Military Casualties: Why doe the media distort the truth?

[gene430]

The media has been bias in its reporting on Iraq from the beginning. The most obvious examples are the way it misrepresents the number of military casualties and the absolute absence of any reports on positive changes in Iraq such as freedom of the people, women's rights, schools and hospitals being rebuilt, etc. etc.

To see how the media distorts the truth regarding our military casualties go here: http://www.politibyte.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=30

Osama Bin Laden's strategy is correct....to defeat the U.S. you have to defeat them here in America. His use of the media and the impact of his terrorism efforts have had a huge impact and the media has played along perfectly. It is true, we cannot be defeated in Iraq and the only way we will lose is if we lose in Washington.

It's like the old saying goes, "Americans love a winner". The large media corporations understand this. Americans were behind the war effort in the beginning. George Bush was elected to a 2nd term based on that fact. The support for the war only began to weaken after months and months of the media's "shark like frenzy" of attacking the administration and our military night after night. Misrepresenting the extent of our war casualties and failing to report any successes is the way they undermine the war effort and lead Americans to believe that we are not winning and are in fact losing in Iraq. This is simply not true.

Americans do deserve to hear the full complete truth on Iraq, the good and the bad. Freedom of the press only works when the media is not controlled by a handful of people who have their own political agenda. In today's world, it's not the government you have to watch to protect our freedom of the press, it's "the press" themselves.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. You think that little bit of good makes up for the unspeakable conditions we have imposed

on the Iraqi citizens? :wow:

[gene430]

2. what conidtions

be specific, are you refering to the right to vote, or girls to go to school, or freedom not to have your entire village gassed, please be more specific.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. two-thirds of all Iraqis have no access to clean water

Dan Toole, director of the Office of Emergency Operations of the United Nations Children's Fund, recently stated: “Children today are much worse off than they were a year ago, and they certainly are worse off than they were three years ago.” He added that Iraqis no longer have safe access to the basic food basket established under Saddam's regime in order to survive international sanctions. At UNICEF there are concerns regarding a potential cholera epidemic because two thirds of the Iraqis do not have access to clean water. The prominent sociologist and professor at the Sorbonne Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, stated in 2005 that the rate of malnutrition among Iraqi children had doubled since the beginning of the war in 2003. Nutritional and health indicators have significantly worsened since the beginning of the occupation.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=14669



now... you go find me a 'good news' story. One that makes a damn bit of difference because dead children can't go to those 'new schools'.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. The Humanitarian Crisis for Iraq’s Children Continues

Iraq’s children need to be rescued, not feared. They are the best hope and most important resource of any country, yet they continue to suffer and die out of sight and out of mind of most of us. SAVE the Children’s report: State of the World’s Mothers 2007, Saving the Lives of Children Under 5 shows Iraq continues to have the highest Under 5 mortality (U5MR) of any country in the world. Since the first Gulf War, the U5MR has increased a staggering 150%. It is estimated that one out of every eight children in Iraq dies before their fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005.

According to UNICEF, some two million children "…continued to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education" in 2007. Only 20% of Iraqi children outside of Baghdad have access to safe drinking water or proper sewage treatment facilities. Seventeen percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced. These are in-country figures and don’t include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m39914&s1=h1

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. Desperate Iraqis resort to selling their children

Desperate Iraqis resort to selling their children
Despite American optimism at Iraq's gradual stabilisation, local officials and international aid workers are concerned at the alarming countrywide numbers of missing and disappeared Iraqi children, unwittingly sold by poverty-stricken parents to child traffickers for the sex industry, cheap labour and organ transplants on the black market.

http://www.scopical.com.au/articles/News/World/1922/Desperate_Iraqis_resort_to_selling_their_children

[gene430]

9. Here is a credible source

Here is an example of a credible source.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/31cnd-hiv.html

This is about the people in India and S.E. Asia selling their children into the sex trade.

By the way, the U.S. military is not in India or S.E. Asia

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. Iraqi Women Silenced

Iraqi Women Silenced
By Andrea Buffa
TomPaine.com

Thursday 15 March 2007

Remember how the U.S. invasion of Iraq was supposed to liberate the women?

snip-

Women not only suffer what everyone in Iraqi society suffers - the absence of security, collapse of the country's infrastructure, a health care system in tatters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. They also suffer gender-based violence and increased social conservatism. The constant violence - looting, assault, kidnapping, rape or death at the hands of suicide bombers, militias, foreign troops, Iraqi police, and local thugs - has trapped women and children in their homes. Many women who'd formerly worked outside the home or attended school now stay indoors.

In an attempt to describe women's lives in Iraq today, Yanar Mohammad, a leading Iraqi women's rights advocate says: "It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of extreme, anti-women practices that we had not seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq, women went to school; educated, professional, working women were a part of our society. Today, a woman risks her life simply by going to the grocery store. Our lives have been ripped from us."

Prior to the Iraq War, Iraqi women were not living beneath burqas and without rights. For decades, Iraq was one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East in its treatment of women. Saddam Hussein certainly brutally violated women's human rights just as he did those of men. But the country also had a Personal Status Law that kept civil matters like marriage, divorce, and child custody in civil instead of religious court; and there were many labor and employment laws that were beneficial to women.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031607P.shtml

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. Women Voting In Iraq

The amazing images and historic day are about the fact that anyone in Iraq can vote in an election with actual choice. Not that women in Iraq can vote. Women in Iraq could vote, to the degree anyone in Iraq could vote, under Saddam Hussein. By no means was it all fuzzy bunnies and flowers for women in Iraq under Hussein. There was absolutely abuse. But the implication that Iraq was akin to Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan in its treatment of women is off-base. Women could go to school, hold jobs outside the home, drive, walk around without male escort, and wear secular clothing under Saddam Hussein. Things they still cannot do in Saudi Arabia. It was much more impressive when women in Afghanistan regained the right to vote after the overthrow of the Taliban. Note the word "regained". Prior to the Taliban, Afghan women did have the right to vote in that Muslim country.
http://www.houseofplum.com/plumcrazy/archives/001589.html

[gene430]

8. Credible sources

Did you really read the stories you listed? With these links, you might as well tell me they were abducted by Elvis and some aliens.

Try again.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. I asked you in my first answer for one source backing up your argument

you post none, just tell me that my sources aren't good enough, as if that one blog you linked to is credible? :rofl:

You gotta bone up if you're gonna play here on our swingset. :rofl:

[gene430]

11. My source

My source was linked from the very beginning. Once again, the report was written after several requests from Congressional members. The report is compiled by the Congressional Research Services using data primarily from the Dept. of Defense. The complete unedited report can be found here: http://www.politibyte.com/modules.php?name=File_Repository&op=view&mode=view&app_id=6

I do not know how much more specific I can be.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

12. Let me be specific...

YOU LINKED TO A RIGHTWING BLOG. THAT IS YOUR ONLY LINK. YOU ARE A MORAN.

game over.

[gene430]

13. What part do you not get?

The CRS or Congressional Research Services is a dept. within Congress. It is not a blog, private enterprise, media outlet, etc. It is a governmental agency charged with doing non-partisan research for Congress. The link takes you to where you can download the PDF itself....no commentary, no bs, just the report.

Lead a jackass to water but you can't make him drink

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. Yes, but instead of linking to the actual Gov. site, you linked to a freeper blog.

If you want to be taken seriously around here, then you need to be a little smarter than that.

[gene430]

15. Jeezz

Man, are you a lazy bastard or what .....here.

http://www.politibyte.com/modules.php?name=File_Repository&op=view&mode=view&app_id=6

If you click on that link it is a PDF download of the report. I can't make it any easier...the damn thing is 20-30 pages and I do not want to copy/paste that much.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

16. Your search - "CRS Military Deaths Report to Congress" - did not match any documents

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22CRS+Military+Deaths+Report+to+Congress%22&btnG=Search

Because the pdf you link to is title incorrectly, and the description is not accurate. An official copy can be found here...
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics
June 29, 2007

Summary:

This report is written in response to numerous requests for war casualty statistics and lists of war dead. It provides tables, compiled by sources at the Department of Defense (DOD), indicating the number of casualties among American military personnel serving in principal wars and combat actions. Wars covered include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, and the Persian Gulf War. Military operations covered include the Iranian Hostage Rescue Mission, Lebanon Peacekeeping, Urgent Fury in Grenada, Just Cause in Panama, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Restore Hope in Somalia, Uphold Democracy in Haiti, and the ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). For the more recent conflicts, starting with the Korean War, more detailed information on types of casualties, and when available, demographics have been included. This report also cites sources of published lists of military personnel killed in principal wars and combat actions. This report will be updated as events warrant.

Available Versions:
June 29, 2007
July 13, 2005


It also does not take into account the exploding numbers of wounded we now have to help.


American Deaths and Wounded In Combat and Totals
Since war began (3/19/03): 3915 3208
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list) 3776 3100
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3454 2902
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3056 2575
Since Election (1/31/05): 2478 2312
American Wounded Official Estimated Total Wounded: 28822 23000 - 100000
Latest Fatality Jan. 8, 2008
Page last updated 01/9/08 11:20 am EDT
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/


Ten Percent of U.S. Casualties Evacuated from Iraq have Psychiatric Conditions
United Press International
Feb 18, 2004
10% at Army hospital had mental problems

LANDSTUHL, Germany, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- As many as 1 of every 10 soldiers from the war on terror evacuated to the Army's biggest hospital in Europe was sent there for mental problems.
biggest hospital in Europe was sent there for mental problems.

"We certainly have seen an average, I would say, of 8 to 10 percent of our casualties have some psychiatric or behavioral health issues for which they were evacuated," Cornum told United Press International in an interview at the hospital.

That number excludes soldiers who arrived at Landstuhl for physical injuries who also suffer from mental problems. It also excludes soldiers who do not realize they suffer from mental trauma until they returned to the United States.

A veterans' advocate called the data an "alarming" barometer of the psychological toll from the war in Iraq.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?page=article&id=1542
Do you really think the numbers have gotten better since 2004?

[gene430]

17. Viva...Viva...Viva

Viva, my friend, be honest....you work at the DMV don't you?

LOL

OK, so will you agree with me that my numbers are correct? The report is official, correct?

Now, do we really need to begin arguing about your numbers when your source is: WWW.ANTIWAR.COM Was it not you who insisted on not using data from some political blog, etc.?

LOL

[Viva_La_Revolution]

18. The numbers are the officially reported deaths. They do not support your argument in any way

that we are doing 'good things' in Iraq. That was the premise of your OP.

Back it up with some links to those 'good things' to refute the ones I have already posted that say otherwise.

edit: and it's Ms. Revolution to you buddy.

[gene430]

19. OK Mr. Revolution

Well, it only took us 10 or so emails; but, at least we agree tha the report was "official" and I did not pull it out my #@!. For some sick reason I feel the need to heal your thinking process and show you the path to enlightenment. However, I know it may be slow at the DMV; but, my work here is busy and I don't know if I have the time.

I will try, your first homework assignment is to read: http://goodnewsiraq.com/index2.htm

This website is published by the Dept. of Defense; so, I hope it meets your standards for sources. It contains tons of good news from Iraq that you requested. If I need to read it to you line by line, I can, but it will take valuable time and I have a long way to go with you in bringing you up to speed.

Good luck grasshopper, (you may be too young to get that one!)

your friend and mentor,

Gene

[Viva_La_Revolution]

20. The same DOD that told us Tonkin gulf really happened?

The same one managed by Rumsfeld? The same one he is STILL writing PR for after he supposedly resigned? THAT DOD? of course I don't. only a fool would believe a proven lier.

Rumfeld Remains Defense Department ‘Consultant,’ Opens ‘Transition Office’ Near Pentagon
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/25/rumsfeld-consultant/