Bad News for the we lost dems.

[Voltaire]

These little news snippets about "winning" and "losing" make great talking points, but ignore the bigger issue that has been plaguing United States foreign policy for a century or so.

I was watching a little msnbc the other morning when I got ready (I know, what was I thinking), and they of course had their obligatory Democrat and Republican campaign proxies come on and give their little spiel about how to "solve the problem" of the war in Iraq. The most telling thing was when the anchor asked the spokespeople about how long they thought we would be in Iraq.

Obama's spokesperson did the typical cop-out response of, "We should never have been there in the first place."

McCain's spokesperson went the equally repulsive and thoughtless route of saying, "Probably forever. We didn't leave Korea after that war, we didn't leave Japan or Europe after WWII, so I don't see what the problem is. We need a foothold in the Middle East."

Rather amazing that Obama is apparently running for President of the World, after his little European escapade, and McCain is content to simply continue business as usual, steadily increasing the number of sovereign nations around whom this country has its tentacles wrapped.

Both sides sound like loonies...I think Lewis Black said it best, when he said the Democrats are party of No Ideas, and the Republicans are the part of Bad Ideas.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

After much looking for Iraqi Death Statistics, because the media virtually never reports it, here's what I've found:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/wo...asualties.html

The only NY Times article to cover Iraqi deaths by stating an actual number total. 600,000 estimated- and that was almost 2 years ago. Though the article doesn't say it, the research was presented in the independent science journal The Lancet (one of the oldest academic journals in the world, f. 1823) the numbers as of 2006 were also in the range ~400,000-800,000. Secondly, the independent polling agency Opinion Research Business (based in London), made a study in September 2007 and updated in January 2008 which put the casualties at a range of 946,000 to 1,120,000, with an estimate of about 1m.

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf (First Lancet Report)

http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf (Second Lancet Report)

http://www.opinion.co.uk/Documents/TABLES.pdf (ORB Research Tables)

ORB - Opinion Business Research - Newsroom (ORB Newsroom)

ORB - Opinion Business Research - Newsroom (ORB Update, with revised causality data link at the bottom)

For comparison, here's a list of "insurgent" casualties:

List of insurgent fatality reports in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Puts the range at ~17,000-23,000.

Regardless of the death toll (which is obviously brutal and tragic, but nothing can be done now about it), the largest problem now is the astounding number of Iraqi REFUGEES, which including exiles and interally displaced comes out to about 4 or 5 million people. 4 or 5 million out of 30 million. These numbers are pretty much universally agreed on:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pretty much has all the bases covered on this one: UNHCR | Iraq .

UNHCR estimates more than 4.7 million Iraqis have left their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care. Of these, more than 2.7 million Iraqis are displaced internally, while more than 2 million have fled to neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. Many were displaced prior to 2003, but the largest number has fled since. In 2006, Iraqis became the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe.

Refugees International is pretty covered on the issue as well:

http://www.refugeesinternational.org...le/detail/9679

According to the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration in 2007, almost 5 million Iraqis had been displaced by violence in their country, the vast majority of which had fled since 2003. Over 2.8 million vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq, while 2 million were living in Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Gulf States. Most Iraqis are determined to be resettled to Europe or North America, and few consider return to Iraq an option. Iraqis have no legal work options in most host countries and are increasingly desperate and in need of humanitarian assistance. [...] The U.S. fell far short of its promise to permanently resettle 7,000 vulnerable Iraqis in the 2007 fiscal year. (~1600 resettled).

That's what I've got. Just in case, the "Iraqi Body Count" figures are only a compilation of deaths exclusively reported by the English-speaking media, so even imagining that it covers all or even most Iraqi deaths resulting from the conflict would be ridiculous. Either way nobody 'wins' in war, except the rich. Bah, even callings this a war at all is ludicrious. 5,000 dead to over 5 million dead, exiled, or internally displaced? It's more of a massacre.

 

[CA95380]

Kill tally: Approaching two million, including between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqi .......

.........and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranian combatants killed during the Iran-Iraq War.

An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals killed following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. No conclusive figures for the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, with estimates varying from as few as 1,500 to as many as 200,000. Over 100,000 Kurds killed or "disappeared". No reliable figures for the number of Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims killed during Hussein's reign, though estimates put the figure between 60,000 and 150,000. (Mass graves discovered following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 suggest that the total combined figure for Kurds, Shias and dissidents killed could be as high as 300,000). Approximately 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War.

Saddam Hussein killer file

I can copy and paste too.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Hey, you wanna know something cool about all the deaths Saddam Hussein was responsible during his tenure as a mass murderer?

He was a darling of the US government. Isn't it funny how nobody ever said that? Saddam gassed his own people! [While we supported him!] Saddam killed thousands and thousands Iranians! [While we cheered for him!] Saddam crushed revolutionary attempts to end his brutal rule! [And we just let it happen even while we could've stopped it!]

According to Said Aburish, Saddam made a visit to Amman in the year 1979, before the Iran-Iraq war, where he met three senior CIA agents. He discussed with them his plans to invade Iran.[5]

In 1980, Iraq started the war with a blitzkrieg attack, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of much larger Iran, and the Ronald Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might lose. Reagan chose Donald Rumsfeld as his emissary to Saddam, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984.[2]

After the visit, the Reagan administration offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of US assistance. The CIA and DIA relation with Saddam intensified. The CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft, Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons.[1][2]

Under President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. doubled its financial credits for Iraq. Dick Cheney, who was secretary of defense and a statutory member of the National Security Council that reviewed Iraq policy, supported the administration's appeasement policy.[2]

Saddam Hussein - United States relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot - UPI.com

But the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraq's communist, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions.

And just to remind you about the little incident of the 1991 Intifadas against Saddam, which might have been successfull in finally overthrowing the murderers. George the First even made a great magnanimous call to action on February 15th of that year to force out the tyrant. What happened? Despite the fact that the US was totally capable of enforcing the no-fly zone in order to severely cripple Saddam's response to the uprising, it simply allowed him to go right over and absolutely crush the rebellion. Yay for the great magnanimity of talk and no action when it is most reasonable and necessary.

The Administration did sternly warn Iraqi authorities on March 7 against the use of chemical weapons during the unrest, but equivocated about Iraq's use of helicopter gunships against civilians. President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker stated in mid-March that helicopter gunships should not be used, but other Administration officials gave conflicting signals. The question of helicopters was ignored in the March 3 cease-fire agreement, which clearly prohibited Iraq's use of fixed-wing aircraft. In the end, the aircraft were employed with impunity to attack rebels and civilians alike, and proved instrumental in quelling the insurrection.

1991 uprisings in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yay! Thanks guys, for killing the bad guy. Next time, try not supporting him through his worse attrocities. K? thx.

 

[CA95380]

Hey, you wanna know something cool about all the deaths Saddam Hussein was responsible during his tenure as a mass murderer?

-snip- To get rid of dead text -snip-

Yay! Thanks guys, for killing the bad guy. Next time, try not supporting him through his worse attrocities. K? thx.

I assume by this statement that you do not live in the United States? Because if you do .....

Yay! Thanks guys,

.... includes yourself? If you do not live in the USA - where do you live?

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Uhhh, does it make a difference?

 

[CA95380]

Uhhh, does it make a difference?

Uh .... like yeah! Because if you live in the USA ... you are part of the problem.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Oh, ok. Sorry, I get kinda paranoid since Wow started going off on me for not being American. Granted, that was before I realized he was nuts.

Either way, I'm not sure about pinning the problem on the American people per se. It's not like there was a big vote on whether to sell weapons and dangerous technology to a brutal dictator, or sell weapons to Iran, or train terrorists in Nicaragua, or depose democracies to install military governments, etc. etc. etc. Especially considering all of this type of information is always so conviniently absent from any media outlets.

To answer your question, I'm a Costa Rican national, but I live most of the year in Montreal, Quebec.

 

[CA95380]

To answer your question, I'm a Costa Rican national, but I live most of the year in Montreal, Quebec.

Ok, fair enough. Thanks for answering my question about where you live.

 

[Voltaire]

Oh, ok. Sorry, I get kinda paranoid since Wow started going off on me for not being American. Granted, that was before I realized he was nuts.

Either way, I'm not sure about pinning the problem on the American people per se. It's not like there was a big vote on whether to sell weapons and dangerous technology to a brutal dictator, or sell weapons to Iran, or train terrorists in Nicaragua, or depose democracies to install military governments, etc. etc. etc. Especially considering all of this type of information is always so conviniently absent from any media outlets.

To answer your question, I'm a Costa Rican national, but I live most of the year in Montreal, Quebec.

Oh no, Epsilon Delta, you're spot on... the majority of the American people may not have malicious intent, but our apathy is criminal. Does silence imply consent? I think the government has decided that for us...

By the way, I just did a little perusing of Costa Rican history on the old "series of tubes," and I'm very interested in the constitutional term-limits for delegates to the national Legislative Assembly. I figure that's one of the main problems leading to the sheeple mentality in America: Since there's more or less a career politician caste here because of the difficulty in unseating an incumbent, it's a lot easier to just sit back and let the "pros" handle it. Or maybe I'm idealizing the Costa Rican system, I wouldn't know since I've never lived there .

 

[Avatar4321]

These little news snippets about "winning" and "losing" make great talking points, but ignore the bigger issue that has been plaguing United States foreign policy for a century or so.

I was watching a little msnbc the other morning when I got ready (I know, what was I thinking), and they of course had their obligatory Democrat and Republican campaign proxies come on and give their little spiel about how to "solve the problem" of the war in Iraq. The most telling thing was when the anchor asked the spokespeople about how long they thought we would be in Iraq.

Obama's spokesperson did the typical cop-out response of, "We should never have been there in the first place."

McCain's spokesperson went the equally repulsive and thoughtless route of saying, "Probably forever. We didn't leave Korea after that war, we didn't leave Japan or Europe after WWII, so I don't see what the problem is. We need a foothold in the Middle East."

Rather amazing that Obama is apparently running for President of the World, after his little European escapade, and McCain is content to simply continue business as usual, steadily increasing the number of sovereign nations around whom this country has its tentacles wrapped.

Both sides sound like loonies...I think Lewis Black said it best, when he said the Democrats are party of No Ideas, and the Republicans are the part of Bad Ideas.

If you want us out of Iraq and, indeed, out of the rest of the world, you need to be advocating energy independence. Until we have energy independence we have to act and interfere in other nations. Otherwise, our economy collapses and millions of americans die of starvation, heat, and cold.

But I suppose doing everything for energy independence, drilling for oil, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, more efficient technology, etc is just another one of those bad Republican ideas.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Ok, fair enough. Thanks for answering my question about where you live.

No problem.

Oh no, Epsilon Delta, you're spot on... the majority of the American people may not have malicious intent, but our apathy is criminal. Does silence imply consent? I think the government has decided that for us...

By the way, I just did a little perusing of Costa Rican history on the old "series of tubes," and I'm very interested in the constitutional term-limits for delegates to the national Legislative Assembly. I figure that's one of the main problems leading to the sheeple mentality in America: Since there's more or less a career politician caste here because of the difficulty in unseating an incumbent, it's a lot easier to just sit back and let the "pros" handle it. Or maybe I'm idealizing the Costa Rican system, I wouldn't know since I've never lived there .

Yeah, I'd say the term limits were a good idea, but it arose due to historical necessity. If delegates (basically congressmen) here didn't have term limits it'd just be an open door to the most flagrant corruption, which is a huuuge problem in Costa Rica as it is in all of Latin America. I guess it has it's ups and downs, though. On the one hand, having no term limits could be a good incentive for the representative to do better. But on the other, if elections are based on who's got the backing of the wealthiest special interests/donors, or on image and not on actual issues, then no term limits can get pretty abusive. I guess it's good to have 'new blood' every four years though, so that's a pro. When all is said and done, though, we still have a pretty rotten and generally good-for-nothing 'political caste' here, and I'm pretty sure you'd get a statement like that virtually anywhere in the world. Really, the only unique or interesting thing about our government is that it was the first in the world to constitutionally abolish the army, back in 1948.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The US has Term Limits. It is called the People, we vote them in or not. Personally I am against the Presidential term limits as well as it violates the intent of the Constitution. I would rather have suffered through 4 terms of Clinton then have that amendment.

The Country is supposed to be for the people by the people, Term limits curtail the ability of the people to elect whom they CHOSE. Good or BAD. Term limits are simply an attempt to make people NOT responsible for their choices. It is like the ZERO tolerance mentality or 3 strikes your out Court system. All bad ideas that breed ignorance and apathy, that lead into the " it is not my fault" mentality that is so prevalent in this Country.

 

[Ravi]

Sweet!

Sorry, Charles, an exaggeration. I don't actually know how many are dead, but if we hadn't invaded, more than likely each dead civilian would still be alive. So even if they were killed by us, terrorists, or their fellow citizens, we lit the match.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Eh, to each his own, I'd say. As I said, the reasons for term limits here relate to some flagrant abuses of power that had been prevalent throughout the region, especially because voter fraud was so widespread until 1948 [voting fraud was much easier for a president/party already in power], and the 1949 Constitution made controls for that [the real possibility of a dictatorship establishing itself through unending presidential terms]. Conditions have changed, so I personally wouldn't really be frightened by the prospect of a change, but on the other hand congressmen can run after sitting out a term and presidents after two terms, so it's kinda good to have that little space to see how it's going. AISHDOPSDIAHsPOISD.

 

[Ravi]

There were not 600k killed. That is a fantasy number made up by an anti war group bent on spinning their crap. The Iraqi Government does in fact have numbers. Why? Well cause they issue death certificates and the hospitals report to them. When they were claiming 200k had died the Iraqi Government said 20 k. So you do the math.

As for Ravi, she is so full of shit her eyes are brown. And the next time she calls me Wow she will find out just how nasty I can be. She is a political hack, partisan piece of Garbage that routinely lies and distorts, she never backs up her claims because her claims are all fabricated in her pea brain. She uses her head as a hat rack and thinks with emotions. She "feels" things. Typical brain dead Liberal turd for brains. She "feels" it is right. She "feels" that her position is correct. She "feels" that we failed. Get the idea? If she had to think her head would explode because it is full of fumes from her ass and the spark of two brain cells rubbing together would ignite the gas and blow her head off.

The only difference between Ravi and Wow is she is a liberal and a female. She is a refined Sealybobo. Full of ignorance and passing it off as intelligence. They took her IQ and it failed to register. She is a walking talking brain dead medical miracle. The medical staff found no brain wave activity at all and would have declared her dead except she uses her ass to keep going.

Wow? My eyes are blue. And are you telling me it's possible for you to be nastier?

 

[Jeepers]

Anyone else speak russian... Might come in handy if the russians decide to take back the northwest... A minimal landing party could launch from cuba and secure Miami for a nice little russian vacation spot.. woo. at least we won in Iraq... Vat Ochen Xopowo..

 

[Ninja]

Anyone else speak russian... Might come in handy if the russians decide to take back the northwest... A minimal landing party could launch from cuba and secure Miami for a nice little russian vacation spot.. woo. at least we won in Iraq... Vat Ochen Xopowo..

Sounds like a sequel to Red Dawn. Go take another hit and write the screenplay.

 

[Jeepers]

Sounds like a sequel to Red Dawn. Go take another hit and write the screenplay.

You did hear that the ruskys are putting missiles in Cuba right...

 

[editec]

Great news!

Now, when do the troops come home?