Author of MSNBC Bodycounts story asking for our help

[oxbow]

Body Counts
The Pentagon secretly keeps track of many grim statistics in Iraq. The numbers are not encouraging.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7818807/site/newsweek

Just above the ‘email the author’ link he's written: "What's your own common sense tell you about all this? Let me know." I have never seen something like this next to an MSNBC story, so it caught my eye.

I think COMMON SENSE is a coded way for him to call on those who are actually paying attention for help! For example, my COMMON SENSE tells me that my government covering up casualties is wrong, and that the insurgency is only getting worse. This guy is pleading for us to raise Hell! DU this people!


Many of these reporters know that something is very wrong. They're out in the field. They see the carnage and bloodshed. They see the lies used to cover them up. Unfortunately, it's the editors that get to decide what stories get in. I really do believe that this reporter is trying, in a subtle way, to get support for this story to break into the prime-time MSM.

[im10ashus]

1. It's not there anymore.

At least I didn't see it.

[sabra]

2. it's in the middle of the article

[Jo March]

4. Scroll down a bit

It's there.

[oxbow]

8. self-delete

[understandinglife]

3. Done.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[paineinthearse]

5. think COMMON SENSE is a coded way for him to call on those

or maybe.......

[Jo March]

6. Did you see the link to the story about the photographer who saw

the parents of 6 Iraqi children murdered?

Words fail me...

[cdb]

7. Done.

Here is my comment:

My common sense tells me that the current US administration is covering up casualty numbers, civilian, as well as US and Iraqi military. I feel this is deliberate and dishonest, and just plain wrong, and that the "insurgency" or resistance is only getting worse. I feel that this has nothing whatsoever to do with fighting terrorism and is, in fact, fomenting hatred and breeding future terrorists who will soon attack the US and our interests.

[gratuitous]

9. My common sense tells me . . .

That reporters ought to do their fucking jobs without looking over their shoulders for government censors or asking for back-up from their audience. If you see something, report it. If a report of something you didn't see doesn't sound right, check into it. Why does this guy need MY permission to do his job??? I've known reporters and editors who were practically illiterate but who could file a coherent story about things that happened.

My common sense tells me that this corrupt administration, the most secretive on record, is not going to be forthcoming with any bad news, and you, as a reporter earning a big fat salary for MSNBC are going to have to do a little digging. It might cost you an invitation to a swell cocktail party once you get back stateside; it might also win you a Pulitzer Prize for reporting. What's more important to this reporter? Why did he or she go into journalism in the first place? If it was to rub shoulders with the power elite, then get out of Iraq now. If it was to report stories and make a positive difference, then dammit, WRITE!

[gratuitous]

10. Genuine, gratuitous-style . . .

Kick.

[jojo54]

11. Thanks for the link. We need to keep this kicked!

My common sense tells me that this was a no-win situation for the coalition from the very beginning. The only person(s) that will win from this farce of a war will be G.W.Bush and his associates, including Halliburton.

It's time that serious questions are given serious answers, and the media report it in same. The media has been skirting the real issues for too long and it's time for partisan media to be eliminated.

IMHO

[DrDebug]

12. He writes about Marla as well. Page 2

As I write this, I can’t help but think about my friend Marla Ruzicka, who was killed on the airport road on April 16 while trying to pass a convoy, reportedly at just the moment when a suicide bomber struck. Because Marla’s passion was for helping people who’d suffered from the war, and because she had to deal with the military frequently to do that, she was sure that the same officials who kept such detailed numbers about everything else in the Iraq conflict had to be keeping a record somewhere of the civilians they killed and wounded. They always maintained they did not. But just before she died, Marla wrote a report with a partial number she said she’d received from U.S. military sources: 29 civilians killed by small-arms fire in Baghdad alone during firefights between U.S. troops and insurgents over the course of five weeks before April 5. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi civilian casualties in this war, calculated by reporters and human-rights groups, have ranged from about 10,000 to the much-less-plausible 100,000. Does the Pentagon know? If so, it should tell.

In the meantime, without a doubt, the body counts will continue.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7818807/site/newsweek/page/2/

Edit: Nominated as well

[ohtransplant]

13. My common sense tells me.

They were really unprepared for the insurgency. Don't forget we were supposed to walk right in and be welcomed as liberators. As such body counts would just be a distraction.

All of a sudden, here we are, with all this "hidden" information which makes the government look like there's something to hide (gasp).

It appears there was an attempt to place this info out there quietly, so as not to draw too much attention, so they could maintain it's out there.

[yorkiemommie1]

14. my response:

In 1997, the PNAC tried to urge Bill Clinton to go to war against Iraq. On 7/23/02, Blair and Bush decided to 'fix ' the facts around their decision to attack Iraq. On September 12, 2001, before we were certain just 'who' had attacked us, Rumsfeld pushed for an attack against Iraq. We were subsequently threatened with WMDs, mobile labs, mushroom clouds and the 'terrorists' coming 'over here'.

Nothing of the truth would stop the drumbeat of war. The oil companies and their WH cronies had already met to divvy up the spoils. Why let the facts stop them? Why indeed? The Americans, infuriated and humiliated by Al Queda, even though they had no idea who they were, just wanted revenge. They wanted some Arab ass whether it was Talibani, Afghanistani, or Iraqi. It was all the same to them.

Bushco took advantage of this long awaited and desired " Pearl Harbor moment" ( a la PNAC ) and whipped the populace into a warlike frenzy.

The populace was shielded from images of the dead coming home, from the horribly maimed, from the increasing suicides both in Iraq and stateside, of soldiers who could no longer take it.

Given all of the above, what does my 'common sense' tell me? My 'common sense' tells me that this administration, this bellicose, pugnacious, secretive, meanspirited, corporate-backed, powerthirsty administration, has no compunctions about lying to us about such a paltry thing as the numbers of dead, dying and maimed in this war. THEY DO NOT CARE. This administration, composed of chickenhawks and their chickenhawk children, DOES NOT CARE. This administration, which panders to its rightwing religious base, and which has cowed the fawning, whipped-dog media, DOES NOT CARE.

My common sense tells me that I am being lied to every day and that I will continue to be lied to as long as these bloodthirsty, oilthirsty, powerhungry Neocons are in power.

May the Lord God save us all.