Casualties in Iraq. Here is some perspective.

It could be your problem in ways you might not like. It should be your problem if you had a shred of decency, which you obviously don't.

 

Ciara Jobes starved to death in 2002, in this country.

 

Obie, very nice post. I had no idea the buthers in Laos were that bad.

Also, the Armenian genocide is the most untalked about tragedy ever. The sick part is that to this day the turks deny it ever happened.

Everything you mentioned here is worth bringing up. However, i do wish you would have included the numbers from the soviet union (namely the Stalin years.) Stalin and Mao killed each killed about three times as many people as Hitler, and no one has a clue.

I'll create the top ten killers list based off your numbers ,and using some of my own.
Here's a site with a wide range of estimates
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm

20th Century's Top Ten Killers
1.Mao-24-30 million
2.Stalin-22-26 million
3.Hitler-12 million
4.Pol Pot- 2-3.3 million
5. North Korean regime-1.5 million
6. Ottoman turks 1.2-1.5 million
7. Chinese military in tibet- 1 million
8. Saddam-6-800,000
9. Mohammed Farah Aidid-3-350,000
10. Lao gov't-300,000

 

This is a real tagedy, but the point is that she didn't die because she was poor. She died because she was tortured by her "guardian."

 

The 800,000 for Saddam is the one where you used "your own numbers."

 

Oil, and attempting to change a corrupt region. Sure, everyone is real quick to say the reason of oil is "terrible." These people protest and protest, raise all kinds of hell at various government buildings in the US. But how did they get to the protest? They drove. How did they get home? They drove. Nice.

As far as changing the region, it is the most corrupt region in the world, with a great deal of people who HATE the US. There are also a number of religious fanatics as well, so why not take them out too?

 

Excellent post, Ian. I agree 100%.

 

Yea if it was only 600,000 that isn't a big deal.
How callous can you be?

 

What's wrong with a single mother with five kids? We have lots of women with zero kids. Just a balancing act by nature i say. No normal women wanted to be a single mother in the first place, except a few Madonnas maybe.

Maybe that father was a jerk.

Kids are not supposed to work under certain age. But they still need to be fed don't they?

You are blaming women and children for the failure of the government. You are blaming immigrants from outside taking jobs from americans but at the same time blaming American women having too many kids.

Typical republican.

 

The above link actually is to information on human rights violations committed by Saddam Hussein and his regime in the year 2002 -- not 2003. I have not found information regarding which human rights violations were occurring in Iraq in 2003. The US invaded in March 2003.

My understanding is that Hussein was not systematically killing the Kurds in 2002 or 2003. I believe that occurred in the late 1980s and early-1990s.

Here is a link to a site by Human Rights Watch entitled Iraq: The Death Penalty, Executions and "Prison Cleansing": http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iraq031103.htm

It doesn't explicitly mention what was going on in Iraq in 2003. However, for whatever it is worth (and that might not be much) it does include the following:

"In recent communications with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq, Andreas Mavrommatis, the Iraqi government for the first time provided limited data on the use of the death penalty. It stated that a total of 157 persons were executed in 2000. Of these, 106 were for the crimes of homicide and homicide accompanied by robbery, forty for drug-related offences, and eleven for 'immoral offences (rape of a close female blood relative).' For 2001, the government gave a total figure of 106 executions, of which sixty-three were for homicide and homicide accompanied by robbery, forty for drug-related offences, and three for immoral offences. No figures for other categories of capital offences were given. The government also provided some data on the number of prisoners whose death sentences it said had been commuted to terms of imprisonment. Among them were prisoners who had been convicted under the now-repealed Decree 59/1994 (see above), of whom forty-six had their sentences commuted in 2001 and seventeen in 2002. A further twenty-one prisoners were said to have had their death sentences commuted in 2001-2001 under the terms of presidential or 'discretionary' decrees. Other information requested by the special rapporteur, including the names of those executed, the dates of their trials, appeals, and executions, the charges against them, and the legislation under which they were tried and sentenced, was not provided."
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Based on my limited research, President Bush had good reason to believe that if he did not order the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his regime would have continued to perpetrate human rights abuses including extra-judicial killings. Saddam had killed a lot of people during his reign and had been killing people at least as recently as 2002. I suspect -- though am not certain -- that he was killing people in 2003, right before the US invaded.

However, the above does not weaken the claim that President Bush should not have ordered the invasion of Iraq. At the time of the invasion, it was unlikely that the US’s invading would save more Iraqi civilian lives than not invading. First, it was clear that an invasion would result in many Iraqi civilian being killed. Second, it was not unreasonable to believe that an invasion would result in about 10,000 Iraqi civilians being killed. Finally, although Saddam Hussein was still killing Iraqis close in time to the invasion, my understanding is that he was killing them at a lower rate than he had been. For instance, Hussein was no longer bombing or gassing the Kurds.

In addition, the frequent presence of the weapons inspectors and the close attention that the international community was giving to Iraq probably would hinder Hussein’s committing human rights abuses. He had good reason to believe that if, for instance, he started bombing his own people again, the international community might invade Iraq and topple him from power.

One additional point: My impression is that President Bush knew that many Iraqi soldiers would be killed in a US-led invasion. Also, my understanding is that Iraqi soldiers were being executed if they deserted. This is particularly morally salient, because many, if not most, Iraqi soldiers were not able to freely choose to be soldiers in the way that I could have freely chosen to be a soldier. However, I have no idea on how many Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the invasion.

 

That's the best you can come up with Dog?

By the way, sounds like a case of murder to me.

 

A single woman of no means with multiple children is an inherently weak economic unit in any society throughout history.
I agree, she doesn't have a comfortable life. But , does she deserve one because she couldn't keep her legs closed? 20K plus isn't enough for her? What is sufficient? 50K?, 100K ? A condo on Miami Beach with 10K a month spending money?

 

Good point. Somebody's going to have to pay for our social security.

 

Here are a few other interesting numbers to help put things in perspective.

Fewer than 30 Americans died in 2002 due to terrorist activities. More than 50 died shoveling snow. More than 17,000 died in alcohol-related automobile accidents.

More American soldiers have died in the past two years in Iraq and Afghanistan than in the first two years of the Vietnam War.

(Disclaimer - heard this figures on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, and I haven't independently confirmed the exact numbers.)

 

This post demonstrates the short attention span of many Americans. And if the next one kills 10,000?

 

The first major battle for the in Vietnam wasn't until 1965 with the battle in the Ia Drang valley. The US military had over 5,000 combat deaths in 1966 alone.

 

Women used to be staying home. That doesn't mean they are the weakest links. Modern men should have a better understanding than that view of yours.

 

If kids are out living on their own/with someone else, they don't need to be supported.

Kids can get jobs that can still bring money in. What's wrong with delivering papers at a young age? You can get a job in a supermarket as a teen and be able to make some money for the family.

Instead, they would seem to want handouts more than getting a job.

 

If God intended to put women in the position of independence within human society, he would have put a pair of balls in their body instead of a pair of tits. Even in today's american society, women still can't totally support themselves. It's unfair totally to compare them with men.

 

Statistical abberation, just like 9/11. I'm not trying to downplay the humanity of that event - over 3,000 people died. I'm trying to point out that the "terrorism" boogeyman is, well, a boogeyman. There are real problems killing vastly more Americans every year than terrorism.

I know. We haven't really had a "major battle" yet either. And OBL and SH are still whereabouts unknown.

 

Right. I mean we arn't even trying to find them!

I think you should go find them. Prove how easy it is to find two people in a world of 6 billion. Here's a pith helmet, Steve Irwin's accent, and some binoculars...go Fooshino go!

 

I happen to think our men and women in the military are doing a fine job hunting down the terrorists. It's too bad that you feel the need to criticize their competence while carrying out a very difficult task.

 

You are SO full of crap.

 

Where the hell was Saddam on the site you quoted? When Iraq was mentioned, I saw the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, the UN sanctions, and the Shi'a rebellion. Ironically, the one I think the US is least partially culpable for are the UN sanctions - since I tend to think that a good deal of the casualty numbers quoted in connection with sanctions were Saddamite propaganda designed to get them lifted.

 

My point was the end isn't even in sight, if the end is to "squash terrorism". Tho I still haven't figured out what Saddam has to do with 9/11.