I might actually support the mission in Iraq IF...

[Diamond Cross]

Yes, there are people dieing. But you might also want to take a look at this good stuff that is happening. much of it is happening for the first time since Saddam has been removed, and was completely impossible under his reign:

"Never forget that the news media in the USA lives off bad news not good news.

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you.

This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.

* School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.

* Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.

* The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.

* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.

* Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.

* The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

* 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.

* Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.

* Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

* Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.

* Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.

* Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side w! ith US soldiers.

* Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.

* Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

* An interim constitution has been signed.

* Girls are allowed to attend school.

* Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.


Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening."

Mine:

No more do they have to worry about things like political imprisonment nor legalised rape gangs.

So now youu have to ask yourself why won't the mainstreammedia tell you about this stuff? This is good stuff that is happening for these people. Yet, all the mainstream media focuses on is the fighting between the terrorists and American soldiers, of which the majority believe they are doing a good thing over there.

The answer, of course, is media bias. Before Operation Iraqi Freedom, it was bipartisan belief that Saddam must be taken out and put on trial for his crimes against humanity, mass graves of Kurds and Shi'a Muslims and other civilians.

This is one reason why I hate partisan politics to no end.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Mine:

No more do they have to worry about things like political imprisonment nor legalised rape gangs.

ya that's why we find 50-60 tortured, mutilated, murdered bodies every day around Bagdhad from roaming death squads fighting a civil war

[DosEquis]

While all that is lovely it is not the principle reason why we went to war with that country. Nobody argues that Saddam wasn't a bad guy. It didn't matter when we put him in power, it didn't matter when we supplied him with weapons and money, and suddenly it matters when he doesn't support our agenda anymore.

I agree that sometimes we focus on the bad a little to often, however to ignore the bad and only focus on the good is equally as ignorant.

It doesn't matter how many schools we paint and how many hours they have electricity if their people elect a radical government who are sympathetic to Hezbullah and other terrorists. It doesn't gain us anything.

In the mean time I believe we went because of this group PNAC and their members being elected to high ranking offices within our government. They used 9/11 as a catalyst to start a war that has nothing to do with 9/11.

[Diamond Cross]

Except that the media has been focusing only on the bad and not reporting on any good that has been done.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Except that the media has been focusing only on the bad and not reporting on any good that has been done.

It's ok. The Administration talks about it nearly everyday and the media covers that.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.

* School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.

* Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.

* The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.

* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.

* Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.

* The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

* 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.

* Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.

* Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

* Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.

* Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.

* Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side w! ith US soldiers.

* Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.

* Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

* An interim constitution has been signed.

* Girls are allowed to attend school.

* Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

I don't care about the vast majority of that shit. I don't think it's my country's job to worry about school attendance in Iraq or how well staffed their hospitals are. The only thing I care about there is security...that the country is not in a civil war which will lead to it being turned into an islamist shithole. If those things aren't in place, the rest is irrelevant insofar as it affects America and our security.

I don't blame the media for not reporting on that other stuff. It would be like the media not reporting how Enron employees got free lunch and a couple gift certificates on the way out.

[avsp]

[edit to add] Reynolds' email is years old anyway & if the electricty production figure were true then it just serves to shows the difficulty of maintaining any progress anyway. And much of this post just demonstrates my stupidity. Perhaps looking at the pre-war figures, the figures when Reynolds originally wrote this & the figures now would serve to show where progress has been made [/edit]

Firstly, there are those here who I believe have worked helping the reconstruction of Iraq & I'd like to express my gratitude & appreciation of their efforts & more power to their elbows etc

Secondly the media's ability to report from Iraq is severely limited by the security situation. Equally they tend to focus on the sensational & those stories with dramatic pictures etc. There may very well be a case for claiming that the 'good' is under-reported, ..., but then stats are seen as fairly dull by most of the media consuming western population. To what extent this last point is the medias fault is debatable.

Without getting overly into 'lies, damn lies & statistics' arguments I'd like to dispute some of the figures quoted &/or point out some possible instances of spin. Stats in Iraq are extremely problematic but I've used the data that is provided by the US govt in most cases & in others Saban Institute for ME Policy, (which largely uses the same data).

It is not my intention to belittle the efforts & progress in reconstruction merely to point out the difficulties

* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.

Figures are usually given in millions of barrels of oil per day. The figure for August 06 was 1.68, with the best will in the world this doesnt equal 2 billion for the month. Also the August figure is identical with Julys.

Perhaps the figures are for annual exports
2,000/365 = 5.48
or 5. 48 millions of barrels per day

The highest monthly average figure I can see is 1.825 millions of barrels per day for March 04

The stated PRODUCTION aim of the Iraqi govt is 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, Estimates for Septembers PRODUCTION are just below that.
Estimates of pre-war EXPORT figures are 1.7 - 2.5 mbpd

[edit to add] Perhaps Reynolds meant the export of the 2 billionth barrel of oil exported since the regime fell occured in August, ..., but if so why did he word the notion in the way that he did? Also what would be the significance of such a stat anyway? What matters is the rate of increase in the rate of production/export. Admittedly its the kind of stat that the media could have reported & possibly didnt [/edit]

* The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.

The estimated daily total load served pre-war is just below 100,000 MWh

In the period 1 Jan 04 to 13 Sept 06 the supplied figure has never exceeded 120,000 MWh

Also note that according to the US State dept
"During the week of September 6-12, electricity availability averaged 5.9 hours per day in Baghdad and 10.4 hours nationwide. Electricity output for the week was 8% below the same period in 2005."

* Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

Werent they also taught this during Saddams reign?

* Girls are allowed to attend school.

Were females forbidden to attend school in Saddams reign?
In parts of Iraq do fundmantlist militias intimidate females attending school?

There are other things that I'd dispute or query but I'm constricted by the libraries computers etc

I'd like to point out that the oil production figures show the difficulty in maintaining the increase in production. Also numerous news stories & blog reports about oil smuggling & the inability to get truely accurate figures, ..., so there may be 2 billion barrels of oil per year being produced but not all the money isnt going to the Iraqi state.


Oil - http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf page 29
Electricity - http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/72417.pdf page 13

Please point out any maths errors I may have made. I've not slept for a few days & I'm very caffine 'wired'

[thatguyoverthere]

Sorry, but I'm gonna need more than a cut and paste of an old and anonymous forwarded e-mail to gauge the accuracy of reports of good news and progress in Iraq. If anyone has some links to actual accounts of good news in Iraq, I'd be very curious to read it!

Can you imagine getting an average of 10 hours of electricity a day? No a/c, no fridge, no fans, no tv, no computer. And you can't go outside because of the death squads roaming the streets. Some progress.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* Girls are allowed to attend school.

Girls were allowed to attend school in Saddam's Iraq, they were able to own land, property, and even governmental jobs.. so where your cut & paste gets the idea that them being allowed to go to school is something new is beyond me.

Also, it should be noted that the schools during Saddam were secular schools, and now there's a wide range of religious schools that teach mainly Islam.

It should also be noted that conditions are far worse for women now generally speaking than they were under Saddam thanks to the country no longer being a secular state. Women are now subjugated to Islamic law in many parts of Iraq and no longer able to live their lives as they were during Saddam.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
* Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
* Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side w! ith US soldiers.

Unfortunately, meaningless. The police can't control the violence, and the soldiers are unable to do anything without our troops.

In the civil war, there is even evidence that the insurgency is infiltrating the various forces to gain access to weapons and training so they can better fight us.

There's also evidence that certain sections of the police/soldiers are participating in the civil war, yanking people out of their cars if they like the wrong flavor of Islam.

There's no indication that is going to change when they can't even secure their own bases from being looted.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* An interim constitution has been signed.
* Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.

While nice that they're able to vote, this Government is impotent to stop the massive increase in violence we've seen this year. It's DOUBLED since Jan, and has no signs of slowing down.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.

Oil that was supposed to be offsetting the cost to the American people for this war.. which we were promised.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.
* Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
* Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.

Well, the eletricity statistic is just false. It's been well documented that there is less access to water, sewage, and eletricity than before the war.. we've failed dismally to even get it up to pre-war standards.

They're averaging less than 12 hours a day in Baghdad, and that's where we have our coveted green zone.. where things are supposed to be the best.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.

Did you hear that now the militias and even some security forces are going into hospitals and ripping people out of their beds and shooting them in the head in this civil war?

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.
* Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.

Do you think it's worth it to invade a country that poses no threat to ours, and to sacrifice American lives to teach kids hand washing techniques and give them some shots?

I sure don't.

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Except that the media has been focusing only on the bad and not reporting on any good that has been done.

Maybe because the bad drastically outweighs what little "good" has been accomplished?

We've left that country in disarray any way you want to look at it.

Less electricity, less water, less basic services. There's a civil war going on, they risk their lives daily going to the market because of our failures to secure the country adequately with the right number of troops.

While it's nice that there are a few good things going on, most of them are highly unimportant when you compare them to the ongoing violence in that country.