While I'm fully aware that 3,000 soldiers have died in Iraq, I'm amazed at how much of an "atrocity." this war may be to our soldiers. Realize that roughly 58,000 died in the Vietnam war. Roughly 109,000 in the Korean war (which lasted 4 years), and 550,000 in WWII. To be fair, the U.S. Army loses roughly half that amount in combat training. Don't get me wrong. I feel poorly for anyone who dies to serve our country. But y'all are crying a river just to cry. I've seen it since the 60's. I personally watched it in the 90's. It has more to do with y'all wanting to be part of a great hippie-ish regime than about actual thoughts. For whatever reason, some people really like that ideal. Either, or, I watched CBS's commentary beforehand. Just letting y'all know how the media is throwing this, especially in lieu of Couric's "unbiased" monologue to Bush's speech.
I AGREE WITH TEH FATZ, THEY WOULD PROLLY HAVE DIED ANYWAY AND IT AIN'T THAT MUCH AND WHO CAREZ WHO WUZ MAMED? THEY CAN HAVE ARTIFICAL LIMBZ AND COMPETE IN DA SPECIAL OLYMPICZ.
Once again, Sammy has to throw a r****ded comment out there. The point I'm making is that the press is making this out to be a slaughter with our men, which it certainly is not. The press is making this war into something it isn't. If I were in charge, I'd place a U.S. border on the west side, a China border on the east side, and a Russian border on the north, and let those morons fight it out. But I'm sure you've come up with a much more brilliant strategy not analogous to stopping sex without a condom?
I've said it before, when we first took over Iraq, we should've opened it and gave the reconstruction contracts to the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese and companies from any country that's large enough or have enough influence. That was before Iraq went to hell and people actually wanted a piece of it. Instead, we stand firm and refused to let in any company from any country besides the original allies (though in reality it was just Haliburton pretty much) getting the reconstruction contracts. I don't think the US is the country with lobbyists or other form of connection between business and politics. If there are major players from major countries in Iraq, the other major players governments will make damn sure things worked out a hell of a lot better.
3,155 Union soldiers were killed from July 1st-3rd, 1863 in the Battle of Gettysburg. The only real American war you can point to and say the American death toll in this one is unacceptable by comparison is the Gulf War , which had very limited objectives. The left loves to compare this war to Vietnam because it was both an elective war and involves a long and difficult occupation. On the other hand, any year that we had the number of troops in theater in Vietnam that we do in Iraq (200,000+), there were more than twice the number of American's killed that there have been in the Iraq war to date. 1966 6,143 1967 11,153 1968 16, 592 1969 11,616 1970 6,081 Now, every person killed is a tragedy, but as far as fighting a major ground war goes, this one has been everything one could hope for in terms of American deaths.
Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports. Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said. "Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq." (Watch as the study's startling results are revealed -- 1:55 ) The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations. (Read the full report -- pdf) The report's release came as nearly four dozen Baghdad civilians became casualties in another day of bombs and gunfire. (Full story) President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials." "The methodology is pretty well discredited," he added. (Watch Bush dismiss the report -- 1:33 ) Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement that the report "gives exaggerated figures that contradict the simplest rules of accuracy and investigation." Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began. When pressed whether he stood by that figure Wednesday, he said, "I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life. Six hundred thousand -- whatever they guessed at -- is just not credible." Researchers randomly selected 1,849 households across Iraq and asked questions about births and deaths and migration for the study led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. The Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology cooperated. They extrapolated the figures to reflect the national picture, saying Iraq's death rate had more than doubled since the invasion. On Wednesday, Burnham defended his team's methodology, saying it was the standard used in developing countries to survey for HIV and other major health issues he said. In 87 of the interviews conducted, the researchers asked for death certificates, and people were able to produce one 92 percent of the time, he said. In 13 percent of the interviews, the researchers had forgotten to ask for certificates, he said. (Watch Military and civilian experts question the methodology -- 1:45 ) The report said that Iraqis "bear the consequence of warfare" and compared the situation with other wars: "In the Vietnam War, 3 million civilians died; in the Congo, armed conflict has been responsible for 3.8 million deaths; in East Timor, an estimated 200,000 out of a population of 800,000 died in conflict. "Recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur [Sudan] over the past 31 months. Our data, which estimate that 654,965 or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has died in this, the largest major international conflict of the 21st century, should be of grave concern to everyone." The researchers estimated that an additional 654,965 people have died in Iraq since the invasion above what would have been expected from the pre-war mortality rate. They did not ask families whether their dead were civilians or fighters. (Read the report's appendix, including methodology and charts -- pdf) Violence claimed about 601,000 people, the survey estimated -- the majority killed by gunfire, "though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005," the study says. The additional 53,000 people who are believed to have been killed by the effects of the war mostly died in recent months, "suggesting a worsening of health status and access to health care," the study said. It noted, however, that the number of nonviolent deaths "is too small to reach definitive conclusions." Other key points in the survey: The number of people dying in Iraq has risen each year since March 2003. Those killed are predominantly males aged 15-44. Deaths attributed to coalition forces accounted for 31 percent of the dead. Although the "proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006 ... the actual numbers have increased each year." Burnham said the confidence interval of the data put the range of the number of deaths between 400,000 and 900,000. He suggested the media should not get too focused on the 655,000 number. Professionals familiar with such research told CNN that the survey's methodology is sound. It has been very difficult to pin down fatality numbers during the Iraq conflict. The private British-based Iraq Body Count research group puts the number of civilian deaths at between 43,850 and 48,693. Those figures are based on online media counts and eyewitness accounts. "The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks)," the group's Web site says. "It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion." The latest estimates were released less than a month ahead of U.S. midterm elections that could change the balance of power in the House and Senate, now controlled by Republicans.
Sorry, forgot why this matters. We are trying to stabilize the country. But I'm guessing you think we're the one's killing them. I'm not saying you're oblivious. Just misguided. But if anyone else thinks the U.S. is over there simply to kill Iraqi's, raise your hand. I've got several thousand napalm bombs and several nuclear ones that may tend to disagree. (btw, love the fact that you once again, as most of y'all, chose to cut and paste an article...) D & D.... Let's keep opinions in and cut and pastes out.
Sorry man I didn't know you would get angry over me just pointing out the # of Iraqi’s that have died. Maybe you should look at your post from another angle; add the # of innocent Iraqi’s that have died to the 3000 U.S casualties. Look at it in that prospective… Someone’s making a few too many assumptions...
What an ignorant thing to say. You have no idea why not only us, but the majority of the U.S. is against the war in Iraq. If people just wanted to be against war for the sake of it, to act out hippy fantasies, then they could have done so with regards to Afghanistan. Instead we supported that military action, because there was reason behind it. It was justified. It doesn't matter how many or few troops die, it is that they die for no good reason. If three times that number died in Afghanistan people would be sad, but understand what they were dying for.
And once again, the hilarious fatty acting outlandish! STOP WHINING ABOUT THE DEAD TROOPS? HO BOY THAT CRAZY FATTY WAT WILL HE THINK OF NEXT Let's see, thus far, for very little to no tangible gain, at the cost of billions of dollars, and for a tremendous amount of damage to America's prestige and capabilities - 3000 American troops have been killed. Tens of thousands more have been maimed and grievously wounded, and still more are psychologically damaged (I suggest you read any of the articles on the limbless or faceless vetrans we now have and their new lives, which would shut CRAZY FATTY up pretty fast. One of the hidden elements to the low casualty count (due to improved battlefield medicine) is that more severely injured patients now survive, and have to live the rest of their lives in pain with horrific injuries. Ad to this that anywhere from 60,000 to 600,000 of the people that we were allegedly trying to save have also been massacred. SO Fatty how many people have to die for a mistake for it to be anything we should worry about? 1,000,000? 2,000,000? If we are saying that a few thousand lives doesn't mean **** - why did we get so upset after September 11? After all - that wasn't a damaging attack. THe fire bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000+ in one night. The Holocaust killed MILLIONS. 3,000? Who cares? That's not a massacre..using CRAZY FATTY logic. Oh, and don't bring up bullsh-t analogies to WWII, that involved millions more troops - for somethng tangible, against a greater threat, and for something that was capable of being attained. So you're proposing "cut and run" combined with a WWF style "lumberjack match", I suggest you look at some geography, maybe a world map, to see how hideously stupid (but I got to admit it's CRAZY! That's why you're CRAZY FATTY! DAMN YOU IS FUNNY)this plan sounds.
Of course casualties are very down in this war. Medical technology has taken leaps and bounds. Every single soldier goes through training while not everyone goes to Iraq. This argument about how few numbers of soldiers are dying in Iraq when compared to other wars or even to things like car accidents misses the point of why the troop deaths are significant. The point is that this was an elective war so these troop deaths were preventable. Now to be fair if you feel the war was necessary than you're willing to tolerate many troop deaths, how much though is up to the individual to decide. If you feel it was unnecessary then any troop death is a tragedy.
So let me get this straight, we are using another stupid war ie Vietnam to guage if the our death tolls an sacrafices are justifiable.
And if we're able to stabilize the middle east and break up terrorist groups, such as al-queda? Last I recall, we did have an attack here first. Whether you feel Iraq was involved depends on what report you read. And that appears to be politics more than anything else. If 5 years from now, this war is deemed unnecessary, and we haven't quelled anything, I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. But it is still too early to tell whether this war was a flop, or a triumph.
Hey, anybody think the Rockets should trade Steve Franchise? What about Rudy, should he stay or should he go?
3 years ago people were saying the same thing. Five years from now, if you haven't had the results you want, you'll say "just five more years." The bottom line is that what the administration sold to the American public is not at all what has happened. It took a while, but even Bush has finally admitted that its basically a mess and there's no clear path to success. As of right now, it's easy to say the war was a flop. That may change, but outside of simply being optimistic, what exactly do you see on the ground to suggest that this is going to happen?
