Pictures from Iraq

jlew24asu

PJSkier wrote:

"just an idea of what its like over there."

Just curious......

Any info on "when" the events in these pictures took place?
Two weeks ago, several months, several years????
A timestamp would be helpful for context

it makes zero different to the OP. in his eyes, this is how it is yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Commy

jlew we're not getting anywhere.

agree to disagree

peace.

Commy

PJSkier wrote:

"just an idea of what its like over there."

Just curious......

Any info on "when" the events in these pictures took place?
Two weeks ago, several months, several years????
A timestamp would be helpful for context

no dates.

some were from desert storm, others from invasion 2.

Commy

jlew24asu wrote:

PJSkier wrote:

"just an idea of what its like over there."

Just curious......

Any info on "when" the events in these pictures took place?
Two weeks ago, several months, several years????
A timestamp would be helpful for context

it makes zero different to the OP. in his eyes, this is how it is yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

feel free to to disagree, please don't make a case for me.

Smellyman

Anybody still justifying this war and thinking all the Iraq people are better off now is a fucking retard.

my2hands

just playing devils advocate here...

where are the pictures of the damage and death being caused by the suicide attacks and other various iraqi-on-iraqi and muslim-on-muslim violence? and to follow that up, how do we know the damage shown in the OP's pictures were not caused by that violence?

by the way, the MT is still debating the Iraq invasion?

echo chambers, on the right, left, and middle, lead to little progress and even less intellectual growth... challenge your own thoughts and beliefs, no matter how convinced you are

jlew24asu

Smellyman wrote:

Anybody still justifying this war and thinking all the Iraq people are better off now is a fucking retard.

nobody is doing that. how about you come back when you have some constructive to say. its childish comments like this that ruin message boards. grow up.

my2hands

for the record...


The Vic sucked


almost as bad as the smilies on this new board :roll:

Smellyman

jlew24asu wrote:

Smellyman wrote:

Anybody still justifying this war and thinking all the Iraq people are better off now is a fucking retard.

nobody is doing that. how about you come back when you have some constructive to say. its childish comments like this that ruin message boards. grow up.

everyone but you anyway.

jlew24asu

Smellyman wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

Smellyman wrote:

Anybody still justifying this war and thinking all the Iraq people are better off now is a fucking retard.

nobody is doing that. how about you come back when you have some constructive to say. its childish comments like this that ruin message boards. grow up.

everyone but you anyway.

that makes no fucking sense. but I'll assume you are trying to imply I'm justifying the Iraq war. well, I'm not. its a shame this board still allows people like you to troll around.

jlew24asu

my2hands wrote:

for the record...

The Vic sucked

almost as bad as the smilies on this new board :roll:

you bitter man you. greatest show ever. I'll send ya the boot

jlew24asu

my2hands wrote:

just playing devils advocate here...

where are the pictures of the damage and death being caused by the suicide attacks and other various iraqi-on-iraqi and muslim-on-muslim violence? and to follow that up, how do we know the damage shown in the OP's pictures were not caused by that violence?

well I suppose this would fall under the US's fault also. :roll:

Commy

ok i lied.

jlew24asu wrote:

so thats that huh? first of all, we arent talking about poker chips. these are human beings. you can't just take it upon yourself to DOUBLE death tolls because you feel the estimates are conservative. second of all, the US is not responsible for the deaths during sanctions. Saddam is. not to mention the UN is not the US. other countries had a say in the matter. I can only suggest you study what happen at the UN during the 80s and 90s. sanctions were put on Iraq for a reason and could have easily been lifted had Saddam cared about his own people.

i never doubled anything. i used the conservative numbers to come up with the final count. sorry if that wasn't clear.




What in the hell.



The US blows up things like water treatment plants, leads the UN in sanctioning Iraq to the point where they cannot be repaired...and diseases spread that cannot be treated...because the sanctions are so severe not even medicine can be imported...and people died as a result. But its their own fault according to you.

Apologizing for atrocities is a terrible position to take, and i can't believe your trying to do so.


Blaming Iraq for the sanctions is like blaming the rape victim for getting raped. Its not right.,

same goes for Gulf War 91. Saddam choose to invade Kuwait. the dead's blood is on his hands.

Ok let me rephrase what i posted earlier, maybe it wasn't clear.


Saddam has his army on the Kuwaiti border. Everyone knows he wants to invade.

So the US sends its highest diplomat, the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to talk to Saddam. She says, and this is in public record...paraphrasing...

'The US has no interest in your Arab-Arab conflict'

That wasn't taken out of context. The before and after transcript is available, also in the public record. They were discussing the Iraq/Kuwait conflict directly.

Which sent a very clear message to Saddam that he was all clear to invade Kuwait.

And why did Saddam want to invade Kuwait anyway?>

At the end of WWII (i believe) maps were redrawn, maps which took land away from Iraq, cut off their access to the sea, land which they still considered theirs.

The CIA was in cooperation with Kuwaiti intelligence-I provided some evidence suggesting that-and eventually Kuwait started slant drilling the oil out from under Iraq. Why a little country with a militant neighbor would do such a thing is hard to believe. Incredible actually, given the situation in the middle east at the time.

Logic suggests Kuwait wasn't acting alone. I would think, that in most cases, the little kid on the block would try to avoid the neighborhood bully, not sneak into his room and steal money from his piggy bank. Not unless that kid had promises from and even bigger bully, that he would be protected.

And I'm not defending the invasion, just trying to provide context. Its not so black and white as they like to make things..

you can throw out numbers all day but the bottom line, is there is no proof of anything. estimates vary widely and that's that.

your sources are "studies" and "surveys". counting dead isn't like taking an opinion poll. if one of these surveys found that 10 million died, you would believe it. the higher the number the better. but like I said, these arent poker chips.

Hmm. nothing i can post makes any difference apparently.

First I am a liar for suggesting that millions of Iraqi's have been killed in Iraq since 1990.

When I provided numbers that back that up, from legitimate sources, they were dismissed.

And of course they are estimates. How else would you go about getting this kind of information?

And in this case, the "estimates" come from 2 of the leading authorities in the field, the UN and John Hopkins. Information that major newspapers have no problem re-printing all over the world.

Yet, not good enough for you.

I'm beginning got see why George Bush 1 said,

"facts are annoying things."

I'm thinking you agree with him there.

here are some sources you can read

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... death.html
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

lol.

I'll give them a look. lets ignore John Hopkins and the UN for the time being and focus on Body Count, that wonderful website that is always at the top of google searches for some reason.

Commy wrote:

which is exactly like starting a house fire and then taking credit for putting it out. the US bombed Iraq. many times. you know this. "we destroyed your country, but we're paying American companies to rebuild it so its all good, right"? no.

if someone came and burned down my house and then gave me money and rebuilt it, I would be pissed off they burned it down and not pissed off they stuck around to rebuild. which is exactly the opinion of most Iraqis. they do not like our presence there, but dont want us to leave.

you and I both know, we have spent BILLIONS on reconstruction.

yeah. but if you destroy a country, you sure as hell better rebuild it.

It doesn't excuse blowing it up in the first place.

It's like trying to take credit for something you're supposed to be doing anyway.


Like Chris Rock said...
"I take care of my kids..."
"Well no shit, you're supposed to you stupid mother fu%#$"

you know what ruined Iraq's so called progress? Saddam Huessin. The US had NOTHING to do with him invading Iran and then Kuwait. these two wars, that Saddam started, completely ruined the country. again, this has absolutely nothing to do with the US. you said it yourself, you dont know shit about the Kurds, they are a major part of Iraq's history.... and its painfully obvious you dont know much about Saddam Huessin. do you think he was simply misunderstood? a good guy?

like banging my head against a brick wall.



you have got to be out your mind.

I thought it was generally accepted-even by the loonies on the far right-that the US armed both sides in the Iran/Iraq war"? ?

Your statement, "[the Iran/Iraq war] has absolutely nothing to do with the US" is untrue, even by Fox news standards.

And the rest has been dealt with.

btw-my source is a US government sponsored survey (the one that shows the above to be complete bullshit, that you never bothered to read) -yours is..just your opinion.

Back to Bush's statement,

"facts are annoying things."

You must be a big fan of his.

I really hope you do some research on him as well as the UN's involvement in Iraq since the 80s.

start with this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892771/
torrent is out there too..
http://www.torrentz.com/0112f1bf758f056 ... fa04abd511

serious question: who would you rather be your president. George Bush or Saddam. neither is not a choice.

depends.

As an American it obvious. Bush would be the better choice. As an Iraqi, there's a good chance I'd be dead either way, so it doesn't really matter.

jlew24asu

Commy wrote:

i never doubled anything. i used the conservative numbers to come up with the final count. sorry if that wasn't clear.

you are making up numbers out of thin air. and when confronted with sources that show low estimates, you automatically dismiss it.

Commy wrote:

The US blows up things like water treatment plants, leads the UN in sanctioning Iraq to the point where they cannot be repaired...and diseases spread that cannot be treated...because the sanctions are so severe not even medicine can be imported...and people died as a result. But its their own fault according to you.

Apologizing for atrocities is a terrible position to take, and i can't believe your trying to do so.

I didnt say it was "their" own fault. I said it was your buddy Saddam's.

Commy wrote:

Blaming Iraq for the sanctions is like blaming the rape victim for getting raped. Its not right.,

all I can do is beg you to research your friend Saddam Huessin. why do you keep saying I'm blaming Iraq? I'm not. I'm blaming one man. ok? please tell me you understand what I'm saying. I can't be any clearer. I AM NOT BLAMING IRAQIS. I"M BLAMING SADDAM....for the sanctions and resulting death.

Commy wrote:

Saddam has his army on the Kuwaiti border. Everyone knows he wants to invade.

So the US sends its highest diplomat, the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to talk to Saddam. She says, and this is in public record...paraphrasing...

'The US has no interest in your Arab-Arab conflict'

That wasn't taken out of context. The before and after transcript is available, also in the public record. They were discussing the Iraq/Kuwait conflict directly.

Which sent a very clear message to Saddam that he was all clear to invade Kuwait.

given the all clear? are you fucking insane.. no one is given the all clear to invade. you are using this one sentence as evidence that the US is responsible for Saddam invading another country? can you see how fucking stupid you sound?

Commy wrote:

And why did Saddam want to invade Kuwait anyway?>

because is a narcissistic sociopath who thought he was going to rule the entire Arab world.

Commy wrote:

Hmm. nothing i can post makes any difference apparently.

First I am a liar for suggesting that millions of Iraqi's have been killed in Iraq since 1990.

When I provided numbers that back that up, from legitimate sources, they were dismissed.

And of course they are estimates. How else would you go about getting this kind of information?

And in this case, the "estimates" come from 2 of the leading authorities in the field, the UN and John Hopkins. Information that major newspapers have no problem re-printing all over the world.

Yet, not good enough for you.

I'm beginning got see why George Bush 1 said,

"facts are annoying things."

I'm thinking you agree with him there.

I gave you estimates too. you response was lol. how are you any different? you ONLY take the highest possible estimates and make them facts. estimates are not fact.

Commy wrote:

lol.

I'll give them a look. lets ignore John Hopkins and the UN for the time being and focus on Body Count, that wonderful website that is always at the top of google searches for some reason.

Iraq Body Count has far more sources then John Hopkins and the UN.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/methods/

and again, John Hopkins did a survey of a very small % of the country. you cant apply the same principles to an opinion poll as you can a death toll.

Commy wrote:

yeah. but if you destroy a country, you sure as hell better rebuild it.

says who? did Germany rebuild Europe ? you statement makes no sense. the US isn't obligated to rebuild anything.

Commy wrote:

It doesn't excuse blowing it up in the first place.

I agree and never said it did.

Commy wrote:

like banging my head against a brick wall.

you have got to be out your mind.

I thought it was generally accepted-even by the loonies on the far right-that the US armed both sides in the Iran/Iraq war"? ?

Your statement, "[the Iran/Iraq war] has absolutely nothing to do with the US" is untrue, even by Fox news standards.

the US took sides but didnt START the war. which is what you are implying. I apologize though, I can see where my statement was taken the wrong way. I meant the US had absolutely nothing to do with starting the war.

please do some fucking research on the history or Iraq and Saddam. its shocking how little you know about him

my2hands

jlew24asu wrote:

my2hands wrote:

for the record...

The Vic sucked

almost as bad as the smilies on this new board :roll:

you bitter man you. greatest show ever. I'll send ya the boot

i was there dude... drove out from delaware

i am one of the guys yelling out "Lets Go Phillies" on your boot

after i went to Wrigley and saw the Phils kick the Cubs ass that afternoon :twisted:

jlew24asu

my2hands wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

my2hands wrote:

for the record...

The Vic sucked

almost as bad as the smilies on this new board :roll:

you bitter man you. greatest show ever. I'll send ya the boot

i was there dude... drove out from delaware

i am one of the guys yelling out "Lets Go Phillies" on your boot

no shit? sucks I missed ya. next time old friend

my2hands

yup, no shit

Commy

jlew24asu wrote:

Commy wrote:

i never doubled anything. i used the conservative numbers to come up with the final count. sorry if that wasn't clear.

you are making up numbers out of thin air. and when confronted with sources that show low estimates, you automatically dismiss it.

Eh, no. I didn't make anything up. None of the information presented was mine. And it was all cited. If you disagree with the numbers you can check the sources, I provided them.

(and this is all very sad that we are measuring war based on how many people were killed, but i think itsrelevant. to show how fucked up war is)


You are dismissing figures published in the Lancet, and replacing them with numbers taken from some random website that no one else cares about. The Lancet wouldn't publish something if it were "made up". And they wouldn't be using numbers from iraqbodycount.org.(I don't know anybody that does)

And the reason for that has nothing to with what they found. It has everything to do with how they found it.


iraqbodycount.org, only counts those that died "violent deaths" that were reported in the media.

The 2 obvious flaws in that method, and maybe the reason no respectable journalists report on it, is that it excludes the incredibly large portion of people that die non-violent deaths. Which is a considerable number.

And obviously the media can't possibly report on every single death.

A very large section of the deaths are left out, in the thousands range for sure, probably in the hundreds of thousands.

Commy wrote:

The US blows up things like water treatment plants, leads the UN in sanctioning Iraq to the point where they cannot be repaired...and diseases spread that cannot be treated...because the sanctions are so severe not even medicine can be imported...and people died as a result. But its their own fault according to you.

Apologizing for atrocities is a terrible position to take, and i can't believe your trying to do so.

I didnt say it was "their" own fault. I said it was your buddy Saddam's.

Commy wrote:

Blaming Iraq for the sanctions is like blaming the rape victim for getting raped. Its not right.,

all I can do is beg you to research your friend Saddam Huessin. why do you keep saying I'm blaming Iraq? I'm not. I'm blaming one man. ok? please tell me you understand what I'm saying. I can't be any clearer. I AM NOT BLAMING IRAQIS. I"M BLAMING SADDAM....for the sanctions and resulting death.

Really? Saddam Hussein sanctioned Iraq.

That is news to every single person in the world.


you know hundreds of thousands of little kids were killed in those sanctions? (i'm not gonna post any links, you'll pretend i invented them or whatever) -United States former Secretary of State Madeline Albright accepted tha500,000 children died as a result of the sanctions, on national tv, but i'm making that up too right?



what in the fuck did they ever do to anyone? for that to happen?

and this country put those sanctions on that country that killed those children. Saddam Hussein was a piece of shit but he didn't sanction Iraq. The US/UN did.



You're apologizing for a major atrocity.

Commy wrote:

Saddam has his army on the Kuwaiti border. Everyone knows he wants to invade.

So the US sends its highest diplomat, the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to talk to Saddam. She says, and this is in public record...paraphrasing...

'The US has no interest in your Arab-Arab conflict'

That wasn't taken out of context. The before and after transcript is available, also in the public record. They were discussing the Iraq/Kuwait conflict directly.

Which sent a very clear message to Saddam that he was all clear to invade Kuwait.

given the all clear? are you fucking insane.. no one is given the all clear to invade. you are using this one sentence as evidence that the US is responsible for Saddam invading another country? can you see how fucking stupid you sound?

Yeah. just pretend it doesn't matter. That official statements made in an official capacity, at the highest diplomatic levels-don't matter.

You are suggesting here that diplomacy has no impact on events in world politics, which actually says a lot about your understanding of international politics.

Commy wrote:

And why did Saddam want to invade Kuwait anyway?>

because is a narcissistic sociopath who thought he was going to rule the entire Arab world.

Commy wrote:

Hmm. nothing i can post makes any difference apparently.

First I am a liar for suggesting that millions of Iraqi's have been killed in Iraq since 1990.

When I provided numbers that back that up, from legitimate sources, they were dismissed.

And of course they are estimates. How else would you go about getting this kind of information?

And in this case, the "estimates" come from 2 of the leading authorities in the field, the UN and John Hopkins. Information that major newspapers have no problem re-printing all over the world.

Yet, not good enough for you.

I'm beginning got see why George Bush 1 said,

"facts are annoying things."

I'm thinking you agree with him there.

I gave you estimates too. you response was lol. how are you any different? you ONLY take the highest possible estimates and make them facts. estimates are not fact.

You are suggesting I take numbers from a random website that nobody else considers, over numbers from reports published in publications like the Lancet?

really?

If I was going to take the highest possible estimates i wouldn't have used wiki.

Commy wrote:

lol.

I'll give them a look. lets ignore John Hopkins and the UN for the time being and focus on Body Count, that wonderful website that is always at the top of google searches for some reason.

Iraq Body Count has far more sources then John Hopkins and the UN.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/methods/

and again, John Hopkins did a survey of a very small % of the country. you cant apply the same principles to an opinion poll as you can a death toll.

Lancet is probably the oldest scientific journal in the world. The studies they published by John Hopkins have been accepted by almost everyone but you and body count.

And it has been peer reviewed, by some of the most prestigous universities in the world.

Cambridge University calls their method "generally well described and readily repeatable" re the Iraq report.

If its good enough for Cambridge U i think I'm just fine with it too.

But stick to body count if it makes you feel better.

Again those annoying facts shouldn't get in your way, right?

Commy wrote:

yeah. but if you destroy a country, you sure as hell better rebuild it.

says who? did Germany rebuild Europe ? you statement makes no sense. the US isn't obligated to rebuild anything.

Commy wrote:

It doesn't excuse blowing it up in the first place.

I agree and never said it did.

What is your point than? regarding the billions the US spent rebuilding Iraq?

Its ok we destroyed a country, because we're rebuilding it?

or it doesn't matter we destroyed it because we're rebuilding it?>

or we're just really great guys cuz we spent all those billion on some poor country?

Or some other obscure meaning that i can't fathom because i am not a war apologist..probably.

Commy wrote:

like banging my head against a brick wall.

you have got to be out your mind.

I thought it was generally accepted-even by the loonies on the far right-that the US armed both sides in the Iran/Iraq war"? ?

Your statement, "[the Iran/Iraq war] has absolutely nothing to do with the US" is untrue, even by Fox news standards.

the US took sides but didnt START the war. which is what you are implying. I apologize though, I can see where my statement was taken the wrong way. I meant the US had absolutely nothing to do with starting the war.


please do some fucking research on the history or Iraq and Saddam. its shocking how little you know about him

[/quote]

i wasn't trying to imply that.



Iraq was progressing, and had been for 2 straight decades.

I posted information proving that statement, from a US gov't sponsored survey, its just simple statement, but its true.

It is now on par with some of the shitiest places on the planet.

And its all Saddam's fault in the strange magical world you guys live in.

I got it. I see your point.

I'm of the mind that US jets dropped these big bombs all over the place and kind of reduced everything to ruble.

that's just me. seems more realistic though.

g under p

jlew24asu wrote:

Commy wrote:

no one is disputing that saddam killed hundred of thousands of kurds. it its not the point. and it doesn't excuse killing another million to "save" them from such atrocities.

yes it is the point. you want to post these pics and make this thread to put the US in some bad light and show what its like to be invaded. why? why not show what Iraq was like before the invasion. mass killings, beatings, torture, people living in fear everyday, and having zero freedoms.

why not post pics of current day Iraq that show woman and children going to school, people being able to express themselves, and progress that is being made everyday. there is a reason why Iraq is not in the news anymore, no one cares about good news...its not reported.

here is the only story I could find about Iraq on BBC's site...A story about US technology companies coming to Iraq to help build the internet and networking capabilities..

article wrote:

"The internet in Iraq was censored and not easily available under Saddam Hussein. It is now widespread but is still expensive and not always reliable.

But for many Iraqi families, it has been a lifeline linking them with the outside world during years when it was often too dangerous to step outside their front door.

The BBC's Sebastian Usher says not too long ago the prospect of senior executives from leading American companies paying a week-long visit to Iraq would have been out of the question.

It is a sign of the improving security situation that nine executives are venturing into Baghdad. It is also an indication of how the Americans are trying to use means other than military power to help Iraqis develop a more stable society.

in the country.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8010393.stm


I'm not saying this to justify US going into Iraq. war is horrible and going to Iraq was wrong. we were told lies about what was going on there. but guess what, it happened. cant change that now. so instead of dwelling on the bad things of the past, why not look to some of the positives as well. to say Iraq is not making progress is plain ignorant.

Don't forget the US use of depleted uranium which in turn exposed and harmed us soldiers along with thousands of Iraqis.

Peace

g under p

Also heres a video/documentary from my friend and musician Micheal Franti and his band SPEARHEAD.
It's called "I KNOW I"M NOT ALONE"
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=3083


An interview with Michael Franti on Iraq, Isarel and Palestine and his documentary
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/1 ... 76209.html

After seeing this video, if it doesn't bring a tear as to what these people have been through or are going through then something is truly gone terribly wrong with us.

Peace and STAY HUMAN