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COALITION FRAGMENTING
Some 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded since January 2004—by insurgents. Slightly less credibly, al Qaeda is claiming a similar body count for US troops:
The number of invading troops killed in Iraq is at least 10 times higher than the published toll of 2,000, the Iraqi branch of the Al Qaeda terrorism network says.
“We are not exaggerating when we say that the number of deaths in the ranks of the crusader army is 10 times higher than the 2,000 announced in the pernicious media,” the group said in a website statement.
Make it 100,000 and the pernicious media might pay attention. Happier news: the insurgents and Al Qaeda aren’t exactly working as a team. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from Iraq:
This rift in the insurgency has already gone far beyond angry words. Clashes erupted between al-Qaeda fighters and Iraqi mujahideen cells after al-Qaeda killed Iraqi insurgents who they claimed were spying for the US.
Long piece. Worth a read. In related news:
Two groups at the forefront of the violent resistance to the American presence in Iraq—the country’s Sunni community and followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric—have put forward candidates for December’s national election.
Interesting.
“Questions need to be asked”. Hey, just ask Mother Sheehan. She assures us that she knows, personally, more that 20,000 doughboys killed by their own commanders forcing them into battle and another 20,000 killed by the al_QuaQa minutement. As for the families, she tried to teach them to dance on their offsprings grave as she has done, but she gave up because they are too stupid to learn even the simplest steps. Besides, the media failed to show up to film the classes.
Tim:
Surely you’re not questioning the rigour of peer-reviewed British medical journals? they are, after all, very selective in what they publish, particularly when it comes from Arabs.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 10 30 at 01:34 PM • permalinkHere’s the bigger story about the casualty numbers:
To the anti-war movement, 2,000 American dead in Iraq is a tragedy of disastrous proportions. Of course, these are the same people who tell me that I get too worked up over the 2,000-plus dead on 9/11 because, after all, more people die of aspirin overdoses than from terrorism.
Oh, man… they’re gonna shit themselves trying to fit that many crosses into Camp Peace…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 30 at 03:29 PM • permalinkCorrection, Camp Cindy and Peace House…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 30 at 03:30 PM • permalinkRecall that the anti-war people predicted 100,000++ allied casualties or more *just* in Gulf War I, and again for Gulf War II. They didn’t like being disappointed twice, so they’ll keep up the pessimism to the bitter end.
Only Robert Fisk *really* knows, because he tells us he bravely trawled the Iraqi morgues and calculated ‘at least 150,000’ for ABC radio recently. No kidding.
He thinks they must be shovelling the excess dead into trenches, but Phil Adamski was afraid to ask!Two groups at the forefront of the violent resistance to the American presence in Iraq—the country’s Sunni community and followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric—have put forward candidates for December’s national election.
Like was said after the elections a few weeks back - they are increasingly turning to voting and participating in the democratic process, rather than coming to the polling booths to blow them up.
Just a couple of points:
1. The Washington Post article linked to is titled “Pentagon: Insurgents Killed 26,000 Iraqis” and in the very first paragraph it states “the Pentagon is estimating that 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded by insurgents since Jan. 1, 2004.” That’s noteworthy because those sorts of editorial mistakes more commonly improve the story for the ‘anti-war’ side.
2. It’s unfortunate that the report doesn’t break down those figures into Iraqis killed and Iraqis injured, and I wonder why it doesn’t do that. But if the typical ratio is something like 1:5 that would indicate about 4,000 dead, which is not as bad as I would have thought - though it’s bad enough.
Good points Steve.
How many Iraqis would have died over the same time period if Saddam’s reign had continued? If the terrorists are killing 400 Iraqis per month and wounding over 2,000 per month when are the moonbats, the media, and for that matter other Arabs going to notice that the terrorists are the real villains of the piece? I suppose it will be when Greeks reckon time by the calends.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 10 30 at 10:09 PM • permalinkI love the way the terrorists exaggerate when they brag about their “successes”; it’s exactly the same process as some guy who caught a minimum sized fish (maybe 6” [15 cm]) long, but somehow describes his catch as a whopper 30” long after a few beers.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 10 31 at 12:41 AM • permalinkcuckoo:
I wasn’t able to pay attention to the ABC’s 7pm news so I thought I might have misheard their report. From what you say, however, it seems that I did hear them claim that the Pentagon now estimated 26,000 deaths, and that they did not make it clear that the figures referred to those harmed by the ‘insurgents’. Curiously enough this was followed by a statement that the US Department of Defense had previously expressed doubts about an Iraqi Body Count claim of some similar number of dead Iraqis due to ‘the war’.
I suspect that the intention of the ABC in constructing their news report in this way was to suggest that the new Pentagon report supports the IBC claim and that the US officials must now be embarrassed.
On the other hand, when I searched the ABC website for this report after the news programme, the Pentagon report was described quite accurately.
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I think it’s outrageous that 20,000 US soldiers have been killed and no-one is asking questions. What is even more outrageous is what has the US done with the 20,000 families of those killed to silence them. Questions need to be asked.