First and foremost it shows clearly that the Democrats have always used our soldiers deaths for political reasons and to further their anti-war efforts. (His parody is spot on)--FIXED--
Left side of this old article states:
Dem Leaders: Military Lied About War, Germans 'had nothing to do' with Pearl Harbor Sneak Attack.
Sound familiar?
Second, the APand NYT and other major media is simply trying to use the same "Milestones" that were used back then also.... no new thinking here.
Headline of the article:
Grim Milestone Reached
Ten Ships, 2,170 Soldiers Lost in Battles around Java Sea** War Dead Surpasses Pearl Harbor Death Toll.
[UPDATE] From Doug Ross--- can you imagine how World War II would have turned out if today's AP and Reuters were the primary sources of news? [End update]
After writing about the AP's biased story that quotes figures that support absolutley nothing as their "Milestone", I pulled out my handy, dandy, trusty calculator.
For the AP to make a comparison that actually means something, they would have to do some simple addition and multiplication which they obviously do not wish to do, so I went ahead and did it for them.
For a comparison to be made, there has to be a common denominator, for example, to equate the number of deaths of one day on 9/11, one would have to pick ONE day in Iraq for an actual, viable comparison...or what I did was took the 3 1/2 yrs we have been in Iraq and the Deaths from 9/11, which would then have to be multiplied BY the 3 1/2 yrs.
The numbers are is as follows:
365 days in a year times 3 1/2 yrs = 1,277.50 days.
2,973 died on 9/11, so that 1,277.50 must be multiplied by 2,973 = 3,798,007.50
For the AP's and NYT's numbers to mean a damn thing, over 3 MILLION people would have had to die and since the AP made it clear that they were talking about "soldiers" not the full death toll in Iraq, so that would mean that 3 Million soldiers would have had to die for AP's numbers to be worth anything at all.
Talk about silly Milestones!!!!!!
Now, lets take this a step farther, shall we?
From the AP report:
The latest U.S. deaths brought the number of members of the U.S. military killed since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
From the NYT report:
In a span of a few hours, 2,973 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In a span of 45 months, the number of American troops killed in Iraq has exceeded that grim toll.
I am going to start with the Civil War, 1861 to 1865: 1 Million participants and 133,821 Deaths in Service.
Spanish-American War, 1898-1902: 392,000 participants and 11,000 Deaths in Service.
World War I, 1917 to 1918: ONE YEAR: 4,744,000 participants and 116,000 Deaths in Service.
World War II, 1940 to 1947: 16,535,000 participants and 406,000 Deaths in Service.
Korean Conflict, 1950 to 1955: 6,807,000 participants and 55,000 Deaths in Service.
Vietnam era, 1964 to 1975: 9,200,000 participants and 109,000 Deaths in Service.
Source for the Death tolls in wars.
In 3 1/2 yrs, we have lost 2,978 men and women in battle, all horrible losses, no one denies that, but in trying to make comparisons the AP, NYT and other major media outlets purposely neglect to do the actual numbers. If you are going to make a comparison, you cannot compare a terrorist attack on 9/11 and lives lost to the amount of lives lost in Iraq, you must do the full numbers and compare the amount of lives lost in the same amount of years, in other wars and determine whether we are losing more or less men and women and from the numbers above....we are losing FAR LESS soldiers in this conflict than in ANY war in our history.
Think the MSM would care to make THOSE comparisons? I don't, because it would not fit into their political agendas or their anti-war philosophies.
Now, if we want to talk about Milestones, Saddam being sentenced, his appeal denied and his hanging within 30 days is certainly a milestone.
I have never been much of a death penalty person, I feel if one innocent person is executed then the system is flawed. In Saddam Hussein's case, after seeing some of the video of innocent people being gassed and the information that came out in his trial of the atrocities he committed upon his own people, this may be the closure that is needed for Iraq to reach a "turning point", I could be wrong.....only time will tell.
Judge Shahen delivered the verdict to a few reporters assembled at the Council of Ministers building within the heavily guarded Green Zone as the rest of the country settled into its nighttime curfew. There were none of the theatrical outbursts contrived by Mr. Hussein to disrupt the trial and the appeal, because he was not present to hear the verdict.
The judge said simply that the appeals court had approved the verdict against Mr. Hussein, who was formally charged with crimes against humanity, and two co-defendants, who had also received death sentences in the Dujail killings, and that they now faced “execution by hanging until death” within 30 days.
The court also approved lesser sentences against three other defendants and the tribunal’s acquittal of a fourth, Judge Shahen said. In addition, the court sent the case of one man, Taha Yassin Ramadan, back to the tribunal, saying his life sentence was too lenient “compared to the crimes that were committed.”
The entire session, which was televised, took no more than 15 minutes, and after taking a few questions Judge Shahen abruptly rose from his seat and left the room.
Before leaving, he left no doubt about where he stood on the issue of constitutional approval of the decision. “Nobody is entitled, including the president, to exempt or commute the verdict issued by this court,” he said. “The punishment is mandatory and should be executed within 30 days from the date it was issued.”
There has also been MUCH discussion on whether the execution should be televised and I guess that is up to the Iraqi's, but it does seem distasteful to imagine televising such an event. The arguments for televising is that the Iraqi people will not believe Hussein was executed if they did not see it with their own eyes, and I guess after living under such a dictator for all those years, I can understand this.
I would hope they would simply film it so that parts of the film could be shown, enough to prove to the Iraqi's that he was, in fact, dead, without showing the full thing.
I would also hope that they do not publicize the date and time of his execution and simply announce it after it was over to avoid any uprising or breakout attempts by Saddam's sympathizers.
Others discussing either the so called "milestone" or Saddams death sentence:
Jules Crittenden, Sister Toldjah, Gateway Pundit, A Blog for All, NYT, LATimes and Wapo.
Tracked back by:
News or Editorial Headline? from Thinkin'bout Stuff...
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