% reduction in deaths this month. All it says is they captured 10 bad Iraqi men. However in the article I linked it actually mentioned that this has been the deadliest week in Iraq for US Soldiers since the end of "hostilities" in May - Maybe you should work on your readers comprehension?

From the linked article:

He added that while the sons' deaths have had no noticeable impact on Iraqi resistance thus far, attacks on US troops in the region had been cut in half over the last month.

**graller** · 07-26-2003, 02:32 PM

Lets add 3 more today and 4 wounded shall we?

**graller** · 07-26-2003, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by JamesG

Originally Posted by graller

Did you read the article you linked? Or the one I had earlier on this very topic? There is nothing in that article about a 50% reduction in deaths this month. All it says is they captured 10 bad Iraqi men. However in the article I linked it actually mentioned that this has been the deadliest week in Iraq for US Soldiers since the end of "hostilities" in May - Maybe you should work on your readers comprehension?

From the linked article:

He added that while the sons' deaths have had no noticeable impact on Iraqi resistance thus far, attacks on US troops in the region had been cut in half over the last month.

Next sentence:

Elsewhere in the country, however, US forces faced increasing challenges as a popular Shia cleric called on the US to leave the holy city of Najaf and reiterated promises to establish a Shiia militia, the "Mehdi army".

Read carefully James - it states in the "region". They are not talking about Iraq in general but in the particular area where they have been looking for the boys. The stats back that up as stated in the other article and that was before we counted today's tally.

I hate arguing over the internet. This is the only time I have ever done so on this board. I have an opinion, I stated it. I have backed it up with plenty fo factual reporting. Bago and I are just trading insults at this point which is not my style. Bago I leave you the field. You did a decent job of summarizing your opinion again in that last post....let's leave it at that shall we?

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