In recent comments the discussion turned to an article written by Madeleine Bunting and published in The Guardian. Bunting writes "thousands of women and children are dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet the governments responsible have been returned to power." So the governments in power are responsible for the deaths of women and children and not the suicide bombers and terrorists who intentionally murder innocents in an attempt to defeat those governments. Not only that - apparently WE the people who elected those governments are also responsible, and the media is responsible. I could not read the entire article yesterday, so I should add here that Bunting does make some good points, and she offers this disclaimer about the female suicide bomber she writes about: "That's not to say that her own moral choices were defensible - she blew up herself, her beloved brother, fellow Muslims and plenty of women in the crowd - but the challenge even from such a morally flawed character persists." The "challenge" she refers to is the claim by the bomber that we think that we are innocent, but we are not, because we have "chosen to forget". Really? Chosen to forget? We and the media may have become desensitized to the daily violence in Iraq, but we have not chosen to forget. Her claim is an insult to the well-intentioned bloggers and commentators who have passionately written about the war in Iraq.
Bunting goes on to write about Dahr Jamail and his new book. I have read Jamail before and I have become familiar with his seemingly one-sided view of Iraq. I wanted to give an example of Jamail's bias, so I visited his website and immediately I found a telling sentence on his 'reports' section of his site: "Dahr Jamail was the primary contributor to this report concerning the failure of Bechtel to reconstruct/rehabilitate the water treatment plants it mentioned in its contract." WOW. According to Jamail, Bechtel "failed" to reconstruct/rehabilitate the Iraqi water treatment plants, as if Bechtel was somehow negligent and intentionally breached their contractual obligations. Jamail does not mention that 52 Bechtel employees (many of them Iraqi) were murdered by the glorious "resistance" and other criminals.
Jamail did not include in his report or his website the fact that "Bechtel's hospital site security manager was murdered. The site manager received death threats and resigned. Bechtel's senior Iraqi engineer quit after his daughter was kidnapped. Twelve employees of a subcontractor in charge of the hospital's electricity and plumbing were killed in their offices. Eleven workers of another company supplying the project's concrete also died."
Jamail does worry about the poor people of Iraq and his report states that "if the security threat is too great in some places for Bechtel to carry out its contractual obligations for water service reconstruction, the work must be immediately subcontracted out to Iraqi firms and/or government workers and international aid organizations, or military protection sought." No mention that Bechtel DID subcontract the work to Iraqis. No mention that many of those Iraqis were murdered. Does Jamail realize that insurgents have not allowed reconstruction to happen so that the new Iraq will fail? Is this fact so difficult to acknowledge? Or does Jamail agree with the insurgents and their tactics? His report was written before Bechtel left Iraq. Why hasn't Jamail updated his website to put at least some blame where it actually belongs? If I were one of those Iraqis hired by Bechtel, I would be very angry with Dahr Jamail and people who blame contractors for their "failure" to rehabilitate Iraq.
IT is whispered about at the margins of meetings, and discussed in Washington parties where rumour is passed around with the wine and canapes.
It even appears, fleetingly, to be fact.
"The day nobody died from violence in Iraq" is a date that has been much anticipated in the White House - where US President George W. Bush is desperate to hail the success of his surge of 30,000 troops this year.
But no one can quite say when this event occurred.
"It was some time this week, wasn't it?" says a senior military source. "Or maybe last week."
Another diplomatic official confidently asserted that there were "at least two such days this month". When, exactly? "Not sure," he replied.
Such vagueness may be concealing a truly significant transformation on the ground in Iraq.
There have certainly been several days in the past month when no US or British soldiers were killed.
During a five-day stretch between October 19 and 23, there were no deaths among coalition forces. Although three US servicemen died from "non-hostile causes", this was the longest period without combat deaths for almost four years. And, between October 27 and 29, there were more days without coalition deaths.
Such statistics do not take account of deaths among the Iraqi security forces or civilians. But Iraqis, too, have had days when no one in their ranks has died. On October 13, for instance, neither the coalition nor the Iraqi military suffered any deaths. But one Iraqi policeman was killed, along with four reported civilian deaths in Baghdad.
Two days later, there were no deaths among the coalition but six among the Iraqi security forces.
October 19 was a death-free day for both coalition and Iraqi security forces, but 12 civilians were killed.
The civilian death toll was lower on October 23 - when four were killed - but they were joined in the mortuaries by two Iraqi policemen.
On October 30, the Iraq Interior Ministry reported that there were no civilian deaths in Baghdad but three US troops and four Iraqi policemen were killed.
It is beyond dispute, though, that the tide of violence in Iraq has been stemmed. (Maybe Dahr Jamail will dispute it)
