{"id":3032,"date":"2008-03-29T13:45:53","date_gmt":"2008-03-29T19:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2008-03-29T13:45:54","modified_gmt":"2008-03-29T19:45:54","slug":"the-straight-talk-express-has-pulled-into-the-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3032","title":{"rendered":"The Straight Talk Express has pulled into the station."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another link I picked up yesterday during a visit to <a href=\"http:\/\/flagrancy.net\">Josh Buermann&#8217;s blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><font size=\"4\">Americans lowball Iraqi death toll<\/font><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\">Poll shows knowledge of U.S. dead, but huge underestimation of Iraqis<\/font><br \/>\n<em>The Associated Press<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/17310383\/\">updated 11:17 a.m. CT, Sat., Feb. 24,  2007<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much  higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N.  Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.<\/p>\n<p>Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi  deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were  higher and half lower.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks public  opinion on war casualties, said a better understanding of the Iraqi death toll  probably wouldn\u2019t change already negative public attitudes toward the war much.  People in democracies generally don\u2019t shy away from inflicting civilian  casualties, he said, and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations  such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;They may be even more tolerant of them in situations  such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.&#8221; Especially when the &#8220;other Iraqis&#8221; are acting in tandem with U.S. forces?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/hendrikhertzberg\/2008\/01\/a-hundred-years.html\">The flip side<\/a> to Hendrik Hertzberg&#8217;s interpretation of John McCain&#8217;s Iraq policy.  It doesn&#8217;t matter how many Iraqis are killed by the U.S. and its surrogates.  The killing will continue until the U.S. can micromanage Iraq and the region without interference and its leaders are puppets on a string.<\/p>\n<p>The Straight Talk Express has pulled into the station.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radiohead &#8211; A Wolf at the Door<\/strong><br \/>\n<object width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/dvBPCm25z4I&#038;hl=en\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another link I picked up yesterday during a visit to Josh Buermann&#8217;s blog: Americans lowball Iraqi death toll Poll shows knowledge of U.S. dead, but huge underestimation of Iraqis The Associated Press updated 11:17 a.m. CT, Sat., Feb. 24, 2007 &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3032\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-MU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}