June 25, 2006

Top Dem’s Comments are Approaching Self-Satire

What does the average person make of a headline like this, from the Arizona Daily Star?

Murtha says U.S. poses top threat to world peace

MIAMI - American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to an audience of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.

Perhaps at some time in the past, similar statements could be excused for being a bit over the top, as a way to get attention. But it's gotten to the point now when statements like this are just ludicrous. Surely many people read reports like this and think, A, The Dems are making no sense, and B, the Dems are no friends to America.

LA TIMES: Iraq Death Toll is Page 1; Terrorists as the Cause of it is Page A29

"War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000," shouts the front page of the LA Times today. In the very first paragraph, the Times lays this death toll at the door of the Bush administration:

BAGHDAD - At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies - a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration.

You have to turn to page A29, and wade through 7 paragraphs, to find out that the death toll is overwhelmingly due to terrorists, not to our troops:

At the Baghdad morgue, the vast majority of bodies processed had been shot execution-style. Many showed signs of torture - drill holes, burns, missing eyes and limbs, officials said. Others had been strangled, beheaded, stabbed or beaten to death.

The morgue records show a predominantly civilian toll; the hospital records gathered by the Health Ministry do not distinguish between civilians, combatants and security forces.

But Health Ministry records do differentiate causes of death. Almost 75% of those who died violently were killed in "terrorist acts," typically bombings, the records show.

You'd never know from this article that there were a similar number of civilian deaths under Saddam - with no drive toward freedom and Democracy:

...under Saddam's rule, the death toll [included] 600,000 civilian executions recorded by the Documental Center for Human Rights, and the 100,000 Kurds killed during the Anfal operation. A violent day under the coalition would be just a routine day under Saddam.

The article is slanted as an attack on Bush, and you'd think from the article that if the U.S. left Iraq, the death count would cease. But the article shows that the vast majority of civilian deaths are due to terrorists. If the U.S. left Iraq it would leave the terrorists in place to assert their dominance via a bloodbath.

The only chance the Iraqi people have of putting an end to this death toll, is for the U.S. to stay in place and, with the Iraqi army, finish the job of eradicating the terrorists.

It is unacceptable for the LA Times to print such a slanted story, which tries to hide the fact that it's the terrorists who are responsible for all this killing, in the very month when U.S. operations have arrested or killed hundreds of those very terrorists.

I have little to add here to the fantastic analysis of the actions of the NY Times and LA Times in yet again revealing state secrets that were helping the U.S. fight the terrorists. Here's a list of links:

• Austin Bay.
• The Weekly Standard.
• Patterico. 
• Hugh Hewitt, with links to many others.