Iraq: US death toll in war hits 4,000

[DC_DEEP]

We should all keep in mind that, from the point of view of official US policy, we are not engaged in "war" in Iraq. The Congress alone has the authority to declare war, and they have not yet done so in the case of Iraq. The cowardly manner in which the US Congress permitted the invasion of that country is indefensible. Iraq did not request a US presence or peacekeeping force. Absent such a request, the US should have either made it official, or stayed out.

As far as the casualties, they will only continue as long as we have troops over there. Our commander-in-chief should choose either a new strategy to ensure a decisive, swift victory, or pull the troops out. Anything in between is unacceptable. A continued, prolonged "minimal force" policy is the ultimate insult to active duty servicemembers, veterans, and survivors.

 

[camper joe]

And an estimated sixty Iraqi civilians were killed this weekend as well. Yeah, the 'surge' is working....

The politicians who started and the media hacks who promoted this war, deserve to go straight to the deepest part of hell.

The deepest of the deep isn't enough, GwB should be under the heel of Lucifer.

 

[Principessa]

The continued was added because this isn't the by any stretch first time you have complained loudly about it,

:tool:You pompous, arrogant ass. :12: If you had focused on the topics of the few threads in which I mentioned the the cost of gas in my area you would have realized that was the topic! I didn't change the topic I merely participated in the discussion. :angryfire2:

the whining because that's largely what it is, from my perspective of course.

:damnit1: And I should care about your perspective, because . . .

Your insipid opinion on myself and American gas prices really doesn't matter as you are so obviously not American. :tongue: I am ever so sick of you Brits and other Europeans bashing us because we pay by the gallon rather than the liter for gasoline and diesel fuel.

I added petulant simply to see if you were paying attention.

Thereby proving that you, dong20 are a pompous, arrogant ass. So why don't you just, :bryce:

Regardless, your comment was in rather poor taste here, IMHO.

:261:I maintain that it was not. If you were so bothered, you should have criticized texas41 as well because he is the one that bought it up. You did not because you obviously have a personal grudge against me. Why, I have no idea as I don't recall ever having an altercation with you in the past.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

We should all keep in mind that, from the point of view of official US policy, we are not engaged in "war" in Iraq. The Congress alone has the authority to declare war, and they have not yet done so in the case of Iraq.

This is not exactly true. Congress DID pass a resolution to war on terrorism...ANd left the particulars of who gets killed to the president.

That Iraq was not named is immaterial... Congress gave GWB carte blanche to invade ANY country he chooses without further comment from Congress...


The republican congress has sold out the constituion because they are more loyal to their party than they are to their nation.




The fatality rate is NOT low...
Its simply lopsided.

When UN organizations estimate the Iraqi deaths on the order of half a million people... that EQUALS the number of deaths from BOTH Germany and the US in WWII.

That is a staggering number of dead for a single nation to suffer in any war.

To dismiss 4000 US dead as LOW mortality is to entirely devalue the lives of Iraqis...

More to the point, and more than any War since WWII , the vast majority of these casualties are innocent civilians.



The US has killed over 2,000 Iraqis at road checkpoints, alone.
of those, only 40 were insurgents.

That's pretty much the ratio across the board.
For every insurgent we kill, we kill 50 innocents.


If we had had that ratio in WWII... there would not be a single soul alive in Europe.

GWB has put blood on our hands... and he did it for the chance to divert cash into private hands.

Hell is too good for him...

And too good for us for letting him live another day.

 

[simbasa12]

How about getting upset at the loss of life from vehicle collisions every year? Over 30,00 a year in the USA alone. That's a hell of alot more than 4000 in Iraq over 4 years.

The soldiers are heroes, whether you agree with the policy of Iraq or not. They are there to help the people of Iraq get their shit together. People dying from vehicle collisions is pure negligence on someone's part and can be avoided. Amazing that no one says a damn thing about that. Bunch of politically correct hypocrites....

 

[simbasa12]

This is not exactly true. Congress DID pass a resolution to war on terrorism...ANd left the particulars of who gets killed to the president.

That Iraq was not named is immaterial... Congress gave GWB carte blanche to invade ANY country he chooses without further comment from Congress...


The republican congress has sold out the constituion because they are more loyal to their party than they are to their nation.




The fatality rate is NOT low...
Its simply lopsided.

When UN organizations estimate the Iraqi deaths on the order of half a million people... that EQUALS the number of deaths from BOTH Germany and the US in WWII.

That is a staggering number of dead for a single nation to suffer in any war.

To dismiss 4000 US dead as LOW mortality is to entirely devalue the lives of Iraqis...

More to the point, and more than any War since WWII , the vast majority of these casualties are innocent civilians.



The US has killed over 2,000 Iraqis at road checkpoints, alone.
of those, only 40 were insurgents.

That's pretty much the ratio across the board.
For every insurgent we kill, we kill 50 innocents.


If we had had that ratio in WWII... there would not be a single soul alive in Europe.

GWB has put blood on our hands... and he did it for the chance to divert cash into private hands.

Hell is too good for him...

And too good for us for letting him live another day.

It's not how we operate...It's how terrorists operate. You apparently don't have the intelligence to make that distinction. They don't give a shit about themselves, their families, their fellow humans, anyone. More than anyone else on the planet, they are the biggest shitheads. If the Islamic people want to be pissed at anyone, they should be pissed at themselves for letting the Islamic fascists run the show.

It's not going away anytime soon and do you really believe that it's all our fault? You're just another jackass on a message board who thinks he knows the score but in reality you don't know shit. This place is full of more losers than any message board I have seen. Good fucking riddance.

 

[Elmer Gantry]

And an estimated sixty Iraqi civilians were killed this weekend as well. Yeah, the 'surge' is working....

The politicians who started and the media hacks who promoted this war, deserve to go straight to the deepest part of hell.

Via Tha Hague for the war crimes they have perpetrated.

Milosevic actually starts to look simpatico next to this lot.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

SIMBASA12
Your simplistic definition of us versus them reveals who lacks intelligence...

The quarter to half million Iraqis killed were NOT killed by terrorists.
They have been killed as a direct result of an imbecilic US foreign policy and an incursion predicated upon lies and knowingly falsified intelligence.


General Shinseki and dozens of others experienced in warfare warned Congress that the plan was doomed to fail, the CIA, it turns out, warned Bush that the biggest issue would be insurgents, not al qaeda.
Troops requested to secure and capture Bin Laden were refused....

And Bush failed to plan for any form of security in the post invasion Iraq.

The war has made the supporters of GWB and the republican majority vastly richer... Put Americans in even greater peril and painted us as not only aggressors... but inept, bungling aggressors at that.

It has bankrupted our economy, devastated our military, destroyed our reputation, and enriched mercenaries and oil businesses....

And who is to blame?

Really... who?

I mean, if you run over my kid... that's your fault... but if I then retaliate by blowing up your next door neighbor's house, cause I am too stupid to look up your address.... who's fault is that?


Had we NOT invaded Iraq.... there would be no Al Qaeda in Iraq ( as Saddam would not allow any islamist organization) And all those Iraqis would NOT be dead. 4,000 US soldiers would be alive today, and we would have 10,000 fewer maimed servicemen.

That is a simple fact.

All the terrorists did was knock down some buildings and kill a few thousand Americans...

It was an American president and a republican congress that sent troops into the WRONG place, for the WRONG reasons, to kill the WRONG people.


That blood is on OUR hands... Not Osama's.



Come on, mr intellect... explain to me how OUR killing innocent civilians who had nothing to do with 9/11 differs in any way from the terrorists who kill innocent civilians over their imagined grievances?

How are we any different when we shoot pregnant women at checkpoints because their panicked husbands can't read?

What substantive moral defense do you have for our killing women and children in Iraq?


What I hate MOST About GWB and our weakling cash machine congressmen is how they have squandered America's moral authority and made us look even worse than the terrorists.

I used to think we were better...

But when folks like you can't even muster the necessary moral center to see Iraqi lives as equivalent to our own... to see the holocaust we have unleashed
as indefensible...

then I don't know anymore...



Is it all our fault? Who said all?

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WE DO.

There is no honor in a war born of lies.


We didn't fly planes into buildings...

But we DID fly TV guided bombs into buildings in a country with no culpability for 9/11.

We DID fail to listen to the voices that told us we needed five times as many troops to SECURE Iraq.

Our President failed to READ something about Islamic history and the tribal tensions in the area.


9/11 was not our fault....
but everything that happened since is the result of OUR actions, our reactions... and our failures to act.

Children point the finger to evade blame.

A man stand up and takes responsibility for his actions or lack thereof.


I love my country...

Far too much to tolerate it being turned into some fascist aggressor by a functional idiot and his well heeled cronies.

 

[Elmer Gantry]

Good fucking riddance.

Bye bye. Don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.:biggrin1:

 

[Elmer Gantry]

And it's not only Iraq that is copping it.

Egyptian 'killed by US warship' in Suez - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[Elmer Gantry]

Also, don't forget the 29,451 wounded US servicemen.

Amazingly, 97% of those 4000 fatalities have occured since Shrub called Game Over in 2003.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

How about getting upset at the loss of life from vehicle collisions every year? Over 30,00 a year in the USA alone. That's a hell of alot more than 4000 in Iraq over 4 years.

The soldiers are heroes, whether you agree with the policy of Iraq or not. They are there to help the people of Iraq get their shit together. People dying from vehicle collisions is pure negligence on someone's part and can be avoided. Amazing that no one says a damn thing about that. Bunch of politically correct hypocrites....

And to your other post...

Vehicle collisions? You are gonna liken accidental vehicle collisions to purposeful use of explosives and incendiaries on million dollar cruise missles?


Really? Is That what passes for "intelligence" where you come from?

Perhaps that explains how this country got entangled in this clusterfuck.
Brainiacs like you who can't tell the difference between stubbing your toe and having someone chop it off with a million dollar axe.


Listen up, pal... try and wrap your head around the difference in culpability between something you tried like hell to avoid... and a decision, made by a targeting panel to command a person to push a button that launches a weapon system that cost 15 billion dollars over 25 years to develop, to destroy a building, that we KNOW houses innocent people.


This has NOTHING to do with respect or support for our troops.

If you had any respect at all for the LIVES of our troops you would not allow their lives to be thrown away over lies and graft.



No one wants to have fought in a war that was a mistake... no one want to be the last person to die in an unworthy cause.

And no one wants to go home, having seen good friends torn to pieces, and have to accept that that was for nothing.


But it is idiotic to think that SUPPORTING our troops means trying to figure out a way to make all the killing matter.... to force more of them to be sacrificed in some vain attempt to resurrect some shred of purpose, just so their deaths need not be in vain.

That is vainglorious...


The "peace with Honor" line was stupid when it was first mouthed by that Fuck Nixon.... who kept us in Vietnam 6 more years seeking an honor that never came... making our ultimate pullout 6 times as humiliating, 6 times as demoralizing... and made all those 57,000 deaths 6 times more meaningless.


Our soldiers serve.
That they willingly do as our government asks, trusting the government not to betray their trust.... that is all the glory, all the honor, and all the heroism that there is, or that they need...


That our government broke their trust by sending them into a minefield of lies...
that our government has betrayed their trust by undermining their GI benefits, dismantling their medical care system, and diverting tax money to paying mercenaries 20 times what a US soldier makes....


That can not diminish the honor of their sacrifice.
Nothing can diminish the honor of service...


But when the lie is uncovered....when the betrayal of government is clear... then allowing ONE MORE SOLDIER to die or be maimed over that lie is the greatest dishonor we can show our troops.



Arrest GWB and Cheney and Rove and Condi-
hand them each a rifle and a substandard set of body armor...
and make them walk point till we are out of there.

 

[Stretch]

Phil...Exactly right. Extremely well worded and posted. Don't, however, assume that this administration as well as the actual powers that be, who are not in the "political" theater and were not actually voted into any official capacity, are not responsible for 9/11 on various levels, directly and indirectly. That's fodder for another thread. To expound, however, on your post...one aspect of this entire fiasco that hasn't been discussed much, if at all, is how the next generation of Iraqis...the babies, adolescents, and teenagers who actually survive will be shaped, influenced, develop and ultimately react to the atrocities they're experiencing. This is a huge problem that will rear itself over the next years. Somehow I doubt that America will be fondly viewed as the "great liberators". The wound that has been inflicted is going is going to fester.

Two ways to look at it are...

These are not stupid people who are committing these acts. Continuing to destroy and exploit the worlds peoples, resources and carrying through with an agenda that has no connection to any powers of democracy we think we participate in. That no matter who and what is voted for, the foreseeable future is planned, set and will be carried out regardless.

Another alternative is that there is no ulterior agenda and we are experiencing the best of our good intentions. What we're witnessing is the pinnacle of our collective experience and it's just the natural by-product of human nature. It's all being done in the name of altruism and the purity and concern of human rights, decency and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Neither of those scenarios fill me with joy. Pretty fucked either way...and I'm an extremely positive person, I promise. I'm crossing things and doing whatever you do in your country when you promise something. I promise :smile: I realize that there is a huge gray area that orbits and encompasses both of those wonderful propositions. Based on my experience I tend to lean towards the first, machiavellian version.

I'm getting a drink of water now...

 

[dong20]

:tool:You pompous, arrogant ass. :12: If you had focused on the topics of the few threads in which I mentioned the the cost of gas in my area you would have realized that was the topic! I didn't change the topic I merely participated in the discussion. :angryfire2:

:damnit1: And I should care about your perspective, because . . .

Your insipid opinion on myself and American gas prices really doesn't matter as you are so obviously not American. :tongue: I am ever so sick of you Brits and other Europeans bashing us because we pay by the gallon rather than the liter for gasoline and diesel fuel.

Thereby proving that you, dong20 are a pompous, arrogant ass. So why don't you just, :bryce:

:261:I maintain that it was not. If you were so bothered, you should have criticized texas41 as well because he is the one that bought it up. You did not because you obviously have a personal grudge against me. Why, I have no idea as I don't recall ever having an altercation with you in the past.

It's telling that you entirely ignored the bulk of my reply to you where I explained quite clearly, the background thinking to my earlier post. Instead you focus solely on the final paragraph which effectively, did the same. It's equally illustrative. as it is unsurprising, that you responded in the style of an adolescent.

The repeated use of personal insults coupled with the wide selection of tasteful emoticons being especially mature.

The final sentence of my post was a statement of opinion, and referred to as such. Your agreement was neither solicited nor required. Because they're basically half truths and inane generalities, I'll address the specific points of your little 'rant' a little later, until then, perhaps you can cite the posts where I've bashed anyone about their pumping metrics? Good luck on that one.

 

[DC_DEEP]

How about getting upset at the loss of life from vehicle collisions every year? Over 30,00 a year in the USA alone. That's a hell of alot more than 4000 in Iraq over 4 years.

The soldiers are heroes, whether you agree with the policy of Iraq or not. They are there to help the people of Iraq get their shit together. People dying from vehicle collisions is pure negligence on someone's part and can be avoided. Amazing that no one says a damn thing about that. Bunch of politically correct hypocrites....

What an incredibly idiotic post. Thanks for sharing.

I am a USMC veteran, so I pretty much know the difference between dying in an automobile accident, and dying due to a roadside bomb in a third world country where our troops should not even be in the first place. Your vehicle collision statistics have no more to do with this discussion than does dying of old age, or of cancer, or of accidental drowning.

If I were still on active duty, and deployed to Iraq, and fearing for my life every day, the person I would consider to be a hypocrite would be the one who says "I support our troops, that's why I want them to stay over there and keep getting exterminated." The person I would consider a true patriot would be the one saying, "our troops should not be over there, bring them home NOW."

And regardless of the actions of the terrorists from that region, most of the Iraqi population is NOT terrorists. They just simply resent western countries invading and occupying their country, and killing their countrymen - pretty much the same way you would feel if any other country invaded and occupied YOUR native land. The fact that S. Hussein was a horrible dictator is immaterial. That still does not justify our involvement there.

 

[snobbes]

The soldiers are heroes, whether you agree with the policy of Iraq or not. They are there to help the people of Iraq get their shit together. People dying from vehicle collisions is pure negligence on someone's part and can be avoided.

--- if we all be walking in stead of driving cars, the number of dead would be lowered dramatically. I dont find that very likely to happen!!!
And if all American soldiers stayed in the US the number of dead would be lowered dramatically. if you vote forJohn McCain its no more likely to happen.
USA have now suffered bigger loss in Iraq than on 9.11.

 

[tripod]

If I were still on active duty, and deployed to Iraq, and fearing for my life every day, the person I would consider to be a hypocrite would be the one who says "I support our troops, that's why I want them to stay over there and keep getting exterminated." The person I would consider a true patriot would be the one saying, "our troops should not be over there, bring them home NOW."

A direct and to the point lesson in patriotism's ugly underbelly... JINGOISM.

 

[DC_DEEP]

A direct and to the point lesson in patriotism's ugly underbelly... JINGOISM.

Thanks, tripod. I really get sick of sheeple/parrots who call me unpatriotic simply because I refuse to lock-step, and because I question authority, and because I have the audacity to say "that's wrong." I have only had one veteran have the balls to call me "un-American" or "unpatriotic" or "politically-correct hypocrite."
All the rest have been "armchair veterans," never served, but know more about the military than do I.

I've also been criticized for my view that I have "more right" to an opinion about supporting the troops, supporting the military, and supporting the commander-in-chief. I put my life on the line; I think I have a better insight into patriotism than someone who has never served. Supporting president bush's jingoistic rhetoric is NOT the same as supporting the troops.

One can honor a hero, without honoring the situation that made him a hero. Blind support of bad leadership does NOT make one a patriot, nor does questioning bad leadership make one unpatriotic.

Post script: Bush's headline statement that "the war's outcome will merit the sacrifice" is about the most offensive thing I've known him to say, to date. I bet he would feel a whole lot differently if his daughters were required to serve a tour of duty over there, especially if one of them munched a roadside bomb.

 

[D_Tintagel_Demondong]

The Coalition seems to be at an impasse: if they withdraw then a shiite/sunni civil war will likely happen; if they stay then thousands of people (Iraqi civilians, US soldiers, "dissident" militia) will continue dying and the US will get more in debt. What a mess W. Bush has left the next (Democratic) administration to deal with! Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Hussein may have been a tyrant, but he kept Iraq in relative peace while supressing an ancient feud between two Muslim factions.

 

[faceking]

The Coalition seems to be at an impasse: if they withdraw then a shiite/sunni civil war will likely happen; if they stay then thousands of people (Iraqi civilians, US soldiers, "dissident" militia) will continue dying and the US will get more in debt. What a mess W. Bush has left the next (Democratic) administration to deal with! Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Hussein may have been a tyrant, but he kept Iraq in relative peace while supressing an ancient feud between two Muslim factions.

Ah.... the 180,000+ Kurds Hussein whacked in one year alone... that's peace. Amen.