tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47584851416301514762024-03-08T09:59:27.263-08:00Seed of Doubt - IraqCountering right wing myths, military propaganda and media ignorance.sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-60336833828224716402010-03-08T13:28:00.000-08:002010-03-08T13:29:27.448-08:00stupid word gamesi did not accuse Steven Mosher of being a<a href="http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/the-pure-anomaly-method-aka-a-spherical-cow/comment-page-4/#comment-36990"> fraud.</a>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-41193517506798959892008-10-29T23:48:00.000-07:002008-10-29T23:54:37.560-07:00US electionswell, long time, no posts.<br /><br />i have been busy, with work, the kid and following discussions about climate change, that don t fit here.<br />and over the last few weeks, i ve been following elections mostly.<br /><br />now we all know, that Palin is a disaster. but this one really left me shocked. i ll quote it here, as i have no other place to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6140030&page=1">post </a>it:<br /><br /><strong></strong><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><strong>PALIN:</strong> Well, I think that people can ... can read the comments and hear the comments that he made, because again, the, the refreshing thing about that tape being revealed ... from 2001... it's candidness there. It's not ... it didn't seem to be <span style="font-weight: bold;">his typical scripted</span>, kinda ... rhetorical <span style="font-weight: bold;">message read off a TelePrompter</span></blockquote>this is insane. Palin, who never got beyond repeating scripted talking points accusing OBAMA of doing this? simply insane.<br /><br />read the whole interview. it is really nice to see, how she is backpedaling on what she said about his judges comment...sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-61216377708242274442008-04-09T14:27:00.000-07:002008-04-09T14:29:14.446-07:00Spagat and Kanei wrote an answer to Kane and took a closer look at some analysis of Spagat of the Lancet study of iraqi violent deaths over at Deltoid.<br /><br />i ll post it here again:<br /><br /><i>1) I think that the underlying data that L2 relies on is fraudulent. That is, I think that the interviewers made (some) stuff up.</i><br /><br />why accuse Burnham of making false statement then?<br /><br />why bother with the main street bias at all?<br /><br /><b>and why don t you simply present sonme evidence of this "fraud"?!?</b><br /><br />sorry David, but among the few persons making stuff up here, you are quite a special one!<br /><br />===<br /><br />the other rather "special" person is Spagat. while follwing some links about the "main street bias", i hit this presentation given by him in december 2007:<br /><br />http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Households%20in%20Conflict%202007.pdf<br /><br />my eyes got caught by page 7, showing a Baghdag map:<br /><br /><i>This map seems to suggest that large attacks<br />in Baghdad could be biased toward residential cross-streets to main streets ... Attacks since May 2003 in which more than 10 people were<br />killed.</i><br /><br />now obviously a rather big color point on an arial map of a city will end up somewhere around a "main street".<br />notice how he is playing with the word "residential", without again knowing ANYTHING about te palces the attacks occur in. (am i the only one who got familiar to the term "MARKET BOMBING" by watching news in iraq?!?)<br /><br />this is a pretty lame attempt to establish a link between the location of the bombings and people living CLOSE to the place where it occured.<br /><br />but this sentence is even more absurd:<br /><br /><i>Note that incidents of this size almost certainly cover over half of all deaths.</i><br /><br />note that this sentence obviously is total NONSENSE, as a simple look at any list of violent deaths in iraq will show you:<br /><br />http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/incidents/page1<br /><br />http://icasualties.org/oif/(qb52ieexlryn5f45zlljy0e4)/IraqiDeaths.aspx<br /><br />actually you willstruggle hard to find a single day, on which events with 10+ casualties cover 50% percents of the daily deathtoll.<br /><br />Spagat could have known this, by simply taking a look at his map: <b>if the Spagat map did really represent over 50% of the deaths in Baghdad since 2003, the place would be a paradise!!!</b>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-79937037500407284082008-03-28T15:10:00.001-07:002008-03-28T15:21:01.973-07:00watch the SPIN!i have little time only for this posts, so i am just giving a short warning:<br /><br />take a VERY CLOSE look at news from Iraq these days.<br /><br />there are plenty of signs, that the "iraqi offensive", which is nothing but inter-shii fighting is faltering. the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL2799267._CH_.2400">extension on the deadline to surrender</a>, was a very sure sign. as is the slow (NONE?) progress of the offensive and counter strikes by the sadrists. (they shouldn t be able to take over small towns)<br /><br />the US can not allow Maliki to fail (especially if we agree with <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/al-hayat-reports-in-arabic-that-iraqi.html">Juan Coles assessment</a>, that Cheney gave the advice to attack..) so <a href="http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/U_S_forces_drawn_deeper_into_Iraq_crackdown.html?siteSect=143&sid=8891062&cKey=1206708838000&ty=ti">US forces wll continue to get involved</a> MORE and MORE.<br /><br />they are going to give air support (pretty bad, as it often hits the false targets in cities) use special forces (this is a lead element. if US special forces and iraqi troops achieve an objective together, teh iraqis did VERY LITTLE work...) and simply suppor with combat troops, as we see already in sadr city, Baghdad.<br /><br />always remember: in combat operations, most iraqi units will rely MASSIVELY on US "advisors". (yup, tehse are the guys that were start into the vietnam war...)<br />calling in airstrikes is a difficult task, that will usually be performed by an ALO (air liassion officer) who will be added to iraqi units to cooperate with teh US air force.<br />most significant battles will be decided by these guys, who are not part of the iraqi force..sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-49908691248021373612008-03-09T00:24:00.000-08:002008-03-09T00:28:37.317-08:00Bush did veto torture billwell, looks like he did it. Bush told the public in a radio address that he <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/09/america/09policy.php?page=1">vetoed </a>a bill that would ban torture like water boarding and restrict secret services to the same interrogation techniques used by the army and described in their field manual:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">President George W. Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence Agency's latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques.</blockquote>in contradiction to army research results that show that torture is not only evil but NOT working as well, Bush continues to make false claims about americans being safer because of the torture laws. i would call that a lie:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>Senator John Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, disputed that assertion on Saturday. "As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have heard nothing to suggest that information obtained from enhanced interrogation techniques has prevented an imminent terrorist attack," he said in a statement.</blockquote></span>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-6609466726593476672008-02-21T14:33:00.000-08:002008-02-21T14:35:06.214-08:00turks fight kurds in iraqi wonder if <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/gc05/idUSYAT15660520080221">this </a>is still part of the plan to "stabilise" the region:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Turkish troops inside northern Iraq fought gunbattles with Iraqi Kurdish security forces on Thursday, a senior Iraqi Kurdish official said.</blockquote>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-15301674400677420612008-02-21T14:12:00.000-08:002008-02-21T14:18:40.148-08:00governments continue deceiveit is official. the UK government <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200802210001">deceived </a>its people to get their support for the war.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>We have also learned how raw intelligence was pumped up to make a strongly worded "executive summary". Thus, a draft report from the JIC which claimed that Iraq had "<span style="font-weight: bold;">sought to develo</span>p" mobile facilities to produce a biological agent becomes, in Williams's draft, "<span style="font-weight: bold;">has developed</span> transportable laboratories".</blockquote></span>and this does continue. it turns out that the <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/20/mideast/iraq.php">story </a>about the mentally handicapt "forced" female suicide bombers has some holes as well.<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Psychiatric case files of two female suicide bombers who killed nearly 100 people in Baghdad this month indicate that they suffered from depression and schizophrenia but do not contain information suggesting they had Down Syndrome, U.S. officials said. </blockquote>sometimes it feels as if they don t want anyone to thrust them at all....sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-71821325085943118072008-02-12T14:36:00.000-08:002008-02-12T14:39:48.474-08:00on tortureUS Supreme Court Justice <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/02/us_top_courts_scalia_defends_p.php">Antonin Scalia</a> (via TPM) on torture: <br /> <p style="font-style: italic;"></p><blockquote> In such cases, "smacking someone in the face" could be justified, the outspoken Scalia told the BBC. "You can't come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good."'</blockquote><p></p>and<br /><br /><p><br /></p><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote> Scalia said that it was "extraordinary" to assume that the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" also applied to "so-called" torture.</blockquote></span><p>no comment.</p><br /><p>US Senat passed the <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/senate_votes_for_retroactive_i.php">immunity </a>bill for telecom companies. pretty sad day.</p>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-16970306964558527652008-01-13T01:27:00.000-08:002008-01-13T01:52:58.655-08:00Lancet is back in the news!<span style="font-size:100%;">a new mortality study on Iraq just brought back the discussion about the Lancet papers. (<a href="http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/reports/lancet04.pdf">Lancet 2004</a> and <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf">lancet 2006)</a><br /><br />the study </span><span style="font-size:100%;">"</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006" </span></b></span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">published in the <a href="http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782">"new england journal of medicine" </a><br />is used by the usual suspect (lead by one David Kane) and in right wing editorials (WSJ) as a contradiction of the Lancet results.<br />the death estimate by violent cause in the new study (151000, 95% uncertainity range 104000-225000) is lower that that found in Lancet 2 (601000, confidence interval ranges from 426,000 to 793,000)<br /><br />while the NJoM study finds a lower number of violent deaths, the result is still a shockingly high mortality. an interesting part of the new paper is, that security did not allow polling (mostly in 2006) in some clusters in Anbar and Baghdad.<br />the authors chose to reconstruct the mortality in those clusters by using the <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/">IBC </a>numbers, a dead count based on reports in news paper articles.<br />the general tone of the paper tends to be more positive toward the IBC (a project using a very different method, producing definetly an undercount) and slightly sceptical of the Lancet results (a scientific study done in a very similar way).<br /><br />a few talking points to notice are: (good discussion, as always, can be found on <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/01/ifhs_study_on_violent_deaths_i.php#c708890">deltoid</a>)<br /><br />1. the numbers of the NJoM are in good agreement with the Lancet 1 numbers for the early period of the war.<br /><br />2. while the paper finds a smaller increase in violent deaths than the Lancet 2 paper, it shows a masiive increase in the rate of non-violent deaths (doubled deathrate, some calculations lead to an estimate of 400000 total excess deads, in comparison with a total of 650000 in the lancet 2)<br /><br />3. the paper does not show an increase in dathrate after the Samarra bombing and in early 2006. this is extremely strange, as the increase in violence was even registered by the US military and lead to the surge.<br /><br />4. the mortality results are a small part of a huge survey about health in iraq. the <a href="http://www.emro.who.int/iraq/pdf/ifhs_household_questionnaire.pdf">questions </a>fill about 20 pages, the relevant part being on page 16.<br /><br />more soon.<br /></span></span></span>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-13837700313417660102007-12-17T13:05:00.000-08:002007-12-17T13:07:22.339-08:00Turkey keeps bombing Iraq<blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Iraq strongly condemned <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu3ns8tYpXrhBj9KlSaa-gtPwqzA">Monday Turkish air strikes</a> on Kurdish rebel bases in its northern territory, branding them a "cruel attack" on Iraqi sovereignty that claimed innocent lives.</blockquote>so, how much closer to a free, peaceful and independent Iraq have we gotten lately?<br /><br />ps: sorry for the latest lack of post. i was slightly busy, commenting on some CO2 issues. but it looks like i will return home soon :)sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-70417062613922113102007-12-17T13:02:00.000-08:002007-12-17T13:07:44.879-08:00immunity for spying?<blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/washington/17cnd-nsa.html?ei=5088&en=616ba05a32ffabf9&ex=1355547600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1197925227-R+tPxJc+JkXZuiw+YXlN9Q">telecommunications companies </a>won a skirmish in the Senate on Monday as a bill to protect them from lawsuits for cooperating with the Bush administration’s eavesdropping programs easily overcame a procedural hurdle.<br />..<br />By 76 to 10, with Democrats divided, the Senate voted to advance the bill for consideration. A measure to block it, which was led by Senator <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/christopher_j_dodd/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Christopher J. Dodd.">Christopher J. Dodd</a>, Democrat of Connecticut fell short, as those who wanted the bill to reach the floor got 16 votes more than the 60 needed to achieve that goal.</blockquote>america, where are you going to?<br /><br />where are the democtrats?<br /><br />this is insanity!sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-56647302764941217842007-11-01T13:58:00.000-07:002007-11-01T14:03:09.727-07:00on torture<a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004620.php">TPM </a>has a very good post on torture and the problems waterboarding is giving Michael Mukasey.<br /><br />in short: if he says, that waterboarding is torture (well, it obviously is!) those who used the technique in the past could be prosecuted.<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">, but the key to his rationale appears to be his expressed fear that the attorney general's public acknowledgment that waterboarding is torture would place interrogators in "personal legal jeopardy."</blockquote> well, they obviously SHOULD be prosecuted. but that seems to be beside the point.<br /><br />the current US administartion has gotten involved in a huge number of criminal affairs. at this time, it looks like they are concentrating on covering their backs..sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-82610912392422499232007-10-17T05:46:00.000-07:002007-10-17T05:52:18.082-07:00Big Oil ignores Pentagon lieson the day that the US military starts declaring <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/14/AR2007101401245.html?hpid=topnews">al-qaeda destroied</a> or cripped, the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119257829206261267.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">oil price</a> reaches some high point due to fear of a turkish incursion.<br /><br />looks like those economic analysists undersatnd, that al-qaeda is not the most important force in the Iraq debacle?<br /><br />and that US <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/bush_300.jpg">victory declarations </a>are not worth the paper that they are printed on.sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-66343085666824432462007-10-12T14:27:00.001-07:002007-10-12T14:29:24.095-07:00absurde claim by heritagethe <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301494,00.html">heritage </a>foundation is lauding the faked petraeus numbers with an absurd claim:<br /><br /><span id="intelliTXT"><strong><blockquote style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"> When the media covered the Petraeus-Crocker hearings, they missed one really big story: With about 160,000 combat troops, Gen. Petraeus managed to stem the rising tide of violence in Iraq. That is a statistic worth noting because, according to the “experts,” it couldn’t be done.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">instead of noting the faked numbers or at least noting, that a reduction to the 2006 deathtoll numbers is NOT good, they get everything completely wrong</span><br /><br /><br /></strong></span>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-32819031431211523502007-10-08T13:35:00.000-07:002007-10-08T13:37:43.015-07:00Petraeus fishy numbersvia talking points, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/opinion/07pubed.html?pagewanted=2&n=Top/Opinion/The%20Public%20Editor&_r=1">NYTimes </a>article is looking back at the numbers:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said Petraeus's December number was "very high" but was likely the result of "statistical noise" — the tendency of Iraq numbers to jump all over the place. Biddle was an adviser to Petraeus last spring but believes the general's testimony was "potentially misleading" because it didn't discuss all the reasons why the numbers might have improved.</blockquote>the times of course is not fully evaluating their sources:<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><br />Biddle was challenged by Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former top Defense Department official in the Reagan administration. Korb said there has been no decrease in violence in Iraq. He noted that August's death toll was higher than July's and pointed to several reports, including a Government Accountability Office study that found no decrease in violence through July. Finally, Korb cited little-reported numbers released by the Pentagon a week after Petraeus testified, which Korb said showed an increase in civilian casualties since the surge began.</blockquote>and this claim is MORE than fishy:<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><br />Petraeus came up with his "over 45 percent" decline by comparing December 2006 and this past August. The December number, in particular, stands out as questionable. For almost all of 2006, the U.S. military count of civilian deaths ran lower than Iraq Body Count's numbers. But the Petraeus number for December, the starting point for measuring the impact of the surge, suddenly leaped 12 percent above the group's, before plunging back well below it.</blockquote>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-29183069172064250222007-10-06T11:05:00.001-07:002007-10-06T11:07:41.521-07:00Kurds trying to sell their oilit looks like the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL0313994020071006">Kurds </a>are trying to make deals without asking the Baghdad government:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has signed new oil deals in defiance of Baghdad's wishes but the landlocked region still needs central government approval before it can export any oil.</blockquote>their biggest problem is, that the only way to get rid of their oil is via turkey, and the Turks do not want to strengthen the Kurds...sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-23355192202436692542007-10-01T12:02:00.000-07:002007-10-01T12:04:29.275-07:00blackwater reports itselfyes, blackwater wrote the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/01/blackwater.report/index.html">report </a>investigating blackwater:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">A Blackwater contractor wrote an initial U.S. government report about how his colleagues killed Iraqi civilians in a September shooting that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations, government and industry sources told CNN.</blockquote>if it was not the truth, you could not believe it.sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-1854072848107440552007-09-29T11:32:00.000-07:002007-09-29T11:36:04.338-07:00Petareus changes the truth again!nice piece in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq30sep30,1,3324257.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=4&cset=true">LAtimes</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"Certainly Al Qaeda has had its Ramadan surge," Petraeus said in his first comments to reporters since he returned from Washington to give lawmakers a status report on the war in Iraq. But he said the level of attacks was "substantially lower" than during the same period last year.</blockquote>a comparison to the last month would make the current situation look bad. a comparison to last december (the most favourite months for comparisons lately) does obviousely make little sense.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">so he start comparing to last year. </span>this would have looked bad in every month till now. bizarre.sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-30045782721197317962007-09-23T06:28:00.000-07:002007-09-23T06:31:32.979-07:00blackwater again.it looks like blackwater will stay in business, even though the iraqis claim to have video proof of unprovocted firing.<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"If we expel this company immediately there will be a security vacuum that will demand pulling some troops off the battlefield," Tahseen Sheikhly, a civilian spokesman for the seven-month-old offensive against militants in Baghdad and surrounding areas. "This will create a security imbalance in securing Baghdad."</blockquote>the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300213.html">explanation given</a>, of course is a lie again, and a bad one.<br /><br />how can the departure of 1000 men leave a security vacuum, in Iraq, which as we ve been told has trained 100000 of soldiers up to a lvel, that allows them to be "in the lead"?!?sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-37877482611894449392007-09-20T08:01:00.000-07:002007-09-20T08:03:53.216-07:00Blackwatertwo lines from <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-09-19-blackwater-almaliki_N.htm">USAToday</a>, that tell it all:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Al-Maliki said the shootings had generated such "widespread anger and hatred" that it would be "in everyone's interest if the embassy used another company while the company is suspended."</blockquote><br /><br />Maliki surely is the leader of a sovereign country.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />dear blackwater, please shot only little, while you are prohibited to shoot...<br /></span>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-25085152830532591852007-09-19T06:29:00.000-07:002007-09-19T06:40:29.391-07:00General Petreus betrayed us!it is official now. the <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Signed-Version-070912.pdf">quaterly pentagon report</a> on Iraq contradicts the <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Petraeus-Testimony-Slides20070910.pdf">petreus numbers.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2007/09/fuzzy-numbers-a.html">Ilan Goldenberg</a> did the numbers:<br /><br /><p></p> <blockquote style="font-style: italic;"> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">According to the MNC-I data there has been no improvement since either December (The numbers Petraeus and the Administration often cite) or February (when the surge actually began).</span> Why wasn’t Congress shown these numbers in the presentation by General Petraeus? Why only the good news numbers? Why the lack of clarity on Petraeus’s sourcing? Especially since he himself acknowledged that the best numbers come from the MNC-I database. </p> <p>In terms of actual anomalies</p> <p>Anomaly A: Somehow in December, the month that is always cited by the Pentagon and the Administration, Petraeus’s Iraqi dead is actually greater than the MNC-I Iraqi Dead + Wounded. That makes absolutely no sense. You can’t have more dead than dead and wounded combined.</p> <p>Anomaly B: In the months after the surge begins Petraeus’s Iraqi dead numbers are significantly lower than the dead + wounded numbers in the Pentagon report. This is inconsistent with the entire history of the previous year, where the numbers track closely. The only explanation would be a dramatic increase in the wounded to dead ratio. Perhaps there were more car bombings that injured people but didn’t kill them, as opposed to close range executions where victims do not survive. Or maybe there is another explanation. Still it seems inconsistent to see this major split just as the surge begins..</p> </blockquote> <p></p><br />Petraeus had the numbers right, if you accept the facts that we had -600 wounded in Iraq in dezember.<br /><br />now tell me, how will you call it,<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">if somebody uses "special numbers" for a presentation, that contradict the "real" or usual numbers?!? BETRAYEL seems to be the fitting word to use.</span>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-43873912346924380432007-09-16T13:13:00.000-07:002007-09-16T13:16:36.137-07:00Iraqi army assessmentvia Juan Cole, an interesting link to the <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/09/16/petraeus_war_plan_is_doubted?mode=PF">Boston Globe:</a><br /><br /><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><p>The number of Iraqi Army and police battalions considered ready to conduct combat operations without help from the United States has declined from 15 at the beginning of the year to 12 this month, according to data that Petraeus provided to Congress last week.</p> <p>Though the general was on Capitol Hill as part of two days of intense, high-profile hearings on the progress of the war, the readiness of Iraqi troops received scant attention from Petraeus or lawmakers.</p> <p>At the same time, Pentagon assessments show that the number of Iraqi battalions considered "not ready" increased from 13 in November 2006 to 43 this past summer.</p></blockquote>together with the advice to disband the iraqi national police and many hints from the GAO report, that iarqi units did not show up in baghdad at full strength as claimed before, we get a good assessment of the iarqi army: HORRIBLE.<br /><br />yes, law makers missed this. sigh.sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-59267944632784166432007-09-10T13:38:00.000-07:002007-09-10T14:26:44.001-07:00the Petraeus reportyou can get the report <a href="http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2007-09/32455450.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />most obvious problems: displacement and refugees are only mentioned in the context of a US withdrawal. looks like it doesn t exist at this moment.<br /><br />and his slides <a href="http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2007-09/32455446.pdf">there</a>.<br /><br />everything is wrong with those slides. but just check slide two, showing what countries foreign fighters come from. not from saudi arabia, it seems.<br />yet the majority of capture foreigners is saudi. weird, eh? (cudos to some comment on TPM)<br /><br />TPM has some nice video about the slides <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004119.php">here</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;" class="entry_body"><blockquote>Petraeus' information appears to measure attacks week by week. He didn't give comparisons to overall attacks in 2006, but opted instead to measure from discrete points in 2006: December for measures of overall violence; June 2006 for IED violence; October 2006 for attacks in Anbar province.</blockquote></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">"look, if we start at the highest point, there is a DOWNWARD trend. fascinating!"</span><br /><br />and (via Juan Cole) some REAL numbers from <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19566.html">Iraq</a>.<br /><br />main media reaction? <span style="font-style: italic;">"general predicts troop reduction next year"<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">nice. exactly, when the troop level cannot be supported anylonger anyway. pretty convenient!<br /><br /><br /></span><span>and here is a <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6853719?nclick_check=1">link </a>to the Crocker Testimony.<br /><br />well, he at least mentions displacements. in passing..<br /><br />this was a very interesting part of his testimony:<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>"I cannot guarantee success in Iraq," Crocker said. "I do believe . . . that it is attainable. I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure."</blockquote></span>sounds like he is covering his ass, to me..sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-65090081715981297322007-09-10T11:13:00.000-07:002007-09-10T11:17:45.118-07:00Petraeus report: exactly what i predicted!look at what i <a href="http://sod-iraq.blogspot.com/2007/08/september-report-my-predictions.html">said </a>about it one month ago:<br /><br /><h2 class="date-header"></h2> <blockquote style="font-style: italic;"> <h2 class="date-header">Wednesday, August 15, 2007</h2> <a name="6652979019126588771"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://sod-iraq.blogspot.com/2007/08/september-report-my-predictions.html">the september report, my predictions!</a> </h3> for a long time now, i wanted to write about my expectations for the september report by General Petraeus. unfortunetly, most of my predictions are already becoming true:<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">1. the report will highlight military success.<br /></span>and there even was some, much less than expected (and necessary!), though. the number of civilians killed might be slightly down. number of attacks is similar or higher than before. violence seems mostly to have been shifted, not removed.<br /><br />but the real problem with this aspect is: we sent in an additional 30000 US troops. that is nearly a 25% increase! of course this would have an effect. looking at some <a href="http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx">numbers </a>it becomes obvious, that we need at least another 60000 to get violence in Iraq to an "acceptable" level.<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">2. the report will claim some political progress<br /></span>the US will try to force iraqis to at least attempt a vote on one of the laws. (oil, most likely)<br />the political process unfortunetly has become much worse lately. so this a forced law will lead to another debacle, like the constitution did.<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">3. the Anbar progress will take ahuge place in the report.</span><br />as i wrote before, i don t believe that forming militias is progress.<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">4. future action: slowly remove troops.</span><br />Bush and Co will have to face reality. a majority of americans (and of US MPs of both parties) wants troop numbers reduced. the reduction of course will not come in real action, but mostly in promises. a tiny short term reduction. a bigger reduction next year (when keeping this force level up will become difficult for the US military anyway) and prospect of a huge reduction AFTER the elections.<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">5. don t expect any hard numbers!</span><br />oil production? electricity delivered? numbers of attacks, violence death? the report will contain pretty little of this. and those that get in, will be carefully chosen.</blockquote>sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4758485141630151476.post-29693039070113038842007-09-09T04:31:00.000-07:002007-09-09T04:33:31.778-07:00progress in Iraq?<a href="http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/266932.html">Kansascity </a>has a repor on the iraq progress:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">When President Bush announced in January a “new way forward” in Iraq, he said that Iraqi and American troops would improve security while the Iraqi government improved services.<p>Responsibility for security in most of Iraq would be turned over to Iraqi security forces by <span style="font-weight: bold;">November</span>, he said.</p><p>With better security would come the breathing room needed for political reconciliation, Bush said.</p><p>With less than a week to go before the White House delivers a congressionally mandated report on that plan, none of this has happened.</p></blockquote><p></p>i am very curious: what will sunday news do on the report tomorrow?sodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13621338661272787428noreply@blogger.com0