but they're doing it because they're up against america. they're desperate and using any and all means to keep the situation bad, until the americans finally say "you know what, they're just going to continue doing this until we leave". considering the fact that you shouldn't have been there to begin with, i don't think it's a bad idea. better late than never.
no they are doing it b/c they want to. If they were against america they would be fighting america more and not killing innocent iraqi's. They are choosing to take their fight to the innocents like cowards THAT is not america's fault. It is a tactic to get america gone, but it shows their mentality...they will hurt people who have nothing to do with the war.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
what about your mentality about 43,000 innocent people killed in iraq?? you're basically saying "ya, well we didn't kill ALL of them ourselves. they're doing it too." what the hell is that??
Another habit says it's in love with you
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
what about your mentality about 43,000 innocent people killed in iraq?? you're basically saying "ya, well we didn't kill ALL of them ourselves." they're doing it too. what the hell is that??
It's not just American troops commiting abuses in Iraq, there are other troops getting nailed, recently British soldiers are being brought up on war crimes..
fine i say we pull out and watch them continue to do this...or maybe we should jsut hit the reset button on the middle east...i mean we've got the technology, let's just start over. I'm out. We're just spinning wheels and nothing will get discussed anymore...have a good one.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
fine i say we pull out and watch them continue to do this...or maybe we should jsut hit the reset button on the middle east...i mean we've got the technology, let's just start over. I'm out. We're just spinning wheels and nothing will get discussed anymore...have a good one.
fine, go ahead. you have a good one, too. i just can't believe how i can write a thread about 43,000 innocent iraqis being killed, and all anyone in here can do is say "ya, but how many of those people did americans actually kill themselves"?? lets just assume that it's more than the number killed on sept. 11. and i'm not defending those who kill their own over there, but they only started doing it because of the american invasion. so yes, it all leads back to you. at least admit the damage you've done over there and then maybe come up with some solutions, rather than trying to distance yourselves and point fingers at those other assholes.
Another habit says it's in love with you
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
at least admit the damage you've done over there and then maybe come up with some solutions, rather than trying to distance yourselves and point fingers at those other assholes.
Bwahahahahahahah!!! Why don't YOU come up with solutions rather than pointing your finger at America?
Bwahahahahahahah!!! Why don't YOU come up with solutions rather than pointing your finger at America?
what are you, 12?? you want me to come up with some solutions?? ok. make iraq stable, rebuild it, and fuck off. i don't care how you do it, just do it. and try diplomacy once in awhile instead of always rushing to war to solve your problems. why don't you try to win the respect of the world by being helpful, rather than continuing this cycle of violence and hatred. after 9/11, america was in a unique position. you had the world on your shoulders. but then you decided to invade another country and dropped bombs on little kids' heads. now you're just as bad as those dicks that attacked you.
fight evil, don't become it.
Another habit says it's in love with you
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
what are you, 12?? you want me to come up with some solutions?? ok. make iraq stable, rebuild it, and fuck off. i don't care how you do it, just do it. and try diplomacy once in awhile instead of always rushing to war to solve your problems. why don't you try to win the respect of the world by being helpful, rather than continuing this cycle of violence and hatred. after 9/11, america was in a unique position. you had the world on your shoulders. but then you decided to invade another country and dropped bombs on little kids' heads. now you're just as bad as those dicks that attacked you.
fight evil, don't become it.
Ok. I'll take those suggestions into consideration in laying out my policy plan for the rest of my presidency. Thanks!
so it's our gov't that's doing the sectarian killing? i'm not trying to take away the horror of innocent people dying. but c'mon, you cannot blame sectarian violence and every death in Iraq on america. There are plenty of foreign terrorists blowing people up over there as well. I'm not saying america is innocent but the post above seems to exonerate all other parties and indictes only america, which is just wrong.
This comment eases your burdon - but its flat wrong.
We destroyed their army and their government.. they have no way of providing security for themselves against criminals. We claim to be staying to protect them - yet we do nothing to protect the people - we only protect the Green Zone where the Americans are and the Iraqis that are willing to submit to the will of the invading force.
all the deaths are on us. If we are unwilling to provide security we need to get the fuck out and let them work it out.
fine, go ahead. you have a good one, too. i just can't believe how i can write a thread about 43,000 innocent iraqis being killed, and all anyone in here can do is say "ya, but how many of those people did americans actually kill themselves"?? lets just assume that it's more than the number killed on sept. 11. and i'm not defending those who kill their own over there, but they only started doing it because of the american invasion. so yes, it all leads back to you. at least admit the damage you've done over there and then maybe come up with some solutions, rather than trying to distance yourselves and point fingers at those other assholes.
i did admit that we've done damage. It is sad that any number of innocent iraqi's died at US and other hands. I just disagree that the US is responsible for all of those; I don't minimize the sadness and grief of 43K dead. A solution would be to make an ultimatum to the iraqi people, help us make the place right for you. Right now the Iraqi's have a huge army there to help them get their country going again. If i were them I'd be trying to sell out every terrorist and such so that I could live in peace and in a country where I'm free. We obviously can't put Hussein back in power, my gut says teh people are glad he's gone. I think the people need to want the change bad enough, i just don't know if they know how to go about it.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
i did admit that we've done damage. It is sad that any number of innocent iraqi's died at US and other hands. I just disagree that the US is responsible for all of those; I don't minimize the sadness and grief of 43K dead. A solution would be to make an ultimatum to the iraqi people, help us make the place right for you. Right now the Iraqi's have a huge army there to help them get their country going again. If i were them I'd be trying to sell out every terrorist and such so that I could live in peace and in a country where I'm free. We obviously can't put Hussein back in power, my gut says teh people are glad he's gone. I think the people need to want the change bad enough, i just don't know if they know how to go about it.
actually, there are still some iraqis that say things were better under saddam. and for others, yes, they are glad that he is gone. but it's pretty bad when they can't all agree on who's worse, saddam or the americans. because right now the americans are using all saddams old torture chambers and locking up innocent people. but ofcourse people there are confused about how to go about making their country peaceful, because they've never experienced it. if it isn't saddam gassing them, it's the americans bombing them. did you know that, and i'm trying to remember the exact number here, the first 50 or so airstrikes at the start of the invasion hit a total of ZERO bad guys. not one airstrike killed one intended target(you'll have to do your own search, if you wish) but they killed tons of innocent people, who are what make up most of the casualties over there. so how do the remaining innocent people trust the americans to make them safe/free when they always seem to be the ones getting killed??
Another habit says it's in love with you
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
that is the million dollar question. In their shoes I'd have a tough time too.
well the truth is, they are just going to have to live with what has happened, and try to make it better. but even if it does work out in the end, and they have a functional democratic government and they live for the most part in peace, i don't think the americans should gloat or take credit for it. what a nasty introduction to peace - to get the shit bombed out of you, bury all your relatives and start all over again. i don't think there'll be many iraqi's saying thank you at the end of all this(if it ever ends). let's just hope the worst of it is over(it isn't).
Another habit says it's in love with you
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
ha ha ha...I noticed those who are against the "blame America" metalilty won't address one simple question: Would 43,000 Iraqi civilians be dead if the US had not invaded...?
it's a rather simple question...and you can blame insurgents, saddam, iran, and those who "hate freedom"....but, at the end of the day...this mess would not be where it is if the US had not invaded...
while some may not like to hear it, Iraq was under control via sanctions and the no-fly zone....yes, I'll grant you, saddam was a dick and bad person, and yes, mass graves from the early 90's were found....but, he was not a threat, he had no WMD's, and the US had no business invading that country...and once we did...we destroyed the infrastucture and demantled the army...which lead to chaos (remember the looting shortly after the invasion?) and the country has not been stable since....
Of course it is. If America wasn't so terrible, Sadam would never have killed those people.
Largely, yes. Most of those dead in the mass graves were Iraqi insurgents killed by Sadaam immediately after the first Gulf war, when the U.S explicitly instructed Sadaam to 'restore order' in Iraq. The U.S abandoned the Sunni rebels to their fate.
Other mass graves include those of Kurds who were gassed by Sadaam using chemical weapons supplied by the U.S both before and after these atrocities.
So if it isn't the Amreicans who are killing, raping and destroying the country, then can you please explain which occupying army is??
I disagree with the premise of your question. It's not an occupying army that's doing the killing. Again, its Iraqi versus Iraqi sectarian violence.
And to answer inmytree's question whether 43,000 Iraqis would be dead without the US there - maybe, maybe not. That doesn't answer whether America is RESPONSIBLE for it. I tend to place blame on the ones doing the bombing.
So if it isn't the Amreicans who are killing, raping and destroying the country, then can you please explain which occupying army is??
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents are no longer using just volunteers to drive suicide car bombs but are instead kidnapping people with their cars, rigging the vehicles with explosives, and blowing them up remotely, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.
In what appears to be a new tactic for the insurgency, the ministry said the kidnap victims do not know their cars have been loaded with explosives when they are released.
The ministry issued a statement saying that first "a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take a certain road."
The kidnappers follow the car and when the unwitting victim "reaches a checkpoint, a public place, or an army or police patrol, the criminal terrorists following the driver detonate the car from a distance," the Defense Ministry statement said.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military. In the past, U.S. officials have said insurgents often tape or handcuff a suicide driver's hands to a car, or bind his foot to the gas pedal, to ensure that he does not back out at the last minute.
Although roadside bombs are the main weapon used by insurgents, suicide car bombers are designed to maximize casualties and sow fear among the population.
Of course we are. And we're responsible for the coup on Thailand, too, I imagine. I'm sure there's good video on YouTube showing that the CIA is actually running the Thai military.
This thread really highlights the absurdity of the "blame America" mentality prevalent on this board.
We can of course all talk nonsense all day. It's easier than confronting the issues and results in revealing threads being deleted. Those with pro Israeli, right wing agendas have been using this tactic a lot on the board recently.
Over a year ago an international team of epidemiologists, headed by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, completed a “cluster sample survey” of civilian casualties in Iraq. Its findings contradicted central elements of what politicians and journalists had presented to the U.S. public and the world. After excluding any possible statistical anomalies, they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading cause of death in Iraq during that period. Their most significant finding was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by “coalition” forces using “helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry,” and that almost half (48 percent) of these were children, with a median age of 8.
When the team’s findings were published in the Lancet, the official journal of the British Medical Association, they caused quite a stir and it seemed that the first step had been taken toward a realistic accounting of the human cost of the war. The authors made it clear that their results were approximate. They discussed the limitations of their methodology at length and emphasized that further research would be invaluable in giving a more precise picture.
A year later, we do not have a more precise picture. Soon after the study was published, U.S. and British officials launched a concerted campaign to discredit its authors and marginalize their findings without seriously addressing the validity of their methods or presenting any evidence to challenge their conclusions. Today the continuing aerial bombardment of Iraq is still a dark secret to most Americans and the media present the same general picture of the war, focusing on secondary sources of violence.
Roberts has been puzzled and disturbed by this response to his work, which stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months of war and, as he says, “Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity.” In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of foreign armies from the Congo and the U.S. State Department cited his study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid.
Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address to the 2001 Labor Party conference. In December 2004 Blair dismissed the epidemiological team’s work in Iraq, claiming, “Figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which are a survey from the hospitals there, are in our view the most accurate survey there is.”
This statement by Blair is particularly interesting because the Iraqi Health Ministry reports, whose accuracy he praised, have confirmed the Johns Hopkins team’s conclusion that aerial attacks by “coalition” forces are the leading cause of civilian deaths. One such report was cited by Nancy Youssef in the Miami Herald of September 25, 2004 under the headline “U.S. Attacks, Not Insurgents, Blamed for Most Iraqi Deaths.” The Health Ministry had been reporting civilian casualty figures based on reports from hospitals, as Blair said, but it was not until June 2004 that it began to differentiate between casualties inflicted by “coalition” forces and those from other causes. From June 10 to September 10 it counted 1,295 civilians killed by U.S. forces and their allies and 516 killed in “terrorist” operations. Health Ministry officials told Youssef that the “statistics captured only part of the death toll,” and emphasized that aerial bombardment was largely responsible for the higher numbers of deaths caused by the “coalition.” The breakdown (72 percent U.S.) is remarkably close to that attributed to aerial bombardment in the Lancet survey (79 percent).
BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, in another Health Ministry report covering July 1, 2004 to January 1, 2005, cited 2,041 civilians killed by U.S. and allied forces versus 1,233 by “insurgents” (only 62 percent U.S.). Then something strange happened. The Iraqi Health Minister’s office contacted the BBC and claimed, in a convoluted and confusing statement, that their figures had somehow been misrepresented. The BBC issued a retraction and details of deaths caused by “coalition” forces have been notably absent from subsequent Health Ministry reports.
Official and media criticism of Roberts’s work has focused on the size of his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country, but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.
Michael O’Toole, the director of the Center for International Health in Australia, says: “That’s a classical sample size. I just don’t see any evidence of significant exaggeration…. If anything, the deaths may have been higher because what they are unable to do is survey families where everyone has died.”
David Meddings, a medical officer with the Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization, said that surveys of this kind always have uncertainty, but “I don’t think the authors ignored that or understated. Those cautions I don’t believe should be applied any more or less stringently to a study that looks at a politically sensitive conflict than to a study that looks at a pill for heart disease.”
Roberts has also compared his work in Iraq to other epidemiological studies: “In 1993, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control randomly called 613 households in Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had developed Cryptosporidium in the largest outbreak ever recorded in the developed world, no one said that 613 households was not a big enough sample. It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces.”
The campaign to discredit Roberts, the Johns Hopkins team, and the Lancet used the same methods that the U.S. and British governments have employed consistently to protect their monopoly on “responsible” storytelling about the war. By dismissing the study’s findings out of hand, U.S. and British officials created the illusion that the authors were suspect or politically motivated and discouraged the media from taking them seriously. This worked disturbingly well. Even opponents of the war continue to cite much lower figures for civilian casualties and innocently attribute the bulk of them to Iraqi resistance forces or “terrorists.”
The figures most often cited for civilian casualties in Iraq are those collected by Iraqbodycount, but its figures are not intended as an estimate of total casualties. Its methodology is to count only those deaths that are reported by at least two “reputable” international media outlets in order to generate a minimum number that is more or less indisputable. Its authors know that thousands of deaths go unreported in their count and say they cannot prevent the media misrepresenting their figures as an actual estimate of deaths.
Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet report, there is one issue that does cast doubt on its findings. This is the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in November 2004). Roberts wrote, in a letter to the Independent, “Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000.”
The dilemma he faced was this: in the 33 clusters surveyed, 18 reported no violent deaths (including one in Sadr City), 14 other clusters reported a total of 21 violent deaths and the Fallujah cluster reported 52 violent deaths. This last number is conservative because, as the report stated, “23 households of 52 visited were either temporarily or permanently abandoned. Neighbors interviewed described widespread death in most of the abandoned homes but could not give adequate details for inclusion in the survey.”
Leaving aside this last factor, there were three possible interpretations of the results from Fallujah. The first, and indeed the one Roberts adopted, was that the team had randomly stumbled on a cluster of homes where the death toll was so high as to be totally unrepresentative and therefore not relevant to the survey. The second possibility was that this pattern among the 33 clusters, with most of the casualties falling in one cluster and many clusters reporting zero deaths, was an accurate representation of the distribution of civilian casualties in Iraq under “precision” aerial bombardment. The third possibility was that the Fallujah cluster was atypical, but not sufficiently abnormal to warrant total exclusion from the study, so that the number of excess deaths was somewhere between 100,000 and 285,000. Without further research, there is no way to determine which of these three possibilities is correct.
No new survey of civilians killed by “coalition” forces has been produced since the Health Ministry report last January, but there is strong evidence that the air war has intensified during this period. Independent journalists have described the continuing U.S. assault on Ramadi as “Fallujah in slow motion.” Smaller towns in Anbar province have been targets of air raids for the past several months, and towns in Diyala and Baghdad provinces have also been bombed. Seymour Hersh has covered the “under-reported” air war in the New Yorker and writes that the current U.S. strategy is to embed U.S. Special Forces with Iraqi forces to call in air strikes as U.S. ground forces withdraw, opening the way for heavier bombing with even less media scrutiny (if that is possible).
One ignored feature of the survey’s results is the high number of civilian casualties reported in Fallujah in August 2004. It appears that U.S. forces took advantage of the media focus on Najaf at that time to conduct very heavy attacks against Fallujah. This is perhaps a clue to the strategy by which they have conducted much of the air war. The heaviest bombing and aerial assault at any given time is likely to be somewhere well over the horizon from any well-publicized U.S. military operation, possibly involving only small teams of Special Forces on the ground. But cynical military strategy does not let the media off the hook for their failure to find out what is really going on and tell the outside world about it. Iraqi and other Arab journalists can still travel through most of the country and news editors should pay close attention to their reports from areas that are too dangerous for Western reporters.
A second feature of the epidemiologists’ findings that has not been sufficiently explored is the one suggested above by Michael O’Toole. Since their report establishes that aerial assault and bombardment is the leading cause of violent death in Iraq and, since a direct hit by a 500 pound Mark 82 bomb will render most houses uninhabitable, any survey that disregards damaged, uninhabited houses is sure to underreport deaths. This should be taken into account by any follow-up studies.
Thanks to Roberts, his international team, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and the editorial board of the Lancet, we have a clearer picture of the violence taking place in Iraq than that presented by “mainstream” media. Allowing for 16 months of the air war and other deaths since the completion of the survey, we have to estimate that somewhere between 185,000 and 700,000 people have died as a direct result of the war. Coalition forces have killed anywhere from 70,000 to 500,000 of them, including 30,000 to 275,000 children under the age of 15.
Roberts has cautioned me to remember that whether someone is killed by a bomb, a heart attack during an air strike, or a car accident fleeing the chaos, those who initiated the war and who “stay the course” bear the responsibility.
As someone who has followed this war closely, I find the results of the study to be consistent with what I have seen gradually emerging as the war has progressed, based on the work of courageous, mostly independent reporters, and glimpses through the looking glass as more and more cracks appear in the “official story.”
well the truth is, they are just going to have to live with what has happened, and try to make it better. but even if it does work out in the end, and they have a functional democratic government and they live for the most part in peace, i don't think the americans should gloat or take credit for it. what a nasty introduction to peace - to get the shit bombed out of you, bury all your relatives and start all over again. i don't think there'll be many iraqi's saying thank you at the end of all this(if it ever ends). let's just hope the worst of it is over(it isn't).
exactly, we can't go back in time and undo anything. We shouldn't gloat or tak too much credit for it. For a self-sustaing democracy to work a foreign entity shouldn't be bragging about all the help. Europe doesn't brag about the US being a success; the US wanted it and got it going, just like other countries have. I agree,, let's hope the worst is over and i agree that it most likely isn't.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
no they are doing it b/c they want to. If they were against america they would be fighting america more and not killing innocent iraqi's. They are choosing to take their fight to the innocents like cowards THAT is not america's fault. It is a tactic to get america gone, but it shows their mentality...they will hurt people who have nothing to do with the war.
You obviously understand nothing about Iraqi politics and religion.
I disagree with the premise of your question. It's not an occupying army that's doing the killing. Again, its Iraqi versus Iraqi sectarian violence.
And to answer inmytree's question whether 43,000 Iraqis would be dead without the US there - maybe, maybe not. That doesn't answer whether America is RESPONSIBLE for it. I tend to place blame on the ones doing the bombing.
Yes, Iraqi's are killing Iraqi's. But what about that aspect of the killing in Iraq which we don't hear about in the mainstream news? - Apart from when cases of atrocities and abuse by our soldiers arise. How many such cases go unreported? Read the article I posted above.
actually, there are still some iraqis that say things were better under saddam. and for others, yes, they are glad that he is gone. but it's pretty bad when they can't all agree on who's worse, saddam or the americans. because right now the americans are using all saddams old torture chambers and locking up innocent people. but ofcourse people there are confused about how to go about making their country peaceful, because they've never experienced it. if it isn't saddam gassing them, it's the americans bombing them. did you know that, and i'm trying to remember the exact number here, the first 50 or so airstrikes at the start of the invasion hit a total of ZERO bad guys. not one airstrike killed one intended target(you'll have to do your own search, if you wish) but they killed tons of innocent people, who are what make up most of the casualties over there. so how do the remaining innocent people trust the americans to make them safe/free when they always seem to be the ones getting killed??
it's a lot more than 'some'!!!!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm
BAGHDAD — Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. (Graphic: Iraqis surveyed)
Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers." and actually that number goes up to 82% in baghdad!
That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included.
only 33% thought the invasion did more good than harm, 61% think the invasion wasn't worth it
also,
according to CNN's website, “[The] National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was ‘tenuous stability’ and the worst case was civil war.
standin above the crowd
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Comments
no they are doing it b/c they want to. If they were against america they would be fighting america more and not killing innocent iraqi's. They are choosing to take their fight to the innocents like cowards THAT is not america's fault. It is a tactic to get america gone, but it shows their mentality...they will hurt people who have nothing to do with the war.
what about your mentality about 43,000 innocent people killed in iraq?? you're basically saying "ya, well we didn't kill ALL of them ourselves. they're doing it too." what the hell is that??
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
of course not, we need to make our money and keep our economy going
Nothing of substance here. Move along now.
hmm..that sounds awfully familiar.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17784743&method=full&siteid=66633&headline=brit-war-criminal--name_page.html
It's a shame that these things happened, but it's not just the US troops.
go ahead.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
fine i say we pull out and watch them continue to do this...or maybe we should jsut hit the reset button on the middle east...i mean we've got the technology, let's just start over. I'm out. We're just spinning wheels and nothing will get discussed anymore...have a good one.
fine, go ahead. you have a good one, too. i just can't believe how i can write a thread about 43,000 innocent iraqis being killed, and all anyone in here can do is say "ya, but how many of those people did americans actually kill themselves"?? lets just assume that it's more than the number killed on sept. 11. and i'm not defending those who kill their own over there, but they only started doing it because of the american invasion. so yes, it all leads back to you. at least admit the damage you've done over there and then maybe come up with some solutions, rather than trying to distance yourselves and point fingers at those other assholes.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
Bwahahahahahahah!!! Why don't YOU come up with solutions rather than pointing your finger at America?
what are you, 12?? you want me to come up with some solutions?? ok. make iraq stable, rebuild it, and fuck off. i don't care how you do it, just do it. and try diplomacy once in awhile instead of always rushing to war to solve your problems. why don't you try to win the respect of the world by being helpful, rather than continuing this cycle of violence and hatred. after 9/11, america was in a unique position. you had the world on your shoulders. but then you decided to invade another country and dropped bombs on little kids' heads. now you're just as bad as those dicks that attacked you.
fight evil, don't become it.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
Ok. I'll take those suggestions into consideration in laying out my policy plan for the rest of my presidency. Thanks!
This comment eases your burdon - but its flat wrong.
We destroyed their army and their government.. they have no way of providing security for themselves against criminals. We claim to be staying to protect them - yet we do nothing to protect the people - we only protect the Green Zone where the Americans are and the Iraqis that are willing to submit to the will of the invading force.
all the deaths are on us. If we are unwilling to provide security we need to get the fuck out and let them work it out.
i did admit that we've done damage. It is sad that any number of innocent iraqi's died at US and other hands. I just disagree that the US is responsible for all of those; I don't minimize the sadness and grief of 43K dead. A solution would be to make an ultimatum to the iraqi people, help us make the place right for you. Right now the Iraqi's have a huge army there to help them get their country going again. If i were them I'd be trying to sell out every terrorist and such so that I could live in peace and in a country where I'm free. We obviously can't put Hussein back in power, my gut says teh people are glad he's gone. I think the people need to want the change bad enough, i just don't know if they know how to go about it.
actually, there are still some iraqis that say things were better under saddam. and for others, yes, they are glad that he is gone. but it's pretty bad when they can't all agree on who's worse, saddam or the americans. because right now the americans are using all saddams old torture chambers and locking up innocent people. but ofcourse people there are confused about how to go about making their country peaceful, because they've never experienced it. if it isn't saddam gassing them, it's the americans bombing them. did you know that, and i'm trying to remember the exact number here, the first 50 or so airstrikes at the start of the invasion hit a total of ZERO bad guys. not one airstrike killed one intended target(you'll have to do your own search, if you wish) but they killed tons of innocent people, who are what make up most of the casualties over there. so how do the remaining innocent people trust the americans to make them safe/free when they always seem to be the ones getting killed??
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
that is the million dollar question. In their shoes I'd have a tough time too.
well the truth is, they are just going to have to live with what has happened, and try to make it better. but even if it does work out in the end, and they have a functional democratic government and they live for the most part in peace, i don't think the americans should gloat or take credit for it. what a nasty introduction to peace - to get the shit bombed out of you, bury all your relatives and start all over again. i don't think there'll be many iraqi's saying thank you at the end of all this(if it ever ends). let's just hope the worst of it is over(it isn't).
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
it's a rather simple question...and you can blame insurgents, saddam, iran, and those who "hate freedom"....but, at the end of the day...this mess would not be where it is if the US had not invaded...
while some may not like to hear it, Iraq was under control via sanctions and the no-fly zone....yes, I'll grant you, saddam was a dick and bad person, and yes, mass graves from the early 90's were found....but, he was not a threat, he had no WMD's, and the US had no business invading that country...and once we did...we destroyed the infrastucture and demantled the army...which lead to chaos (remember the looting shortly after the invasion?) and the country has not been stable since....
So if it isn't the Amreicans who are killing, raping and destroying the country, then can you please explain which occupying army is??
Largely, yes. Most of those dead in the mass graves were Iraqi insurgents killed by Sadaam immediately after the first Gulf war, when the U.S explicitly instructed Sadaam to 'restore order' in Iraq. The U.S abandoned the Sunni rebels to their fate.
Other mass graves include those of Kurds who were gassed by Sadaam using chemical weapons supplied by the U.S both before and after these atrocities.
I disagree with the premise of your question. It's not an occupying army that's doing the killing. Again, its Iraqi versus Iraqi sectarian violence.
And to answer inmytree's question whether 43,000 Iraqis would be dead without the US there - maybe, maybe not. That doesn't answer whether America is RESPONSIBLE for it. I tend to place blame on the ones doing the bombing.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents are no longer using just volunteers to drive suicide car bombs but are instead kidnapping people with their cars, rigging the vehicles with explosives, and blowing them up remotely, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.
In what appears to be a new tactic for the insurgency, the ministry said the kidnap victims do not know their cars have been loaded with explosives when they are released.
The ministry issued a statement saying that first "a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take a certain road."
The kidnappers follow the car and when the unwitting victim "reaches a checkpoint, a public place, or an army or police patrol, the criminal terrorists following the driver detonate the car from a distance," the Defense Ministry statement said.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military. In the past, U.S. officials have said insurgents often tape or handcuff a suicide driver's hands to a car, or bind his foot to the gas pedal, to ensure that he does not back out at the last minute.
Although roadside bombs are the main weapon used by insurgents, suicide car bombers are designed to maximize casualties and sow fear among the population.
According to the Washington-based Brookings Institution, there have been 343 suicide car bombings causing multiple deaths in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/21/iraq.main.ap/index.html
We can of course all talk nonsense all day. It's easier than confronting the issues and results in revealing threads being deleted. Those with pro Israeli, right wing agendas have been using this tactic a lot on the board recently.
Burying The Lancet Report
By Nicolas J. S. Davies
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2006/davies0206.html
Over a year ago an international team of epidemiologists, headed by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, completed a “cluster sample survey” of civilian casualties in Iraq. Its findings contradicted central elements of what politicians and journalists had presented to the U.S. public and the world. After excluding any possible statistical anomalies, they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading cause of death in Iraq during that period. Their most significant finding was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by “coalition” forces using “helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry,” and that almost half (48 percent) of these were children, with a median age of 8.
When the team’s findings were published in the Lancet, the official journal of the British Medical Association, they caused quite a stir and it seemed that the first step had been taken toward a realistic accounting of the human cost of the war. The authors made it clear that their results were approximate. They discussed the limitations of their methodology at length and emphasized that further research would be invaluable in giving a more precise picture.
A year later, we do not have a more precise picture. Soon after the study was published, U.S. and British officials launched a concerted campaign to discredit its authors and marginalize their findings without seriously addressing the validity of their methods or presenting any evidence to challenge their conclusions. Today the continuing aerial bombardment of Iraq is still a dark secret to most Americans and the media present the same general picture of the war, focusing on secondary sources of violence.
Roberts has been puzzled and disturbed by this response to his work, which stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months of war and, as he says, “Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity.” In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of foreign armies from the Congo and the U.S. State Department cited his study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid.
Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address to the 2001 Labor Party conference. In December 2004 Blair dismissed the epidemiological team’s work in Iraq, claiming, “Figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which are a survey from the hospitals there, are in our view the most accurate survey there is.”
This statement by Blair is particularly interesting because the Iraqi Health Ministry reports, whose accuracy he praised, have confirmed the Johns Hopkins team’s conclusion that aerial attacks by “coalition” forces are the leading cause of civilian deaths. One such report was cited by Nancy Youssef in the Miami Herald of September 25, 2004 under the headline “U.S. Attacks, Not Insurgents, Blamed for Most Iraqi Deaths.” The Health Ministry had been reporting civilian casualty figures based on reports from hospitals, as Blair said, but it was not until June 2004 that it began to differentiate between casualties inflicted by “coalition” forces and those from other causes. From June 10 to September 10 it counted 1,295 civilians killed by U.S. forces and their allies and 516 killed in “terrorist” operations. Health Ministry officials told Youssef that the “statistics captured only part of the death toll,” and emphasized that aerial bombardment was largely responsible for the higher numbers of deaths caused by the “coalition.” The breakdown (72 percent U.S.) is remarkably close to that attributed to aerial bombardment in the Lancet survey (79 percent).
BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, in another Health Ministry report covering July 1, 2004 to January 1, 2005, cited 2,041 civilians killed by U.S. and allied forces versus 1,233 by “insurgents” (only 62 percent U.S.). Then something strange happened. The Iraqi Health Minister’s office contacted the BBC and claimed, in a convoluted and confusing statement, that their figures had somehow been misrepresented. The BBC issued a retraction and details of deaths caused by “coalition” forces have been notably absent from subsequent Health Ministry reports.
Official and media criticism of Roberts’s work has focused on the size of his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country, but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.
Michael O’Toole, the director of the Center for International Health in Australia, says: “That’s a classical sample size. I just don’t see any evidence of significant exaggeration…. If anything, the deaths may have been higher because what they are unable to do is survey families where everyone has died.”
David Meddings, a medical officer with the Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization, said that surveys of this kind always have uncertainty, but “I don’t think the authors ignored that or understated. Those cautions I don’t believe should be applied any more or less stringently to a study that looks at a politically sensitive conflict than to a study that looks at a pill for heart disease.”
Roberts has also compared his work in Iraq to other epidemiological studies: “In 1993, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control randomly called 613 households in Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had developed Cryptosporidium in the largest outbreak ever recorded in the developed world, no one said that 613 households was not a big enough sample. It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces.”
The campaign to discredit Roberts, the Johns Hopkins team, and the Lancet used the same methods that the U.S. and British governments have employed consistently to protect their monopoly on “responsible” storytelling about the war. By dismissing the study’s findings out of hand, U.S. and British officials created the illusion that the authors were suspect or politically motivated and discouraged the media from taking them seriously. This worked disturbingly well. Even opponents of the war continue to cite much lower figures for civilian casualties and innocently attribute the bulk of them to Iraqi resistance forces or “terrorists.”
The figures most often cited for civilian casualties in Iraq are those collected by Iraqbodycount, but its figures are not intended as an estimate of total casualties. Its methodology is to count only those deaths that are reported by at least two “reputable” international media outlets in order to generate a minimum number that is more or less indisputable. Its authors know that thousands of deaths go unreported in their count and say they cannot prevent the media misrepresenting their figures as an actual estimate of deaths.
Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet report, there is one issue that does cast doubt on its findings. This is the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in November 2004). Roberts wrote, in a letter to the Independent, “Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000.”
The dilemma he faced was this: in the 33 clusters surveyed, 18 reported no violent deaths (including one in Sadr City), 14 other clusters reported a total of 21 violent deaths and the Fallujah cluster reported 52 violent deaths. This last number is conservative because, as the report stated, “23 households of 52 visited were either temporarily or permanently abandoned. Neighbors interviewed described widespread death in most of the abandoned homes but could not give adequate details for inclusion in the survey.”
Leaving aside this last factor, there were three possible interpretations of the results from Fallujah. The first, and indeed the one Roberts adopted, was that the team had randomly stumbled on a cluster of homes where the death toll was so high as to be totally unrepresentative and therefore not relevant to the survey. The second possibility was that this pattern among the 33 clusters, with most of the casualties falling in one cluster and many clusters reporting zero deaths, was an accurate representation of the distribution of civilian casualties in Iraq under “precision” aerial bombardment. The third possibility was that the Fallujah cluster was atypical, but not sufficiently abnormal to warrant total exclusion from the study, so that the number of excess deaths was somewhere between 100,000 and 285,000. Without further research, there is no way to determine which of these three possibilities is correct.
No new survey of civilians killed by “coalition” forces has been produced since the Health Ministry report last January, but there is strong evidence that the air war has intensified during this period. Independent journalists have described the continuing U.S. assault on Ramadi as “Fallujah in slow motion.” Smaller towns in Anbar province have been targets of air raids for the past several months, and towns in Diyala and Baghdad provinces have also been bombed. Seymour Hersh has covered the “under-reported” air war in the New Yorker and writes that the current U.S. strategy is to embed U.S. Special Forces with Iraqi forces to call in air strikes as U.S. ground forces withdraw, opening the way for heavier bombing with even less media scrutiny (if that is possible).
One ignored feature of the survey’s results is the high number of civilian casualties reported in Fallujah in August 2004. It appears that U.S. forces took advantage of the media focus on Najaf at that time to conduct very heavy attacks against Fallujah. This is perhaps a clue to the strategy by which they have conducted much of the air war. The heaviest bombing and aerial assault at any given time is likely to be somewhere well over the horizon from any well-publicized U.S. military operation, possibly involving only small teams of Special Forces on the ground. But cynical military strategy does not let the media off the hook for their failure to find out what is really going on and tell the outside world about it. Iraqi and other Arab journalists can still travel through most of the country and news editors should pay close attention to their reports from areas that are too dangerous for Western reporters.
A second feature of the epidemiologists’ findings that has not been sufficiently explored is the one suggested above by Michael O’Toole. Since their report establishes that aerial assault and bombardment is the leading cause of violent death in Iraq and, since a direct hit by a 500 pound Mark 82 bomb will render most houses uninhabitable, any survey that disregards damaged, uninhabited houses is sure to underreport deaths. This should be taken into account by any follow-up studies.
Thanks to Roberts, his international team, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and the editorial board of the Lancet, we have a clearer picture of the violence taking place in Iraq than that presented by “mainstream” media. Allowing for 16 months of the air war and other deaths since the completion of the survey, we have to estimate that somewhere between 185,000 and 700,000 people have died as a direct result of the war. Coalition forces have killed anywhere from 70,000 to 500,000 of them, including 30,000 to 275,000 children under the age of 15.
Roberts has cautioned me to remember that whether someone is killed by a bomb, a heart attack during an air strike, or a car accident fleeing the chaos, those who initiated the war and who “stay the course” bear the responsibility.
As someone who has followed this war closely, I find the results of the study to be consistent with what I have seen gradually emerging as the war has progressed, based on the work of courageous, mostly independent reporters, and glimpses through the looking glass as more and more cracks appear in the “official story.”
exactly, we can't go back in time and undo anything. We shouldn't gloat or tak too much credit for it. For a self-sustaing democracy to work a foreign entity shouldn't be bragging about all the help. Europe doesn't brag about the US being a success; the US wanted it and got it going, just like other countries have. I agree,, let's hope the worst is over and i agree that it most likely isn't.
You obviously understand nothing about Iraqi politics and religion.
thank you.
Yes, Iraqi's are killing Iraqi's. But what about that aspect of the killing in Iraq which we don't hear about in the mainstream news? - Apart from when cases of atrocities and abuse by our soldiers arise. How many such cases go unreported? Read the article I posted above.
Don't mention it.
it's a lot more than 'some'!!!!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm
BAGHDAD — Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. (Graphic: Iraqis surveyed)
Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers." and actually that number goes up to 82% in baghdad!
That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included.
only 33% thought the invasion did more good than harm, 61% think the invasion wasn't worth it
also,
according to CNN's website, “[The] National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was ‘tenuous stability’ and the worst case was civil war.
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way