So how do Bush’s numbers compare to the slaughter during Saddam Hussein’s reign or the deadly embargo kept in place during the Clinton years? Scott Thong crunched the numbers:
Saddam Hussein’s reign: From the 285 months of Saddam Hussein’s reign from 16 July 1979 to 9 April 2003, using just six of the war crime events listed by U.S. War Crimes Ambassador David J. Scheffer, a total of 865,000 Iraqis civilians died as the result of Saddam’s ethnic cleansing, political oppression and ‘arrests’. That is a rate of 3035.088 deaths per month… 1.75 times greater than Bush’s death rate. This figure does not count the deaths of non-Iraqis, nor the casualties suffered during the wars against Iran and Kuwait, nor the countless other documented human rights abuses Saddam committed.
Bill Clinton era embargo: From the 108 months of 6 August 1990 to 6 August 1999, using the United Nations estimate, a total of 1 million Iraqi civilians died as result of the sanctions. Of these, as many as 567,000 of the casualties were children. That is a rate of 9259.259 deaths per month… 5.337 times greater than Bush’s death rate. Justify that, anti-war liberal Democrats. (Clinton actually only gained the Presidency on 20 January 1993, but the sanctions also lasted past the date of the UN estimate – to 22 May 2003, while Clinton stepped down on 20 January 2001.)
Back in 1996 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that Clinton’s policy that may have resulted in 500,000 dead Iraqi children was worth it.
In a much forgotten exchange between Lesley Stahl and Madeleine Albright on “60 Minutes” back on May 12, 1996:
Our President seems bent on shaming America before the world with pictures. Not for the faint of heart, but here are the pictures that should shame the President and the world.
Priests for Life has known for some time of the grisly trade in baby parts taking place in abortion facilities throughout the nation. Through the efforts of our friends at Life Dynamics, Inc., the details of this trade have come to light. You may obtain from Life Dynamics (1-800-401-6494) copies of the actual order forms used. Some of the forms request that there be no abnormalities. Many mistakenly think that abortions in later stages of pregnancy are performed only in cases of fetal abnormality.
Fetal tissue wholesalers are companies which place employees in abortion clinics to harvest tissue, limbs, organs, etc. from aborted babies. This material is then shipped to researchers working for universities, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. Although it is against federal law to sell human tissue or body parts, these organizations have devised a system to circumvent this restriction. Technically, all fetal material they harvest is “donated” to them by the clinics. However, they do pay a “site fee” to the clinics for the right to access the tissue. The tissue is then “donated” to the researchers who in turn pay the wholesalers for the cost of retrieval. Profit is realized by the wholesalers’ ability to set their own retrieval fees.
As to the harsh realities of keeping our country safe, the Gateway Pundit says Fox reports:
The release of the photos along with Obama’s decision last week to release CIA memos has federal agents feeling dispirited. Jake Tapper reported:
Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs “prurient” and “reprehensible,” Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
“They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost,” Lowenthal said. “There’s nothing to be gained from it. There’s no substantive reason why those photos have to be released.”
Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on “the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago.”
“We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” Lowenthal says. “They don’t believe they have that cover anymore.” Releasing the photographs “will make it much worse,” he said.
Along the same lines of disclosures that hurt our country, Michelle Malkin points to the Rasmussen report in her, “Public to White House”:
Results from the latest Rasmussen poll show a public more in tune with Dick Cheney than George Soros:
Fifty-eight percent (58%) believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 28% believe the release of the memos helps America’s image abroad.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters now believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% say the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the balance between the two is about right.
This reflects a significant shift over the past couple of years. In several surveys conducted during 2008, Americans were fairly evenly divided as to whether our legal system worried too much about individual rights or too much about protecting national security…
…Forty-six percent (46%) of voters disagree with Obama’s decision to close the prison camp for terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, while 36% agree with the president’s action. Support for the decision has fallen since the president announced it in January.
Instead of the headlines being about what the Bush administration sanctioned, they became about Nancy Pelosi’s denial and then non-denial of her knowledge on waterboarding interrogations, the success of the interrogations in preventing an attack, and Obama’s lack of testicular fortitude in sticking with his original position to let sleeping dogs lie. Small wonder that he began backtracking in earnest yesterday when meeting with Congressional leaders.
Now we have confirmation that Obama planned this all along as a political attack against a man who hardly matters on the national political scene any longer – or at least he didn’t until Obama decided to pick a fight with him. Just as with his strange attack on Rush
Ed Morrissey’s exclusive interview today with Commander David Rehbein of the American Legion after Janet Napolitano fills out an previous attempt at an apology to the American Legion for the DHS report that dissed veterans linking them to Timothy McVeigh and potential homegrown terror attacks without an ounce of statistical proof. (Actually statistics proved just the opposite of the reports implications.):
It was a good day for Life at the Capitol today. It wasn’t that Congress did anything to protect the human life growing in a mother’s womb. Congress it seems is insensitive to Truth these days. However, ordinary Americans continue to demonstrate for Life. Young and old found their voice and pleaded with those who listened to hear the cries of the unborn. Children distributed life calling-cards proclaiming the truth of abortion and pro-choice. Someone dies and it isn’t pretty. The consequence of pro-choice is blood and tears. A banner photograph of the aborted infant offended some who is seems aren’t offended by the act of abortion. Strange sensitivities that allow the actual infant to die but want to spare their consciences, I must think.
This would be funny if it didn’t make you want to cry. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal reports what Abe Greenwald in an article for the New York Times that passes for serious commentary wrote about Pirate Blowback:
“This is pirate blowback! Did the president think we could use billion-dollar equipment to shoot some raggedy ransom-seekers out of their rowboat without inviting retaliation? By flaunting our material superiority we merely whet their appetites for treasure. And by demonstrating that we value one American life more than three Somali lives we’ve turned a handful of desperate thieves into a sympathetic movement with recruitment potential.
And all for the sake of one seized ship??? . . . Let’s face it: on Sunday, we only created more pirates.”
Are we seriously to think, we should not police or defend anything for fear of stifling young aspiring pirates? I guess I never understood why we needed a President to “sign off” on an action to save a man’s life clearly threated by a gun at his head.
Cambodia and Viet Nam can attest to the damage and serious threat to life and limb that guns in the hands of the young and misguided can do. Where are the adult and serious thinkers in the media?
Be Holy! 