U.S. Killing In Iraq: Similar To Saddam Hussein?

by babblingdweeb | June 21, 2007 at 09:56 am

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During Wednesday's press briefing with Tony Snow from the White House, some interesting comments related to the situation in Iraq came about. While the majority of the conference revolved around embryonic stem cell research, ethics and Democratic commentary.

However, there was a brief distraction to discuss Iraq; transcript is as follows:

Q A study shows that Iraq is the second-most unstable country in the world. Do we have anything to do with that?

MR. SNOW: Do we have anything to do with that? Yes, I saw the study --

Q -- the killing?

MR. SNOW: We don't -- I'm not sure I got the --

Q I'm talking about Petraeus, also, intensifying -- is he trying to build a kill record before September?

MR. SNOW: No. No. In point of fact, Helen, if you take a look at the record of the last two months, the people who have been trying to put together the kill record are al Qaeda. Go to the mosques --

Q Is everybody who resists our occupation a terrorist?

MR. SNOW: Do you think somebody who goes in and blows up 50 people in a mosque is resisting occupation?

Q What have we done for five years?

MR. SNOW: What we have been trying to do is to work with folks to deal with a highly volatile situation in Iraq in the wake of a murderous regime --

Q We've killed thousands of people, tens of thousands --

MR. SNOW: Many have died, and hundreds of thousands died under the previous regime. This is a place that has too long been wracked by violence. And the fact that in fighting --

Q We're not supposed to be comparing, are we?

MR. SNOW: Unfortunately, if we fought evil guys who simply would say, you caught us, we're evil, we give up, we'll be good -- that would be great, that would be wonderful.

I can't stop looking at this sentence: "Many have died, and hundreds of thousands died under the previous
regime. This is a place that has too long been wracked by violence."

I don't see why anyone in the White House would want to make an association to the previous regime death toll with the current toll. While it does appear that Tony is trying to show that there is a decrease in the killings with U.S. occupation of Iraq, I worry about the notion that the region has been full of violence and the U.S. appears to be coming complacent with that. We are occupying a violent nation and bringing violence on our shoulders.

I feel the media needs to start balancing its attention and coverage on Iraqi killings with U.S. soldier deaths. The numbers of innocent deaths have a massive range with many inaccuracies. It's time civilian deaths get as much coverage as U.S. soldiers.