Thread: State of Iraq
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Old 02-10-11, 07:58 PM   #12
CaptainHaplo
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Mookie - your link talks about the internal sunni/shia feud that took place in 2006. It has nothing to do with the topic - being the start/cause of war.

Now lets look at the article. The Samarra bombing took place on 22 February. The article claims by link that Gen. Casey lies about sectarian violence. However, in the article it links to - this is stated clearly:

Quote:
The general acknowledged that Iraq is facing sectarian tension and sectarian violence, but said it's "focused primarily in the center of the country around Baghdad." Even there, the situation is not as dire as media reports suggest, Casey said.
The article is dated March 19th, and states General Casey "recently" toured Baghdad. Even if he had visited the area 2 weeks prior to the article, on 5 March, the sectarian violence was mostly over by 27 Feb.
To claim that Casey somehow should have "seen" firsthand the bodies in the streets during days when he wasn't present is idiocy.

On to Rumsfeld - you state he lied.
Quote:
The October 2010 Iraqi War documents leak shed new light on the events of February–March 2006. In particular, the logs reveal that U.S. soldiers immediately reported an "explosion of retaliatory killings, kidnappings, tortures, mosque attacks, and open street fighting," even as U.S. commanders including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were downplaying media reports of a surge in killings. The previous "official" death toll for post-bombing sectarian fighting, of 3-400, was based on information from the Shiite-led government and the Sadr-run Health Ministry, which was directly involved in atrocities according to the logs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_al...WikiLeaks_data

So Rumsfeld based his view not on the info from the grunts (which he can't interview em all ya know), but on official information from the Iraqi Health ministry. Did he lie? Or did he in good faith repeat information that he was given from an official Iraqi source? Given the date of his statement - there is no way that the on the ground data would have been confirmed and then forwarded up the chain to his level by then. So what is the man to go on?

Then you state Bush and Cheney as well are "traitors to the nation and should be hung as such". Funny - nothing in your article related to either of them. Nor have you provided anything that shows they knew ahead of time that the intel they were given was false, nor what they would gain by stating falsehoods. How did they commit treason?

Everyone here gets that some folks on here don't like those in the previous administration. Some of us don't like the folks in this one. That is fine. But if your going to make accusations, try at least to back them up with something reasonable.

Also - can you pick a less left leaning source than the Daily Beast? I mean, their causes are the environmental impact of oil drilling and plastics, immigrant and gay rights. That's like half of the left's agenda right there. I was suprised I didn't find more anti-capitalism stuff to go with it.
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