American Nationalizm

That does not mean it is irrelevant anymore, it was the crucial foundation of expanding the homeland from sea to shining sea.

Here are a few Manifest Destiny quotes:

"It is America's right to stretch from sea to shining sea. Not only do we have a responsibility to our citizens to gain valuable natural resources we also have a responsibility to civilize this beautiful land."

"Texas has been absorbed into the Union in the inevitable fulfillment of the general law which is rolling our population westward.... It was disintegrated form Mexico in the natural course of events, by a process perfectly legitimate on its own part, blameless on ours.... (its) incorporation into the Union was not only inevitable, but the most natural, right and proper thing in the world.... California will, probably, next fall away from...Mexico.... Imbecile and distracted, Mexico never can exert any real governmental authority over such a country.... The Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders. Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it armed with the plow and the rifle, and markings its trail with schools and colleges, courts and representative halls, mills and meeting houses. A population will soon be in actual occupation of California, over which it will be idle for Mexico to dream of dominion... All this without agency of our government, without responsibility of our people- -in natural flow of events, the spontaneous working of principles, and the adaptation of the tendencies and wants of the human race to the elemental circumstances in the midst of which they find themselves placed."

 

Quoted from where? Not from John L. O'Sullivan's Manifest Destiny, 1839, who coined the phrase.





Keep D&D Civil!!

 

No, no, not THE "Manifest Destiny", I meant quotes of individuals who made comments about the whole concept of Manifest Destiny. I was simply attempting to relay some of the more popular quotes about the the whole idea of "going West"; nicknamed manifest destiny

 

I'm still curious. History is one of my interests. The quotes sound like something a politician might say at the time, or someone who was interested in profiting from American expansion. Or both.




Keep D&D Civil!!

 

No, by all reports, Chalabi provided the majority of the "intelligence" regarding WMDs and human rights abuses. Chalabi had been on the CIA (and apparently the Iranian intelligence agency's) payroll for quite some time and continued receiving payments well into the war. GWB and his crew were duped by the agent of a foreign government and nobody has been held accountable.

That is weak even for you. I point out that more civilian lives have been lost per day in this action than in Saddam's entire reign and you come back with this???

If I were digging into the minutae of statistics and delivering stats like the ONDCP does, your "quote" might have some weight, but we are talking about the relative impact of our actions on Iraqi civilians versus the lives they would have lived under Saddam. The number of civilians killed per day is a highly relevant and telling fact.

Yes, but the only "reasons" having to do with WMDs were parroted over and over and over again like some kind of mantra. Official after official went on the talking heads shows to talk about "mushroom clouds," biological weapons, chemical weapons, and aluminum tubes.

If you believe this action was about "human freedon" then I feel sorry for you because you are one of the ones who was even more completely duped than I was.

Actually, I thought the point was the relative harm during our accupation versus Saddam's time in power. BTW, I am sure (by reading the polls and quotes from Iraq) that the Iraqi people believe that it is the US who "willingly and recklesslly kill in their pursuit of the enemy."

Whatever. I have mentioned that number maybe twice, which barely rises to the level of "parrot[ing]," much less doing so mindlessly. Figure out how to debate without referring to O'Liely and Limbaugh quotes if you want to accuse ME of "mindless parroting."

 

Originally posted by andymoon

No, by all reports, Chalabi provided the majority of the "intelligence" regarding WMDs and human rights abuses. Chalabi had been on the CIA (and apparently the Iranian intelligence agency's) payroll for quite some time and continued receiving payments well into the war. GWB and his crew were duped by the agent of a foreign government and nobody has been held accountable.

<b>As I recall there were intel reports going back years from other foreign governments (i.e the Brits) that said essentially the same thing. You comment was about them trusting one guy....</b>




That is weak even for you. I point out that more civilian lives have been lost per day in this action than in Saddam's entire reign and you come back with this???

If I were digging into the minutae of statistics and delivering stats like the ONDCP does, your "quote" might have some weight, but we are talking about the relative impact of our actions on Iraqi civilians versus the lives they would have lived under Saddam. The number of civilians killed per day is a highly relevant and telling fact.

<b>First those numbers you rush to are suspicious. Second, how many of those dead Iraqis were killed by the insurgents? Third, how many of those might have been killed by Saddam anyway? Fourth, you are comparing "peacetime" under Saddam to a wartime situation. </b>

Yes, but the only "reasons" having to do with WMDs were parroted over and over and over again like some kind of mantra. Official after official went on the talking heads shows to talk about "mushroom clouds," biological weapons, chemical weapons, and aluminum tubes.

<b>That's a silly image you concoct. Hey, let's make it sound like brain-washing!</b>

If you believe this action was about "human freedon" then I feel sorry for you because you are one of the ones who was even more completely duped than I was.

<b>How were we duped when we were told from the beginning that it was about human freedom-- among other things?</b>

Actually, I thought the point was the relative harm during our accupation versus Saddam's time in power. BTW, I am sure (by reading the polls and quotes from Iraq) that the Iraqi people believe that it is the US who "willingly and recklesslly kill in their pursuit of the enemy."

<b>Thanks to Al-Jazeera... and you want to climb all over Fox News!</b>


Whatever. I have mentioned that number maybe twice, which barely rises to the level of "parrot[ing]," much less doing so mindlessly. Figure out how to debate without referring to O'Liely and Limbaugh quotes if you want to accuse ME of "mindless parroting."

<b>Will you show me where I quoted or even referenced Limbaugh or O'Reilly? That is just a silly desparate dismissal. I've been on this trail since the day after the 2003SOTU; I didn't need Limbaugh or O'Reilly....</b>

 

Then we just disagree. I think we should remove such a regime if we have the power to do so

We could not do business with that nation. We could pursuade others to not do business with that nation. We could help opposition groups inside that country provided the opposition group actually believed in those ideals as well.[/B][/QUOTE]

Which were tried in Iraq and still didn't acheive the removal of the regime. In fact, it was much harder to gain support against such as regime than you assert (see China, Russia, France, and Germany all doing business with Saddam despite sanctions).

I agree we did a not so good job of convincing others, but we've got to look no further than Bosnia to disprove your theory that having the facts on your side (or a good coalition builder) to get the job done. Despite the 'facts' in Bosnia and Kosovo the UN refused to intervene. Russia in particular blocked aggressive action because of their historical and cultural ties to Serbia. In addition, if you agree that regimes such as Saddam should be removed by the international community, then the failure of the international community to meet your standard is stark.

 

Uh, no. Its not a red herring. If you want to add a 'body count' then certainly the numbers of those killed by sanctions would go under Saddam's column.

Well, if you add those executed by Saddam with those killed by sanctions, with those killed in Saddam's various wars - they numbers swamp the base number you use (the validity of which is seriously in doubt).

You conclusion is incorrect, but I agree its unfortunate that there are civilian deaths in military action.

We're not talking about the cease-fire agreement, which btw you are wrong about as well (the inspectors DID in fact find Saddam in violation of the cease-fire agreement). I'm talking about the legitimacy of removing a genocidal despot, which is recognized as legitimate by many bodies, including the UN.

Well, he had violated the agreement, although the scope was no where near what was claimed, to be fair.

You're being repetitive and you're wrong. See Al Masoud missles, to start with that violated the disarmament provisions of the cease fire agreement.

Well then WAKE UP, Andy, because millions of Europeans protested the US during the Cold War:

"Every major deployment of U.S. weapons systems thereafter prompted protests, many of which make today's anti-American rallies seem tame by comparison. In the late 1970s, NATO decided it had to counter Soviet medium-range SS-20 missiles by fielding Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe. As the deployment drew near in 1983, millions of Europeans, many wearing ghoulish costumes, took to the streets to protest."

Which goes to my point that protests themselves are not a conclusive determinant of whether an action is desirable or not.

Yes, the coalition in '91 was bigger. AND?

Well of course you just slough off this point. Imagine me asking for you to take a deeper look! IF the leaders are neoconservatives, that means something - that they are following a particular ideology that shapes their worldview. IF they are neoconservatives, then they are pursuing their goals because they believe its the best course to take to get a more free and democratic world. That would be in contrast to a more national interest/realpolitik focus of someone like Kissinger. The argument that neoconservatives want to enslave the world, and are only trying to acquire assets like oil falls flat on its face.

 

Given that Canada didn’t come into existence until 1867, all of the fighting was done by residents of British colonies and regular British troops. Of course the militia in Montreal and what was later to become the province of Quebec was mostly made up of French people who had been there for up to 250 years at that point, but they were British subjects at that time. They didn’t like or trust the British much, but they trusted the Americans less, so they fought faithfully for the British. Some things never change, I guess. My people, on both sides, were in the separate British colony of Nova Scotia at the time, so they didn’t really have much to do with that war, but I was in Ontario and Quebec over Christmas and I passed a number of monuments and historic battle sites from the war at various places along the St. Lawrence. It’s certainly not a forgotten war there.

 

I am quite capable of recognizing our country's errors, but crap like this pisses me off. Reminds me of the story mentioned here about the little Turkish woman who was interviewed and did not want us to attack Saddam. When asked why she wasn't worried about Saddam developing and using WMD, she said she knows the US would smack him down if he did.


So we're supposed to sit here with our collective mouth shut while we help pay for a better, safer world with our money and our lives?

He can GTH.

 

I understood that the troops that burned DC were all British veterans of the Napoleonic wars. As for the fighting 'Canadians', they lost Toronto. Eh?

 

Bingo. The US does get a bad rap on some things, but not on this war. The rap this administration is getting on this war is not loud and strong enough. 100,000 dead Iraqi citizens, so far, and a country that now looks to be headed toward a horrific civil war… Only the most perverse could call this “liberty and freedom.”

 

100,000 Dead—or 8,000
How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, at 3:49 PM PT


The authors of a peer-reviewed study, conducted by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University, claim that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war. Yet a close look at the actual study, published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet, reveals that this number is so loose as to be meaningless.

The report's authors derive this figure by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began (more on those surveys later), and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. That number is 98,000. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully:

We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period.

Readers who are accustomed to perusing statistical documents know what the set of numbers in the parentheses means. For the other 99.9 percent of you, I'll spell it out in plain English—which, disturbingly, the study never does. It means that the authors are 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000. (The number cited in plain language—98,000—is roughly at the halfway point in this absurdly vast range.)

This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board.

 

Well, the “Canadians” took Detroit too. And note the 1/3 of the “Canadians” at that time were American born. Many were United Empire Loyalists (God Save the Queen! ) and others were settlers who came up for the cheap land. It’s said that that war gave the country a sense of identity and a sense of differentiation from the US. Canadians haven’t always been sure what makes us Canadian, but from that point on we knew what we weren’t. Try calling a Canadian even today and then be prepared for frost burn.

 

That should read, “Try calling a Canadian an American…”

 

There is another organisation that is tracking only verified deaths. They only count deaths that are reported in the media, and there are many places where few or no members of the media have been, like Falluja for example, so the actual number is undoubtedly much higher. Their tally of actual media reported deaths is between 15,000 and 17,000. 100,000 seems like a very reasonalbe estimate for the total number in light of this number.

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

This is a human security project to establish an independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military action by the USA and its allies in 2003. In the current occupation phase this database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation. Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available on this page and on various IBC counters which may be freely displayed on any website, where they will be automatically updated without further intervention. Casualty figures are derived solely from a comprehensive survey of online media reports. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication.

 

I'm not sure what's reasonable about claiming as fact 6+ x the amount of reported deaths. Let's try it that way while projecting Saddam's death count: (300,000 civilians x 6 = 1.8 million) + (1 million soldiers x 6 = 6,000,000) + (1,000,000 sanction deaths x 6 = 6,000,000). So 13.8 million sounds like a reasonable number to attribute to Saddam. That's what, 6 x the number killed by Pol Pot? And you guys still weren't for intervention?

"But far worse is a group that claims to be keeping an accurate running count of Iraqi civilian deaths but is, in fact, doing no such thing. The group is called the Iraq Body Count Project, and its main figure is Marc Herold, a professor of economics and women's studies at the University of New Hampshire. You may remember Herold from his similar project during the Afghanistan campaign. There, he produced a figure of almost 3,800 civilian casualties, and his methodology was immediately criticized by many for taking reports from unreliable media sources at face value and for double-counting some incidents. An independent analysis by the Los Angeles Times found 1,200 or fewer civilian casualties.
Unbowed, Herold turned his attention to the Iraq Body Count Project. The Project's website has a continuously updated "maximum" and "minimum" count. The problem is that the minimum is anything but. As the Project's methodology page explains, "The minimum can be zero if there is a report of 'zero deaths' from two of our sources. 'Unable to confirm any deaths' or similar wording (as in an official statement) does NOT amount to a report of zero, and will NOT lead to an entry of '0' in the minimum column." In other words, suppose the Iraqi Information Minister said, "Today the imperialist aggressors slaughtered 300 innocent Iraqi children." Reputable news outlets will report what the Minister said, while simultaneously reporting that they were unable to confirm it and that the Pentagon was unable to confirm it."

More on inflating the numbers at 6 x the rate:

"First, even without reading the study, alarm bells should go off. The study purports to show civilian casualties 5 to 6 times higher than any other reputable source. Most other sources put total combined civilian and military deaths from all causes at between 15,000 to 20,000. The Lancet study is a degree of magnitude higher. Why the difference?

Moreover, just rough calculations should call the figure into doubt. 100,000 deaths over roughly a year and a half equates to 183 deaths per day. Seen anything like that on the news? With that many people dying from air strikes every day we would expect to have at least one or two incidents where several hundred or even thousands of people died. Heard of anything like that? In fact, heard of any air strikes at all where more than a couple of dozen people died total?

Where did this suspicious number come from? Bad methodology.

From the summary:

Mistake One:

"A cluster sample survey was undertaken throughout Iraq during September, 2004"

It is bad practice to use a cluster sample for a distribution known to be highly asymmetrical. Since all sources agree that violence in Iraq is highly geographically concentrated, this means a cluster sample has a very high chance of exaggerating the number of deaths. If one or two of your clusters just happen to fall in a contended area it will skew everything. In fact, the study inadvertently suggests that this happened when it points out later that:

"Violent deaths were widespread, reported in 15 of 33 clusters..."

In fact, this suggest that violent deaths were not "widespread" as 18 of the 33 clusters reported zero deaths. if 54% of the clusters had no deaths then all the other deaths occurred in 46% of the clusters. If the deaths in those clusters followed a standard distribution most of the deaths would have occurred in less than 15% of the total clusters.

And bingo we see that:

"Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja"

(They also used a secondary grouping system (page 2, paragraph 3) that would cause further skewing.)

Mistake Two:

"33 clusters of 30 households each were interviewed about household composition, births, and deaths since January, 2002."

Self-reporting in third-world countries is notoriously unreliable. In the guts of the paper (page 3, paragraph 2) they say they tried to get death certificates for at least two deaths for each cluster but they never say how many of the deaths, if any, they actually verified. It is probable that many of the deaths, especially the oddly high number of a deaths of children by violence, never actually occurred.

So we have a sampling method that fails for diverse distributions, at least one tremendously skewed cluster and unverified reports of deaths.

Looking at the raw data they provide doesn't inspire any confidence whatsoever. Table 2 (page 4) shows the actual number of deaths reported. The study recorded 142 post-invasion deaths total with with 73 (51%) due to violence. Of those 73 deaths from violence, 52 occurred in Falluja. That means that all the other 21 deaths occurred in one of the 14 clusters where somebody died, or 1.5 deaths per cluster. Given what we know of the actual combat I am betting that most of the deaths occurred in three or four clusters and the rest had 1 death each. Given the low numbers of samples, one or two fabricated reports of deaths could seriously warp the entire study.

At the very end of the paper (page 7, paragraph 1) they concede that:

"We suspect that a random sample of 33 Iraqi locations is likely to encounter one or a couple of particularly devastated areas. Nonetheless, since 52 of 73 (71%) violent deaths and 53 of 142 (37%) deaths during the conflict occurred in one cluster, it is possible that by extraordinary chance, the survey mortality estimate has been skewed upward. "

Gee, you think? It's almost as if military violence is not randomly distributed across the population of Iraq but is instead intelligently directed at specific areas, rendering a statistical extrapolation of deaths totally useless.

In the next paragraph they admit:

"Removing half the increase in infant deaths and the Falluja data still produces a 37% increase in estimated mortality."

That puts their final numbers just above the high end of the range reported by other sources. "

 

Sorry Cohen, I hadn’t read this when I gave my response to it else I would have given more of an explanation.

IMO, in this case the Turkish woman was wrong, but the higher level point is that, yes, the US is often unfairly criticised and put into a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position. Some of this is inevitable as, being the top dog, everyone is going to look to you, and some of it I think is fair because, as the top dog, a higher level of responsibility falls on your shoulders. With power comes responsibility. To tell which is which I think you have to look at the actions on a case by case basis. Was the US right in it’s actions in Afghanistan? In my opinion, until the last phase, absolutely they were right. IMO there was a just cause for the attack. Fair warning was given with an out for the Taliban if they cooperated. The world community was substantially in agreement. The US built a solid case for their action and I think most people could track that and say, “yes, this is just”. (More recently there is an argument that not enough troops have been left there to finish the job, and there is a risk of the good that has been done being undone w.r.t. the people of Afghanistan.)

The Iraq war is a separate case and a quite dramatically different set of circumstances. The world was told that there for sure were WMD. There were none and no evidence to suggest that there were any. This administration was not only wrong about the WMD, they lied about the evidence. Frankly, even the suggestion that they could be there defied common sense. Saddam’s first priority was saving his butt, and WMD served him no purpose and were only a risk to him. He would not have kept them at that time. It never made any sense that he would have them, and there is no evidence that there were any. This administration lied.

We were told that Saddam had connections to terrorism. There were none and no evidence to show there ever were any. In the end Saddam didn’t even have enough connections outside of Iraq to get himself out. He was found, alone, cowering in a hole. Again, it made no sense that he would have such connections. He has nothing in common with those people. He was a self-servicing, secular, immoral (by anybody's standards) tyrant, who lived in opulence and wallowed in the sinful desires of the flesh. Bin Laden is a radical Islamic idealist who lived in caves spent his money training fighters for the cause. There is no logical connection between these guys, and there is no evidence that there was one. Again, this administration lied to the world.

A war such as this could only have been successful if a broad coalition was built first. The risks of this turning into a civil war and/or of the neighbouring countries meddling were very well known and were very high probabilities. The only way to avoid and control this was to bring the neighbouring countries on board as part of the coalition, and bring in enough troops to keep a lid on things until some other power structures could be established internally. One thing that absolutely had to be forbidden was a situation where American troops would be on the ground in Iraq for a prolonged period of time. The reasons are obvious. Americans are hated in the broader region and to leave American troops there would result in various groups in the area coming into Iraq to kill Americans. This would needlessly draw a regional issue that was not part of the current problem in and make it a big part of this problem. Doing that would be like pouring honey on a wounded man near several hills of Fire Ants. Doing so would not only substantially increase the risk of failure for the whole project, it would be suborning the murder of innocents. And it has been murder, both for the Iraqi people and the American troops. If the troops patrolling the country were, for example, Egyptian, Lebanese, Turks (if used in the south), then there would be much less of a reason for Al Qaeda, or any of the other anti-American groups, to be there.

The fact that such decisions could be made is mind boggling. When you start putting the pieces together, a picture emerges. You have a president who reportedly never even had a passport before he became president. You have a ruling group who, save one, have never been to war. The opinion of the one was dissenting but was disregarded on the basis of a rigid, dated, ideology shared by the sheltered, inexperienced ruling group. Are these not the very conditions that lead to tragic grand scale blunders and the decline of an empire?

So in this case, once the evidence has been weighed, it is found to be overwhelming. This administration is guilty of the wholly predictable, needless, and ideologically driven slaughter of innocents. This administration is guilty of Crimes Against Humanity.

 

I didn’t even make it past this line. What’s reasonable bout it? How about the fact that reporters don’t get around much in Iraq. Reporters and aid workers and many other are being kidnapped and killed, so they stick to the main, relatively safe, areas. If what’s been reported is not much more than the deaths witnessed in the centres of the main cites, I would say that the 6 times the reported number is well within reason.

The 100,000 number is from a very credible source. The objections to it come from the typical neocon sources that have been consistently and dramatically wrong, and even dishonest, through this war. “Of course there were WMD.” “Of course there are links to terrorism.” “This is a war against terrorism!” “This war will be over in (insert moving date here).” At this point they simply have no credibility left. None.

Quote me a credible source and I’ll look at it.