IRAQI ANTI-WAR FABLES DEBUNKED

Post below lifted from Dan Mandel

When war against Saddam's Iraq was proposed in 2002, a key component of the opponents’ case was to assert that dismantling Saddam’s regime would bring more death and destabilization than leaving him in place. When the anticipated disaster failed to materialise, critics spoke of Iraqis loathing the uncertainties of life and death today to the certitudes of life and death under Saddam. With the on-going terrorist insurgency producing death in Iraq and disenchantment in America, both claims came back in vogue. Critics now spoke of greater humanitarian disaster, citing the figure 650,000 Iraqi dead since Saddam’s ouster on 20 March 2003 published by the Lancet journal last October and polls showing Iraqis believing themselves worse off today than under Saddam.

Facts however have again intruded. The Times (London) recently showed that the Lancet estimate was tenfold in excess of all other surveys; was produced by partisan figures using dubious extrapolations rather than body counting; included unexplained anomalies (such as an admitted two-thirds drop in the number of child deaths since Saddam’s overthrow) and was also found to be wanting by an array of experts on methodological grounds. The debunking is important, as the Lancet figure’s significance lies in the fact that, if believed, a key element in the case for removing Saddam – the humanitarian imperative – would be seen to have collapsed.

As to the views of Iraqis, questioned four years later as to whether they preferred life under Saddam to the present, a poll published on 18 March by Britain’s Opinion Research Business found that 49% of those questioned did not, while only 26% did. Also, Baghdadis’ sense of security has risen in tandem with the troop surge, according to the 400 interviewers who spoke to 5019 adult Iraqis – an index of the importance of American efforts via the troop surge to end the sense of rigidity and drift that had been increasingly characterizing the Bush Administration policy to date. Whether the surge and its attendant new strategies are adequate to the task remains to be seen.

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A great anniversary

Post below lifted from Elder of Ziyon. I do incidentally like that blog title: "Elder of Ziyon". It is of course a mockery of that stupid old antisemitic tract "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". The blog title probably freaks a few of the crazies. To them it would PROVE the reality of their fears

For some reason, when PalArab terrorists are not as successful as they like to be at killing Jews, the world tends to ascribe peaceful motives to them. There is a good reason for this: to say that Israeli defensive actions are saving Israeli lives would justify them, and no one wants Israel to have any justification for any defensive moves.

In fact, every single Israeli action designed to save Israeli lives is roundly criticized: building a fence, pro-actively targeting terrorists, disrupting terror infrastructures, stopping tax payments to terrorists - all have come under withering condemnation.

Which brings us to today. Today is the third anniversary of Israel's wiping out Hamas uber-terrorist, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Only a week before, there was a suicide bombing at an Ashdod chemical plant that killed 10 and that was intended to blow up the plant and kill untold hundreds of Israelis. Yassin taunted Israel at the time, saying that their reaction to that attack was weak and that Hamas was gaining strength.

Those who complain about Israeli actions always say that Israel is acting in ways that cannot be justified. Here are some of the reactions to Yassin's assassination:

The killing provoked widespread condemnation from the international community. Kofi Annan, UN General secretary, strongly condemned the killing and also called on Israel to halt its policy of assassination. The UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution condemning the killing supported by votes from 31 countries including the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa with 2 votes against and 18 abstentions. The Arab League council also expressed condemnation, as did the African Union.

Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, said: "All of us understand Israel's need to protect itself - and it is fully entitled to do that - against the terrorism which affects it, within international law. But it is not entitled to go in for this kind of unlawful killing and we condemn it. It is unacceptable, it is unjustified and it is very unlikely to achieve its objectives."

The White House equivocally condemned the action. Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, said, "We are deeply troubled by this morning's incident," but he added, "Israel had the right to defend itself" and stressed that Yassin had been "personally involved in terrorism". A State Department spokesman said: "This does not help efforts to resume progress towards peace."

Well, here's your justification: In the three years prior to Yassin's death, approximately 800 Israelis were killed in terror actions. In the three years since, that number has plummeted to about 110.

The way to eliminate terror is to go after it. Israel's assassination of Yassin was part of a series of actions that reduced the threat to Israelis and caused the terrorists to spend more time hiding and less time attacking. In hindsight, it is clear that the condemnations of Israel were wrong and that, then and now, Israel's actions to defend her citizens are not only justified, but obligatory.

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ELSEWHERE

The Congressional Democrats are making a big fuss at the moment about the firing of 8 U.S. prosecutors by Attorney General Gonzales. They say they smell a rat in it. I have been covering the matter mainly on my Immigration Watch blog and it now seems clear that I was right to do so. The firing was apparently part of a generally stepped-up recent effort by the Bush administration to enforce the immigration laws. The crackdown has never been publicly announced because to do so would be to admit that enforcement had been neglected up to that point. To follow the matter on my Immigration Watch blog go here, here and here in that order. So the Democrats are just defending part of their criminal clientele -- as usual.

INSA Pressuring the FBI to Cancel Meeting with Robert Spencer : "The Muslim Brotherhood front group, The Islamic Society of North America (INSA) is pressuring the FBI to cancel having Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org from speaking to their agents. Unfortunately it may be working. Mr. Spencer is one of the most qualified individuals to inform FBI agents on the threat of Muslim terrorists. Obviously, the INSA and other groups such as CAIR are aware of this, and will put pressure on the FBI to cancel under the guise of Islamophobia."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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