“If you look at what’s transpired in Iraq, Chris, we’ve made enormous progress.”
US Vice President Dick Cheney, Fox News interview, January 14th, 2007.
A visual depiction of the continuing human cost of the Iraq war,
by Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and Alicia Cheng. From the NYT.
In January more than 1,900 people—soldiers, security officers and civilians—were killed in the insurgency in Iraq, up from 800 in January 2006. Many corpses showed signs of torture, meaning the victims were probably killed by religious and tribal death squads. This map, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and from news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year. Given the vast size of Iraq and the communications difficulties inherent in war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.
Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a doctoral student in political science at Columbia.
Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.
Update: Seems like The Independent was taken with this as well.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Liberty 2006
Reminds me of the joke about
“the operation was a great success but the patient died”
Indeed, rather like that quote from an army major during the Vietnam war: “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”
The chart reminds me of the swimming pools filled with blood in Brought to Light?another way of trying to show the scale of human tragedy beyond the abstraction of numbers.
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” – President Merkin Muffley
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/quotes
Hmm…. Merkin Muffley’s name was composed of two euphemisms for the female pudena. “Bush” just happens to be another one.
Notice that the loudest idiots that complain about the war have never actually been in one.
You gotta love liberals. They will defend freedom in a free country, but you won’t ever catch them defending women’s rights in Afghanistan or China.
You won’t ever catch a liberal in any dangerous part of the world, but you will catch them being sofa generals and tacticians on the internet.
Criticize Bush and Cheney all you want, but at least they are trying to do something. Even if it is wrong which NO ONE REALLY KNOWS, at least they are actually doing something along with the brave men and women out there.
Liberals are cowards. Sitting at home criticizing everything and doing. what??? What do liberals do???
oh yes.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
When was the last time an idiot liberal stood firm in Iraq to defend a family or helped out villagers in Afghanistan fight the Taliban.
Yeah, like never.
To all you complainers. Go screw yourselves. You are losers who love to hold signs full of empty words and insults.
Try fighting for people’s rights in China.
better yet, get out of the COFFEE SHOP and go fight in some foreign land to help oppressed people.
oh, that would be asking too much.
It is so much easier for you to be a pretend intellectual who thinks they know everything in the world.
MORONS. THAT’S YOU. MORON.
Yes, criticize me as well for pointing out what hypocritical pieces of cowardly crap you are.
Hmm, okay.
First of all, the obvious point to make is that I’m posting things here under my own name, Mr Anonymous; the makers of that NYT graphic did the same. People who post without a name on Slashdot.org have their entries labelled as coming from “Anonymous Coward”. Ironic, eh? As it happens WordPress logs the IPs of anyone who comments in order to track spam and abuse, so I know that you’re an American (no surprise there…) using a Comcast account.
Second point: Some Americans these days seem to think that stating facts is cowardly. Is that chart above incorrect? Or does “the truth have a liberal bias”?
Third point: As far as being an armchair general goes, look no further than Dick Cheney who received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_cheney#Cheney_and_the_draft
We know that Bush avoided active service also. Yet they’re happy to send men and women off to fight in a pointless and destructive war.
Fourth point: The Iraq veterans at Votevets.org think the war is pointless and destructive as well. They’ve been campaigning recently against Bush’s intended troop escalation. Maybe they’re all cowards as well?
http://www.votevets.org/
Final point: “Liberal” isn’t a term of abuse in the UK so you’ll have to try harder on that score.
An addendum to my comments above, from today’s Washington Post:
“When Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of “aiding the enemy,” the Democratic senators gathered around him yesterday did not wince. Nor did Democrats object when Soltz, the chairman of a group called VoteVets.org, called President Bush and Vice President Cheney “draft dodgers.”
(snip)
“In several news conferences, Soltz accused McConnell of “aiding the enemy” by allowing the Bush administration to build up troops in Iraq at the expense of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. “We are not fighting the war on terrorism, we are in the middle of a civil war,” he said, referring to Iraq. “Meanwhile, the guy who attacked this country on 9/11 is living in a cave in Afghanistan.”
“Soltz called Cheney a “draft dodger,” repeating charges he made last month when he disparaged a “president who frankly knows nothing of war and a vice president who knows even less.” He said: “Senators on the fence have a choice. They can stand with veterans like us, or they can stand with the draft dodgers down the road.””
Full article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702317.html
Conservative, a coward is a coward. For “You Are Cowards” what the hell are B$sh and 5 deferment Cheney trying to do?? This war right or wrong ,if you’re going to fight it, fight the damn thing right!!! These 2 draft dodging cowards can’t even do that!!! What the hell do you mean at least they’re trying to do something? What does that mean? Are you trying to tell me that anyone gets credibility or patriotism stamp to their name just because they send somebody to war???????????????????????????????? Mr. “You Are Cowards” do you know who one of the biggest representatives of the patriotic Rep. part is???????????? Why, it’s none other than has been rocker and America’s “Ultimate Coward” Ted no nuts Nugent. You know no nuts don’t you Mr. “You Are Cowards”? He admitted in the Detroit Free Press (July 15, 1990) to urinating and defecating in his pants for an entire week to avoid service to his country during the Vietnam War. Now he earns as much as $30,000 a night preaching around the country about free speech, patriotism and his respect for veterans. This while the true American warriors are languishing in veteran?s hospitals without a pot to piss in. True American Warriors who are suffering nearly 40 years later from the very war that the coward Nugent ran from. Nugent by the way Mr. “You Are Cowards” is a very good friend of Cheneys and B$sh – I say “Birds of a feather flock together”!!!!!!!!!!!