The war in Iraq

[Grenadier]

Note I come on here to express my democratically entitled right to express my free opinion, and I immediately get negative feedback, calling me a troll. And telling me to go away. Well guess what, I am staying put. If you want me gone, conjure up a reason to ban me and then be rid. Until then, and I am not breaking the rules by saying this, but sorry here i stay!

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[Bob Hubbard]

What they said, yeah.

 

[ballen0351]

I clicked on this thread and expected somone bumped a thread from 5 years ago. Sadam was killed in 2006. And the last study I could find was from Brown university and it said the civilian death toll from direct combat operation is around 120 thousand.

 

[Makalakumu]

I clicked on this thread and expected somone bumped a thread from 5 years ago. Sadam was killed in 2006. And the last study I could find was from Brown university and it said the civilian death toll from direct combat operation is around 120 thousand.

The Lancet attempts to count everyone killed from the whole destabilization of the country, it includes those killed because of the civil war between Shiite and Sunni muslims.

 

[ballen0351]

The Lancet attempts to count everyone killed from the whole destabilization of the country, it includes those killed because of the civil war between Shiite and Sunni muslims.

I understand what it attempts to do. The OP is slamming the military members saying they murdered almost a million people and its just not true.

As to the Lancet study It just has too many holes in it for me:

The man responsible for compiling some of the Lancet study is the very same propagandist employed by Sadam Hussein to claim that U.N. was killing innocent Iraqi children when sanctions were imposed after the 1990 liberation of Kuwait.

While it's widely known that the Lancet authors refused to release their data to be evaluated by outsiders, there has been little talk about Riyadh Lafta.
Lafta was the man in charge of the actual collection of numbers, while another Lancet author was in Iraq but holed up in a hotel. As National Journal notes, Lafta was also a high-ranking official in Saddam Hussein's ministry of health and there authored some of the agit-prop papers about the vast number of small children dying from sanctions the U.N. imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait

The editor of the Lancet, physician Richard Horton, has unapologetically used the journal for advocacy on other issues, including a notorious 1998 paper that created an international panic over the safety of the childhood vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella [the MMR] – linking it to autism and bowel disease.
​

And...

Horton spoke at a rally in 2006 sponsored by Stop the War Coalition, a British group set up on September 21, 2001, which is to say its purpose was to oppose punishing and defeating the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. At the rally, Horton shouted about the "mountain of violence and torture" in Iraq – and no, he wasn't talking about Saddam. "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease," he angrily added.
​

 

[Makalakumu]

Suppose that the numbers are wrong. How many children died because of the sanctions and the war? How many were threats to a country on the other side of the world?

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

 

[Tez3]

Suppose that the numbers are wrong. How many children died because of the sanctions and the war? How many were threats to a country on the other side of the world?

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

How many did Saddam kill? What about the Kurds he gassed? The men, men women and children that lay dead in the streets where they fell? What about all the people who 'disappeared', those that were detained and tortured? If you are going to count the dead, count them all not just those that are convenient to count. How many died in the Iran Iraq war? As I said I don't believe we should have gone to war in Iraq the second time but you can't just see things one sided, you have to look at the whole.

this is from 2003 http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/ajan/27_saddam.html

And this, an interesting view of things including the Lancet report. The one thing I notice here is that he's put down about how many lives were saved by the action.
http://markhumphrys.com/iraq.dead.html I especially like the bit further down where the Lancet blames Israeli aggression for the Palestianians beating their wives and honour killings!

 

[Tez3]

Chill, guy. If you're going to soapbox about your freedom of speech, keep in mind that your detractors have the same freedom of speech you do. Even Tez.



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I say what I say upfront and so everyone can read, I don't do sneaky.

 

[Jenna]

I am posting this thread in the full knowledge that I have already had at least three of my ready present threads taking down due to trolling. So anyway, I have been on about four marches in London, some years ago protesting against this war. One of those marches acruing over some three hundred thousand of us. These were important moments, and times. For both England, and the world as a whole, in some way. I am against the war. If the SAS are as good as they claim to be, they should have taken him out a long time before he was caught, and ended the whole thing before it had started. Instead what we have is a failed state, and a war where civilian deaths impinge upon a million (see the Lancet review also this guardian article...http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq?INTCMP=SRCH.) This is simply unacceptable in today's day and age, I would hazard to mention.

I think in this matter -and matters of other wars and potential wars around the world right now- if anyone feels they can speak dispassionately, without the impressions of their own beliefs or prejudices and also speak armed with the full range of subjective opinions and feelings on all sides then they are deluded. All any of us can do is give a partly-informed opinion of the situation as we see it. If you lived Kabul and were being subject to oppression you would have one view of the world and a particular thought of how to extricate yourself and your family. Perhaps your views are not entirely objective. Yet they may be no less objective than someone from New York or who worked in Manhattan in 2001 or as I do in London 2005. Your reality would not be their reality yet it would be no less real and worthy an outlook to you. If you had business interests in Iraq or family working there you would have another view that might contradict the former views. There are many views no one of which can provide the entire panorama over the situation.

All I am saying is that the only conclusion one can draw from this or any of the upcoming wars is that a great many people were killed on all sides who would be alive had the war not happened. Some were killed on both sides because they believed they were doing what was necessitated. Some others were caught in a conflict that was not theirs. This is the nature of war. War is not a good thing, can that be disagreed with? As I see it, wars are taken for granted today and utilised as an expedient rather than an absolute last resort defence against mortal danger.

Have our governors, politicians, masters and supposed betters got no sense of diplomacy any more? I do not know, what do you think?

Is the world full of autocrats and fanatics who hear nobody but their own voices in their heads? Is this why diplomacy is ineffectual? I do not know that either.

Perhaps are wars contrived in gentlemen's think-tanks so that economically favourable regime changes can occur and to hell with the real cost to innocent military personnel and innocent civilians alike? I do not know. I am not party to that class of people.

I think after this war it is obvious that the survivors of those that gave their lives for what they believed are not better off for losing their loved ones. I have no doubt that others however do feel better off in the post-war era. If the net gain is positive and more people are better off because of the war in Iraq is this how the war and all our other current global wars are justified? Is it purely mathematical? It does not matter if we lose many people in order to make many other people better off? Is this correct? I think maybe I am just giving my thoughts in the wrong place.

Really I just do not understand why people cannot tolerate other people. What am I missing?

 

[Tez3]

No one in their right mind believes wars solve anything, that they are desirable or pruduce anthing that is good for all concerned. Wars sometimes cannot be avoided, other times can and should be avoided, all wars are about power, land and wealth whatever people may think or say the cause is ie religon. Wars bring out the worst in us yet they can also bring out the very best in humankind. Individual actions can be beyond courageous and wonderfully humanitarian, some actions take our breath away with admiration, others make us weep with despair and grief.

When wars are declared the blame must be laid squarely at the feet of those responsible, war criminals must be proscecuted. To say glibly 'war is wrong and all soldiers murderers' is simplistic and childish, saying you'll have nothing to do with wars doesn't stop them. The Quakers are famously pacifist but go to great lengths to act in a humanitarian way, helping the wounded, trying to spread the message of peace in a positive manner that has my admiration, they put their money where their mouth is. Posting on a martial arts website that you think war is bad isn't positive, everyone sane thinks war is bad, as Bill M asked twice now, what is the OPs solution to the problem?


Posting up 'reports' that American soldiers kill thousands in cold blood is inflammatory, no country's army is comprised of angels, there has been times when American soldiers have killed in cold blood BUT this is not condoned or encouraged by the authorities, it is punished quite severely as I remember. You can't police every action soldiers take but you can train them, teach them morals and punish those who transgress. The British forces are no different, yes there have been soldiers who have committed crimes and yes they are caught and punished because both America and the UK are trying their best to act properly, in as moral and humanitarian way that they can. In Afghanistan British soldiers cannot fire back at those shooting at them unless certain criteria are in place, this is to hopefully stop civilian casualties. What they also do is build schools, hospitals, dig wells as well as a lot of other things for the people of Afghan,as do the Americans, they understand that many Afghans don't want them there but that many more actually do and appreciate what is being done for them.

John2054, if you feel so strongly about this, don't demonstrate in London come up to Catterick Garrison, stand outside Tescos and tell people here how the soldiers are murderers. You won't be harmed, no one will beat you up. Before you do watch this right to the end, look into the eyes of these dead men and ask yourself honestly are these the eyes of cold blooded killers or of men who made the ultimate sacrifice for something they believed in, their mates and protecting the people their country sent them to protect. I know many of the men in the video, some well, some very well and third from the end in his tank is Steptoe one of my best students. If you are going to call British soldiers murderers have the guts to do it to their faces.

 

[ballen0351]

Suppose that the numbers are wrong. How many children died because of the sanctions and the war? How many were threats to a country on the other side of the world?

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

One dead child is one too many but dont lie to make your point. The lancet authors flat out lied to further their political agenda. Wars suck but sometimes we are left with no choice. You can debate we should have never entered iraq and thats your opinion. My opinion is.we should have went in long ago when he gasses his own people.

 

[Big Don]

Suppose that the numbers are wrong. How many children died because of the sanctions?

Wouldn't those deaths lie at Saddam's feet? How many women were raped by Uday and Qusay, how many people fed in to wood chippers or dipped in acid?

How many were threats to a country on the other side of the world?

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk

You have things *** backwards again. Western nations NEVER target civilians, unlike the terrorist groups that lay their allegiance to the "Religion of Peace", who go after soft targets for shock value, time after time.
Unless of course you are arguing that sanctions are pointless, which begs the question, why do democrat politicians favor them over actions that are effective?

 

[john2054]

With regards to the last post that western armies NEVER target children, if you watch this vid which i have already posted, you will see that there are clearly children in this truck that the army targets. Also please remember tez that for each one of those soldiers that died doing the job which they took on, each one of them probably killed over a dozen unarmed civs. That is statistically speaking. And if you do know some soldiers i suggest you ask them to tell you how many people they personally killed? Indeed I would be very much interested to hear what they say. Please watch this video below which I am sure that you haven't watched. But I watched your mormatorium.

http://collateralmurder.com/

Also note if you want to know what I think should be done with the politicians involved in the execution of this war (Bush jnr and Blair for two), how about holding them responsible for the deaths of this war. Which was all done to take out Saddam, which as I have said already, if the SAS are as good as you say they are, they could have ended the whole thing before it began with a bullet to the brain and that would have saved the deaths on both sides.

Also please remember that the soldiers in Afghanistan shouldn't even be there. I am sorry for every good man (or woman) who dies, but we turn a blind eye when our soldiers kill by the bucket load, only weep crocodile tears when they die. Well pull another story. Those 'boys' shouldn't even be there, in neither Iraq (and look at what a failed state that has turned out to be), or Afghanistan. That is all.

 

[Sukerkin]

It's a point that is somewhat to the side of how this thread is going but there is a reason why, when they engage in war, nations do not seek to "take out" the political leader on the other side. For if you do that there is noone with the legitimate authority to bring hostilities to a close. War by assassination might have the advantage of going straight for the people that started the whole mess but it has the big disadvantage of dragging things out for longer than they need to.

As to the purely practical matters that surround attempting to assassinate a closeted head of state using special forces, well ... the forces may be special but they are not 'Manga special'. Far easier to hit such a compound with a 'bunker buster' if that's what you want to do.

Regarding the moral questions of whether the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should have been undertaken, well, in my opinion, no they should not. A war that does not have a clear, obtainable, objective is one you cannot win and is best not started. That is not to say that sometimes a nation should not go to war for reasons of political advantage - we (Britain) have done so on many occasions over the centuries of playing the Great Game. But if you're going to play, it's best to choose games in which you can gain a decisive outcome.

Iraq parts one and two were to gain America a foothold in the Middle East with a view towards further influence in the region - it didn't work out that way and cost way too many lives for too little political gain. Tho' it did have the virtue of giving a salutary lesson in what happens when ex-Soviet issue kit faces up to front-line Western hardware -something Iran should consider carefully as it rattles it's sabre.

Afghanistan was again for influence in the region with a view, so the story goes, of building a route for getting ex-Soviet-states oil to the coast. That one is an even bigger mistake than Iraq was and even less forgiveable as history has shown on several occasions what happens in that country if a foreign power tries to take control.

 

[Tez3]

With regards to the last post that western armies NEVER target children, if you watch this vid which i have already posted, you will see that there are clearly children in this truck that the army targets. Also please remember tez that for each one of those soldiers that died doing the job which they took on, each one of them probably killed over a dozen unarmed civs. That is statistically speaking. And if you do know some soldiers i suggest you ask them to tell you how many people they personally killed? Indeed I would be very much interested to hear what they say. Please watch this video below which I am sure that you haven't watched. But I watched your mormatorium.

http://collateralmurder.com/

As these are allegations against American soldiers I will let the Americans answer. You are wrong btw I did watch it and you are wrong full stop.

Also note if you want to know what I think should be done with the politicians involved in the execution of this war (Bush jnr and Blair for two), how about holding them responsible for the deaths of this war. Which was all done to take out Saddam, which as I have said already, if the SAS are as good as you say they are, they could have ended the whole thing before it began with a bullet to the brain and that would have saved the deaths on both sides.

So murdering a head of state is okay by you? You don't think he should have been arrested and tried first?

Also please remember that the soldiers in Afghanistan shouldn't even be there. I am sorry for every good man (or woman) who dies, but we turn a blind eye when our soldiers kill by the bucket load, only weep crocodile tears when they die. Well pull another story. Those 'boys' shouldn't even be there, in neither Iraq (and look at what a failed state that has turned out to be), or Afghanistan. That is all.

You allege that British soldiers have killed by 'the bucket load', prove it. I know for a fact that our soldiers haven't killed dozens of unarmed civilians, I do know they have killed Afghan insurgents, killed in battle, that includes those killed by snipers. Those killed by snipers were in the act of planting IEDs designed to kill and maim soldiers but in fact kill as many civilians including children. In one engagement 42 RM CDO were ambushed on their way to help at a school that had been the target of a rocket attack by the insurgents, they knew the Royal Marines would go to help, the RMs went knowing they would come under attack but because children were injured they could do nothing else, the commander could have refused to help but the RMs aren't like that. All fire fights etc are done under the Rules of Engagement. Often insurgents have got away because our troops won't open fire while civilians are in the area.

http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/v_s_of_the_british_army.pdf


Do the British soldiers believe in the values and standards that the Army sets? Funnily enough they do, they don't like civilian deaths anymore than you do, when they look at the Afghan families they see their own, they see themselves as being there to help the local people not kill them. Many Afghanis agree with them, for many women it's the first time they've been allowed to work or to send their daughters to school. For many it means healthcare, for others it's freedom from religious persecution.

There are civilians killed by Allied forces as sometimes things go wrong, however no one is saddened more or is sorrier than the Allied soldiers and at no time are civilians deliberately targeted unlike the suicide bombers who set out to cause maximum injuries and deaths of their own people.

I assume you aren't trying to be deliberately insulting, though insulting you are. You have allowed yourself to be brainwashed into taking a simplistic view of a complicated situation. You are sounding like an apologist for the Taliban who I notice you don't equally criticise. As I said you come up here and tell the soldiers they are murderers, don't post it here where you are safe, come and tell them face to face.


http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9e6c.html

http://www.rawa.org/schoolburnt.htm

"At least six children were killed and another 14 injured after a rocket hit their school in eastern Kunar province, officials said on Tuesday.

The rocket landed in the yard of the Salabagh primary school in the provincial capital of Asadabad, close to a US-led coalition base, said Zahidullah Zahid. “The students were studying in the yard when the rocket landed, killing six innocent girls and boys,” Zahid explained."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...own-faces-Afghan-schoolgirls-walk-school.html

"These are the horrifying burns left on the faces of two Afghan schoolgirls after two men on motorbikes threw acid on them outside their Kandahar school.
The girls, sisters aged 16 and 14, have been hospitalised. It is said that their attackers removed their head scarves before pouring the acid onto their faces."

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/21/world/asia/afghanistan-child-bombers/index.html

"Afghan police have intercepted 41 children whom insurgents were planning to use as suicide bombers, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
Four suspected insurgents were about to smuggle the children across the mountains into Pakistan from eastern Kunar province on Friday, said Sediq Seddiqi, the spokesman.
"We strongly believe that the children were being taken to Pakistan to be trained, brainwashed and sent back as Afghan enemies," Seddiqi said.
The children are aged between 6 and 11, he said."




John, do your research and stop parrotting the words you've been given. No one is for war, we are all against it but you really need to get your facts right before making accusations.

 

[Makalakumu]

Or maybe the real question is why can't antiwar movements in various countries around the world, keep our servicemen and women off of senseless battlefields?

 

[granfire]

Or maybe the real question is why can't antiwar movements in various countries around the world, keep our servicemen and women off of senseless battlefields?

Because there is money to be made. A lot of money.

 

[Tez3]

Or maybe the real question is why can't antiwar movements in various countries around the world, keep our servicemen and women off of senseless battlefields?

Granfire's correct there is too much money to be made. I believe Eisenhower warned against this.

However if you are going to be a member of a peace movement one should be against ALL war, not just the ones that don't fit your idealogy. I don't think the Allies should have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan ( as a matter of interest most British troops think the same) but portraying the troops as some sort of inhuman child killing monsters isn't the answer to achieving peace. Murdering a country's head of state isn't going to do it either.
Here's someone I don't actually like nor do I support him but while there's bits I disagree with he speaks a lot of sense. He's anti war and goes on the same marches as the OP but he makes some interesting points all the same such as why only criticise NATO.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/07/anti-war-taliban-afghanistan


[h=1]I'm anti-war, but the Taliban must not triumph in Afghanistan[/h]On the 10th anniversary of war in Afghanistan, anti-imperialism cannot be allowed to trump human rights

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  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 October 2011 10.00 BST
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'A premature exit could result in a Taliban victory – and a bloodbath. Is this what anti-war activists want?' Photograph: EPA

The Afghan war strategy is not working. After 10 bloody years, there are too many civilian casualties and no prospect of defeating the Taliban. We are propping up a Kabul government mired in corruption, which gained power through fraudulent elections. Our intervention has focused on war-fighting to the relative neglect of economic reconstruction and the empowerment of civil society. The cost to the British people of this half-baked venture is a staggering £5bn a year, when public services are being slashed. For all these reasons, I'm supporting the mass anti-war assembly in Trafalgar Square this Saturday. But I do so critically.
As a leftwinger and internationalist, I can't accept the simplistic calls for immediate troop withdrawal. Don't get me wrong. I never supported the war strategy in Afghanistan. The Nato-led occupation is wrong. Democracy and human rights cannot be imposed by western diktat. The troops should come home – but not with no regard for the consequences.
A hasty Nato withdrawal will not bring peace. Afghan security forces lack the training, equipment and numbers to stave off the fundamentalist threat. A premature exit could result in a Taliban victory – and a bloodbath. Is this what anti-war activists want? I'm sure they don't. So why do many of my colleagues make a demand that risks such a grisly outcome?
Campaigners against the war are rightly critical of Nato's ham-fisted intervention, human rights abuses and reckless attacks that kill civilians. But why aren't they equally critical of the Taliban? Taliban fighters deliberately target civilians. They kill many more ordinary Afghans than the Nato forces, and they'd kill even more civilians if there was a rushed pull-out of western troops. A one-sided focus on Nato's wrongs, to the neglect of a far more brutal set of killers, is a tad hypocritical.
Nearly 90% of Afghans oppose the Taliban – a clerical fascist movement that seeks to impose a religious dictatorship. A Taliban regime would ban all political parties, trade unions, and women's organisations. Women and girls would be forced out of schools and jobs, back into the home. They'd be subjected to compulsory shrouding and gender apartheid. Any woman who refused to conform would risk lashing and stoning. Why has the anti-war movement never protested against the Taliban's crimes against female humanity?
Afghan advocates of women's equality oppose a swift troop pull-out. They fear it could result in a Taliban takeover, which would suppress women for decades. Despite Nato's failings, 72% of Afghan women say their lives are better than 10 years ago.
Afghan female MP, Fawzia Koofi, this week urged Britain "not to abandon us," arguing that without western help Afghanistan's precarious attempt at democracy "won't survive".
Women's rights campaigner and Kabul MP, Shinkai Karokhail, stresses: "In the current situation of terrorism, we cannot say troops should be withdrawn … the international troop presence here is a guarantee for my safety."
Dr Sima Samar, chair of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, has appealed to western nations: "Finish the job you started. It's about the protection of humanity. This is a human responsibility."
Is it morally right for the west to ignore the Afghan people's fears and leave them vulnerable to the savage fate that will befall them if the Taliban seize power?
The "troops out" movement may be silent about the threat posed by the Taliban but most Afghans are not. Three-quarters still support the Nato invasion to topple the Taliban. More Afghans blame the Taliban for the violence than those who blame Nato. While a majority want foreign troops to leave, they don't want them to leave just yet. Nearly two-thirds of Afghans support the current presence of US-led Nato forces, according to an ABC/BBC poll in December 2010.
If most Afghans want the troops to stay, should we still insist they go?
The anti-war movement in Britain is headed by the left. I don't see how immediate withdrawal – with the risk of mass repression by the Taliban – is compatible with the leftwing values of anti-fascism, international solidarity, human rights and support for oppressed people. Anti-war activists have never explained how they reconcile their humanitarian motives with the likely barbaric consequences of their demand for "troops out now".
There needs to be a more sophisticated anti-war alternative to the Nato strategy. I haven't got the answers but I know we should not abandon the Afghan people to a Taliban bloodfest. Anti-imperialism cannot be allowed to trump human rights"

 

[ballen0351]

I think we are far past should we have gone to war. Its too late for that now. We went in screwed the place up and iny opinion we have a responsibility to try to stabilize the place now. Too many people are viewed as "helping" the Americans and if we leave with out atvleast trying to fix the region all the people are as good as dead. All the woman that took the freedom to do outragious things like go to schiol and learn are as good as dead if we leave. It sucks and should we have gone who knows but we did now its our baby and we need to do the right thing and take care of it the best we can. As for every militay soilder killed dozens of innocent people thats to stupid to get an answer. Maybe next time we can send in a team of ninjas to end it quickly.

 

[Tez3]

I think we are far past should we have gone to war. Its too late for that now. We went in screwed the place up and iny opinion we have a responsibility to try to stabilize the place now. Too many people are viewed as "helping" the Americans and if we leave with out atvleast trying to fix the region all the people are as good as dead. All the woman that took the freedom to do outragious things like go to schiol and learn are as good as dead if we leave. It sucks and should we have gone who knows but we did now its our baby and we need to do the right thing and take care of it the best we can. As for every militay soilder killed dozens of innocent people thats to stupid to get an answer. Maybe next time we can send in a team of ninjas to end it quickly.

Spot on! We went in for all the wrong reasons but it's an ill wind that blows no good, a good many people do have better, more free lives than they did before we went in. The intention was to punish Al Queda, destroying the Taliban would be a by product, hasn't worked out quite like that but all the same a lot of service people who have been out there, a lot of them more than once, do believe they are making a difference to people's lives and in a good way. As you say, we are there and we have to put things right, give them what we take for granted..freedom.

Sending the ninjas in, brilliant idea!