Comments on Gateway Pundit: Sizing Up Sacrifice- Iraq War vs. Major Battles Si...

propaganda? Propaganda is what people pretend to b...

2008-08-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

propaganda? Propaganda is what people pretend to believe about the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush lied out his teeth about the threat they represented.

The author of this article is a lier for misrepresenting the facts of the report to sway opinion.

Iraq was an invasion of profit and politics perpetrated by the government using 9/11 as the scapegoat. Any other reason they you are led to believe is a lie.

You can chime away about how we defeated scum. (there were at least 20 to 30 dictators on the planet at the time of the gulf war causing even more mayhem then Saddam ever could.) We destabilized the region, killed more civilians in Iraq then Saddam ever did and reduced our civil liberties to do it. Its a shame that our military is caught up in the middle of this mess.

World Health Organization (WHO) released a new study saying that roughly 151,000 Iraqi civilians died violently during the three years following the U.S. invasion.
This is a lower estimate because reliable statistics are scant. So get off your high horse and think for once...understand that the only
propaganda is coming from your own government. We were led astray in Vietnam right? Come on now.

Now answer the question about the "wrong numbers" in this article.

wow. I stumbled on this webpage and it amazes me h...

2008-04-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

wow. I stumbled on this webpage and it amazes me how ignorant people still are. I do not mean stupid either, I mean ignorant because you choose to look at bias information and criticize the left side without looking at both sides. Lets not forget that there is no war in Iraq it is a conflict and that we should only be in "conflict" with Afghanistan since they are the source. Now about the twin towers, how deep have you actually questioned without just taking the word of Fox news and other media outlets that are fed by only the right during the time of the incident. Now Lets look at history again. WWI &WWI cause depressions in America that caused major bills to be passed to rebuild the economy. We suffered major losses and still regret sending our troops to Vietnam because of the deficit we built up solely based on that. Now ask yourself again if even one American life is worth the price of a barrel. When it comes down to it I choose to not be biased and to stand there and say how great bush is is baffling to me. His intelligence is definitely not whats holding up his puppet strings. Look at the economy and then look at who is benefitting from people who work hard to keep up with the prices of the pumps and now everything as our economy crashes. Who is benefitting is cheney and bush and their people. Complain about clinton all you want but the economy was not going to into repression during his days in office and employment was at an all time high. Now if thats not enough look around the world and watch how fall we fall down the list of living standards. We used to be 5th, Canada even makes more than our greenback is worth when it only used to be $.68 to our $1.00. the euro is also almost double the greenback. Now finally tell me I am wrong, but please be educated about it not just some good christian or person who was raised to believe the way their parents do. Your parents were probably boomers and their generation is set for life, while they left ours in the shitter.

What the author FAILS to realize is that only ONE,...

2008-04-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

What the author FAILS to realize is that only ONE, yes, ONE person died due to hostile action (AKA WAR) during the Clinton Administration, whereas those who died due to hostile action during Bush's War sky rocketed. So, the comparison is hollow and this author should be fired for making an elementary mistake in journalism.

United States Army short dining prayer:“God Bless ...

2008-04-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

United States Army short dining prayer:

“God Bless the Armed Forces of the United States of America and all those who serve in them.”

Sergeant Michael P. Mauer
United States Army
1984 - 1992

The more battles you include, and the longer back ...

2008-03-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

The more battles you include, and the longer back in time you go, the clearer it gets that war is getting safer all the time. Add some pre-WW2 battles and even the very worst days of WW2 look like statistical noise on the average daily death scale, and Iraq completely disappears.

I apologize for monopolizing your comments, Gatewa...

2008-03-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

I apologize for monopolizing your comments, Gateway Pundit, but I'd like to share one more point:

Documented civilian deaths from violence in Iraq:
82,476 – 89,996

Last I checked, there was a huge disparity between @90,000 and 1,000,0000.

Unless there is evidence to suggest that the disparity of 910,000 on the reported civilian deaths, we can consider that flase statistic as a lie.

Yes, only 4,000 and and so much to show for it: a ...

2008-03-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, only 4,000 and and so much to show for it: a sputtering economy, becoming an international bete noir, and 1 million Iraqi casualties. Did I mention the 4,000 dead?

And it has done nothing to create new ice cream flavors, flying cars, or cure cancer either!!

If you'd like to show evidence that improving the economy was ever a goal of the Iraq war, some of us would be happy to consider your point, but since it has nothing to do with why we're there, we won't. Similarly, if you would like to document the million Iraqi’s killed, we’d like to see that, too. I suspect asking for evidence that our goal was to improve the image of America around the world also requires evidence, but that would be repeating myself.

======
King George the Retard started it because Iraq "posed an imminent threat" to us.

Yes, and that was correct since Saddam had the means to restart his WMD programs, evidence of which was confirmed on entry into Iraq. In addition, he had shown to have a willingness to use them and to support terrorism, ie, that he was paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, as well as having used the weapons against his own people. That's what imminent means: That he was a loose cannon, capable of wrecking havoc at any time, and he was wrecking havoc.

Any reasonable person would also accept that shooting at British and American planes who were enforcing the no-fly zone agreement is pretty imminent when the bombs/bullets fly past the airplanes.

Where are the WMDs that Saddam absolutely had?

Strawman. The burden of proof that Saddam did not have weapons was with him, not us. He had been given 12 years under UN inspections to prove that he had destroyed the weapons HE, HIMSELF accounted for in inventories he submitted to the UN. He agreed to the terms of the UN cease fire which was a full accounting of weapon stockpiles and proof of their destruction. He did not do that, IN TWELVE YEARS.

If you say you have 10 biological bombs, and you demonstrate that you've destroyed 9 of them, what happened to the 10th one? If you don't prove that you destroyed it (as agreed to) then any reasonable person will assume you still have it. His other shenanigans with weapons inspectors gave everyone reasonable cause and suspicion to believe that he still had the weapons (and some of them were found). The condition of them was irrelevant because that wasn’t the agreement. The agreement was to account for and prove that all were destroyed.

In addition, there were some of the originally documented weapons that were undestroyed found, and the materials and machinery hidden to rebuild them, once the inspections ended.

Oh, now we're freeing the Iraqi people?

Strawman. That was always the goal of the Iraq war--that we can no longer allow a nation to be the breeding ground for terrorism and to give terrorists and tyranny a place to exist. That has been the foundation of the Bush Doctrine, from inception. It IS the Bush Doctrine, in fact. That terrorism in any place or any form can no longer be allowed to exist unchecked. We can't eliminate all of it, and can't be everywhere at once, but that is the long term goal.

Now if you would like to concede that your facts are wrong, your thesis faulty, then I'm sure that others would be willing to continue discussing these points, but until then, you're not bringing any new (factual) information to the party, and are instead engaging in falsehoods, strawmen, and propaganda.

Murtha must be even older than McCain if he fought...

2008-03-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Murtha must be even older than McCain if he fought at Iwo.
Which one will retire first?
The only reason to bring up the casualty comparison is because those who do not believe it takes force to make people free of a tyrant continually point to "the terrible cost and nothing to show for it". The point of comparisons with wars past is not to say that 4,000 dead are nothing, but to show that had success been measured by fewest number dead WW2 would have stopped in April 1942 with a fascist Europe and an Asia ruled by Japanese tyrants.

While Nero fiddles, Rome burns. Does it burn beca...

2008-03-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

While Nero fiddles, Rome burns. Does it burn because he started the fires?

That is still a question that has not been answered definitively.

America is self-destructing while President Bush says we are winning the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The question as to why American forces are there at all has not been answered definitively.

Once, Osama bin Laden was enemy number 1, chased relentlessly to the ends of the earth for killing thousands on 9/11 - Afghanistan was invaded in order to bring him to justice. And now?

Seven years later, he is all but forgotten.

There's something terribly wrong with this picture...

... and how many Americans died in traffic acciden...

2008-03-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

... and how many Americans died in traffic accidents in the past year?

... and since the Iraq War started?

You point to the total number of military deaths u...

2008-03-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

You point to the total number of military deaths under Clinton and act like it is equivalent to combat deaths in Iraq. If you look at Table 5 in the document you posted, you'll see that a majority of those deaths were accidental and there is always a large number of deaths in the military because the military is a large organization. BTW, there were nearly 7,000 military deaths in the first 5 years of G. W. Bush's presidency. Also, military deaths decreased every year of the Clinton presidency and every year had a lower number of deaths than any year of the G. HW. Bush or Reagan presidencies.

I find this whole line of reasoning - measuring mi...

2008-03-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

I find this whole line of reasoning - measuring military success by the number of casualties - as terribly disturbing, if not a completely cynical attempt to divorce oneself from reality.

I consider it an exemplary example of how our society has desensitized us all - insulated us - from the human suffering caused by many, many different mitigating factors.

The country is in big trouble, and when the U.S. goes down, the world will follow. God help us all, because we're really going to know about human suffering first-hand.

Fine. How about the battle of Cold Harbor during the Civil War? 7,000 human beings turned into statistics in twenty minutes...

There's a difference: cause.King George the Retar...

2008-03-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

There's a difference: cause.

King George the Retard started it because Iraq "posed an imminent threat" to us.

Where are the WMDs that Saddam absolutely had?

Oh, now we're freeing the Iraqi people?

And where's the guy who's responsible for 9/11? Dead or alive, right Bush?

You people are fucking retards. If you'd stop banging your sister for a second, you might have time to think.

HAY GUISE! ONLY FOUR THOUSAND PPPL HAVE DIED IN A...

2008-03-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

HAY GUISE! ONLY FOUR THOUSAND PPPL HAVE DIED IN A WAR STARTED FOR NO GOOD REASON! LULZ! THATS LESS THAN ERLIER WARZ! THAT MEANS ITS OK! YAY! MORE BOMBS PLZ.

Idiots.

> This data & chart should be expanded to include ...

2008-03-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

> This data & chart should be expanded to include the Civil War, which included the 3 day Battle of Gettysburg in which more than 5K Americans (both sides) were killed.

And Gettysburg wasn't the worst one. There was a battle in 1863 -- Chickamauga, Tennessee - 9/18-9/21 (from the wiki):

...the Battle of Chickamauga was a costly one. It claimed an estimated 34,624 casualties (16,170 for the Union; 18,454 for the Confederates).

That's in THREE DAYS.

I tend to look at the 3,000 civilian casualties on...

2008-03-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

I tend to look at the 3,000 civilian casualties on 9/11 as occurring at the end of Clinton Administration rather than at the beginning of the Bush years. This plot had its genesis in the years preceding Bush and was a profound revelation that we could no longer do business as usual. Add the losses at the Pentagon along with all the passengers on the involved planes. Tojo, Mussolini and Hitler never did that to our mainland. They were war civilian casualties and I cannot blame that on Bush. I might not blame it on Clinton either but I cannot argue the relevance with Sandy Berger since I understand that he has no plans to discuss the evidence he uncovered at the National Archives.

Anonymous,Your comments reminded me of something m...

2008-03-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

Anonymous,
Your comments reminded me of something my history professor said in 1970. At that time, every Democrat President of the 20th century had gotten the US into a war at a total cost of 600,000 American lives and no Republican President had gotten us involved in a war and therefore no American deaths.
Well, things have changed slightly with the Bushes getting us involved in wars costing 4,000 combat loses while the 2 Democratic Presidents have avoided warfare so the score now is about 600,000 to 4,000.
But for me, Clinton's war with Serbia is one of the most reprehensible conflicts that the US has undertaken. The arrogance of fighting ethnic cleansing with aerial bombardment was disgusting. It is ironic that the term "Weapons of Mass destruction" first was used to describe the fasicst bombing in represented in Guernica and that was Clinton's war plan. You may gloat over the lack of US deaths in that war but I am saddened by the countless civilian causalities.
P.S. We are still in Kosovo and the fighting is still going on and Americans are still dying there.

amr- my father in law made eight combat amphibious...

2008-03-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

amr- my father in law made eight combat amphibious assault landings in the Pacific during WW2. Eight. Didn't get a scratch, though he saw much heavy combat. But he saw a lot of men die.

Your numbers are skewed. Yes, over 5000 service p...

2008-03-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

Your numbers are skewed. Yes, over 5000 service personnel died during President Clinton's first five years /from all causes, but according to the report, only one of those deaths was due to hostile activity (I think it was an F-117 pilot). I guess they are listing Somalia as a Terrorist attack, though to me that seems more like a hostile activity. Almost 1/2 (2718) of the 5000+ died from accidents. During President Bush's first 5 years of being President, 2688 were lost to accidents. In fact, during President Bush's first 5 years of his Presidency, almost 8800 American service personnel died. Its all there in black and white in the report you linked, Table 5. In fact, if you look at all of the numbers you could do this: There were more American service personnel killed under President Reagan(293) than President Clinton (76). In fact, according to the government report, the chances of you dying from Hostile action were the least under President Clinton, 1 death the entire Presidency, than any of the other Presidents for the last 27 years. Even if you add those to the listed numbers for Somalia for President Clinton, that only brings the total lost to hostile fire to 30, which is almost 1/2 of that for President Reagan's total of 58, 1/5th that of President Bush the Elder's 147 and about 1/9th that of President Bush the Younger's 2,596 through 2006. Again, who wants to talk about those numbers in that report?

So, are you going to accurately report the facts or continue to spin?

Very interesting post. I wonder, though, how a st...

2008-03-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Very interesting post. I wonder, though, how a straight comparison would look between military deaths in the first five years of the Clinton admin and military deaths during the 5 years of the Iraq war (rather than Iraq war deaths). It seems like the 5 years Clinton to 5 years of Iraq deaths might be a comparison of apples to oranges.

Or is it?

In all fairness to Sen. Murtha, he did say "intens...

2008-03-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

In all fairness to Sen. Murtha, he did say "intensive combat" not "number of fatalities"; the two are not strictly linked, especially across decades.

This data & chart should be expanded to include th...

2008-03-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

This data & chart should be expanded to include the Civil War, which included the 3 day Battle of Gettysburg in which more than 5K Americans (both sides) were killed.

Union soldiers killed: 3,155
Confederate soldiers killed: 2,600-4,500

www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/getty4.aspx

JRS

USSR averaged 19,014 deaths PER DAY (civilian and ...

2008-03-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

USSR averaged 19,014 deaths PER DAY (civilian and military) between 22 June 1941 and 8 May 1945.

Don't forget that 500,000 people per month were dy...

2008-03-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

Don't forget that 500,000 people per month were dying or being killed in 1945 in the lands under Japanese occupation. These were civilian deaths. This according to historian Richard Frank in his award-winning book, "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire."

Anyone remember how many Iraqis were being killed by Saddam Hussein? I recall it was tens of thousands per year. The 4 million who had fled the country?

Douglas said...Yes, only 4,000 and and so much to ...

2008-03-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

Douglas said...
Yes, only 4,000 and and so much to show for it: a sputtering economy, becoming an international bete noir, and 1 million Iraqi casualties. Did I mention the 4,000 dead?

What did we have to show for WWII one month or even one year after the end? We had won, but Europe and Japan were in shambles. WWII ended in 1945 but the Marshal plan did not begin until 1947. In those two years many people lived (and died) in bitter poverty. The Europe and Japan (and South Korea) of today were hard to imagine at the end of those wars. A little perspective on time as well as fatalities is needed.