It's Ranting Dictators Week at the United Nations. First Ahmadinejad preaches the gospel of peace and now it's Hugo Chavez on UN reform. Yay!
Freshly stoked by his appearance at Castro's recent frat party for all the coolest dictators and totalitarian loons - also known as the Non-Aligned Movement - Hugo Chavez appeared at the UN this week as the highlight of their annual ranting dictators week.…
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576 - McNab
You supported the Reagan Regime and the Bush Gang which makes you a cheerleader for US hand picked murderous dictators. Unlike your heroes in the White House, Noriega did not commit war crimes or crimes against humanity.
577 - McNab
Show one example where I plagiarized your gibberish.
578 - Dave Nalle
McNab, I guess you're unfamiliar with Noriega's role in running the death squads in the Torrijos administration in the 1970s? Or his involvement in the Spadafora murder?
Dave
579 - Clavos
I did not post #578.
I have brought this to the attention of BC editorial staff.
Clavos
580 - steve
Reagan was our last great GREAT president. bush+ bush II are good...but they cant compare to Reagan. too bad I wasnt old enough to vote for him!
581 - Dave Nalle
I think #578 was an innocent mistake where McNab meant to type Clavos as an address at the start of his comment and typed it in the name field instead. I fixed it.
Dave
582 - Clavos
Thanks, Dave 582..
583 - Clavos
I never said you were plagiarizing me, McNab.
I couldn't dream up the kind of gibberish you write in my wildest hallucinations.
If you're plagiarizing anybody, it's probably some SWP site somewhere.
584 - McNab
Dave, thanks for fixing #578.
I didn't say Noriega had no blood on his hands. No kidding! He was taught how to murder and torture at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia and worked for the CIA in the 70s and 80's.
585 - McNab
Clavos, to clarify #578, and hoping your head actually gets in the way this time:
I haven't posted any examples of your gibberish.
Understand? Nope, I knew you wouldn't.
586 - Clavos
Actually, I do understand.
Yep.
587 - Dave Nalle
Re: #585. Sad but true. If the US didn't spend so much time fixing the mistakes of previous administrations we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.
Dave
588 - McNab
Dave, here on planet Earth the US doesn't fix mistakes, it compounds them. And it doesn't care how many innocent lives are lost in the process.
589 - Dave Nalle
Whatever, McNab. Far better to just let the world be ground under the heel of oppressive socialist dictators. Would that make you happy? At least SOMEONE is trying to help the innocent and protect freedom - you certainly aren't interested.
Dave
590 - McNab
Well that SOMEONE ain't the USA. Read the latest casualty figures for Iraq. Somewhere in the vicinity of 600,000 since the invasion "give or take". No skin off YOUR back though.
591 - troll
McNab - Dave doesn't believe in numbers extrapolated from cluster studies...we went through all of this at the time of the original Lancet publication years ago
he and others here refuse to acknowledge the full obscenity of this 'war'
592 - Dave Nalle
Troll, that's not quite correct. I just doubt the methodology of THAT study, which didn't use a fair representative sampling and took little to no care to make sure that the data being sampled was in any way accurate. My objections are the same as those of virtually every critic of that study including one of the original authors who doubts the usefulness of the results.
Dave
593 - troll
Dave - understood...I was merely being snarky - but it's a safe bet that this more recent study entails what many will argue are assumption and sampling 'flaws' as did the earlier one
I look forward to your analysis of its usefulness
650,000 excess deaths in three and a half years...who the hell do we think we are
594 - Dave Nalle
Troll, what more recent study? I didn't realize there was one. Can you tell me where to find it? I thought studies had been more or less abandonned because of the risks involved.
Dave
595 - Dave Nalle
650,000 excess deaths in three and a half years...who the hell do we think we are
I have to point out that whatever excess deaths there are might just as easily have occured without US long-term efforts there. If we'd just toppled Saddam and left there still could have been a long and bloody civil war. The same if we'd just increased funding to anti-Saddam forces and left him in power. The same if we'd gone in with the full support of the UN. Only a tiny fraction of those deaths are directly the result of the actions of US forces. It's almost all Iraqis killing other Iraqis to settle old scores or consolidate political power.
Dave
596 - gonzo marx
the 650k number is taken from this latest study done by some folks from Johns Hopkins...their method was door to door talking with folks, so it is a decent assumption the figures may be skewed a bit high
that being said, it is highly probable that the numbers more closely6 reflect the actuality that the bullshit from iraqibodycount.com , or other shill organizations which downjplay the numbers by cherry picking sources
the real Answer most likely lies somewhere in between
case in point, over the last few months, the number of 100 civilian casualties a day has been floating around, with all sides in pretty much agreement, at least in the Sunni triangle..no decent numbers are to be had outside of that area
no matter how you slice it, a lot of people are getting killed so that a Shi'ia government is in power
the more you look at it, the better a 3 state solution appears...
your mileage may vary
Excelsior?
597 - troll
Dave - it's over at Lancet's site
598 - gonzo marx
i gotta say it...
during my hiatus, i really missed our troll
:::bows, hand over fist:::
namaste', troll
Excelsior?
599 - troll
gonzo - 'here's looking at you babe'...I've missed you too
600 - Dave Nalle
Get a room, pervs.
Dave
601 - steve
LoL...are you lefties trying to say that the us is responsible for THAT many deaths in iraq? that is a bit insane. where did you pull that number from?
602 - Franco
#597
gonzo marx
the more you look at it, the better a 3 state solution appears...
Excellent analysis. It is the only solution left…………..but could it be physically implemented with out it starting even more killings.
What are we talking about, moving 25,000,000 people, how many have to be relocated a at gunpoint to other locations? In what kind of bombproof transport units. When they got there, what if they didn’t want to stay, how are they guarded. How do you divide up all the booty fairly so that the extra sensitive Arabs sence of honor is not a major sticking point. The get upset over the least little thing.
Maybe it would go relatively smoothly, I just can’t figure how it could be done on an orderly basic. I don’t know, maybe the Iraqs would like it.
603 - Dave Nalle
You don't get the methodology of this kind of study, Steve. The basic principle is that once the US takes a role in Iraq every single death from that point on is automatically blamed on us regardless of our actual involvement.
Dave
604 - troll
Steve - I can only suggest that you read the study for yourself
there are many degrees of responsibility...are you as a 'rightie' claiming that the us has no responsibility for the mayhem - ?
Dave - I love it when you talk stupid
605 - Dave Nalle
there are many degrees of responsibility...are you as a 'rightie' claiming that the us has no responsibility for the mayhem - ?
No, I'm suggesting that there's a huge difference between being responsible for the general situation and being responsible for the specific deaths, a dividing line which the left and these studies are eager to blurr in the interest of scoring political points.
If you invite two people over to your house and they get in a fight and one kills the other are you as the host responsible for that death? Are you responsible for it if you knew the two guys didn't like each other? Are you responsible if you knew the two guys hated each other but you thought by getting them together you could help them work out their differences? Or is the one who commits the violence actually responsible?
Dave
606 - McNab
Here's another senario, Dave. If a powerful nation (we'll call it the US) invades another sovereign nation (say, Iraq) on false pretenses, and kills tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children, and the invaded sovereign nation devolves into a state of civil war with more innocent men women and children being slaughtered, how many years in prison should the leaders of the the invading and occupying nation be sentenced to for war crimes: Life or 30 years or something in between?
607 - troll
I've not heard anyone claiming that each excess death was at the hands of an American...to that extent you are fielding a strawman
(the study does estimate that about 30% of these deaths were caused by coalition action)
but the timing of publication is fascinating
608 - McNab
Dave, I didn't include the death sentence for US war crimes as that would be far too barbaric.
609 - Dave Nalle
McNab, you seem to have missed the definition of 'warcrime' somewhere in your education. Making war is not in and of itself a crime. The term refers to criminal activities perpetrated in the context of a war.
Dave
610 - McNab
Dave, verbal pomposity "in and of itself" isn't against the law though it should be.
Here's a modified version of #607:
If a powerful nation (we'll call it the US) invades another sovereign nation (say, Iraq) on false pretenses, and kills tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children, and the invaded sovereign nation devolves into a state of civil war with more innocent men women and children being slaughtered, how many years in prison should the leaders of the the invading and occupying nation be sentenced to: Life or 30 years or something in between?
611 - Dave Nalle
Here's another version of it.
A genocidal dictator kills over a thousand of his own people a month for 30 years. A coalition of nations steps in, removes him from power in a lightning fast and relatively bloodless war, and then sees his supporters and foreign agitators tear the country they're trying to rebuild apart to advance their interests. Rather than cutting and running the coalition leaders choose to stay and fight and try to protect the people of the ravaged nation against their own factions and the foreign invaders, despite the cost in money and lives. Yet most of the world stands by and does nothing and factions within the country leading the effort try every dirty trick to discredit their leaders and derail their efforts. Should the punishment for these naysayers and political opportunists be total political obscurity, being forced to become French citizens or being dropped in Mecca during Hadj holding a half-eaten porkchop and a bottle of beer?
Dave
612 - Franco
#612
Dave Nalle
"being forced to become French citizens or being dropped in Mecca during Hadj holding a half-eaten porkchop and a bottle of beer?"
Yes Dave, they should..........and the sooner the better!
613 - Franco
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's plan to help Bolivia build military bases and train troops is causing alarm in neighboring states and eroding regional support for his bid to win a United Nations Security Council seat.
Chilean newspapers printed a document it identified as the agreement on Oct. 9, and reported separately that plans called for as many as 24 bases along Bolivia's borders with Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil would be funded and build by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
President Bachelet of Chile, a socialist, is one of the few leaders in the region who hasn't yet lined up behind a candidate for the Security Council seat, slated to be filled in a General Assembly vote on Oct. 16. Bachelet has asked Venezuela and Bolivia, a country which Chile hasn't had formal diplomatic relations with since 1978, to clarify the intentions of their military cooperation agreement.
To date, both the Bolivian Defense Ministry and Venezuelan Defense Ministry have declined to comment on the document report.
614 - Dan
Hugo Chavez is a breath of fresh air and an example to many of us who dislike American foreign policy and murderous paranoia. The article appears to be written by one of those right wing dunderheads who can't understand complex arguments, or will ever see somebody else's point of view. Disappointing - but glad to see some sensible comments.
615 - Dave Nalle
Good job, Dan. Written with all the starry-eyed naivete of a high-school freshman who just discovered socialism.
Dave
616 - chrissie
Chavez is no crazy or insane. Bush is no crazy or insane. John Waters is no crazy or insane.
617 - Dr Dreadful
And Chrissie...?