Hint: These two paragraphs go together:
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Transition to a free republic was certainly neither instant nor orderly nor bloodless for the United States. It could probably be argued that the process continues to date, with somewhat less expenditure of blood as differing viewpoints clash.
But, we have made some progress - you can offend the leader of the country and not get your tongue cut out, fingers chopped off, or head cut off.
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(I was talking about the U.S.)
The article posted says Iraqi death squads are primarily responsible for the torture and deaths mentioned, not U.S. or allied armed services personnel.
Hmmm I don't see any mention of tongues cut out, fingers chopped off or heads cut off. It's apparently down to gunshot wounds and occasional power tool accidents. Saddam & Co. killed and tortured thousands, the morgue lists 780 in the article. I would still call it an improvement (with obvious need for further improvement).
I didn't say that the conditions in Iraq are the summer of love right now. I did say: "Transition from a dictatorship to free republic will neither be instant nor orderly, and unfortunately not bloodless".
Look at the wording carefully in this:
Quote:
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400 of 780 bodies brought into the Baghdad morgue had gunshot wounds or wounds caused by electric drills
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(sarcastic) OMG how shocking - gunshot wounds in an area where there is an armed conflict going on (/sarcastic). I don't mean to belittle the value of life, I am pointing out how the presentation of the data in the article is being used to manipulate the reader.
Ask youself what kind of "facts" are actually conveyed by the information in the article:
What is the time frame of this body count? How many days/months/years?
Are any of these from Saddams mass graves that are being excavated and examined for evidence?
How many had gunshot wounds? Were all the gunshot wounds fatal or did some die from other causes? How many were shot as enemy combatants, executions, stray bullets, accidents, suicides, fire fights between feuding factions?
How many had wounds from electric drills? Were these wounds the cause of death? Were the electric drill wounds evidence of torture or simply accidents with power tools?
What about the 380 bodies (almost half the total count mentioned) conveniently left out of the "facts"? How did they die?
Who were the deceased - insurgents? Innocent Iraqi citizens? Soldiers?
The article fails to give any useful facts about the cause of any of those deaths, or even a time period in which they occurred.
We know from the data given:
1) During an unknown period of time, 780 bodies were counted.
2) The actual cause of death for any of the bodies is not stated.
3) Of these 780 bodies, 400 bodies had at least one gunshot wound of unspecified nature -or- had at least one injury of unspecified nature determined to be from an electric drill.
4) Of the 780 bodies, 380 (48.7%) go unmentioned (I wonder why).
5) Lawlessness and Iraqi death squads are blamed for the deaths.
Interesting that all the body count numbers are evenly divisible by 10. Many aspects of the article cause the reliability and accuracy of the data to come into question.
Since the Iraqis are doing this to themselves the "supreme solution" of "GTF out" being advocated would probably not have done any good to prevent these deaths, and if enacted will probably facilitate more such deaths. It would appear that more, not less aid is required to solve the problem.