chicot

Right. Because every one of the polls that have showed a majority of Iraqis want the US to leave is wrong.

Chief of staff's comments "Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003, effectively kicked the door in." "As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited certainly by those in Iraq at the time." "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance." For the head of the British Army to be speaking like this is a pretty significant development.

Talking to people who actually handled the body will undersample. A great many bodies are not taken to the morgue and are buried soon after the person died. And they didn't just say "So ... know anyone who's dead?", they asked for the death certificate which they got in 92% of the cases.

As far as inflating casualties goes, it's unlikely in this survey as the Iraqis that were interviewed randomly were asked to provide death certificates, which some 92% of them did. A more likely source of error is the extrapolation from their sample to the population as a whole. They would need to ensure that they got their regional sampling correct (i.e. not oversampling in more dangerous regions).

An unverified (how do you verify it?) study that uses well established methods. A pity the US can't be bothered to undertake its own survey but then according to Rumsfeld, "we don't do bodycounts".

Slight correction. Most of the 600,000 weren't killed by the coalition, but rather in the absolute chaos that following the invasion, though they are certainly indirectly responsible in that they created the conditions that caused the current anarchy in Iraq.

Are you actually being serious ?!

Well firstly, I think that automatically assuming that a civil war will occur should the US leave may be overly pessimistic. If the US were to say that they were definitely leaving in a year, for instance, I don't think it is entirely outside the realms of possibility that some sort of deal could be reached between the Iraqi government and the insurgents (for the purposes of this post, I shall use the term "the insurgents" to refer to the relatively rational nationalistic/Baathist component and not the jihadist fanatics). At the moment, the Iraqi government is shielded from the consequences of not reaching a deal by the presence of the coalition forces. If they were to depart they would face the very real prospect of either being killed or having to return to exile in Iran. Also, there's the fact that existing negotiations have almost certainly been hampered by US interference. There have been several occasions when the idea of an amnesty for some insurgents has been mooted i.e. for those who have not committed attacks on civilians. On each and every occasion a week or so later, the Iraqi government has had to "clarify" what they meant by stating that it would also not apply to insurgents that have attacked coalition forces (it is hard to work out just which insurgents it would actually apply to in that case). For the insurgents, indeed for any sort of armed resistance to an occupation, the absolute bottom line is a guarantee that the occupier will in fact leave and does not plan to remain indefinitely. Without that any sort of deal is impossible. However, with that assurance, things change. In fact, several insurgents groups have stated they will stop their attacks if the US sets a timetable whereby it will withdraw its forces within a year. With a definite timetable, the aims of most of the insurgents will inevitably change. At the moment, the aim is the end of the occupation. Once they know that is coming, what then? Do they want to keep fighting to try and overthrow the government? My guess is some will, some won't. Will they continue to get so much support from the population once the only people they can fight are fellow Iraqis? Highly doubtful. Will they continue to make common cause with the jihadists that wish to slaughter the Shiites? Again, I doubt it. For now, it suits the nationalist/Baathist element to turn a blind eye to the activities of the jihadists, since they have a common enemy in the US (though there have been recent reports of fighting between Al-Qaeda and tribal fighters in Al-Anbar province). Once the US leaves, that common enemy is gone and their aims diverge. The nationalist element wants a strong united Iraq and the jihadists would quite like to slaughter the Iraqi shiites. The two goals are incompatible and I think a splintering of the insurgency would be inevitable. Even if some sort of war does occur, I doubt that it will continue indefinitely. One side or another would win and some sort of order would be restored. In any event, I doubt that what happens could be much worse that what is occurring now. The situation is truly dire with absolutely no prospect of an end in sight. Things are not improving, they are deteriorating. The Iraqis need to be left to sort out this mess by themselves, which they will once they are left to get on with it. Continuing the occupation merely delays the inevitable and prolongs the agony.

The death toll may well shoot through the roof initially but then something will emerge and it will subside. All that the occupation is doing is postponing that and quite possibly making things worse.

But how long do you stick with 1) before you decide it just isn't working?

Don't you have a KKK meeting to go to or something?

Supposedly the US is only going to be in Iraq for as long as the Iraqis want them there. If that is the case, the obvious thing to do is to hold a referendum on whether the troops stay or go (or at the very least a definite timetable be set for their departure). Of course, there's always the possibility that that's just so much bs and the US will stay in Iraq for as long as it damn well pleases, whether the Iraqis like it or not.

Have you ever read the Koran, even an English translation?

Certainly there is discrimination and this is not acceptable in this day and age. Nevertheless, the reality of their situation is somewhat different to what you would believe if you listened to certain over excitable posters on this board (muslims want to kill all jews .... yada, yada, yada).

You beat me to it. I was going to say that if you define terrorism by the psychological effects produced, a case could be made that "shock and awe" falls into that category.

No particular political point to this. Just thought it was quite an interesting article. Iranian Jews

No, it wasn't a set-up (though I know it sounded like one). I actually wanted to know what your position was. So, if I understand your definition correctly it is the use of IEDs that defines it as terrorism. Would attacks using RPGs or mortars, for instance, then not be terrorism?

So you would classify IED attacks targetting foreign forces in Iraq as terrorism?

"nefariously controlling the country's oil interests"? How is he doing this? Should he not have any say in how Venezuela's oil interests are used? As for rigging elections, forget it. The observers at the elections certified them as free and fair and I have more faith in them than in people or organisations with obvious axes to grind. Besides, Chavez has no need to fix elections - he has massive support from the poor in Venezuela.

Hiding weaponry amongst civilians has little or nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the nature of asymmetric warfare. You can find umpteen examples of this in history and you would be pretty hard pressed to argue that any ethnic group or religion is more "guilty" of this than any other.

I seem to remember TPS (I think he's an economist?) having something to say on this subject a while back.

Because I haven't got an article on a website to analyze the incident in minute detail and am not being quoted (to the best of my knowledge) as evidence by other people.

I (perhaps naively) believed the multiple media reports of the incident.

It doesn't necessarily invalidate his arguments but I find it harder to accept things at face value when the author is so obviously biased (just check out some of the other stories on zombie.com). I'm no expert on damage caused by missiles so how should I know whether or not it's impossible that the damage to the ambulance was caused by a missile or not? Is every single vehicle hit by a missile totalled as suggested by the other photos the site displays, or does the damage vary? Because of the inherent bias of the site it is quite possible that he has just cherry picked photos to back up his case and left out ones that might cast doubt upon it. And who is the author anyway? Does he/she have any expertise in this area or is it some teenage geek writing from their bedroom? The monkey has suggested a few alternate theories, maybe there are others. Maybe the whole thing was a hoax - I don't know. I'd just like to see some analysis done by someone without an obvious axe to grind before making a judgement.

What has all this got to do with Iraq?