FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Hillary's Presidential hopes shot dead on Meet the Press! :)))

Dave Smith[_2_]

wrote:
>
> > killed. All you need is a simple graph, like X Y line chart or bar graph.
> > Here is a link to a line chart that graphs US fatalities in Iraq from the
> > invasion to the present. While it jumps up and down, the highest peaks were
> > back in the spring and fall of 2004. There is no significant upward trend
> > that would indicate any more of a crisis now than there was in other
> > periods over the last 4 years.
>
> Well plot the data in Excel and apply a trend-line. There is a trend
> and it is going up...but it's beside the point. It is a very different
> situation now than it was when we invaded, a civil war is breaking
> (has broken) out and the bulk of the casualties are civillians at this
> point.

Did you not use the link to see the graph? The line chart shows the trend
very well, though in this case the trend is for it to remain more or less
the same, a series of weekly and monthly variations, up one week, down the
next, but trend other than a slight increase. Certainly not a crisis.

> > In that case, here is a link to a site that charts Iraqi civilian and
> > police casualties. Police deaths are showing a downward trend. Civilian
> > deaths are increasing, and that may be due to the insurgents getting better
> > at killing more people with more effective locations and times of
> > explosions.
>
> Or an expanding civil war...

You could suggest that if it were in fact a civil war, fighting in the
streets, gun battles erupting between rival faction's and such. But it
isn't. It is groups of insurgents using bombs, usually at crowded
locations. I provided a like that graphed the trend and list all the
incident. If you had bothered to check the site you would see that if
lists the incidents. It has a lot of incidents of mortar bomb attacks, car
bomb attacks, a lot of murders. What is conspicuously absent is incidents
of armed clashes between rival groups.

> Yep.... Whenever I hear the phrase 'spread democracy', I replace it
> with 'insure access to foreign markets' and it brings things into
> perspective. I don't know much about Geopolitics, but I have to think
> one ultimately pays the price for continually (and often, covertly)
> meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

There has been a lot of that meddling, the oppressive rule of the Shah of
Iran, the murderous regime of Salvadore Allende, the corrupt Batista
regime. The US is still whining about Castro nationalizing "American
property" in Cuba. Castro nationalized American assets in retaliation for
US subversion after the revolution.

> Well, Pakistan is certainly strategically located, we used their air-
> bases to launch our invasion of Afghanistan and Musharraf is an ally
> of the US. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and their conflict with India
> has been an ongoing source geopolitical instability. There is a
> substantial fundamentalist Islamic contingent hostile toward Musharraf
> and his overthrow would create another Islamic Theocracy in the middle
> east, this one with nuclear weapons (which is what we trying to
> prevent with Iran as we speak). I'd guess as a part of the deal we
> struck with Musharraf for use of his air bases, we agreed not to chase
> the Taliban into Pakistan, knowing it would jeopardize his hold on the
> country. This is why, in my opinion, we have not caught Bin Laden.
> Musharraf has some tough days ahead...elections pending and he just
> removed the head of the supreme court for some reason, which has not
> gone over well.

It's sort of like selling your soul to the devil. Sure, there was token
anti US rhetoric when US bombs killed a bunch of civilians, but no serious
objection, but OTOH, there has been little action to seal the borders
through which Islamists are smuggling men and equipment.