Article Last Updated: 10/29/2005 03:42:06 PM
Republican 'talking points' are meant to distort the truth
By Paul Rolly
An e-mail that instructs Republican sympathizers how to respond to critics of the war in Iraq came my way recently and it deserves a response.
It starts out by noting there were 39 combat-related killings in Iraq in January, compared to 35 murders in Detroit during the same month, and "that's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq."
It's a theme that has been stated in various versions on Fox, talk radio, conservative blogs and other media trying to quiet the continuing discontent toward the war.
Sometimes, the city being compared is New York, or Los Angeles, or Miami, but it's always a city containing several million people. The analogists never point out they are comparing a G.I. population of about 150,000 to a population of millions.
But even if you ignore that flaw in the logic, what does the murder rate in Detroit have to do with the wisdom of attacking Iraq in the way we did? It's an attempt to deflect attention from issues that should be discussed among serious people.
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http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3164758