Zipperfish wrote:
BartSimpson wrote:
Having one of the war's harshest liberal critics change their minds is a very significant development.
If you'd like to go on record calling the NYT a tool of the right wing feel free to do so.
I don't know what the general inclination is of the New York Times. I do know that their editorial position was in support of the invasion of Iraq. It's natural to try to defend your position. I suppose that's what this article is doing.
A recent study found that 600,00 human beings have died violently since the US took over Iraq. Any attempt to cast that kind of slaughter in a positive light requires a pretty good sense of denial. However, the US media and ruling elite have proven themsleves pretty good at denial.
The NYT
defines 'liberal' for the US media.
And they supported the invasion because most liberals (like both liberal New York Senators Clinton and Schumer) supported the invasion - up to the point that the Republican Guards didn't slaughter the thousands of our troops that the media said would be slaughtered.
Prior to the actual invasion it was the liberal wing of the Democrat Party that was most critical of President Bush in the perception that he was dragging his feet and not invading Iraq
soon enough (just as they're starting to condemn him for not invading Darfur soon enough). The NYT consistently echoed that party line.
And the 60,000 casualty figure since the war started is probably conservative as the Iraqis are not keeping stats on the deaths of non-Iraqi combatants. The actual figure would be more along the lines of 80,000 to 90,000 IMHO.
That is still far lower than the estimated 650,000 who died in Iraq due to the regime of UN sanctions against that country while it's leader refused to destroy the weapons he had acknowledged having in 1991.
No death is small, of course, but that the death toll is lower, even with the mayhem, is a sign of at least some sort of progress.
Absent the invasion and with a continued regime of ongoing sanctions the death toll from stravation in Iraq between 2003 to current would be, based on the trend of some 55,000 per year starving to death prior to the invasion - around 250,000 dead.
Again,
no deaths would be preferable.
But comparing the UN 'plan' to what happened we can reasonably conclude that there are more people - especially children - alive today due to the invasion than would be alive absent the invasion.
And I will be the first to say that this was a unexpected and welcomed
side effect of the invasion and NOT an objective of the invasion.
The fact that there came something positive from it was not deliberate and I'm not saying this to tweak anyone - I'm just trying to express that as bad as things are, they had been
worse.
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