Monday, May 17, 2004
This is progress?
In an New York Times Op-Ed piece “The State of Iraq: an Update” (be sure to open the accompanying graphic) a whole bunch of statistics are given showing how, in spite of all the bad news, Iraq is steadily progressing to some form of Nirvana under U.S. rule.
A lot of the statistics are, well, bizarre. For example, it is pointed out that we have trained 860 new Iraqi judges. Gee, if the goal of this whole thing was to impose the U.S. legal system on them even Rush Limbaugh would be against the war. It also points out that 90,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained. To bad they left out the more relevant statistic of how many of those security personnel are on the side of the insurgency.
Then we have the downright comical. For example the chart says that last August there were 5,000 insurgents. But it then says that since then the U.S. has killed or detained 4,000 which would presumabely leave 1,000 alive. So all this fighting is being done by a 1,000 people !?!?!? Well, those insurgents sure do get around don’t they.
And then there are the statistics which show the utter failure of the war effort. For example, electricity production stands at 3.8 gigawatts. But before the war it was 4.4 gigawatts. So with all the technology and money in the world the U.S. hasn’t even been able to equal what Saddam’s engineers did with just rubber bands and paper clips holding things together. Worse still oil production, at 2.4 m.b.d., still doesn’t match pre-war levels of 3.0 m.b.d. I guess Halliburton is to busy fleecing American taxpayers to bother getting Iraq’s oil infrastructure up and running again.
Given the above should anyone be surprised by the last statistics given:
While in December 55% of Iraqis felt they were better off than before the war by April that number had fallen to 40%. And the percentage of Iraqis wanting U.S. forces to stay has dropped from 70% to 35%.
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A lot of the statistics are, well, bizarre. For example, it is pointed out that we have trained 860 new Iraqi judges. Gee, if the goal of this whole thing was to impose the U.S. legal system on them even Rush Limbaugh would be against the war. It also points out that 90,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained. To bad they left out the more relevant statistic of how many of those security personnel are on the side of the insurgency.
Then we have the downright comical. For example the chart says that last August there were 5,000 insurgents. But it then says that since then the U.S. has killed or detained 4,000 which would presumabely leave 1,000 alive. So all this fighting is being done by a 1,000 people !?!?!? Well, those insurgents sure do get around don’t they.
And then there are the statistics which show the utter failure of the war effort. For example, electricity production stands at 3.8 gigawatts. But before the war it was 4.4 gigawatts. So with all the technology and money in the world the U.S. hasn’t even been able to equal what Saddam’s engineers did with just rubber bands and paper clips holding things together. Worse still oil production, at 2.4 m.b.d., still doesn’t match pre-war levels of 3.0 m.b.d. I guess Halliburton is to busy fleecing American taxpayers to bother getting Iraq’s oil infrastructure up and running again.
Given the above should anyone be surprised by the last statistics given:
While in December 55% of Iraqis felt they were better off than before the war by April that number had fallen to 40%. And the percentage of Iraqis wanting U.S. forces to stay has dropped from 70% to 35%.
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