Death By Liberation for 100,000 Iraqi Civilians

[KarenAM]

It would be great if we've only killed 10,000 or so.

On the one hand I agree. On the other I find it sad indeed when we are hoping we've "only" killed 10,000 people.

What have we become?

 

[Guest]

Lighten up. There are millions of Iraqis left.

Fuck. Why did I ever open this thread.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

On the one hand I agree. On the other I find it sad indeed when we are hoping we've "only" killed 10,000 people.

What have we become?

The best way to create no civilian casualties is to just sit idly by and do nothing. In Sudan we are sitting on the sidelines, just watching and the result? Tons of civilian casualties, and we still get blamed by many for those as well.

Your government chooses where it will commit troops. The military does all it can to keep civilian casualties down. In an asymetric war, you will ALWAYS get more civilian casualties than in a set piece one. Insurgents kill civilains indescriminatly as well as using them for cover.

We can all kibbitz on where and when troops should be committed. If you agree military force is an option that is warranted in some situations, then you accept civilians will die. If you are adamantly against military force EVER being valid, then you accept places like Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, et. al. are not our problem and the suffering there is just a consequence of non intervention.

What we have come to is accepting that people are dying over there. What we argue about is how many or who is doing the killing. What we split on as a nation is if we should be there at all. In short what we have come to is what we have always been, a heterogenous nation with conflicting opinions and agendas.

I find 100,000 to be highly suspect. While 10,000 is probably under reporting. 10,000, 100,000 or somewhere in between, it's still a lot of people. Your ability to accept one number or the other probably says a lot about your personal politics or the politics of the entity providing the numbers. If there is something truly troubleing here, it's that neither side provides much information as to how they came up with their figures.

It seems to me the casualty figures have become just another political tool. And that, for us, or the Brits or anyone else is a crying shame, because when you do that, you remove the human element. You get two sides arguing about numbers and those numbers have lost thier significance from the word go, as the important thing is 10,000 or 100,000, each number in there represents a life.

-Colly

 

[Edward Teach]

Numbers?

What's all this concern about numbers of dead and wounded?

9/11? Hell we only lost 3,000, about the number we lose to heart attacks every two days. No big deal.

Iraq? We lost about 1,200, about the number we lose to heart attacks in a single day. No biggie.

Iraqi civilians? Hell, you can't believe everything you read and besides Saddam killed more than that.

Good news? Oil has gone from $20 a barrel to almost $60 a barrel and the big boys are happy. Oil makes the world go round.

Seig Heil ! http://members.cox.net/schlageter6/Sounds/pzsong.wav

Ed

 

[Guest]

Yep.

No biggie.

 

[BigAndTall]

Re: Numbers?

What's all this concern about numbers of dead and wounded?

9/11? Hell we only lost 3,000, about the number we lose to heart attacks every two days. No big deal.

Iraq? We lost about 1,200, about the number we lose to heart attacks in a single day. No biggie.

Iraqi civilians? Hell, you can't believe everything you read and besides Saddam killed more than that.

Good news? Oil has gone from $20 a barrel to almost $60 a barrel and the big boys are happy. Oil makes the world go round.

Seig Heil ! http://members.cox.net/schlageter6/Sounds/pzsong.wav

Ed

When was the last time oil was $20 a barrel?

 

[rgraham666]

What have we become?

What you resist, you become - Taoist aphorism

Or perhaps Nietzsche?

Beware when you battle monsters,
lest you become a monster.
And as you gaze into the abyss,
the abyss gazes also,
into you.

 

[Edward Teach]

Re: Re: Numbers?

When was the last time oil was $20 a barrel?

It was 21.12 on 9-11-01. Way below 20 during some of the Clinton years.

Ed

 

[BigAndTall]

Re: Re: Re: Numbers?

It was 21.12 on 9-11-01. Way below 20 during some of the Clinton years.

Ed

As I see on the commodity listings, the price of light crude moved above $20 in August of 1999.


Your right about that it was down below that, but wasn't it late in his term that OPEC started to close up on production?

 

[TheEarl]

You get two sides arguing about numbers and those numbers have lost thier significance from the word go, as the important thing is 10,000 or 100,000, each number in there represents a life.

I was going to say something about the cavalier way that the US army dealt with 'terrorist threats' such as Fallujah and how proud I was that the soldiers representing my nation didn't take the same approach. But I think Colly has hit the nail right on the head with that one sentence.

Each number represents a human life. That's tragedy.

The Earl

 

[rgraham666]

"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." Josef Stalin.

And he should know.

 

[Jagged]

Normally I don't bother with you libs but since I have friends that are "baby killers" (I know your opinions of the military.)

The 100,000 (shocking big number) isn't a body count but an estimate based on a sample size. This sample was taken from many areas including sites like Fallujah which is not typical for Iraq. Also the study was done by those who were willing to participate with the researchers.



Youc an play with the numbers anyway you want. For all I know they could be a lot higher. In a war things happen that you wish wouldn't and the death of civilians is one of those things.


But make no mistake the situation is bad their because of the terrorists not the United States military.


But if you feel the death total will drop and we will win the war on terror and more jobs will apear and "global warming" will stop. Please vote for Senator Kerry.

You may not like what President Bush is doing, but Kerry is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[cantdog]

Normally I don't bother with you libs but since I have friends that are "baby killers" (I know your opinions of the military.)

A lot you know. (What a cunthead!)

Normally, I do bother with everyone. Dig it out of there and look around.

off again:
But if you feel the death total will drop and we will win the war on terror and more jobs will apear and "global warming" will stop. Please vote for Senator Kerry.

1) If you think global warming will be alleviated by doing nothing whatever, I'd like to see the reasons for that belief. Denial is not a plan. We aren't talking about a return to stone knives and bearskins, you know. Only intelligent conservation and a move beyond fossil fuels.

Conservation alone will save billions, and it generates employment as retrofits and upgrades are designed and built. Fossil fuels are going to be over with in any case. Your grandchildren will see it, even if you choose to be blind to it now. Make those grandchildren proud that you used a little foresight and planned ahead toward that day.

Google Gerard O'Neill and check up on Beam Solar, for instance. Off the shelf tech sine 1975, completely doable. We don't have to wait for it, either. Wind power, solar heating and cooling through heat absorption arrays, the list is very long.

Talk to anyone with a boat who goes beyond battery range. Solar panels have come a long way since the eighties. They're reliable and far cheaper than ever. Marine ones are flexible mats with grommets at the corners, throw 'em up in no time and plug 'em in. That design dates from a decade ago, and improvements are coming along all the time. Your baby killers (what a thing to say!) use them. Distributed production makes all the sense in the world in a military setting.

So I've addressed the quotes around your words, "global warming."

I am going to do you the favor, on scant evidence, of imagining that your ignorance doesn't run quite so deeply on other subjects:

here it is again:
we will win the war on terror

The net effect of the Bush policies has been to exacerbate the terror problem. Iraq is the worst of these missteps, but there have been many. I believe Kerry has very little clue how to do better, but at least he can see there's been a mistake made.

Retribution, as our friends in Palestine can tell you, does not make the hatred less intense or the parties more willing to talk peace. It was retribution itself which destroyed the World Trade Center buildings. The smoke and dust of that retribution had not settled before we planned more of the same.

And also, under the current administration, we planned some adventures having nothing to do with retribution at all, such as (1)an invasion of Iraq, (2)the creation of a surveillance police state with secret trials, domestically, and (3)disappearing people overseas to torture facilities. None of these had any relation to the attackers of the WTC nor to the causes of those attacks, but were simply something they had in mind to do next.

Kerry has refrained, for some unfathomable reason, from coming out against torture. He voted for the police state measures, and he wants to manage the occupation of Iraq more intelligently. Neither is he too specific about any measures to address the causes of those WTC attacks.

Bush signed the orders allowing torture under presidential authority (only), his team created and proposed the state secret police measures, and he proposes, so far as anyone can tell, to continue to run the occupation stupidly, even when the British sector is a shining example right under his nose. Plus, he clearly intends to continue to lie about it. Every step of the way.

If Kerry's position is disastrous here, so is Bush's.

This is already long, and I'd like it to be read, so I'll leave you the rest of your delusions about what I think and what you know. Have a wonderful life. Put a window in there or get a periscope, if you plan to have your head up it for any length of time.

 

[TheEarl]

Normally I don't bother with you libs but since I have friends that are "baby killers" (I know your opinions of the military.)

Oh you know do you? You know what I think of the military and what I call them just from looking at my avatar. Gosh aren't you clever. I have friends in the military too. Doesn't mean I have a special perspective on the matter.

But make no mistake the situation is bad their because of the terrorists not the United States military.

The British zone is right below you. Lower civilian deaths, lower levels of insurgency, more security. If you think I'm mouthing off through pride in my nation, look at the areas patrolled by Australian troops. The areas under US control have the most trouble. See the QED.

But if you feel the death total will drop and we will win the war on terror and more jobs will apear and "global warming" will stop. Please vote for Senator Kerry.

You may not like what President Bush is doing, but Kerry is a disaster waiting to happen.

"Global warming." Let's follow your plan - lets keep pretending the environment doesn't exist until all the fossil fuels have run out. Then watch the US economy crash and burn as all of your factories suddenly stop.

As for "the war on terror" I can see the world's been made so much safer by the US crushing those heavyweight powers like Iraq and Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's been caught and there is no nuclear proliferation. Al Quaeda has been crushed and the US isn't creating new volunteers for suicide bombs every day in Iraq. Sure, Dubya's done a bang-up job.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." Josef Stalin.

And he should know.

I refrained from that quote Rg. Simply because it was to fitting

 

[cantdog]

Hello? Jagged? Did we scare you off, poor baby??

 

[rgraham666]

I refrained from that quote Rg. Simply because it was to fitting

Unfortunately, it has to be that way Colleen.

Very few people could handle the reality of a million deaths.

Numbers depersonalize.

 

[Jagged]

cantdog


Sorry morons like you don't scare me way I am just to busy to deal with you all. Not worth it really. Your a firefighter? lol your the only pro-Kerry one I have met. That includes all in my association.

Your real brave online like most jerks......why is this so personal? Have some issues you need to deal with?


I mean I just put up my opinion. I love how your opinion becomes fact.

Keep lying though I am sure you say it enough it will come true.

 

[Jagged]

Let me see....here


Global warming I think is a reality, but I have heard many opinions on what is is actually doing and what scientists think it means for us in the future.

I just think it is insane when The Kerry camp things they can turn the situation around in their administration. Seems arrogant to me is all.


America has the toughest zones that is why there is the most problems. But let us thank the British for the modern Middle East. We wouldn't have half the problems we do if not for the how the British Empire left things post WWII.

May want to quite down about things.

Judging someone by their avatar. I have never done that because frankly I don't care how stupid your's looks. I read the words. Most of the time I just read it and look who wrote it afterwards. My contact with those in the military is a source of information that is anecdotal. All I am saying is it always seems to be postive. My experience is I have never met a liberal that respected someone for their military service.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Fuck us all.

Anti-politics orgy. Nov. 2. 2nd Circle, Vella's place.

Let's face it folks. We don't give a damn about how many brown people die and their bloody entrails feel so good on our sex organs. Yeah, sure they weren't responsible for 9/11, but who really cares? They would've died by Saddam's hand, who as we can all agree he was an aging ruthless tyrant with no real military and no WMDs. Fuck those entrails, make them sweaty with your cum. Glory.

Our soldiers. They go where we tell them. We could have used them on the War against Terror, but the War on Brown People is so much easier and bloodier. And it gets so many more terrorists to go after next go. Self-duplicating. Beauty. Glory. God.

Do you feel better about yourselves now? Do you feel like its all God's eternal glory now? C'mon, feel the entrails. Feel the lives. Did any of you feel the lives of 9/11? Do you remember how the politicians came and spurted their thick cum on their graves? How their hollow lies echo on your skull? Wish yourselves dead, it's all you can do, because this system is fucked. It's between Ohio and Florida now. If one goes to Kerry, he wins. If neither, then Bush. The rest of us could blow our brains on the toilet seat for all the politicos care. Glory. Yeah, fucking glory on Ares.





This nihilistic post is brought to you from the Association of Politically Burntout Demons getting in the mood for their nihilistic novel for NaNoWriMo. If this piece made you feel bad in any small way, then you have a heart in your shell of flesh. Rejoice, you are a good person trapped in a self-perpetuating random function. Try not to kill yourself over it, get drunk and have butt-sex instead. If you felt nothing and want to argue with me and convince me that entrail sex is a Constitutionally protected right, fuck you. Fuck you from the bottom of my dead cold heart.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

My experience is I have never met a liberal that respected someone for their military service.

You need to get out more.

The name's Lucky. Nice to have met you.

Now you've met one. What next?

~lucky (liberal with large quantities of respect for those with military service, past, present & future)

 

[cloudy]

You need to get out more.

The name's Lucky. Nice to have met you.

Now you've met one. What next?

~lucky (liberal with large quantities of respect for those with military service, past, present & future)

Touche', girl.
you beat me to it.

 

[shereads]

My experience is I have never met a liberal that respected someone for their military service. [/B]

Now you have.

And what a bizarre thing to say, in the context of this election. Congress and the current White House are packed with conservatives whose respect for military service has taken place at a distance. Conservatives respected Max Cleland with particular zeal when they wanted his Senate seat. John Kerry isn't worthy of respect, because his injuries weren't as extensive as they should have been and his having volunteered for combat service made their president look like a hypocrite. Not only that, he had the audacity to use the right to free speech instead of just defending it.

We're not just divided by ideology in this country anymore. We're from different planets. That became clear when conservatives decreed that it's no longer a sign of respect for the dead when you publish their names and pictures. I don't know about you, but if I took a bullet thousands of miles from home, I'd want the world to remember my face, not hide it. Your side shows its respect for their sacrifice by pretending it hasn't happened.

Fortunately for Bush/Cheney and his supporters, military deaths in Iraq are just slightly more newsworthy now than civilian deaths. In today's Miami Herald, there are no dead Marines until page 16.

By conservatives' standards, the Herald is finally giving our military dead the respect they deserve by keeping them off the front page.

 

[shereads]

Let's just hope none of the survivors come home from Iraq and start mouthing off to Congress about how badly the war is being run - or worse yet, making up stories about atrocities against civilians. As much as we respect our men and women in uniform, we don't tolerate that kind of behavior in America.

 

[cantdog]

Fuck it.