Whack the wingnut pinata!

Yes, I know I shouldn't be doing this but, really, when you have an overpowering urge to bitch-slap some unfortunate, feeble-minded wingnut, well, there's only one place to go. Follow along as we eviscerate Jinx-approved logic (at least until my gorge rises to the point where I have to give up and scamper back to the reality-based community for some fresh air):

Test Number One: The Iraq War is not going well because American military casualties are too high.

False: Each fatality is painful and each life precious; however, given the risk in war, a statistical analysis shows that casualties have been low for a major war.

Ooooh ... a "twofer." First, there's "Each fatality is painful and each life precious ...". Yes, yes, that would of course explain the appalling lack of body armor and up-armored Humvees and shipping bodies back as cargo and ... well, you get the idea. Beating up on this idiocy any further would be like sandblasting a soup cracker, so let's move on to the second half, shall we?

"... given the risk in war, a statistical analysis shows that casualties have been low for a major war." Uh ... yeah. So let's see ... we take, on the one hand, a Middle Eastern nation crippled by years of international sanctions and constant aerial bombardment, send in international inspectors to make sure they have no serious weapons left and even make them start to destroy missiles which they arguably are entitled to, and then, after they have been thoroughly disarmed, we throw at them the power of the strongest military force that history has ever seen, along with the most advanced weaponry ever devised, and what we find is ... hey! Coalition casualties are lower than average for a major war. Fuckin A! I'm guessing that's a testament to the brilliant tactical strategery of military geniuses like this.

But let us not tarry overly long here. Onward.

Test Number Two: The Iraq War is not going well because, as a result of creating more terrorists than we are destroying, American civilian casualties are too high.

False: There have been zero civilian casualties in the United States since the Iraq War began.

Of course, there have been zero War on Terror-related civilian casualties in Canada all that time as well. Wow. We managed to achieve the same stunning military success by simply not invading. Are we fucking brilliant or what? Next.

Test Number Three: The Iraq War is not going well because Iraqi civilian casualties are too high.

False: The Coalition intervention has dramatically decreased the rate of civilian casualties in Iraq.

I'm sorry ... decreased the rate of civilian casualties in Iraq compared to what? What they were when Saddam Hussein was in power?

That's it? That's your marketing shtick? "Operation Iraqi Freedom! Because we'll kill fewer of you than Saddam will." It's pretty pathetic when your argument for personal virtue is that you're not going to be as homicidally evil as the tyrant you just deposed. That's pretty much the definition of "damning by faint praise," isn't it?

And on that note, I really have to stop. Feel free to deal with the rest of that silliness if you wish. Even I have my limits. Where the fuck is that exit door?

I CAN'T RESIST: I have to address the very next myth refutation since it's so beyond the pale, it's hard to believe that even someone as criminally stupid as Jinx McHue could begin to take it seriously:

Test Number Four: The Iraq War is not going well because the U.S. military in particular has destroyed the infrastructure and killed many Iraqi civilians.

False: Over two years of combat since the fall of Baghdad, much of it urban warfare pursuing un-uniformed combatants concealed within the civilian population, with less than 1,000 civilians killed as a result of U.S. action is a spectacular humanitarian record.

I'm sorry -- is this seriously suggesting that only 1,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the invasion? One thousand!?!? You must be joking.

Even Commander CrotchBulge has finally assigned a number to this:

On Monday, President Bush directly answered a question about the total Iraqi death toll, including civilians, without issuing the familiar brusque dismissal. Instead, he offered his own estimate of "Iraqi citizens" killed since the invasion: "30,000, more or less."

30,000. Not 1,000. 30,000. Of course, wankers will immediately counter with, "Yeah, but that includes terrorists and civilians. Only 1,000 of those people were actual civilians."

In the first place, how stupid do you have to be to think that, with the indiscriminate air attacks that the U.S. has launched against crowded population centres in Iraq, their terrorist-to-civilian kill ratio is a staggeringly successful 29:1!? Really. That's absurdly optimistic. But you don't even need to point out that howling illogic.

The Post article makes it clear that that figure is meant to represent civilians (emphasis added):

Of the publicly issued totals, Bush's "30,000, more or less" most closely tracks the numbers kept by the Iraq Body Count (IBC). This private group compiles reports from major international news outlets, the Red Cross and other sources. As of Friday, the group's Web site was reporting that between 27,383 and 30,892 civilians had been killed since the start of the war.

To seriously propose that only 1,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq all this time shows a pathological dishonesty I didn't even know existed. Even in Jinx McHue.