[quote]Randomly gleaned from Pothos' vacuous rant, just for fun
Pothos: "You have yet to give me facts and data relevant to our discussion. When you do give numbers, they don't support the main theme of your argument. For example, you talk about how suicide bombing attacks increased in Iraq. The only thing that proves is that we're at war over there."
Response: and YOU still have to give facts and data period, rather than bla bla bla bla bla bla bla "I am military!" bla bla bala "I know for a fact!" bla bla bla "I know it!" bla bla bla "for a fact!" bla bla bla [/quote]
I did give you the facts. The problem is that you refused to see them for what they were.
I've linked you to information sources that backed what I was saying. I didn't hesitate to remind you of my background and sources. I did this when you unsuccessfully tried to cast doubt on my credibility in this area. The only thing that you've done, with your debate antiques, is to painfully show your ignorance about this war.
You've made an idiot and fool out of yourself. You're arguing with a veteran, yet you've never served a day in uniform. This argument is about Iraq, a place I've deployed to... a place you've never been to.
Understand that your emotions and opinions aren't fact. You need to accept the facts, even if they force you to rethink your opinions.
[quote]FYI, I did not say "the suicide attacks increased". I SHOWED using the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism (another major database whose existence you totally ignored didn't you?) that they were NON-EXISTENT BEFORE the war, but that now that we went there, Iraq has become the country in the world with the HIGHEST number of suicide attacks. [/quote]
No, I didn't ignore that data base. I commented on what I saw in that database. Since you ignored my explanations, I'll use a presentation based on the above source to show you what I'm talking about.
http://jtac.uchicago.edu/conferences/05/resources/pape_formatted%20for%20DTRA.pdf
Suicide terrorism is rising sharply:
3 per year in 1980s
10 per year in 1990s
25+ per year in 2000 - 2001
50 per year in 2002 - 2003
You claim to have a Ph.D. This means that you took sampling and statistics classes. Assuming this is the case, you had to learn about interpreting data.
By logical extension, 2003 and beyond would register a larger amount of suicide bombings.
What these numbers don't show is the events going on behind those numbers.
You're erroneously trying to argue that if we only stopped what we were doing, these terrorist activities would drop. Why, just look at the above numbers!
Those numbers are strongly related to my bee sting analogy from earlier:
Say a bee stings you on Monday. You kill that bee and move on. Then you get stung again on Wednesday. You kill it and think, WTF??? When you get stung again on Friday, you see that you have a bee problem. To solve that problem, you smoke their hive out.
You get stung five times while you smoke them out.
Did you create more bees? Or were the bees reacting to your attacking their colony? YES [ ] NO [ ]
Simply copy and paste the entire analogy, and answers, and place an "X" in the box that represents your reply.
Our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to my beehive analogy. Just as you didn't create more bees, we didn't create more terrorism.
Both are a reaction to someone's going on an offensive against them. This is what's happening behind the numbers.
Whether homicide attacks existed in Iraq before the invasion or not is beside the point. It also misses the true nature of the war that we're involved with. We're involved with asymmetrical warfare.
This brings the Salman Pak terror training camp in Iraq into play.
[quote]Great performance indeed. A REAL progress!
Also, about this: "Your data shows that we're at war, but it doesn't prove anything about whether we're losing or not, or whether we're winning or not."
Dude, if the events, developments, and trends of the last four + years have not convinced you yet, then keep your head buried in your ass shouting "Can't see no civil war going on here!".
By the way, did you see they captured U.S. troops (seems the surge is really NOT protecting anybody these days) and apparently broke another death toll record? What was it today? 123 dead and scores injured?
"The surge is going to make the Iraqis safer!" Oh yeah. Sure it does. [/quote]
And I stand by that statement. Your data only proves that we're at war. You quote an article that talks about our troops being captured only illustrate that.
Yes, I've been abreast of operations in Iraq over those years. I've had access to information sources that you'll never have access to. There's also information out there that you and the mainstream media ignore. This information indicates that we've been winning over there.
I've quoted some of them in our debates. These are the facts that contribute to my Iraq War assessment.
All the facts indicate that we're winning. You're emphasizing and arguing cherry picked bad news from Iraq. You're erroneously canvassing the entire campaign on those few select data.
That's irresponsible at best, intellectual dishonesty at worst.
You're twisting the argument. You're making this about the surge making every Iraqi safer. I've argued that it'd make it relatively safer in Iraq. I didn't argue that it'd guarantee that nobody would get hurt. Expecting our efforts to prevent every single Iraqi from suffering harm is very unrealistic.
Our police forces, here in the United States, can't guarantee safety to every single American Citizen.
You're utilizing a strawman argument when you use the captured troops to argue against our success.
Let's look at the death toll. In 2004, 2005, and 2006, we reached our death mile stones at approximately the same time of the year. That same time rolled around in 2007 without our reaching that milestone. That didn't happen till later this year.
That's mathematical proof that the casualty rate has slowed down; hence one of the surge's successes.
Again, notice how the media barely mentions Iraq?
The media is extremely biased to the left. It'll kill them to report what's really going in Iraq. To do so would put President Bush in the best light. It'll do so in a way that vindicates him against his detractors.
They're too busy trying to undermine the administration and the United States Military.
The media knows that if people got the facts about the Middle East... if the media knew the true nature of the threat we face, and why we have to do in Iraq what we've been doing... then the media's task of forcing us to surrender to the terrorists becomes impossible.
Kind of hard to sucker more people into turning against the war when we're really showing signs of prevailing, isn't it?
Here's a simple way to show you how ridiculous your arguments are.
Over the past 100 years, we've had more and more people die in this country. Yet, we're a lot more advanced now... We've accomplished more now than what we did 100 years ago.
Throughout those 100 years, our police fought gun battles against the mafia, gangs and other criminals.
Using your line of reasoning, those facts indicate that the U.S. "didn't" make any progress.
You're going crazy bringing up every bad news you could bring up. You're using that to canvas the entire country. Never mind that for every bad event that goes on there, 10 to 50 good events took place.
Simply put, Iraq is progressing despite your "arguments."
Also, there never was a civil war in that country. People who've combat deployed there have repeatedly verified that.
Your statement is like saying that the U.S. is currently in a "civil war," because of our gang conflicts.
Updated to add:
Shortly after you said the above, our death rate stabilized then slowed down. Had we maintained the old death rate, it would've been up to 8,000 deaths. It's nowhere near that.
We won with a straight cut victory, and the surge played a major role in that victory. If what I saw there constituted a "civil war," then we're involved in a civil war in the US. Take a look outside your window. That's a good example of what you'd see in Iraq most the time today.
I'm right, you're wrong. The facts support my argument. I didn't see the Iraq that you talked about. Your description didn't even come close.
[quote]Good news is soon, with all this killing (amazing isn't it it has been going on for 4 years uninterrupted, in its 5th year now, and they STILL have people to kill there), and with the massive displacement of people (4 millions and rising), soon there won't be many more left there to slaughter. That itself should bring down those figures, after which you can claim "Hurrah! We won! The figures have decreased!" (won't even mention even if that happens durably it won't prove anything since the root causes of terrorism will still be there and the figures can always go up anytime as they have done in the past. Highs and lows, you know.) [/quote]
Response revised in 2008:
Time proved you wrong, didn't it?
Let's take this a step at a time. The rate of troop casualties tremendously declined since you made that statement. The displacements you're talking about? They've reversed, on both ends.
It used to be that the other countries had to deal with an influx of Iraqi refugees.
Now, those refugees are coming back in large numbers. Instead of expecting a large rush from Iraq, the other countries aren't seeing something different from what they'd see coming from other countries.
The Iraqis, on the other hand, are seeing large numbers of Iraqis coming back to Iraq.
Want to understand terrorism's root causes? Pay attention to what people in that region say. I'm talking about the radical Islamists and their speeches.
Even if we did everything that you say we should do, terrorism would still exist. Even if we did everything the terrorists say we should do with regards to Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, we'd still be dealing with terrorism.
What we describe as terrorism, is what some martyr wannabe would describe as killing as many of the infidels as possible in the name of Allah.
Bin Laden said it, one of the things that we'd have to do to stop the attacks against us is to convert to Islam.
[quote]And if they don't--after all Petraeus himself has recognized the overall violence in Iraq remains the same and I don't see it going down these days--well, try a little artifice and spin. You know, like the Bush administration has been doing, not counting the car bombs and explosives to under report the casualties? [/quote]
Response updated in 2008:
Your quote is a perfect example of spin.
Overall violence didn't go down in the short run, but it went down in the long run. Even as he said that, certain types of fatalities declined. As I've argued earlier, when you made this same point earlier, there was a net decrease in loss in life.
There was the same amount of violence, but it didn't lead to as much deaths as before. Advance the clock in time and notice how the surge shows signs of progress. We have a drastic decrease of violence.
You referenced their "not counting" the bombs and explosives to under report the casualties.
That was both a lie and deliberate spin.
Bush talked about homicide bomber efforts to prevent us from achieving our goals. His statement indicated that no matter what they did, we'll continue on until we accomplish our objectives.
President Bush was right. Despite all the bombings they conducted, we're further along with accomplishing our goals now than we were when they carried those acts out.
What did he really meant when he said that their actions doesn't "matter," or doesn't "count"? He was saying that no matter what they did, they won't accomplish their objectives.
Don't you love how time proved me right and you wrong?
Updated to Add:
I recently combat deployed to Iraq. The only mass movement of people I saw was Iraqis making pilgrimages. The massive refugee problem that you talked about isn't there. When I was in Iraq, most people went about their lives. They're embracing our objectives for them, and are westernizing at an exponential rate.
Also, it spoke volumes when the Iraqis honked at us, positively, during our dismounted patrols.
Iraq wasn't involved in a civil war when I was there.
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