I heard recently that the 154th US military casualty was suffered. I grew up watching news of the Viet Nam War over dinner. To the best of my recollection, casualty counts were tracked on both sides... with every conflict. Why is that not being done in this war? Is there no accounting for the deaths on the side of the Terrorists? Do they not count? Is there no way to get an accurate count?
Vietnam's not the best example, given that all the body counts were incorrect. I believe if you total up the number of supposed "kills" we had, it summed up to more people than were in the war. The body count inflation was a result of a need to use that to justify policy ("look, we're winning!").
Of course, the counts need to be approximately accurate and not exagerated just for propoganda purposes, but the way this is being reported is doing nothing but supporting the "Quagmire Theory."
From what I understand the pentagon's official stance is that they do not keep count of enemies killed (nor they say, civilians). The attached website is the IRAQ BODY COUNT Database. Which tracks, to the best of its ability, the civilian count. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm Now as far as "enemy" deaths, well, I'm sure most Americans don't care to know.
You have any idea of the PR disaster it would be if we kept a running body count of the number of arabs we killed? Remember, we're trying to get them to not hate us as much. You can try to explain that they are terrorists all you wanted, but if you tell poor disenfranchised people in bagdad, cairo, whererver that we have waxed 50,000 arabs or whatever, that's a problem.
Sadly, in less than a year, between 7,800 and 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed by American troops. It's the media's responsibility to report these deaths. Maybe if Americans were better-informed about how many Iraqis have been killed, we wouldn't be so surprised when our troops are attacked *every single day.* Why doesn't this administration trust us with the truth?
I'm not quite so sure that the Iraqi people, in general, just love these terrorists who are giving legs to this War on Terror. I forgot to root for the Symbionese Liberation Army in their heyday...
When did we start calling everyone who attacks our *military* a terrorist? Much as Rumsfeld hates to admit it, we're fighting a war against guerillas for the most part. We've made ourselves vulnerable to terrorist attacks by putting bases in urban areas in Iraq, but can't do much about that without alot more boots on the ground.
Don't call Iraqi insurrectionist Terrorists, because they aren't. Even though Bush likes to call them Terrorists every chance he can get, in attempt to further instill FEAR into the American people and equate Iraqi insurrectionists with AQ Terrorists and 9/11..
I wonder how many innocent Iraq's were killed daily prior to our arrival? It seems the only thing that has changed are these guys will attack our troops who are there to provide freedom, but would dare not fight against the dictator that oppressed them. Where is the common sense in that?
Excellent points. Until we start seeing things from the Iraqis' perspective, we're doomed to fail there. And that's really scary to me.
What's the truth? I.e., where did you get those numbers? I recommend that you look at the 'details' before you respond.
So you're saying that if the Iraqi democracy had already been established and we were gone, that there would be NO attacks on the democratically elected Iraqi government? That there are no people remaining in Iraq, who are used to being in power for instance, that want to regain their power? How is it that you came to this definitive conclusion?
Seriously, when I clicked on the thread I was thinking that this was going to be the score of the OU-A&M game if OU hadn't had all those touchdowns called back...
According to compiled media reports, The Iraq Body Count Project (website) estimates that between 7,840 and 9,668 Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces since March. The project uses casualty figures derived from a comprehensive survey of media reports and eyewitness accounts. But don't take my word for it. Scrutinize the data provided on the website for yourself. I hope they're wrong. But, sadly, I'll guess their numbers are uncomfortably close to the reality of this awful situation.
5 years ago no one would be confused about the difference between a terrorist and the guerillas fighting our forces in Iraq. But thanks to Bush calling them terrorists every chance he gets, people , like you it seems, have blurred the line. Now everyone is a "terrorist" Iraqis that are Saddam sympathizers or just plain don't want Americans controlling Iraq are not terrorists. AQ who fly planes into buildings are terrorists. Iraqis fighting on their own soil are not. two different concepts in my mind...
I think Cohen was commenting on the remark about a democratically elected Iraqi govt. not about terrorists vs. guerillas.
