Australian Academic Atrocities

Over at The Australian, there's an Op-Ed piece by David Day, an Australian Academic, that's breathtaking in its moral and logical bankrupcy, as well as being (to put it politely) "factually challenged" in many places, though incisive and accurate in others.

Some quotes:

Looking ahead, history suggests that the outlook for Iraq and its people will be grim for many years to come. After all, the Vietnam War took 30 years and millions of deaths before the French and then the Americans acknowledged defeat. Iraq could take just as long for the US to concede that its grand plan for forcibly remaking the Middle East and securing its resources is incapable of achievement.

Re-read that last line. "It's all about Oil", at least according to David Day. An armed robbery writ large. Nothing about 9/11, or the proposition that to do nothing and tolerate the Middle East's long history of anti-Democratic regimes is no longer an option, as they won't leave us alone if we ignore them.

In the meantime, the towns and cities of Iraq will continue to be laid waste by the devastating firepower of the US air force and artillery while the deadly bombings of the insurgents take a similarly indiscriminating toll on the inhabitants.

Yes, he is equating the military actions of the US armed forces with the "insurgents" who are deliberately blowing up schools, decapitating aid workers etc.

Even presuming that a meaningful election can be held during an ongoing war, the outcome of an election held under US auspices is sure to be rejected by the insurgents.

Especially Al Qaeda, who have stated quite clearly that nothing short of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate will stop them from taking up arms. Oh, and it has to be the *right* form of Islam, none of those heretical Shi'as need apply.

Moreover, as long as US forces remain in effective occupation, the insurgency will continue. What will it take then for the war to end and one side or the other to admit defeat? If history is any guide, it will take many more lives than the nearly 1 per cent of the population who have been killed since the toppling of Saddam.

One percent? That would be 250,000 deaths. Not even the discredited Lancet study claimed quite that much. Their results said that there were 19 chances in 20 of the number of deaths being anywhere between 8,000 and 192,000. This was reported as "100,000 dead" by people who didn't read it, or read it and didn't care what it said, as long as it could be used to Bash Bush. From the Lancet study, a figure of 200,000 is as likely as a figure of 2000. The true figure is most likely between 5,000 and 20,000.

...the British denied defeat following the collapse of their forces in France in 1940. Instead of agreeing to a compromise peace with Germany, the intervening English Channel allowed them to adopt a defiant stance when a cool assessment of the opposing forces might have dictated otherwise. Eighteen months later, the balance of forces shifted in Britain's favour and the defeat of Dunkirk was gradually transformed into eventual victory, although at the cost of many millions of lives that might otherwise have been saved.

Yes, he really is implying that had Britain surrendered in 1940 "millions of lives might have been saved". Not many of them Jewish though. Or Russian. In fact, thinking about it, a longer and more bloody conflict than that of the Eastern Front would have resulted in more, not less lives lost, regardless of the eventual winner. Just as to have Iraq still under Saddam's (and later, Uday and/or Orsay's) heels would have resulted in far more deaths. Plus, of course, in both cases a National Socialist regime still operating as a going concern. But that doesn't figure in any of David Day's "cool" calculations.

So there will be further heavy forfeits to be paid by the soldiers on the ground and by the Iraqi people before the Americans eventually announce, perhaps after a revolt by their own hard-pressed forces and under the pretext of handing over control to the Iraqis, that they are going to exit the country. And you can be sure that their departure will not be described as a defeat.

By the same logic, the Allies were "defeated" in WW2 as neither Germany nor Japan are still under Russian and American occupation. As for his hypothetical US "revolt of their hard-pressed forces", it would be difficult to find a more Fantastic hypothesis. If he truly believes this, his contact with reality is tenuous at best.

David Day, [is] an honorary associate of the history program at LaTrobe University in Melbourne

And a paragon par excellence of the Academic Idiotarian.