I'm glad she's got support from out military, and would have been surprised if she went with out that level of security.

Nice of the military to offer the same support to Eason.

Wait a minute -- they probably didn't offer that level of support. Don't tell me taxpayer supported troops will be lending support to conservative bloggers only???

I'd be shocked, absolutely shocked, if Eason wasn't afforded the same opportunity.

I dunno...

Put Michelle in a flak jacket and a helmet, and you're going to have to take everybody's word that she's actually in there somewhere.

I don't know about this whole Eason Jordan thing.

If I was AP, I'd love Jordan to be the champion against my credibility issues. I'd just highlight his own credibility issues. My fanbois and proponents of the 'Iraq is a quagmire' will marshal to my defense on that. The middle ground and undecided will see it as a he-said/she-said story and ignore it from that point forward.

I mean if Eason was on the otherside defending AP, would your first reaction be to give it much credence?

Leave it to old "pucker puss (lee lee) to inject his BS first. The definition of a troll at it's zenith.

Do you think Malkin will report back that 30K troops won't be enough to do anything more with the level of violence other than keep Rpeublicans out of office for the next ten years?

How about we let her walk outside the green zone and get her to talk to the people of Iraq about how glad they are America brought peace and democracy to the Middle East? Huh, how's about it.......

Those who are not there to serve and die for the ego of President GW Bush and sustaining the dependence on oil (now 52% )that built the Bush dynasty should be considered traitors to the cause. God bless our oil dependency and the SUV crowds "sacrifice.

Back in the 60's, the left were all about daring reporters speaking truth to power. They've put all that behind them.

If only the Iraqis could go to Iraq as embeds too. Unfortunately they have to live and die in the unembedded hell that Malkin's war left them in.

If only the Iraqis could go to Iraq as embeds too. Unfortunately they have to live and die in the unembedded hell that Malkin's war left them in.

Yup, because life under Saddam's Sunni-Baathist bloody rule was such a fanciful f***ing picnic.

It was for CNN.

So that's what F. stands for, Peter. No, life was not picnic, ****ing or otherwise. It just wasn't as bad as it is now. And bad as it is now, all the signs are it's going to get even worse.

Give Malkin some credit. She's risking her life by going to Iraq to investigate this AP story and the overall situation. Dozens of journalists have been killed and wounded; many of those were embedded as well.

No, it's not her bravery that we should question, but rather her objectivity. What are the odds that she will report the troops are "optimistic" and believe they are making "progress" in training Iraqi troops? I'd say about 100%.

She's clearly got a pro-war agenda to promote because like so many right-wing opinion leaders she's staked her career on the idea that invading Iraq was the correct course. Ultimately, she will be swept into the dust bin of history just like all the other brilliant pundits who believed that we could transplant Jeffersonian democracy and respect for the rule of law into the heart of the savage Middle East.

It just wasn't as bad as it is now.

So cat, guess you miss the regular use of chemical weapons on your own people, the rape rooms, the feet-first trip into the shredders?

Yeah dude, it's so much worse now. Not.

jhow66, let me the first to say this (I think), your entire ""pucker puss" shtick is tiresome, childish and does nothing to further the discussion. Not to mention offers nothing but bait for Lee to drag the topic in directions that are not useful.

For the sake of all of us, cut the crap.

.... and sustaining the dependence on oil (now 52% )that built the Bush dynasty should be considered traitors to the cause. Posted by: civil behavior at January 3, 2007 02:22 PM

Sorry to say your sadly misinformed (I'm not shocked) of the top 15 countries importing oil to the US only three are Middle Eastern and comprise something less than 6% of the total.

"And bad as it is now, all the signs are it's going to get even worse.
Posted by: cat at January 3, 2007 03:43 PM"

Do you mean like this "quagmire" as described in the 25 Dec issue of Newsweek:

"Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and--mother of all surprises--it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.

How? Iraq is a crippled nation growing on the financial equivalent of steroids, with money pouring in from abroad. National oil revenues and foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the IMF. With security improving in one key spot--the southern oilfields--that figure could go up.

Don't forget: the Western Left has so much invested in our loss in Iraq. The leftist weenies' heads would explode if we were to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Just like our "loss" in Viet Nam, this "loss" will define our letists. They should be so proud....

Regarding your last paragraph, Larkin, do you realize that the exact opposite is true for almost every other reporter there? Do you understand that they have an anti-war agenda and have staked their careers on the US loosing in Iraq?

Do you understand that all of the "MSM" reporting out of Iraq paints such a tainted and biased picture that some people will actually come to the completely false (and idiotic) conclusion that "It just wasn't as bad [before the war] as it is now"?

Some moron blathered:

I'd be shocked, absolutely shocked, if Eason wasn't afforded the same opportunity.

Yeah, I can't imagine why Eason Jordan, the man who falsely accused U.S. troops of deliberately targeting reporters, wouldn't be offered and have accepted a position to be embedded with U.S. troops.

"I really look forward to her reports and hope she and her colleagues have a very safe and productive trip."

The last thing we need is another journalist in Baghdad. What we - globally speaking - do need is a concrete solution to supress and diffuse the violence in the region.

No, it's not her bravery that we should question, but rather her objectivity. What are the odds that she will report the troops are "optimistic" and believe they are making "progress" in training Iraqi troops? I'd say about 100%.

Larkin you realize you just commented on the anti-war slant most other reporters have had, considering the anti-war view we've gotten from the news. It's fairly obvious that anybody going in to find the "truth" will attempt to find stuff that supports their cause.

However...

How about we let her walk outside the green zone and get her to talk to the people of Iraq about how glad they are America brought peace and democracy to the Middle East? Huh, how's about it.......

Outside the green zone? How about outside f*cking Baghdad? My impression from the news, milblogs and other sources is that almost all fighting and such happens INSIDE BAGHDAD, and the area around Baghdad. I believe almost all of the rest of Iraq is as stable as South-Central Los Angeles could ever hope to be (well except for the area between Baghdad and the Iranian Border....)

Hakim,

That makes sense. Though the difference being that Michelle is conservative, which seems to be a rarity among the press. Perhaps she can help to tell a different story, perhaps not.

marc, such a focused, unpartisan bitchslap to jhow66 earns my instant respect. Nice website, too!

I give Ms Malkin about as much credibility as i give Rosie o'Donell. Maybe she'll do us all a favor and stay till the war is over.

Except Ms. Malkin is actually showing courage Whereas Rosie insults Christians, knowing nothing will come of it.

And Rosie weighs in at about 350 lbs.--Michelle maybe 110. I'd take MM in a fist fight between the two, and bet on it.

Well Rosie insults just about everyone the minute she opens her mouth; particularly, everyone's intelligence.

Ms Malkin on the other hand is just insulting when she's xenophobic .

Jamil Hussein -- has a blog.

"The last thing we need is another journalist in Baghdad. What we - globally speaking - do need is a concrete solution to supress and diffuse the violence in the region. :: by Hakim Abdullah on January 3, 2007 4:40 PM ::

How about asking your Muslim brothers (assuming your moniker is accurate) to step up to the plate and offer assistence instead of actively creating more problems for Iraq or blindly ignoring what's happening.

What say you? Just where are all the troops and humanitarian groups from Arabic countries?

Almost to a country they claim they dislike America being in the region but have a historical roadmap that leaves something to be desired (to be kind) when it comes down to assisting each other.

Larkin you realize you just commented on the anti-war slant most other reporters have had, considering the anti-war view we've gotten from the news.

So is a reporter considered "anti-war" if he points out that about 2,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed in Iraq every month?

I think it would be very difficult to objectively report on what's happening in Iraq and NOT sound as if you were anti-war. We had 115 US military killed last month which is the highest total since 2004. Troop levels are at high levels and they are going higher. 50 bodies a day are being discovered tortured and murdered.

How exactly do you put a silver lining on this? (Oh, I guess you focus on Iraq's GDP, whoopee!)

I am so sick and tired of hearing these 20% dead enders including our moronic president defend the actions of what America did to implement the agenda of the PNAC and inflict such damage on a nation where we had no business implementing our form of government.

I am sick and tired of hearing people claim that Saddam was so evil when our own president seems to have no problems with torture and rendition and now will send more kids off to their deaths because Americans simply refuse to accept that their use of oil is what is the compelling factor in pursuing this treachery.

Your pimped ride is about to expire. No sacrifice is too great.....for someone else to make. We have met Osama and he is us. And if the Lancet Study is correct then there are at least 650K people who were inarguably better off under Saddam.

What have we come to? I have lived a pretty long time and I watch as our policies around the world become more and entrenched and more and more reviled. The rest of the world wants less and less to deal with us.

The criminals we should be dealing with are in the top levels of our own government. What business do we have in telling others how to live when we can't even clean our own fouled nest.

WHat are we so afraid of?

So is a reporter considered "anti-war" if he points out that about 2,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed in Iraq every month?

Certainly, since that's not anywhere close to what's actually happening.

It's really interesting how, after the ludicrous Lancet story was so thoroughly debunked, they decided that only claiming three to six times the actual number instead of the 10 to 12 times of the Lancet report, the number is supposed to be "fair."

You also get into the problem of those "civilians" being, for a large part, armed assholes getting KWT - Killed While Terrorists, and a lot of the rest being ex-Baathists who have been uncovered - retribution for the last 30 years or so is a real bitch, ain't it?

How exactly do you put a silver lining on this?

The problem isn't silver linings, it's the after-the-fact fictional lead coatings they're making up that get in the way.

Certainly, since that's not anywhere close to what's actually happening.

Cirby, where do you get your numbers?

I get them from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count which is based off of news reports. Most of these reports come straight from the Iraqi police themselves. Many observers believe this count undercounts the true totals by a factor of 2 since many deaths go unreported. If a Sunni family loses a member to sectarian violence do you think they go rushing to the Shiite-dominated police to report it? I don't think so.

The numbers from the Iraqi Health Ministry (before they stopped giving them out) and the UN estimates all point to around 2,000 or so a month as well.

I get them from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count which is based off of news reports.

Well, since we've found out that many of the news reports are just flat made up (Jamil Hussein - look it up), they can't be counted as accurate.

Cirby, what do you claim the death rates are and what are your sources?

It's pointless arguing with you about death totals because you've got no facts to back you up. There's plenty of good right-wing bloggers who don't dispute the death rates I spoke about. You, however, choose to live in a fantasy world. So dream on, but unless you have some facts to back up your claims maybe you shouldn't waste everyone's time.

you've got no facts to back you up.

I generally use Iraqbodycount as my "high" number, and they're currently claiming under 60,000 for the entire conflict (and, as I noted, they use press reports, which are now ALL in dispute, due to the AP's actions). The big problem with these sites is that they use news reports, with no real investigation of their own. When you read through the reports, you get "police say" or "unnamed officials say" a lot.

Reading through the stories they cite, you see a lot of small numbers, but also a handful of larger numbers that, in many cases, seem to be the same story told by different sources. They mention police telling them about twenty-some-odd bodies found, but then, on the next day, cite some other agency that talked about 40+ bodies found (which a reasonable person would think might be two tellings of the same tale, causing a huge inflation of the numbers).

Your own source, the icasualties.org site, shows less than half of your claim over the last couple of years, and only 1,629 during the last month. Once you realize that the numbers you're caliming were due to a short-term high level of fighting, you start to realize that people like you are, again, exaggerating, right down to the point where you magically assume that there were twice as many dead - with nothing to back you up...

Hey "marc" just let me say "up your ass with a 10' pole". If you don't like what I do, get the hell out of here. Until the owners of this blog tell me to cool it I shall post what I want to. Looks like you kos kiddie rejects have very thin skin.

To byranD (D for dumber then dirt)--you sound like a whimpy nerd so up yours with just a 9' pole. Nice to see that I get to more moonbats then just p'p'.

"larkin" did you also keep count of the # that when in feet first against those that went in head first into your buddy Saddam's wood chipper? I reread all your post and did not see one complaint about your buddy Saddam killing by the 10's of thousands. HYPROCRITE.

Cirby said: "Reading through the stories they cite, you see a lot of small numbers, but also a handful of larger numbers that, in many cases, seem to be the same story told by different sources. They mention police telling them about twenty-some-odd bodies found, but then, on the next day, cite some other agency that talked about 40+ bodies found (which a reasonable person would think might be two tellings of the same tale, causing a huge inflation of the numbers)."

Good point, Cirby. You've done a god job or pointing out the problem with relying on news reports for casualty counts in Iraq.

The fact that there is no reliable way to determine what's going on in Iraq (and I include the White House in that assessment) may tell the whole story for now. It may be that Iraq is so chaotic right now that we have no accurate, reliable source as to how many people are dying each month in Baghdad.

Since the exact number is, in the final view, irrelevant, the fact that we don't know and can't find out may be all the information we need at the moment, as difficult as it may be to accept that concept. In a day and age when we can google to find out how many nose hairs Brittany Spears trimmed yesterday... the concept that innocent civilians are being blown to bits daily in Iraq, a country that we occupy, and we the citizens of the United States don't really know how bad things are, is a concept that's difficult to grasp... but it's looking more and more like the reality, every day.

Hey "marc" just let me say "up your ass with a 10' pole". If you don't like what I do, get the hell out of here. Until the owners of this blog tell me to cool it I shall post what I want to. Looks like you kos kiddie rejects have very thin skin.

"Very thin skin?"

"Kos kiddie rejects?"

Well considering the response I received to a remark made containing no invective or four letter words, written or implied, it would appear as though the "very thin skin" is on the other ass.

Hope you enjoy the fit.

As for the Kos Kiddies remark it only shows how wrong you can be. But the vast majority here realize that.

In the chaos and bedlam of the "new" Iraq, estimating death totals is a complicated and difficult task. If you want to see some good analysis by an unabashed right-wing supporter of the war read this post by Engram.

His numbers give an average of around 1,300 per month since the Samarra bombing. So, I'll go back to my original point and ask how a reporter is supposed to tell us that 1,300 people a month are dying and not sound anti-war?

(I still believe 2,000 is a more likely average since many deaths certainly go unreported, and many bodies are likely buried and never found.)

So, I'll go back to my original point and ask how a reporter is supposed to tell us that 1,300 people a month are dying and not sound anti-war?

Point out that it's a recent (and currently subsiding) surge in the violence, that a lot of the folks being killed are the bad guys, and that it's a lot less than were being killed, monthly, than during the "peace" of Saddam Hussein.

Instead, we have people in the press eagerly reporting that some flawed study claims that about 2/3 that many were supposed to be dying PER DAY...

You can believe that twice as many as reported are being killed, but you need to have some real justification, since the reporters have shown a bad tendency to get caught exaggerating the deaths, and zero tendency to underreport.

Once again: look at the Associated Press. One of their major sources (who is apparently the only source for several HUNDRED reported deaths in Iraq in 2006) turns out NOT TO EXIST AT ALL (even though he's cited by 16 different AP reporters), and they keep getting caught hiring insurgents as reporters and photographers...

For the record, Malkin isn't a journalist she is a blogger, a bad one at that. and you rethugs can keep kidding yourselves about how few Iraqis have perished in this little war of yours (not in my name). sure, everythings just dandy in Iraq, that derned libral media just reports the bad news yadayadayada. they just hate the commander in chief yadayadayada. sure we're actually winning, go ahead keep telling yourself that, fools.

Iraqi Health Minister Ali al-Shemari told reporters in Vienna today that 150,000 "innocent" Iraqis had died since the U.S. military invasion of March 2003.

So Cirby, maybe you can explain why the Iraqi Health Minister feels it necessary to claim that the death count in Iraq is triple what the AP, Iraq Body Count, and Iraq Coalition Casualty Count are reporting? If anything the Health Ministry which is controlled by Moqtada al Sadr has every incentive to understate the death count so as to deny the US any justification for remaining in Iraq. I believe that is the reason why Sadr ordered the Health Ministry to stop issuing monthly body counts.

It is data points like these that lead me to believe that the counts reported in the media are really only about 1/2 the true total. Using the Health Minister's number we come up with an average of more than 3,000 a month. The media reporting gives us a total around 1,300 a month (in the last 6 months), so I'm splitting the difference and calling it 2,000. I didn't just pull that number out of thin air.

So Cirby, maybe you can explain why the Iraqi Health Minister feels it necessary to claim that the death count in Iraq is triple what the AP, Iraq Body Count, and Iraq Coalition Casualty Count are reporting?

It's simple.

Al-Shemari is a controversial figure and a member of the movement of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Some U.S. officials have complained that the ministry has diverted supplies to al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

Gee, no bias or other agenda there, eh? What sort of reason would a follower of ONE OF THE BAD GUYS possibly have for overreporting the death rate?