Say Anything Blog

God willing and the Creek don’t rise.

I read the article, and it didn’t say how many hours of electricity they have every day at this time.  It could be anything up to 23 hours.  Nothing like dishonesty.  It also only covers Baghdad, where the terrorist activity is most intense.  I wouldn’t push myself to provide them with electricity until they learned to stop killing people at random.  No word about the electricity in the rest of Iraq.  This article raises more questions than it answers, which is typical for a hitpiece.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

How long did it take to electrify all of the US?  It’s not like Iraq had 100% power before we got there:

Every day in Iraq we see successes of the United States ... essential services where in many places there were none before, and 75 percent of the country has twice as much power as it had before the war.

Saddam had over two decades to pound that country into the stone ages.  Why do you expect, Mike, that we’d be able to turn Baghdad into Cincinnati overnight?

I mean, what’s your point?  WE can’t get all the power on tomorrow so let’s bring all our troops home and abandon the government we helped install so that they have to fight the proxy warriors sent to topple it by Syria and Iran on their own?

What a dumb, cynical way to look at the situation.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob

Saddam had over two decades to pound that country into the stone ages

They had electricity back in the stone age?

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

They had less electricity under Saddam than they do now.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Why do you expect, Mike, that we’d be able to turn Baghdad into Cincinnati overnight?

WE can’t get all the power on tomorrow so let’s bring all our troops home and abandon the government we helped install so that they have to fight the proxy warriors sent to topple it by Syria and Iran on their own?

What a dumb, cynical way to look at the situation.

Geez...grumpy much? I think that 10 years is a long time to go without a full day of electricity in a nation’s major city. I take my good Iraqi news whenever it comes along and I suggest you do the same...at least there is a target date for power restoration.

r108...the briefing said that Baghad has significantly less power now than before while the rest of Iraq is faring better than Baghdad and in some cases better than pre-Saddam. The situation could be better but at least they’re moving in the right direction.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

r108...the briefing said that Baghad has significantly less power now than before while the rest of Iraq is faring better than Baghdad and in some cases better than pre-Saddam. The situation could be better but at least they’re moving in the right direction.

The reports I have read say the same thing, Mike, which is why I referred to the article upon which you based your article as a “hitpiece”.  It was definitely misleading.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

robert108

They had less electricity under Saddam than they do now

According to the Brookings Institute report, nation wide prewar output was 3,958 megawatts as opposed to 3,570 megawatts in January, 2007.
But of course this report is not reliable for it has not been approved by the Limbaugh Institute of Bullshit.

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

MD: Instead of worshipping a “source” that is as biased as you are, why not find out for yourself?  You might learn something, if you are interested in that.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

Mark D- : Sounds like you’ve got your own Institute of Bullshit going! What’s with the Limbaugh envy? Has your Bush Derangement Syndrome branched out to encompass Rush as well?

U.S. Army Sgt. Frank Pellegrini wrote in Oct ‘06:

“Nine of the transmission lines bringing power into Baghdad have been interdicted. Blown up. Down and out.” If those lines were up and operating, Herman said, Baghdad would have in excess of 12 hours of power per day. “The minister and his people have tried on numerous occasions to repair these lines. They keep getting attacked, killed, kidnapped and threatened.”

Electricity Levels in Baghdad

And the fact that Brookings is as far to the left (farther?) than Limbaugh is to the right, you still take them as gospel...and prove what?? That terrorists can blow up infrastructure faster than we can build it? Duh!

So is the solution to stop the terrorists or pull a MurthaClinton and make Iraq a safe haven for those who hate the West?

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

Who says any figures from the Saddam dictatorship are accurate, anyway?  Dictators are notorious for lying about the state of their own country, and Saddam is no exception.  It is simply idiotic to maintain that things were better in any way under Saddam, but the lefties, suffering from BDS, must try to sell that crap for their own short term political gain.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

It is simply idiotic to maintain that things were better in any way under Saddam, but the lefties, suffering from BDS, must try to sell that crap for their own short term political gain.

Things were very likely better in some ways under Saddam but you can’t admit to that because it clashes with your ideological point of view. Anyone who disagrees with you is painted as a Bush hater out for political gain and so long as you decline to see the anti-Iraq war position in anything other than those terms then of course you’ll view opposing views as idiotic.

At least that’s how it looks from my fence top perch.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol

Proof

The fact is Iraq had more electricity flowing prior to our invasion. period.

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

Things were very likely better in some ways under Saddam…

Please list them, along with factual backup from some other source than Saddam’s propaganda.  Contrary to the rest of your ad hominem rant, I can be persuaded with facts.  Since I value freedom so highly, it is hard for me to believe that anything can be good under a murderous, totalitarian dictator, but you are welcome to give me some valid examples.  I’m talking about for the average citizen, of course, not Saddam’s henchmen.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

The fact is Iraq had more electricity flowing prior to our invasion. period.

An unsupported statment, which is hardly any sort of proof at all. Where are you going to get accurate figures from the Saddam era?

Save America; boycott the MSM.

robert108

They had less electricity under Saddam than they do now.[/quote

An unsupported statment, which is hardly any sort of proof at all. Where are you going to get accurate figures from the Saddam era?

---

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

Robert108:

Since I value freedom so highly, it is hard for me to believe that anything can be good under a murderous, totalitarian dictator, but you are welcome to give me some valid examples.

Geez!  This is easy.

How about removing all of that pesky water that was afflicting the Swamp Arabs?

And helping Shi’ite farmers by spraying pesticide on those weed trees known as “date palms”?

Or helping children with their weight by withholding unnecessary food?  (It also strengthened the genetics of the Shi’ite population through the inevitable cull that followed).

Or helping astronomers with the night glow problem by not building a single new electrical power plant since 1979.

And don’t forget the rape room, er., “date rooms” where young women were properly socialized for life in a modern sectarian society.

Things were just glorious under Saddam.

MD: Not so original, but you have a point, if you assume that Saddam had any interest at all in improving the lives of his citizens, especially the 80% that were either Shia or Kurds(whom he killed and tortured regularly), you may want to believe that somehow, our deposing this murderer and restoring self-determination to the formerly oppressed 80% of the population has had no beneficial effects whatsoever, including an improvement in public services.  I prefer to live in the real world, not your little Marxist world of illusion.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

bla bla bla bla

80% huh....did that figure just pop in your head.
You have forced me to use your quote, An unsupported statment, which is hardly any sort of proof at all. Where are you going to get accurate figures from the Saddam era?

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

The fact is Iraq had more electricity flowing prior to our invasion. period.

Mark D: (One can only assume you got the “D” because they were grading on a curve!)
The fact is, you took an isolated fact and were unable to make whatever point you were trying to make. Period.  (You were trying to make a point, weren’t you?)

You can put your head back up your ass now…

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

MD: Your need to use my words is indicative of your lack of ability to do original thought.  You didn’t know that the Iraqi population is about 20% Sunni and 80% Shia/Kurds?  You didn’t know that Saddam oppressed that 80% for the benefit of the 20% Sunni population?  It’s hard to have a meaningful discussion with one so uninformed on basic facts.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

R108,

Yours is an excellent point.  Things may indeed have been better under Saddam, and yes, there may well have been more electricity… if one was a Sunni Arab and a member of the Ba’athist party as well.  But that was hardly the case for the vast majority of Iraqis who are Shi’ite, Kurd, or non-Ba’athist Sunni.

Unfortunately, the advantages of life under Saddam described by Mark D were limited to a very select elite.  Sadr City, for example, had no better sewage treatment facilities, potable water supply, and consistent and reliable supply of electricity before the US invasion than afterwards.

There is significant progress in Iraq… most notably the agreement for sharing oil revenues that was approved by the cabinet last week.  That agreement alone provides an incentive for all Iraqis to work for a strengthened central government and against further sectarian violence.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

But Proof
How do you type while your head is up your ass?

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

So robert108 you are assuming they were oppressed just because they were not sunni?

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

How do you type while your head is up your ass?

An attempt at witty repartee! (Well, half anyway!) As lame as the rest of your arguments…

Barack Obama: All hat and no cattle since 1997!

Bat: Yes, the electricity was flowing to the Sunnis and the Saddam cronies, and the rest of the population just didn’t count, which is the norm in dictatorships.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

R108, actually the 20% number is Sunni Arabs.  There are also Sunni Kurds.

MarkD:  The reason they were suppressed was because Saddam didn’t trust them.  He also repressed many Sunni Arabs not of the Tikriti clan.

In fact, with a few exceptions, most of the people in key positions Iraq were either Tikriti, or often more specifically a member of Saddam’s extended family.

Yes Bat 1
your right
The cabinet is sharing oil revenues.....The Federal Oil And Gas Council advisers will make sure that ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron get their share

“We have a dollar that’s adjusting and I am for a strong dollar.....
Our dollar doesn’t buy as many barrels of oil as it used to and so therefore it’s more expensive for the American people”..... Bush 3/12/08

Carrick: Even though the Kurds are Sunni, Saddam oppressed them for racial/cultural reasons.  The Shia plus the Kurds comprise about 80% of the population of Iraq.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

So robert108 you are assuming they were oppressed just because they were not sunni?

No, they were oppressed because Saddam chose to oppress them.

Save America; boycott the MSM.

I agree R108, I was just pointing out the 20% number as Sunni Arab, because Iraq about 35% Sunni overall.  (Not all Kurds are Sunni of course.) The media in particular gets confused when quoting this number.  Sunni Kurds stick with other Kurds of course, and do not participate in the Sunni Arab insurgency.

r108 said

Not so original, but you have a point, if you assume that Saddam had any interest at all in improving the lives of his citizens, especially the 80% that were either Shia or Kurds(whom he killed and tortured regularly), you may want to believe that somehow, our deposing this murderer and restoring self-determination to the formerly oppressed 80% of the population has had no beneficial effects whatsoever, including an improvement in public
services.

r108 also said this

It is simply idiotic to maintain that things were better in any way under Saddam…

and asks

Where are you going to get accurate figures from the Saddam era?

Things were not better in any way under Saddam and when confronted with evidence that electricity delivery was better then that doesn’t count because we can’t trust data from the Saddam era and relieving the Shia and Kurds of their oppression has brought beneficial effects, a point that nobody will argue except that it’s beside the point we’re discussing.

You ask me to give you evidence that you’re going to discount out of hand...do you think I’m an idiot? If you want to provide evidence that you have been persuaded by facts in the past then I might chance it but your record says otherwise...and I reject your statement that no Shia or Kurds enjoyed regular electricity under Saddam. They were surely oppressed but they had their lights on a more regular basis than they do now in many area.

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving Kristol