I brought this up in this thread, but it kind of got glossed over. In the VP debates, Edwards pointed out that 90% of the “coalition” causalties and 90% of the cost in Iraq has been borne by the United States. Cheney’s response was to castigate Edwards for not counting the IRAQIS against that 90%. O.K., let’s get some perspective here: The Bush administration has been criticized for not building a TRUE coalition, but rather rushing to war with a coalition in name only, that in reality includes very little support from any of our allies. Now am I the only one who sees that it’s just a TAD disingenuous to count the COUNTRY WE INVADED as part of this coalition, after the fact? I mean, c’mon - that’s utter nonsense. In the other thread, I wondered aloud whether anyone is actually buying that line of b.s., only to get this post later in the thread:
Sorry to pick on you, Debaser, but you fell for Cheney’s bullshit hook, line, and sinker. I mean seriously folks, this is truly bizarre. I keep expecting Rod Serling to show up and do a voice-over.
It’s an interesting argument. I don’t think we can count them as allies, since right now they’re essentially US employees. Sure, technically they’re under the control of the Iraqi Interim Government, but considering that we handpicked that interim government, and that we’re financing it, they’re for all intents and purposes working for the US.
An ally, in humanese, is an equal partner, not an underling. If we’re going to include those causalties in our casualty figure, they should count as US casualties.
But it doesn’t really make sense to count them, anyway: they’re victims of war, not participants in war. Until they’re representing a sovereign nation, until they’re armed and trained, they’re victims.
Last point: Cheney’s point was basically, “You’re underestimating by half the number of people that have died in this war! See, we’re doing a much better job than you give us credit for!” Not a real compelling argument, even if you accept his rationale for including Iraqi casualties.
Well even if, for the sake of argument, we say they’re under our control NOW, it’s still a disingenous argument. Bush claims to have built a “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq. To examine the veracity of his claim, it’s fair to consider how much the other members of the “coalition of the willing” are contributing. It makes no sense to count Iraq in there. That would be like China claiming that Tibet helped invade itself.
I find this argument as laughable as you do. Cheney actually used it rather well and left Edwards somewhat at a loss for words- partly just because it was such a ridiculous counter and yet phrased with a veneer of believability- but Debaser’s post in the other thread is evidence either of someone who has absolutely no cognitive ability (my eleven-year old step-nephew noted the absurdity of counting Iraqis as allies) or was really drunk while watching the debate.
That was an odd response. I’d like to know where Cheney got his figures. As far as I know, we stopped counting Iraqi casualties last winter, and haven’t gotten back into the game. Are we keeping count again? Is it a secret count, or is there someplace a person can go to verify Cheney’s numbers? If it’s a secret count, how could Cheney expect Edwards to know it? That’s dishonest debating.
Gee, now that they are part of the coalition, can they join the eight other countries that have withdrawn their troops from combat? Oops, there goes Poland, make that nine countries that are fed up with being lied to.
I’ve wondered the same thing for the last 2 debates, as well. Honestly though, once you’ve deposed a ruler, installed a hand picked government that won’t blast you or even speak ill of your administration and thrown money at all of the “willing” participants in said government and the “trainees” of their police force, it becomes ever more difficult for you to call them Allies and get called out for it. Who are they going to go public to?
They’re fed, paid, trained and given powers that very few Iraqis have had in any recent times. Hell, i wouldn’t speak out against it either, if the shoe was on the other foot.
Scary but true. I experience that a lot here on SDMB. When someone says something utterly outrageous, I sometimes just don’t know how to respond. It’s like the “Chewbacca defense” on South Park.
Yeah, and that’s what’s so maddening about it. Edwards DIDN’T speak out against the Iraqis; he simply made an excellent point about how disproportionate our share of the alleged “coalition” is. But Cheney has completely distorted it in an attempt to deflect attention from a failure of his administration. It would be laughable, except that I know people are going to fall for it.
Remember Blowero, these debates are for fence-sitters to come to one side or the other. These debates aren’t for party faithfuls who won’t change their vote no matter what. Also remember that Moderates attract voters and Activist/Radicals repell moderate voters-the very people who are on the fence.
In my opinion, it is more important for Kerry and Edwards to court to people instead of speaking out and offending the ignorant few who run around half-believeing the administration’s bullshit. For Edwards to have decried the actions and involvement in their own country would be to offend a whole helluve lot of people. There will be time for that later.
I also couldn’t figure out exactly what the hell Cheney was talking about. I assumed it involved a lie, but that doesn’t help much. There must be well over 10,000 Iraqi fatalities since we started the war, so if we counted all those as if they were allied casualties, then I guess the US military casualty figures would seem small by comparison.
This administration has a problem with pulling numbers out of its collective ass. Remember the “75%” figure Bush has been throwing around? “We’ve killed or captured 75% of the Al Qaida leadership.” Okay; 75 percent of what? The same question apparently occurred to Wolf Blitzer, and he tried to get Condaleeza Rice to answer it. It went approximately like this:
I couldn’t make this stuff up. If only there were somebody Ms. Rice could ask… somebody high up in national security… maybe even an adviser to the President…
Yeah, thanx, Baldy, I have been wondering about that forever, that whole 75% of “known terrorists” or “Al-Queda” leadership. So, basicly, Wolf said “Cite?” and she folded?
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how they can perform a quantitative judgement on a deeply clandestine group, and deliver that number with the calm assurance of fact.
And this “…tens to hundreds…” shit. Isn’t that what people are referring to when they talk about an “order of magnitude”? And is Wolf Blitzed the first reporter with sufficient cojones to ask the goddam question? No shit? They’ve been delivering that sound bite now for months!
It doesn’t seem to matter much how liberal the media is if its made up of up-sucking lickspittles.
I recall that the allies invaded the Netherlands in the second world war. Don’t fuckin tell me that my father and grandfather, both Dutch, (who fought as a major in the British army during the war) do not qualify as allies.
Same goes for de Gaulle and the allied invasion of France. ETC etc etc
The contribution of civilized Iraqis towards their country is truly heroic and fuck all of you for minimizing it.
How does this even remotely compare to Iraq? The Netherlands had been invaded by Germany, and we were fighting them. We are fighting against a domestic Iraqi insurgency today; are they our allies also? How do you decide which dead Iraqis to count?
We are the occupiers; to whom are we analagous in your WWII example?
