- #36
Smurf
- 443
- 3
Now!
WHO IS CRATER FACE??
WHO IS CRATER FACE??
I'm sure many of the soldiers who came back from Germany after being told they how ashamed the Europeans were of them, felt the same way.Smurf said:I see where your coming from, but I know people who say they won't go back to Iraq if its the last thing they do, this is not cowardice they simply have no faith in their mission there. Soldiers will always be offended when people don't believe in their cause, it doesn't mean anything more.
A first hand account is when you see it yourself, your getting second hand accounts because your hearing it from people who saw it themselves.
Smurf said:Now!
WHO IS CRATER FACE??
phatmonky said:
Smurf said:I don't think its a doomsday at all, I just think its not going nearly as well as it could or should. I also don't think it should have happened at all but that's not the point.
And Some Do Think its a Faulty Cause! The media chooses what it covers, it doesn't invent these things, so don't tell me the CIA created all those videos to get Kerry Re-Elected.
OPINION...and we both have many...but neither of us can resolve OUR political differences in this forum. The very idea that a totally foreign power can install democracy in a politically and religiously variegated country like Iraq with its own concept of "democracy" under these conditions is sheer folly. Japan had an Emperor, a CENTRAL voice in the country, what he said was law... [and by your own words, McArthur was brilliant...who do we have in the Bush Administration who even has a semblance of a brain]...we don't enjoy anything remotely close to that kind of central command in Iraq nor do we enjoy that kind of occupation by anyone capable of uniting this country under ONE GOAL ... people in Iraq carry AK-47's as routinely as we carry cell phones here ... Bush and Powell both used the words PRE EMPTIVE WAR ... how does that IMPLY anything...IT SAYS IT PLAIN AND CLEAR... we strike them before they strike us... semantics on your part again... like the Bush Campaign that is engaged in total distortions of fact, outright lies and continued misinformation...the only way this idiot can win is to cheat AGAIN.JohnDubYa said:Irrelevant to the issue. Noriega WAS in power. He WAS a dictator. We did throw him out. Panama now has a democracy. Ergo, top-down democracies do occur.
I don't care if Noriega was Bush's grandfather, those are the facts.
"implied" usually means you don't have the references to back up your statement. It makes no difference, because your point is irrelevant to the issue.
Explain the relevance (and post links to back your claim).
The rest of your points are equally irrelevant. The issue is "Is it possible to install a democracy from the top down?" ABSOLUTELY. And nothing about the situation in Iraq makes such an event impossible. (Maybe HARDER, but I think we are up to the challenge.)
The very idea that a totally foreign power can install democracy in a politically and religiously variegated country like Iraq its own concept of "democracy" under these conditions is sheer folly.
Japan had an Emperor, a CENTRAL voice in the country, what he said was law... we don't enjoy anything remotely close to that kind of central command in Iraq...
Bush and Powell both used the words PRE EMPTIVE WAR ... how does that IMPLY anything...IT SAYS IT PLAIN AND CLEAR... we strike them before they strike us...
semantics... like the Bush Campaign that is engage in total distortions of fact, outright lies and continued misinformation...the only way this idiot can win is to cheat AGAIN.
[Crater Face came from the play Grease... a nickname for the adversarial role played by someone with a face horribly pock marked by bad acne...anyone here ever SEE photographs of Noriega?]
The count deliberately includes all the deaths since it all began.
And since you are so well-read regarding the numbers, perhaps you'd like to state the numbers actually killed directly by US personnel?
Ah... you know what the invasion of Panama was about, yes?
If the murder rate is 4 per 100,000 per year in your town with police there, then all the police leave and the rate goes up to 40/100,000/year, does the police activity have anything at all to do with the murder rate?JohnDubYa said:Sorry, but I am not going to hold our military responsible for every Iraqi that kills another Iraqi. To post body-count numbers without that crucial distinction is disingenuous.
Correct, it does not list the thousands in mass graves. I hope some day there will be an accurate count of such, if for no other reason than to provide some truth to those who may have lost family and such to Saddam. However, that lack in no way nullifies the listing of all the other deaths listed there.The Web page is even more disingeneous when you consider that it did not count the bodies stacked up by Saddam's regime (Iraqis killing Iraqis) before we got there.
Surely you can read something? Some day? Anything?I'm not doing your work for you.
How many is enough?But scanning over the site I think the numbers are astonishingly low historically.
JohnDubYa said:Yes I do. What's your point? How is it relevant to the argument?
For myself, of course, I am NOT a tree-hugging Democrat... and I am NOT an across the board pacifist... but in line with the apparent logic stream I am reading here about our invasion of Iraq and its mass graves... much like Kosovo before it, IF WE HAD TOLD THE UNITED NATIONS and our former European Allies that we needed an intervention in Iraq for the very similar reasons to our incursion in Kosovo I would not have had as many problems with this war...as it is, using the logic stream that I am reading here in favor of Bush and his band of merry war makers, shouldn't we not invade North Korea where mass graves also surely exist? What other country is next? I mean, I guess America is going to clean all the Dodge Cities around the world? That Saddam was a very bad boy is undisputable, but our reasons for this war were based at the United Nations ENTIRELY on the "evidence" stated in the record by both Colin Powell, and George W. Bush... PRE EMPTIVE WAR was needed and quickly in order to stop Saddam from a first strike..why do some out here in this forum insist on demanding transcripts or links to what most of us witnessed in live telecasts from the UN at the time they were said? Smoke and mirrors.. WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ? What can be done about this mess now that Babushka has created it for "personal" reasons... he DID say, "...well, he [Saddam] tried to kill my dad." Yes, and dad tried to kill Saddam FIRST. Sheesh. Is there any hope for America's long term future in the world anymore?Adam said:Since it was brought up earlier in the thread, and I guess is somehow already part of the topic... What do you think the Panama invasion was about?
Who cares? It's over now. WE DID put that little tin horn dictator in place and as JohnDubya has said here WE had to clean up a mess of our own making. BOTH political parties are nuts! But on rare occasions, ONE of them, doesn't matter which, screws up and does something right. Panama was right. So was Granada. Iraq II on the other hand was done for "reasons" that were stated in the public record that later turned out to be ...shall we say, incorrect [<-- just to be overly generous for the moment to Mr. Bush and his father's old Cabinet]. In mid stride, we found the use of the term Weapons of Mass Destruction suddenly ending as MASS GRAVES replaced it. We can't, as a nation, continue to direct our foreign policy with such incompetence.Adam said:Since it was brought up earlier in the thread, and I guess is somehow already part of the topic... What do you think the Panama invasion was about?
Adam said:Correct, it does not list the thousands in mass graves. I hope some day there will be an accurate count of such, if for no other reason than to provide some truth to those who may have lost family and such to Saddam.
If the murder rate is 4 per 100,000 per year in your town with police there, then all the police leave and the rate goes up to 40/100,000/year, does the police activity have anything at all to do with the murder rate?
However, that lack in no way nullifies the listing of all the other deaths listed there.
Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) -- Figures widely disputed but probably between 500,000 - 1 million deaths; Iraqis 2-375,000, Iranians 3-600,000
1987-8 "Anfal Campaign" against the Kurds -- 200,000 according to the Kurds. 50-100,000 according to Human Right’s Watch. These include 6-7,000 deaths from chemical poisoning with mustard gas, Sarin and VX, in Halabja on or around 16 March 1988.
First Gulf War (incl. Operation Desert Storm) Jan - Feb 1991 -- 20-100,000 Iraqi soldiers and 2,300 civilian deaths. United States: 269 soldiers killed
1991 suppression of the Kurdish insurrection Northern Iraq -- Thousands of Iraqi Kurds died.
1991 suppression of the Marsh Arab rebellion Southern Iraq -- 30,000 to 60,000 deaths
Iraqi political executions -- An estimated 3,000 prisoners (mostly political) have been executed since 1997.
Deaths due to UN sanctions -- Initial reports (Lancet 1995) of sanctions causing the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children were an overestimate. Recent estimates (Richard Garfield) for the cumulative total of excess deaths among children under five between 1990 and 2000 are approximately 350,000.
The US/UK liberation of Iraq April 2003 -- US and British forces 136 dead. Iraqi forces 2,320 (US estimates). Iraqi civilians 1,250 (Iraqi estimates).
These numbers will of course rise as the war goes on.
Jim Thornton, Nottingham, 12 April 2003
http://www.iconservatives.org.uk/recent_iraqi_war_deaths.htm
Do you think those deaths are meaningless to their surviving spouses and relatives?JohnDubYa said:Without the context of what happened previous to our involvement, such body-count measurements are meaningless.
You're looking at it the wrong way. The deaths caused by sanctions are also to be laid at the feet of those who made the sanctions.JohnDubYa said:If the deaths due to the sanctions are anywhere close to being accurate, how can anyone condemn the loss of civilian life that ultimately led to the withdrawing of the sanctions?
You're looking at it the wrong way. The deaths caused by sanctions are also to be laid at the feet of those who made the sanctions.
Do you think those deaths are meaningless to their surviving spouses and relatives?
The sanctions were driven from day one by the USA. The sanctions killed people. The invasion, part of which meant the end of those sanctions, killed people. None of it is good.JohnDubYa said:I thought you liked the United Nations. By invading Iraq, George W. undid the sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
Both are important. And the reasons for discussing the deaths caused by the USA invasion have been covered extensively in many threads. Including this one.Whose opinions matter more? Surviving relatives of those killed by the US Army, or surviving relatives of those killed by Saddam Hussein and the sanctions? Why did you only single out the former? (Possible bias, perhaps?)
JohnDubYa said:By the way, Adam, I didn't say the DEATHS were meaningless. I said the body-counts (that is, statistics) were meaningless.
How nice that you can sit there thousands of KM away and separate the deaths from the numbers.
The sanctions were driven from day one by the USA.