posted
I was surprised to see that 15,000 US additional casulties went under-reported by the DoD, as reported in the 60 minutes story. And the use of white flags by Iraqis to stage attacks is both apalling and self-defeating: they are making it so surrender is much more difficult. Bizarre, cruel and shortsided tactics.
edit to add: the 15,000 are classified as "non-combat casulties."
posted
That "faces of the fallen" is the sadest thing I've ever seen. I wish some of the people pushing this war could see that. Posts: 925 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I missed that the 1st time I looked at the thread. I agree, Tater, that is one depressing webpage. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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What about the faces of those murdered by Saddam Hussein. Oh wait, they're not Americans, so they don't count.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Yes they matter, but regime change is a bad global policy. It's much fiscally smarter to just take over. Then you only have to do it once. As opposed to almost every government the US has setup... ever, who normally just get angry at us and we have to conquor them again!
>.<
The point is that war is bad. Period. Killing is bad. Period. And this thing has been handled completely wrong from the start. Sadly.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2001
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He's wrong about the consequences, but right about something: in the places we claim our greatest successes in, we exercised the most direct control, Japan and (West) Germany. In those places we tread lightly, our results are significantly more mixed.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I have a large gash in my arm. Its bleeding weakens me and if not fixed I will die. I would be doctor amputates my arm to stop the bleeding. The rest of my life I moan about the loss of my arm While friends of the doctor say I should be satisfied, After all, if it hadn't been for the doctor I would have died.
The war may have been needed, may have been justified, but I believe that there were and are errors in how it was promoted, prepared for, planned and executed.
Not errors by those on the ground, but by those in desks, disconnected and safely away from the action.
The media hero's of the 1st Gulf War were Powell and Schwartzcof, not President Bush I, even though President Bush had done so much to create the worldwide coalition that made it such a military and political success.
This time President Bush II and Donald Rumsfeld are the media hero's of the war. Naming even one general in Iraq is beyond the abilitity of 95% of the American electorate. President Bush II took ownership of this war, so its failed policies are reflected back on him, as he had hoped its successes would be.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:If you think the war in Iraq was bad, you not only hate the country, but you hate my daughters, and would rather see them die in a terrorist attack then see a brutal dictator removed from power.
The uncomfortable fact (although I'm perfectly comfortable with it) is that the entire Iraq war was simply about sending a message to the Middle East, and that message was, and continues to be, clean up the mess you're making, because it's starting to spill out into the rest of the world, and while there may be some nations willing to sacrifice thier citizens to your causes, this one isn't, and will never be.
It was vital that that message be sent, and it's vital that the message say strong.
And you want to know the worst part? The entire Iraq war will be for nothing if we elect somebody who says they never would have gone in the first place. All those men's lives will be in vain, everything those men proved in order to deter future attacks and other would-be Saddams would be crushed the second some guy adresses the world from the oval office and says, "Don't worry. I would never, ever have made an attack like that."
Saddam was a known, active sponsor of terrorism. Whether or not he was actively involved with Al-Quaeda, whether or not he had weapons of mass destruction, who cares, really? He was publicly funding Palistian suicide bombers, he had terrorist training camps within the borders of his nation. Aren't we trying to fight terrorism here? In any form? Do we really think that if we crush Al-Quaida, we're done? Or should we fight terror wherever it rears it's ugly head?
Honest to goodness, anybody who even implies that we weren't justified in going to war with Saddam needs to read anything the man wrote, or spoke about. Get a book, find speeches on the internet, rent a documentary, anything. See if you don't think the world is a safer place, not just for the Iraqi people, but for your loved ones here in the states because he's gone.
Self-deception?
Truthfully, I don't think America deceives itself about how well (or poorly) the war is going. I think a bigger self-deception is, even after realizing there was no WMD threat, our continuing belief that this war is going to help protect us from terrorism. But the biggest self-deception of all is the claim by many that our problems in Iraq were not forseeable beforehand - that we could not have known feuding Shiites and Sunnis might prevent the democratic process from moving along, that we could not have predicted civil war might occur, and that it is a suprise that terrorists would roam much more freely in the vacuum of power. These things were, in fact, foreseen before the war - by those who were being called unpatriotic and un-American at the time, and also by those who realized it but remained silent.
No we are stuck with the decisions we've made and the deaths that will inevitably result. The productive questions now are: "What should we do now?" and "What can we learn from all this?" And to answer both these questions effectively we cannot afford to deceive ourselves any further - we must be aware of the facts, positive and negative.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tresopax: [QB] December 9, 2003 [QUOTE]If you think the war in Iraq was bad, you not only hate the country, but you hate my daughters, and would rather see them die in a terrorist attack then see a brutal dictator removed from power.
The uncomfortable fact (although I'm perfectly comfortable with it) is that the entire Iraq war was simply about sending a message to the Middle East, and that message was, and continues to be, clean up the mess you're making, because it's starting to spill out into the rest of the world, and while there may be some nations willing to sacrifice thier citizens to your causes, this one isn't, and will never be.
Yup there is a mess in the middle east, the unfortunate fact that seems to escape you is that America created the mess, and left it to smolder until the poeple saw little but their broken lives and could think only of revenge. I am not saying that revenge is right, cause it isn't, but isn't right for us to not accept the blame belonging to us.
Posts: 63 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I knew something was amiss when I saw a post by BaoQingTian. It's been quite some time since I've seen him post anything.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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For the record, while my feelings about the need for the war haven't changed in five years(especially the analogy about having to remove corrupt city officials if you're trying to fight the mob), my feelings towards those who are opposed to the war certainly have.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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According to ForeignPolicy, in addition to the combat deaths of 4000 US soldiers.
quote:More than 70,000 have been wounded in combat, injured in accidents, or airlifted out of the region for emergency medical care.
More than a third of the 750,000 troops discharged from the military so far have required treatment at medical facilities, including at least 100,000 with mental health conditions and 52,000 with posttraumatic stress disorder.
...as many as 20 percent of returning soldiers have suffered mild brain injuries, such as concussions.
More than 20,000 troops have survived amputations, severe burns, or head, spinal, and other serious injuries.
The ratio of wounded in combat to killed in Iraq is 7 to 1; in Vietnam, it was 2.6 to 1, and in World War II, 2 to 1.
If all injuries are included, such as those from road accidents or debilitating illnesses, Iraq has produced 15 wounded for every single fatality.
along with the UK's 175 deaths, Italy's 33, Ukraine's 18, Poland's 21, Bulgaria's 13, Spain's 11, Denmark's 7, El Salvador's 5 Slovakia's 4, Latvia's 3, Estonia's 2, Netherlands' 2, Thailand's 2, Romania's 2, Australia's 1, Hungary's 1, Kazakhstan's 1, and SouthKorea's 1. Plus a comparable proportion of wounded for those nations.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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not to discount the severity of our losses, but statistics like those you quote there aspectre are most likely misleading.
example: so our WoundedInCombat/Killed is much worse now than in Vietnam. Now is this a sign of a worse conflict, or is it a sign that we're much better at quickly getting the wounded to adequate medical attention and thus saving more lives?
Additionally, were things like PSD even diagnosed back in WW2 and the like? How do the mental health condition stats compare to the general populus? how about to the military population during peace-time or in other areas? The mental health issues are something that are largely a recent phenomena (in my understanding) in that they were not considered nearly as much in the past. Additionally, there is some level of increased occurance of mental stress associated with serving in the military that should be expected (no matter the nature of the conflict) combat is an incredibly stressful thing.
I say this all fully accepting that it's possible that this war is indeed more stressful (having less faith in the reason you're there probably does have a significant impact on morale as well as stress levels) and that maybe this really is a more dangerous situation than others...
Basically, how valid are numerical comparisions between this and other "similar" situations which are separated by 40-60 years of medical, psychological, transportation etc development?
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Misleading? The VietnamWar caused 58,217 KilledInAction, 153,452 WoundedInAction, and 1,947 MissingInAction. Given that the US left Vietnam in 1975 and it is now 2008, it's reasonable to add the MIAs to the KIAs for a total of 60,164 combat deaths; and to add both to the WIAs for a total of 213,616 casualties. If the VietnamWar had instead caused 7 WIAs per KIA (as in Iraq) for that casualty total, there would have been 26,702 KIAs and 186,914 WIAs. Now how can anyone reading this believe that it is better for an extra 33,4162 soldiers to be dead* than it would have been for them to be counted amongst the wounded? Plus thanks to better body-armor and better armored-transport, about half of all combat-wounded US soldiers in Iraq are returned to duty within 72hours. Now consider the number of VietnamWar dead and wounded who would have been saved if they had had comparably superior protection.
As far as I can remember, PostTraumaticStressDisorder wasn't even created as a class of psychological/psychiatric illness until well after the VietnamWar was over. Are you recommending that PTSD sufferers be executed as cowards in the manner that MacArthur desired? Of course not. Then how can reporting that the military and the public now finally recognize that war can create longlasting effects beyond physical scars&disablements be considered misleading?
* Except those expecting 40 virgins or Valhalla, of course.
quote:More than a third of the 750,000 troops discharged from the military so far have required treatment at medical facilities, including at least 100,000 with mental health conditions and 52,000 with posttraumatic stress disorder.
I thought 1 in 5 out of the general population have clinically significant mental illness. Granted, that's across a lifetime, and it's mostly a factoid I hear tossed around, I think mostly to help people seeking help to feel less stigma.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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The 2003 post that Tresopax linked to was mine. I'm the guy who said that people who were opposed to the war in Iraq hated my daughters.
I realize that he actually quoted me to say I was fooling myself if I thought that the war in Iraq might help the country in the war against terror, but the part that I'm ashamed of today is the ridiculous and unneccesary accusation of hostitility towards my kids by those who can't see the need for the invasion.
It's a completely normal thing in debate--rather than deal with your opponent's actual position, you simply accuse them of having the position that's the moral opposite of your own position.
Even though their positions can be opposite, it's actually rare in American Politics that positions are actually the result of having completely opposite feelings on issues.
It's easy for people who are against the death penalty to look at their own respect for life and accuse those who are in favor of the death penalty of having bloodlust, when in reality it's the pro-death penalty folk's own love for life that leads them to believe those who take it have given up their right to their own. And of course, it goes the other way, too.
Because it feels like it's their love for life that's being challenged, instead of the position their love for life has led them to, so they both figure the other guy must have different feelings about life.
Same thing all over the political spectrum. We get the feeling it's our values that are being challenged, and so we assume the other guy's values must be completely opposed to ours. In reality, we can both have very similar values, but still arrive at extremely different positions.
Such was the case here. Rather than dealing with the essense of what Tres was actually saying and why, instead I placed him in a position he was not actually in--a place exactly opposite my own rationale for being in favor of the war--and then attacked him for being there.
The results are predictable. Rather than being shamed into seeing things my way ("Wow, doc, I really hadn't considered your children before this. You were harsh, but honest with me. Thank you."), Tres was able to settle even more firmly into his own beliefs, confident that my insane take on his motivations meant I was equally deluded in my take on Iraq.
And, he and people were able to do exactly the same thing to my post--put me exactly opposite their own views, as a madman who wanted to violate the rights of the world by invading countries completely at random and who wanted the U.S. to live in a constant state of fear. I was even accused of wanting to bomb any country in the middle east, like they were all the same, that I was just out for revenge, and it even got really close to calling me a racist.
That isn't the post I had intended to make, as I'm sure anyone can guess.
The point is that I brought all that on myself. Because I started by putting my opponent in such a ridiculous, extreme position, it was completly predictable that everyone's natural defensiveness would not only make them deny it adamantly, but also reflexively try to shove me over into the position at the extreme opposite of their own.
All in all, poorly played on my part, I'd say. I'm really sorry.
I know all you crazy people don't hate my kids. Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I am a firm believer that it is not often a contest of virtue and vice, but it is a disagreement of virtues that we argue over. Your idea that we should not attack another's values but debate their logic is a shrewd and practical way of moving on. Instead of talking at each other, lets talk to each other.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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