Iraq Body Count at 25,000

You know thanks for bringing ups WW2. Many Countries have come out to say they were sorry for letting the Nazi kill all the Jews. Well what was really different between that and the Iraq killing of the Kirds?

Incontrovertible. There is no excuse for murder.

There are, however, reasons... and the real reasons are rarely the reasons given. Prevent the conditions that breed terrorists and you cripple them. Stop spraying weed killer on the buds and dig up the roots instead.

Yes, while not wanting to ruin the mood on the 'London' thing, I note that a very small group of people mostly not from the UK are wailing and gnashing their teeth because "49 people" died. It would be inappropriate to call them anything but "49 people" because they are not the countrymen of those wailers, and the wailers cannot name a single one of them.

So why are they not ripping their hair out for Ulrika's 25,000 people in Iraq?

I think I already said why. Few if any of us are in Iraq. Few if any of us have Family or friends in Iraq (I have two, one Causen, one Causen by marriage [he leaves today to go back for his 3rd time over there.]) Many of us have friends and family or our selves who rides trains and busses. This is something we can relate to, not a out of the way desert.
And if you are asking about the 25,000 and you are so upset about it, then were was your out cry for the people killed at the hand of Sedum Hussein’s government?



I agree with allot of things. We did three things that made this problem.
1) We trained them in the USSR/Afghanistan war.
2) We Back a invading people. (Lets face it the Jewish people with UK help took the land and called it Israel We wouldn’t like it if UK came and took part Texas and gave it to a Native American group to make there own country because there god said it was there’s)
3) we bake the Saudi Government that:
a) treats it’s people as bad as Sadom Husain did.
b) pays for the Hadassahs (Sp?) that teach the kids a basterfied version of there religion, they are more likely to join groups like Al’Quida or Taliban

Ok, what do we do to "Prevent the conditions that breed terrorists", hmm? Destroy Isreal? Tear down all religons except Islam? Turn over Bali to the fanatics? Exactly what? I understand that you are taking the short-sighted view and are noting the war in Iraq and the insurgents...but what about pre-911? What exactly did we do, above and beyond what the other NATO nations have historically done with us, that created a condition that bred terrorists? Supported Saddam then dropped our support? Is that really the justification for Afghanistan's allowing a terrorist org. plot our downfall from within its borders?

What is happening now is not what is causing all of this, it's what happened after WWII...the creation of Isreal. We (ie. the West) support Isreal, and we are not a bunch of fundimentally Muslim nations. Therefore, we are infidels and allies to the Muslim's worst enemy...and should therefore be converted or killed. That is it, plain and simple. Everything else is just window dressing. If we had completely ignored the mid east for the past 70 years, yet still defended or supported Isreal...they still would have bombed the WTC.


We are ripping our hair out for the people of Iraq, which is why our sons and daughters are out there ducking terrorist bombs, and trying to get those same terrorists before they add to that 25,000...we train police and troops, they blow them up...yet we are the bad guys.

I agree Arcadia. a lot of effort needs to the digging up roots part of the problem.

We helped free Afghanistan from USSR control by training freedom fighters. Then we left and didn’t help with clean up. We trained and made that mess. Lets face it people the US and the rest of NATO made allot of the messes and we are now paying for them. We can even take some of the blame back to the fall of the Turkish Anomin Empire that fell at the hands of the Allies in WW1.

The Mid East is Oil rich -- yet most money goes into the hands of the few. Socio - economic imbalance has always stirred rebels.

In the Mid-East these rebels are rounded up by those with political aspirations - the terrorist leadership - and are easy recruits using their deep religeous tradition to make them into fundamentalist killers.

I dont think its as simple as Isreal. You cant pull the changes cuased by Oil .. and the potential riches and power associated with Oil .. out of the motivations of some in the mid- east.

Oil of Course becoming increasingly more important during the time since Isreal was created again.

A big part is the Saudis - they conquored Arabia. They get rich off the oil. the United States is there, basically we make it impossible for the Fundamentalist Islamic Militants to over- throw the Saudis.

Its not a coincidence that Suadi Arabia is the place where many of the terrorists are from. Gettign the US out of Saudi Arabia is a big motivator that has been attributed to Bin Laden (supposedly only for religeous reasosn, but I think power plays a big role)

It may be a big mistake to protect the Saudi's .. but would be a huge one to let the Fundamentalists as the exist at the moment to be able to stage a coup.

I bet those guys in Iraq rode trains and busses. Some probably got killed on trains and busses.

I'll bite. I've never been too afraid or squimish to say something I know will be unpopular, so this is why I think it's this way.

Aside from whether or not this is right or wrong, aside from "how-things-should-be", but rather how they are, looking at it solely from a human perspective, it breaks down into ; Those aren't our people.

I think this is just a deep down hard-wired response. Something 'tribal' in a way. The US, Britain and Canada, and a few other Western European countries are 'our' people, and we feel more in touch with them.

Like I said, and I know people will ignore this part, it's not so much a racial, as in the modern interpretation of the word, ie racist, idea, but rather a very old hard-wired tribal response. At least when we're talking about large groups of people. Us against them. Those strange people who live two valleys over kind of thing that's still a part of us.

I know it's popular to think such things don't exist, or that an enlightened person somehow doesn't have these old responses in them. But that's just crazy talk.

As a whole, and this is important, as a whole, people have a revulsion of snakes, people who've lived in a modern city all their lives get scared when a wolf howls or lion roars, and they feel suspicious of other people who are 'different'. Why? They're a million year old survival response. Far far older than any notion of Political Correctness.

So this is why I think that as a whole, people feel more sympathy when tragedy befalls others that our evolutionary left over monkey brain tells us are parts of 'our' tribe. And also why we want to know all the dirty details.

Flame away

Wait wait wait...hold on. We helped FREE Afghanistan from USSR control by training freedom fighters. Then we left and DIDN'T HELP WITH CLEAN UP. So, were they better with the USSR? Should we be mad at France for helping us shuck English control...but then not sticking around to "clean up"? So, by your logic...if a cop saves a battered woman from being beaten at home, he then is obligated to build her a new house?

And Colette, I do agree..Oil is a problem. Only in that the world's greed for it forces the West to even care about the Mid-east or it's leaders. Take out the oil, and we would've allowed Isreal to run roughshod over the countries that surround it years ago.

But were the train and Busses in a none war torn area? Was it some place like your own?

Yeah, we did the Afghans a favor in a sense, but we left them with a pretty messy aftermath to deal with for themselves. We (US policy) only cared about getting the Sovs out, then move on to focus on other potential hot spots. This, while not terribly moral, made some strategic sense in a MAD world. We don't live in that kind of world anymore fortunately. Strategic realism, while still an important factor, isn't the only game anymore, and is flexible enough that we can have some time to fix some of the bad deals we had to consign folks to back in the day.

As for oil, it's a blessing and a curse for the Middle East. Without oil, they would have the strategic importance of Africa. Africa doesn't worry too much about super/hyper power machinations, but then, without that attention, some really nasty shit is just ignored. Better government, in both regions, would go a long way.

Fact is we in the US were lucky. If Washington was a militant person he could have taken over the country, hell they wanted to give him control. Then thin is we left and they were then in a really bad way because War lords took over, people we trained. That made a breading ground. Should we help a battered woman get a new home? Yes and no. We do help them get away we do help them build a new life, we don’t do all the work we just help. We did nothing. We let the “Good” freedom fighters get over run by bin Laden and his people. Hello if you don’t see that as a problem then your not 1/2 as smart as I really thought you were.

There's no justification for murder. I thought I'd mentioned that.

Israel is taking positive concrete steps to reduce tensions with the Palestinians by withdrawing from Gaza. Those steps need to be supported and encouraged. A high-profile presence by the US in providing aid and development for the Palestinian Authority would do a great deal for undercutting the recruiting efforts of militant groups.

Our efforts to restore and improve civilian infrastructure in Iraq are lagging (not entirely our fault -- the escalating violence makes this extremely difficult). While it's a Herculean task to rebuild while an insurgency is still raging, providing electricty, food, water, education and employment to the population starves the militants of recruits.

Improving the lot of the common people is part of the solution, but not the whole of it. The US needs the willpower to pressure the repressive regimes amongst our allies (such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) into allowing greater freedom to their own people. Providing (or accepting) aid and comfort from tyrants not only undercuts any moral position we might hold in regards to democracy, but provides plenty of willing fodder for the terrorist murder machinery.

We need to stop supporting tyranny for strategic, political or economic expediency. It blew up in our face with Hussein. It blew up in our face with the Shah of Iran. Hell, it even blew up in our face when we supported the Czar of Russia against the Bolsheviks. How is it not going to blow up with China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or any of the other tyrannical governments that we can't afford to steamroller?

None of the above can stop terrorism entirely, but such steps would reduce it significantly.

What would the families of the victims say if they knew some Americans were fighting over who gets to mourn their son/daughter the most? A son or daughter who they don't know. Do you think they would thank you, or be grateful?

One thing that is most striking about the events of yesterday is that they happened in an ordinary tube station, to 49 ordinary blokes and women. I don't see why this has to become an international event. Everyone let it go and stop picking at it. Just leave those victims alone. We don't howl over Ulrika's 25,000 cause we didn't know them, and we didn't know the 49 in London either. Leave them in peace.

Lupo...bin Laden was considered a "good" freedom fighter. And I'm twice as smart as you believed, but only half of the time.

All valid point to be sure. But, think realistically. Can you name one instance where an outside country either helped or influenced the change of another country's rulers that was bloodless or peaceful? Well-meaning people have been "talking" about change for years within repressive African and the Mid-eastern governments or by their warlords...has all the hand holding or sweet words ever brought change? If so, where?

Well the "blame game" is a difficult one for sure, I was just trying to point out that it is a chain of events and at the begining of the chain you find the US. How far back should the blame go though? Are the British ultimately to blame for partitioning Palestine? And is it fair to really use a word like "fault"?

Also, you cant get to far into analysing stuff like this without bringing things like Israel into it and US support of certain groups, and I am not really interested in getting into that discussion in a game forum. I would think that things like that would offend a lot of folks, but yet not really prove anything substantial or convince anyone of the other persons point of view.

All this is just also just nit picking IMO. Even if you leave out the "insurgents," and even if you dont think the US is responsible for them, the facts are that immense numbers of civilian innocents have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many, many more than innocent US citizens.

About 10 times (I think that's right) the number of innocent people (civilians not soldiers) died in Afghanistan as died in the collapse of the world trade centre for instance. That's ten "eyes" for one.

And that was *before* the invasion of Iraq.

The fact is that to keep the "war on terror" in perspective one must keep in mind that far more innocents have died as a result of this "war" than would likely have died if the US did nothing at all and the terror attacks had continued unabated. Even if the occupation of Iraq ended tomorrow, Al-queda could probably blow up the rough equivalent of a world trade centre full of people each month and the figures still would not balance out before the end of the year.

All these are "innocents" not soldiers.

I find that the original comment by Ulrika to be factual and rather mild in this context.

Finally I hear a lot of people on the thread particualrly upset about the "meat grinder" label, but I cant think of anythign more apt. War *is* a meat grinder and I think it likely the soldiers who are there would also agree.

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I believe a big part of what you;re missing is that this was in fact a blow to all of us. Not in the sense that we feel the loss of these individuals in our personal life, but rather that the act itself was directed at all of us. The bombs went off in London, yes, but the strike of terror was aimed at the western world in particular. This is a loss to all of us because of how they were killed.

Part of the feeling is sadness for the families and friends of the murdered, part of it is fear that it could have been any of us just as easily, and part of it is guilt because we're alive and they're not when it could have just as easily been any of us.

The terrorists did not strike against these unlucky individuals, they lobbed bombs at the collective whole, and these unfortunates took the blast.

This is a wound against the western world, and the western world has the right to show their concern, fear and grief.

So back off a little, this isn't about you

Ok, your alternatives to war? Diplomacy? ahhh...so, that is what ended the violence in the Mid-east...I totally forgot about that. Maybe we should have "turned the other cheek" after 9/11? Maybe they could have punched us in the other one... And what about the people of Iraq prior to our arrival? The pits of corpses, the gassing of the Kurds, the rapes...Why did you not cry out back then, if innocent life is so valuable? Where is your peaceful diplomacy getting you now in Africa? Everyone fed now? Warlords turn over a new leaf? What, are we gonna have another concert so we all feel like we're actually doing something? See, its easy to say "War is wrong, killing is never justified"...yet never have the solution to any of the problems that it can solve. So, keep talking and dreaming of the day when peace rules the world, like it did back...um...well, never. While your daydreaming, someone is wanting your power, resources, your land..its all Darwinism, competition is survival. And we all know what happens to the "nice guy".

Yeah, war is a meat grinder, but Ulrika's comment was "the U.S. has a meat grinder in Iraq that's doing ten times that daily." The wording and the tone suggests the US is mowing all of these people down alone and alone is to blame. Now it can be read otherwise in a less accusatory light, but not sure that would be the first interpretation for most reading it.

As for the blame game comments, enh, not really going anywhere, a bunch of others are kind of handling that.



Um, first, you seem to be saying all Iraqi casualties are innocent because they are not wearing a uniform. Ummm, okay, maybe I'm not reading gist of the quotation marks right.

If the 500,000 dead from sanctions is to be believed (and I suspect it is too high, but I don't have another number), roughly 10 years of sanctions, that would be 50k per year, compared to 25k over several years. And then you have to include Saddam's general brutality into those numbers. Now, again, I think the deaths from sanctions are over-estimated. Say it was equivalent in terms of dead, which is better, life under a brutal regime, somewhat orderly but starving, or an overthrow which is less orderly (and more violent) but with the hope of a nice democratic payoff at the end? I'd say the latter is worth it even if it costs more lives (how many lives, well, not sure), but then you get into risk/reward analyses that get ugly and beyond the scope of this forum. And I'm not including US losses in this, military or otherwise.

In the end, of course, the decision can't be made by simple comparison of body counts, freedom and hope count for something.

They get the cute chicks while the neandrethals are busy removing themselves from the gene pool.

Oooo, changed my mind. Go have more wars. It may be the best hope for breeding a better human race.

I know you just didn't tell me what to do. Because if you did, I'd open up a can of forum whoop-ass and feed it to you with a shovel.

Do want to do this? 'Cause I'll start a new thread right now. We can even bill it as the über-educated leftist forum monster versus the ill-prepared deer-in-the-headlights-looking middle-class conservative. Tell you what, I'll even type using only one hand.

No sucker's gonna tell me what to do. *grumble*

~Ulrika~

Your odd punctuation and grammar, out-of-place familiar tone, and high-school-level philosophy leads me to believe that you might not know what you're talking about. I state the obvious to you because I suspect that whatever it is that makes you write this crap is also the same thing that should give you the ability to see its worth, if only it were functioning. (edited)

Just a friendly tip from a concerned poster.

~Ulrika~

Oh, I wasn't telling you what to do, I was just suggesting if you don't want to make your arguments look completely unfounded, that you don't post two conflicting statistics. I mean, if you want to continue posting conflicting things, you're free to do so, and I'm free to point out the flaws in your arguments.

*grins*

Oh, and ... I didn't need to resort to threats.