George W. Bush is ...

... a technical virgin.

 

No.

 

Good call, Notredameus.

 

;D

 

Respect the position?

W doesn't.

He and his cronies think it entitles him to run over congress.

Bullsheet.

 

Knighthawk - the Iraq Body Count site is respected by whom exactly? Correct me if I'm wrong but the guy who runs the site is a male professor of women's studies from New Hampshire who keeps his "count" via newspaper reports and of course those newspaper reports he reads have to be spot on in their accuracy - right? Half a world away reading the paper - yeah excellent source.

The info you linked to said the majority of infant deaths are now happening right after death - under Hussein the number of infant deaths under 5 was much greater because he was killing them or starving them (the Oil for Food money via the United Nations was supposed to feed people but instead it went to bribes, Palaces and weapons). Infant morality for kids under 5 is much lower today than under Saddam Hussein.

 

Knighthawk - I just checked the current infant mortality rate and it is listed as 48.64 /1,000 (as of 7/20/06). That puts Iraq at almost exactly the world average.

It also means that if you are to believe your own posts that it is a 61% reduction from your 125/1000 pre-war figure.

 

Wasn't asking you. Had to write you off, since your equation goes like this -- Middle East actions of former presidents = preemptive war by this president.

I was casting about for a more logical POV. Didn't mean to disturb you.

 

I think you're gonna need more line.

 

We weren't told that we were invading Iraq to set off a tidal wave of democracy -- we did it because we were told that the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.

If they had been honest with the American people, that the idea had always been to defeat a fragile Saddam and show the rest of the region how good they could have it, then maybe I could have been supportive of the war. Instead, this administration lied to the people, despicably using 9/11 as the wool to pull over our eyes. They let OBL go free while rushing into Iraq without enough troops.

And when it didn't go as well as they thought, they started with this "history will be our judge" nonsense.

I am a slightly left-leaning moderate, and I have nothing but contempt for nearly every major decision which this administration has made.

 

Lou, again you're just completely dishonest.

No one is agruing that Saddam's policies were good. But if you're seriously arguing that Shrub will be judged well because he marginally brought down the death rate in Iraq from the peak of Saddam's brutality and a worldwide embargo, by all means, go ahead.

With friends like you, he doesn't need any more enemies.

 

Zeke - the problem with your point of view is that you like to believe that Iraq did not exist prior to the US invading in 2003. You say nobody is arguing that Saddam's policies were good but at the same time you argue that invading was a huge mistake. Sorry but the only thing to infer from that is that you would rather still have Saddam Hussein in power.

Now I'm assuming you'll come back all indigant and say that's not the case - that you dislike facist dictators as much as the next guy but that still does not change the fact that your point of view at its core wishes Saddam Hussein was still in power and that the invasion never took place. You can't have one without the other.

Most people in your shoes also neglect the fact that the US military was already engaged in Iraq enforcing a Northern and Southern no-fly zone. This was costing the US more than $2 billion a year plus a number of military deaths with no end in sight.