Eric, thank you greatly for using your name, and for elevating this conversation. Now, I feel like perhaps I’m learning something. I will look more deeply into IBC methods and the other studies, and come back to this conversation. I realize this is a tangent (we are discussing headcount here, and not whether these are war crimes); but it is an interesting question.

Again, thanks for adding to the conversation.

Hans,

I am glad you appreciate my comments in technology, business and economics. And I know you are a longtime reader of SNS. So —
How could you not know that I was the first person to predict that Bush would be remembered as the worst president in U.S. history? How could you forget my suggestion that there were no WMDs, and our posting of Russ Daggatt’s eloquent piece saying the same, months before the war was declared?

Saying that Bush was lying about WMDs and connections with Al-Quaeda has nothing, and let me repeat, nothing, to do with whatever “left wing media” is supposed to imply.

You will find, Hans, in the coming years, that not only were real war crimes like those mentioned here committed, but that many more illegal actions were also taken, outside public notice.

The suppression of four scientific reports, developed inside the EPA, warning of the dangers to the country due to global warming, was this morning’s news. If your scientists discover a danger to the country, suppressing that information is unpatriotic at best. And this has nothing to do with which “wing” one espouses.

Really, I don’t find left OR right wing to be useful descriptors any more.

I, and many others, have complained about a consistent lack of intellectual honesty in this administration; there is no political side which, historically, favors lying (or telling the truth).

Yesterday, we learned that the NSA has been listening to the conversations and emails of every US citizen, 24×7, without warrants or any ties to terrorist threats, for years, at home, inside the US, contrary to all other (also false) past claims by the president.

In summary: I have always thought that Bush was going to be the worst president, and this has nothing to do with politics or wings. He has earned the scorn of the entire civilized world (outside of Texas, where I understand they are now flying flags upside down).

In all of my writings on Bush to date, there is nothing I have said of him which has not turned out to be correct. I will happily stand by these current calls as well. I don’t know which part of Bush Going to Jail you didn’t like, but if you watch events unfold, I believe you will see many different efforts to bring Bush and his administration members to trial, perhaps beginning with the chief investigator of war crimes at the UN, who said as much this week.

Please do not fall into the easy trap of thinking I am this or that wing. I told you there would be no WMDs before the war, and there weren’t.

Now I am telling you that the Bush administration has done quite a few things which are criminal, and which, depending upon luck and fate, could land Bush and his team in jail.

This is true.

So, Hans, it would be MUCH more useful if, instead of calling me a whatever, you would write clearly what you disagree with in what I have written. That would be interesting and helpful. I won’t call you names, and I will happily engage you in conversation about this most interesting subject.

Did you notice, btw, the reluctance of the GOP to confirm Obama’s AG once he said that waterboarding was torture? Get ready.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/reality-checks/

Iraq Body Count offers a full disclosure on their very robust methodology here:

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/

IBC performs a very valuable service and any casual review of their website will make clear what they think of the Bush admin.

The 2004 entry at factcheck.org thoroughly documents the separation of Cheney’s financial interests from Halliburton. That info is still valid unless something about the financial relationship was since reinstated. Such reinstatement would certainly be both unethical and illegal.

None of this says that there aren’t things for which the Bush admin should be held accountable.
~95,000 civilians killed in Iraq is more than enough for outrage.

Inflating this number to an unreasonable total (see IBC link above) only results in loss of credibility.

sorry about the name thing.

Eric2 is not a real name. I am glad you are helping us look at more information, and points of view, but we have recently added a new rule requiring full name disclosure. We know this remains a trust issue, but I would appreciate it if you would use your real name, in the future.

The figure of 1M for Iraqi war dead came from the second of two academic studies on war dead in Iraq. It looks as though the site you are pointing to is using news reports, or some other less-scientific method.

The first study used a pre-ordained map overlap of randomized points, and involved interviews on the ground across the country, asking whether anyone in a family had been killed. That study, I believe, came up with 600k dead. They noted then, that they rounded this figure dramatically down, by NOT including Falluja, since there were so many more fatalities there that it “skewed” the results higher.

The second study, done in the last year, also involved interviews, but used a different method for selecting them. Its result, as I recall, was in the 600K – 1MM range.

We will have to see whether Cheney had ties beyond the 2004 site ref you have given here; I suspect that there was something beyond the regular (and, in my opinion, illegal or unethical) ongoing payments he received publicly while in office. It will take real digging, or a whistleblower, to find them.

As I recall it pointed out some gross inaccuracies in the piece above.

1M Iraqi civilian dead?
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Cheney financial ties to Halliburton?
http://www.factcheck.org/kerry_ad_falsely_accuses_cheney_on_halliburton.html

There might be criminal activity to pursue but we need to make sure that the facts we bring to the table are accurate.

I have the impression it’s “FU Mr President” from the media this weekend. Tim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtnE4C9Gv5U&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/16/204733/715/396/685080&feature=player_embedded