i sing of Olaf . . .

Guest post by Revere

I received the following from Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist now in Jordan. Read it and then read last Sunday's Sermonette.

The following was written by Fernando Suarez, who lost his son in Iraq.

To all media outlets To all who love peace and justice To the citizens of the United States To the entire world

Pablo Paredes and Kevin Benderman will be subjected to a court martial for having opposed Bush's criminal war in Iraq. Both applied for conscientious objector status and were denied. Both are accused of disobeying orders among other charges. In San Diego and at Fort Stewart, Georgia, both will be tried in proceedings that without a doubt will mirror the absurd theater in which Camilo Mejia was pronounced guilty by a military tribunal that sentenced him to a year in prison.

Beginning tomorrow, May 11, we will see similar trials in which justice will be conspicuously absent, in which the power of the state will impose its will over international law, and in which young men will be sentenced and shipped to military prisons.

But all of this can be avoided if the international peace community comes to the defense of these two brave human beings and brave soldiers. Why brave soldiers? Because they understand their duty as members of the military to defend the Constitution of the United States, to defend democracy and freedom, and they understand that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with these hallowed values. Why courageous human beings? Because by refusing to take part in war crimes they risk their personal safety and their careers. These war crimes have been perpetrated in Iraq by a president who has brought only economic hardship to families in the United States and death and destruction to the people of Iraq.

These young men are the spokesmen for thousands of soldiers who have deserted and we must give them our total support. I invite you to participate in a day of international resistance, to sign petitions of solidarity, and to demonstrate against these courts martial, against the illegal occupation of Iraq, and for the immediate return of our troops. More than 1600 U.S. soldiers have died already and more than 100,000 innocent Iraqis have perished including thousands of children. Thousands of children are now orphans in both nations.

Now is the time to overcome our fear and to protest and demand an end to Bush's historic crimes.

SIGN THE PETITION

Comments

[GaijinBiker]

Why brave soldiers? Because they understand their duty as members of the military to defend the Constitution of the United States, to defend democracy and freedom, and they understand that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with these hallowed values.

The war removed a dictator from power and made it possible to hold elections in Iraq. Didn't it have at least a little bit to do with democracy and freedom?

[revere]

No.

[GaijinBiker]

Well, that settles that, then.

Although it would be nice if somebody would tell these people...

Next question: When a suicide bomber intentionally targets and kills Iraqi civillians, do you hold Bush responsible for those deaths? If so, why?

[revere]

Counter question: when tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians (according to The Lancet) are killed by Coalition violence (mainly aerial bombardment), do you hold Iraqi insurgents responsible? This line of argument gets us nowhere.

[GaijinBiker]

Among its many problems, the Lancet study has such a wide margin of error as to be meaningless.

But regardless, there's an issue of intent at work here. The U.S. tries to minimize civillian casualties while helping the Iraqi people create a democractic government. The insurgents try to kill as many civillians as possible while trying to impose another Islamofascist regime.

Therefore, to bring this all back full circle, it seems to me that the war in Iraq has a great deal indeed to do with freedom and democracy, your earlier monosyllabic rebuttal notwithstanding.

[revere]

The supposed debunking of The Lancet article have been discussed ad nauseam at various places. For some links, see here and many other places (e.g., Tim Lambert's Deltoid site). I have read the paper and I am a chronic disease epidemiologist. The contention that the confidence interval (which is a coverage probability) is "too wide" is nonsense. This was a maximum likelihood estimator and the most likely value is the 98,000 cited in the paper. The extremes of the interval are rather unlikely and would happen rarely under a random sampling assumption. Moreover the authors give a good rationale for why their estimate is biased downwards, i.e., the actual number is likely greater than the 98,000 they estimated.

Regarding the insurgents, probably many of them are Baathists (a secular party, as was Saddam), not Islamofascist (do I detect some anti-Islamic prejudice here?) I note that the Iraqi voters elected for an Islamic government and thoroughly rejected Alawi, the semi-secular alternative. Which is their choice, even if it isn't yours.

Finally, regarding my monosyllabic answer. You asked a question (which I gather from your responses to me was really meant to be rhetorical so I needn't have answered at all) and I answered it. You just don't like my answer.

This thread is now closed as we have reached an impasse.