Karen,

 

My standard apology for being so tardy in replying.

 

My test for the number of dead is not the “internal PDF” or any other rumors.

 

Programs like Nightline have regularly put all the dead on the air – with photos.

 

Anyone who has lost someone that doesn’t appear is likely to raise hell – and there are supposed to be 7,300 of them.

 

Yet, not a peep have we heard from those thousands of bereaved but cold-shouldered people.

 

It’s just another piece of nonsense from some of the Bush conspiracy people.

 

As you know, the moment the die was cast and the tanks rolled across the border, my position changed. There was now no point in being anti-war. We now had to win it and promote democracy/steal Iraqi oil/build an Empire (take your pick).

 

The advance to Baghdad was scheduled to take 125 days. Three weeks later we were in the city, wondering what to do. The museum was looted of thousands of irreplaceable artifacts – until they did a count.

 

The number was actually 38 – but tens of thousands sounds better. (The 38 were beginning to come back in last time I looked  - a year or more ago.

 

We made horrendous mistakes – including the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, something that looked like a good idea at the time. We messed up the modern sophisticated medical and surgical system in our stupidity (yet in Saddam’s last budget, the amount for health worked out at 95 cents a person). I suspect we messed up a health system that was strictly for the Saddamites.

 

Then, the terrorists got to work and killed Americans. When that got more costly and less effective, they started killing first police and then civilians. Actually, they don’t seem to care who they kill.

 

In spite of this, success has been achieved around the Middle East. Egypt has had some dubious elections, as have the Saudis. Libya has allowed us to inspect and remove their MWD. Syria is out of Lebanon followed by democratic voting. Iran is in the middle of some bazaar negotiating, getting as much drag as they can from their nuclear threat. Maybe they’ll finish up in the EU.

 

Israel and Palestine are talking and it looks better there than it has for years – in spite of hotheads on both sides. And in spite of often dire danger some 65% of Iraqis went to the polls – though 42 of them died in the senseless anti-democratic killing.

 

The Iraqi police and army are being built up again – not nearly as successfully as we would hope – but the attempt is being made. Downtown Mosul is under control of Iraqi uniforms.

 

The cost of 1,700 dead Americans and 12,000 hurt, along with some 23,000 Iraqi civilians (mostly killed by the terrorist campaign) is a heavy price to pay.

 

Yet, in the coastal areas of the D-Day landings 12,000 civilians died – 20,000 in Normandy. This along with umpteen thousands of Brits, Canadians, and Americans. Civilian dead in the Iraqi advance was relatively light – particularly as I’m sure the fighters and civilians were mixed together. Who to shoot?

 

So, now we are in Iraq with the political scene taking some shape and with security forces increasing and becoming trained. Most of Iraq is peaceful, though the indiscriminate killers occasionally set off a bomb to terrorize the civilians.

 

It looks cautiously good.

 

Harry

 

*******************************

Henry George School of Social Science

of Los Angeles

Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042

818 352-4141

*******************************

 

 


From: Karen Watters Cole [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 8:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'Keith Hudson'
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation

 

Harry, I’m with you on this one, waiting to see the internal PDF myself. As I wrote previously, the magnitude of such a deception would be ignite the grassroots unrest and distrust of the Bush-Cheney administration, built with kindling of their own gleaning.

 

However, before you pooh-pooh the idea entirely just because you haven’t read anything that challenges the official counts, do as I plan to do from now on when I see those tributes on the evening news broadcasts naming those lost, with their photos and sometimes a brief personal mention (CBS Bob Schaeffer doing this, PBS posts in silence): let’s start paying attention to the rank and service, not just their ages.  Do you see only active duty or are Reservists/Guards noted?

 

Karen

 

Keith,

 

I would like to see this memo authenticated.

 

Come to think about it, I’d like to see this memo.

 

From time to time, the listing of war dead is seen on national television. (Not to mention elsewhere.

 

I could imagine the uproar from the 7,300 parents, spouses, and siblings when they find no mention of their loved ones in these listings of ALL Iraqi war dead.

 

Yet, not a peep.

 

Could it just be that the “leak” is absolute poppycock?

 

Never mind, the rumor will makes the rounds until it becomes fact – like the peculiar statistical projection of 98,000 dead civilians from 21 actual deaths “many” of whom might be soldiers.

 

(It reminds me of the 17 changes Thatcher made in the statistical count of the unemployed, With each count, unemployment lessened.)

 

I’ve never professed to be an intellectual – whatever that may be (I understand you have lots of them in Europe) – but as I’ve said, I can count.

 

I’m not sure that intellectuals can.

 

So, wait for yet another rumor to become fact thus joining the other “facts” that bedevil  us.

 

However, I am glad that the Basra area is peaceful and attending to its business – so much so that the Brits simply keep a low profile. They certainly did a great job.

 

Harry

 

*******************************

Henry George School of Social Science

of Los Angeles

Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042

818 352-4141

*******************************

 

 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 10:30 PM
To: Karen Watters Cole
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Peering into the vortex of speculation

 

Karen,

At 11:47 20/06/2005 -0700, you wrote:

There are questions and rumors circulating in cyberspace about a civilian who claims to have obtained an internal Pentagon PDF that lists the true war dead in Iraq at 9000.

 

 


Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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