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Topic: Good News From Iraq!!!
| Author | Message |
| katestarrr | Posted – 11/30/2007 4:24:04 PM | show profile i'm too lazy to read through all of the replies to find out, but... none of you guys know that this post is bs? as soon as i first started reading it, i could spot a copy-and-pasted note. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 11/30/2007 5:46:27 PM | show profile great. whoever it was that got his thread cut on TV News has signed up with a new name and posted more "good news" from this DoD report. Why don't you have a little visit over there to Iraq, walk around a few neighborhoods and villages with your white skin showing, and then come back and tell us all how great it it's going over there, n'kay? |
| chucho | Posted – 12/1/2007 4:28:22 AM | show profile This message is spam . . . from 2005! http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/business/media/15apee.html If some jackass was pointing out that 47 embassies had been established in Iraq --- IN 2005 -- then why haven't any more been established since?? "Here's the latest variant of lists making their way across the Internet since 2003: "Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq? Did you know that the Iraqi government employs 1.2 million people? Did you know that 3,100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq? Did you know that 25 Iraqi students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the re-established Fulbright program?" And so on." http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0301-22.htm In any case, if I have time I will address each claim, but I suspect this board had been infiltrated by certain individuals who don't care whether what they say is true or not -- they just want to play games. I've provided links to disprove certain claims by these individuals and they never reply to them -- they just move on to another obfuscating comment and get their jollies out of TASKING other peopel on this board to stamp out their mistruths. THAT SAID: Yes, military casualties have gone down since earlier this year. But when you have suicide bombers blowing themselves up at a PET MARKET in Baghdad, I'd say this is a matter of a degree. Thing have gotten from terrible to just plain bad. Hundreds of thousand of Iraqis have fled and are living in tents in Jordan. Baghdad hasn't become the land of Oz. Comments like the one this OP posted is a sign of continued desperation in the part of those who have tossed their chips behind this sad foreign policy strategy. |
| chucho | Posted – 12/1/2007 4:45:03 AM | show profile From the White House dot gov: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20051118.html anita, from los angeles writes: Can you tell me how many embassies are currently active in Iraq. I see one site that lists the US, Great Britain, and Australia. Are there more? Thank you. David Satterfield There are 52 diplomatic missions active in Baghdad. They include Embassies and representatives of international organizations, such as the United Nations. *** Now, of course, a diplomatic mission isn't necessarily an embassy: diplomatic missions can include a simple trade office (seeking to cash-in on some of that US taxpayer money!) with a charge d 'affaires (the Cuban rep in DC for example, could be considered a diplomatic mission) but in any case the White House itself cites a different number than the OP which lends credence to my suspicion that this person didn't any research, but rather simply copy and pasted this spam that is all over the web (verbatim!). And, also, who says that good journalism come form repeating the claims of the state leaders anyway? I mean, seriously, I don't believe Cuba's statistics on health and education. Why? Because they come from the state as the sole arbiter of this information. This isn't a conservative/progressive issue, it's a matter of common sense not to give the benefit of the doubt to the state. There was a time when conservatives would have been appalled at the notion of being "the king's stenographer" now they seem to be saying that only the "king's stenographer" speaks the truth. What happened? |
| chucho | Posted – 12/1/2007 5:18:49 AM | show profile Hey, OP, let me show you how this is done: YOU SEZ: Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October? Your source: Unknown (except, as others pointed out, links to the home pages of US government websites, not the actual source of the info. itself) ** I SEZ: Reuters citing Iragi Ministry of Education data. I know, I know. Reuters. .. lib-ril media. Iraqi Minsitry: gov't news source. They could be lying too and the entire country is filled with bright-faced Iraqi boys and girls standing happily in lunch-lines in brightly lit schools painted in pastels with walls bedecks with adorable crayon sketches . . . if only the evil Reuters would tell the truth! I know that's more or less a (hyperbolic) representation of what you think. BUT: If you go online, there are scores of reports about how the educational system in the 80s was one of the best in the region (that's actually not saying much, to be frank: and I'm not even sure that's true because Iran's schools are pretty good, relative to, say Pakistan's or Saudi Arabia's). And these reports say that sin the past 20 year things have gotten really, really bad, thanks to Saddam's anti-sanctions measures (ie, he had less to steal and squeezed his society for all it was worth to get that wealth and retain that power). SO I tend to believe the dozens of reports I've seen online, as well as this Reuters story I cite below, that only TWO IN SIX children are actually entering all these renovated building that Bechtel (or whomever) has built and which you cite as a benchmark of hidden progress. You see this kind of thing all the time: major renovation or construction projects but no skilled people (or students) to fill them, and the only one walking away with anything are the contractors that built the projects. ** From Reuters (from October) "There are no comprehensive recent statistics on school attendance in Iraq but official figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Education show that even before the escalation of sectarian violence in February 2006, one in six children did not attend primary school. Since the upsurge, that number is two in six. According to the ministry, school attendance is expected to fall by another 15 percent this term for boys and 25 percent for girls." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/378f4f07e8919edb3d0ae855f2393655.htm |
| Letterbox | Posted – 12/1/2007 5:28:13 AM | show profile hollisterco, you should read what you post before going on about it. You'll sound less foolish. Snopes is a website that debunks urban myth, and the reason they posted that laundry list is because it's a bunch of unsubstantiated comments made by dozens of people and passed around the Internet for years. Why would you say it's all verifyable on the DoD website if you yourself plucked it from Snopes? Perhaps you are the lazy reporter? Or are you Borat? |
| Rulebook2 | Posted – 12/1/2007 11:16:17 AM | show profile Classic MB Mediabistro: a haven for trolls. Calibrate your flame detectors, friends. Get smart. Brush up on your internet. I just hate seeing people invest time on threads like this. It's a fake argument made for a laugh. I don't think we should encourage that kind of behavior on this board...it's already degraded as it is around here but at least it's largely contained in news and media. |
