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CentralCaliBike said:
"Human Rights Watch: "twenty-five years of Ba`th Party rule ... murdered or 'disappeared' some quarter of a million Iraqis" "

Bush only needed three years to kill six hundred thousand. The Ba'th party was a piker compared to the neocons.

And are you really going to claim that the Republicans invaded Iraq to help the people?? Really? Delusional. How does boiling people alive fit in with your delusions about human rights?
 
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BroDeal said:
Bush only needed three years to kill six hundred thousand. The Ba'th party was a piker compared to the neocons.

And are you really going to claim that the Republicans invaded Iraq to help the people?? Really? Delusional.

When you call someone else a liar it is best to present truth - the planes and soldiers did not kill anywhere near that number. According to the AP the number is closer to 100,000 violent deaths total (including all of the fighting between factions) since the beginning of the war. There are other figures but the sources are not very credible and do not distinguish between what was a result of the United States Military, other countries, the Iraq army, and sectarian violence.

"Associated Press and Health Ministry. More information

Associated Press reported that the Health Ministry of the Iraqi government had recorded 87,215 violent deaths of Iraqi citizens since the beginning of 2005. The data was in the form of a list of yearly totals for death certificates issued for violent deaths by hospitals and morgues between Jan. 1, 2005, and Feb. 28, 2009. The number excludes thousands of people who are missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official notice. If included, those would raise the number of dead for that period by 10 to 20 percent according to the government official who provided the data to the Associated Press.[5]

The Associated Press used this data to estimate that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war to April 2009. This number is derived by combining the Health Ministry tally of 87,215 with counts of casualties for 2003-2004, and after March 1, 2009 from hospital sources and media reports, citing Iraq Body Count as its main source for this data. The AP article stated that it had "reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible."


AP also reported: "Experts said the count constitutes an important baseline, albeit an incomplete one. Richard Brennan, who has done mortality research in Congo and Kosovo, said it is likely a 'gross underestimate' because many deaths go unrecorded in war zones. The Iraqi Body Count numbers are likely even more incomplete, given that many killings occurred in incidents journalists were unaware of or in inaccessible areas. Mass graves have been turning up as improved security allows patrols in formerly off-limits areas, but how many remain will never be known.
"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Associated_Press_and_Health_Ministry._More_information
 
The most authoritative method of judging the impact of the US occupation on the Iraqi people is through a comprehensive household “cluster sample” survey—interviewing a statistically significant sample of households throughout Iraq in order to make an overall estimate.

The most recent surveys in 2006 were undertaken under extremely difficult conditions. Researchers were prevented from entering the most war-ravaged areas due to the scale of the ongoing violence.

The first survey, by the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, extrapolated from interviews with 2,000 households, estimated that between 393,000 and 943,000 “excess deaths” had occurred from March 2003 to June 2006, with the median figure being 655,000.

Excess deaths referred to the number that would not have occurred if the mortality rate had remained at the pre-2003 levels. Peered-reviewed and published by the Lancet medical journal, the study concluded that American military operations and other violence had caused the bulk of the extra fatalities.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/iraq-a28.shtml


When are you going to give the defense for boiling people alive and raping others with broken bottles? Surely you can come up with some sort of excuse.
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
When you call someone else a liar it is best to present truth - the planes and soldiers did not kill anywhere near that number. According to the AP the number is closer to 100,000 violent deaths total (including all of the fighting between factions) since the beginning of the war. There are other figures but the sources are not very credible and do not distinguish between what was a result of the United States Military, other countries, the Iraq army, and sectarian violence.

"Associated Press and Health Ministry. More information

Associated Press reported that the Health Ministry of the Iraqi government had recorded 87,215 violent deaths of Iraqi citizens since the beginning of 2005. The data was in the form of a list of yearly totals for death certificates issued for violent deaths by hospitals and morgues between Jan. 1, 2005, and Feb. 28, 2009. The number excludes thousands of people who are missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official notice. If included, those would raise the number of dead for that period by 10 to 20 percent according to the government official who provided the data to the Associated Press.[5]

The Associated Press used this data to estimate that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war to April 2009. This number is derived by combining the Health Ministry tally of 87,215 with counts of casualties for 2003-2004, and after March 1, 2009 from hospital sources and media reports, citing Iraq Body Count as its main source for this data. The AP article stated that it had "reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible."


AP also reported: "Experts said the count constitutes an important baseline, albeit an incomplete one. Richard Brennan, who has done mortality research in Congo and Kosovo, said it is likely a 'gross underestimate' because many deaths go unrecorded in war zones. The Iraqi Body Count numbers are likely even more incomplete, given that many killings occurred in incidents journalists were unaware of or in inaccessible areas. Mass graves have been turning up as improved security allows patrols in formerly off-limits areas, but how many remain will never be known.
"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Associated_Press_and_Health_Ministry._More_information

We will never know how many people really have been killed. I would say that these are a conservative estimate and the number killed is quite higher. And each life lost is a tragedy, these people are not just numbers they are human beings just like you and I. Each one had families and friends that loved them and will feel the pain of losing a loved one as long as they live.
 
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BroDeal said:
When are you going to give the defense for boiling people alive and raping others with broken bottles? Surely you can come up with some sort of excuse.

Not sure where anyone suggested that this would be acceptable behavior - it would be cause for a trial and I have not heard of such a trial. Now I did read somewhere on this thread that it is ok for the Palestinians to strap bombs on the kids and have them blow up buses because that is the only available response. From your language I would suspect you feel those in favor of the Iraq war deserve exactly this treatment, but perhaps I am wrong.
 
CentralCaliBike said:
Not sure where anyone suggested that this would be acceptable behavior - it would be cause for a trial and I have not heard of such a trial. Now I did read somewhere on this thread that it is ok for the Palestinians to strap bombs on the kids and have them blow up buses because that is the only available response. From your language I would suspect you feel those in favor of the Iraq war deserve exactly this treatment, but perhaps I am wrong.

The Israelis killed more than a thousand people less than a year ago. Killing people with bombs strapped to planes is not different than killing people with bombs strapped to people. I don't see you crying for them. If they gave the Palestinians their human rights then they would not have problems. But from your language I suspect that you feel that Palestinians and all other muslims deserve to be treated like animals.
 
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BroDeal said:
The Israelis killed more than a thousand people less than a year ago. Killing people with bombs strapped to planes is not different than killing people with bombs strapped to people. I don't see you crying for them. If they gave the Palestinians their human rights then they would not have problems. But from your language I suspect that you feel that Palestinians and all other muslims deserve to be treated like animals.

I believe that the people willing to strap bombs on the bodies are limited in number, but I am not going to be shaking hands with one anytime soon.

As for Muslims who are not looking to find out a better way to destroy America, who are the majority, I have no problem with them at all in fact I spent a lot of time with several during college.
 
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BroDeal said:
The Israelis killed more than a thousand people less than a year ago. Killing people with bombs strapped to planes is not different than killing people with bombs strapped to people. I don't see you crying for them. If they gave the Palestinians their human rights then they would not have problems. But from your language I suspect that you feel that Palestinians and all other muslims deserve to be treated like animals.

If they gave the Palestinians the country, they would have to move or cease to live.
 
CentralCaliBike said:
If they gave the Palestinians the country, they would have to move or cease to live.

It is about human rights. The Palestinians have the right to live as a free people. Instead they have been living under the boot of a brutal military occupation for decades. There are Palestinians who have watched their children live their entire lives under occupation, their children have children who have lived their entire lives under occupation, and their children's children now have children living under occupation. It is wrong. It is immoral. It is evil.

How many generations do you plan on keeping in what is effectively the largest concentration camp in history?
 
BroDeal said:
The Israelis killed more than a thousand people less than a year ago. Killing people with bombs strapped to planes is not different than killing people with bombs strapped to people. I don't see you crying for them. If they gave the Palestinians their human rights then they would not have problems. But from your language I suspect that you feel that Palestinians and all other muslims deserve to be treated like animals.

And this is precisely what I mean by a lack of objectivity coming from the conservitive mouths today. Effectively there exists an infamous viewpoint in America which cries over a group of innocent Israelis, for example, blown up by some terrorist human bomb, but doesn't shed one tear if a missfired US missle drops smack down on a civilian appartment building in downtown Bagdad. Same tragedy, two different ways to assess it. The same could be said about the horrible state of Palestinian lives caused by Israel and by US unwavering support of the Zionist regime against Palestinian legitimacy and nation-state recognition. Few are crying about this in America.

Fundamentalist religious regimes (Iran) and dictatorships (Saddam Iraq) are the worst form of governments out there, however if the US want's to earn a credible voice in these highly strategic zones (oil), then it needs to put an end to the masacre in Iraq and its own hypocricy.

For how can a nation that self-proclaims to be the beacon of civility and human rights and a democratic model to be exported around the world (by force if necessary), at the same time drops bombs on civilian sites? To say that "sorry, it wasn't our intention, just an accident" blah, blah, blah, frankly isn't quite enough to make up for the murders and destroyed family lives the "mistake" has caused.

American propaganda in the media (both consevative and liberal alike) keeps the US people in the dark about the tragedy that has taken place in Iraq for years, which it's war machine has caused. To do otherwise, that is actually inform the American people, would undermine the very notion of moral superiority upon which Americans arrogantly presume gives them the God given right (Bush actually infered this) to decide the fates of entire nations as convenience or problematics makes fit. And we remember that the CIA once supplied Saddam Hussein with gas bombs against Iran in the 80's, which the bloody dictator then used against his own people. And it is the same presumption of moral supperiority which the government (and to a certain extent Americans themselves) has made into an alibi to excuse for what the military has really caused for hundreds of thousands of people around the world (most of whom have nothing to do with the terrorist web to be dismantled): namely, death and suffering.

It's time to put an end to the destruction and stop the killing and get back to diplomacy. It's time for more objectivity.
 
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Statements from the Fundamentalist leaders of Jordan, Iran, and the group of guys that has declared war on the US - it is not just about Israel:


"Sheik Ali Al-Faqir: We must declare that Palestine, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, is an Islamic land, and that Spain – Andalusia – is also the land of Islam. Islamic lands that were occupied by the enemies will once again become Islamic. Furthermore, we will reach beyond these countries, which are lost at one point. We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once, and as it will be conquered again."


http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/05/jordanian-muslim-cleric-islam-will-rule-the-world-america-will-fall.html


"The ultra-conservative president told the radical Shiite Islamists, many of whom have come to Qom from different Muslim countries, that Islam did not restrict itself to geographical borders.

“We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice”, Ahmadinejad said.

“We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world”, he added."


http://www.iranfocus.com/en/special-wire/iran-s-ahmadinejad-sharon-dead-and-others-to-follow-suit-05166.html

"Al-Badr has said it is not associated with Osama bin Laden, the alleged terrorist mastermind named as the prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

"The group does share a similar ideology."


"Islam must rule the world and until Islam does rule the world we will continue to sacrifice our lives," Al-Badr spokesman Mustaq Aksari told CNN in an interview four months ago."



http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/19/inv.afghanistan.camp/

Again - no problem with people who are not a war with me - big problem with those who are. Most of the people getting killed today in Iraq involved sectarian violence, most who are getting killed by the US military are fighting - not all but most.
 
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rhubroma said:
And we remember that the CIA once supplied Saddam Hussein with gas bombs against Iran in the 80's, which the bloody dictator then used against his own people.

It's time to put an end to the destruction and stop the killing and get back to diplomacy. It's time for more objectivity.

I have been hearing about the chemical weapons and the CIA for nearly three decades. The claim is not that they supplied bombs but the chemical technology (along with West German, French, Italian, British, Switzerland) that was used to make the bombs.

http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html

What was done by the US and European governments relating to chemical weapons was wrong - I do not mind stating that. However, I wonder what would have happened to the region if Iran had won that war? They were at the time the western nations stepped in. I do not believe that it is an excuse to provide chemical weapons for use but I do believe it was a reason for concern given the extreme Fundamentalist nature of Iran at that time > something that has not changed.

Diplomacy does not work with extreme Fundamentalists - it would be great if it did but that is a dream and not reality.
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
In the real world the guy sitting at the seat of power determines what human rights people will have. During war those rights are extremely limited until one side or the other wins.

This is a disturbing viewpoint. Human rights are universal, and need to be protected in particular during war times.
 
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Cobblestones said:
This is a disturbing viewpoint. Human rights are universal, and need to be protected in particular during war times.

There is a difference between reality and ideals - ideally no one gets killed ever - in real life wars kill people.

I had a Lebanese friend in college who got extremely scared during some blasting for a new building on campus. He never talked much about what happened to him in Lebanon, but that day he told me that I did not know how lucky I was to live in a country where no war had taken place within the borders during our lifetime. He went on to mention that life has terrible choices, you can be walking down the street and find yourself confronted by a 10 year old kid with an AK-47, you have two choices at that point, die or kill - one is unacceptable as a human the other tortures the mind.
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
There is a difference between reality and ideals - ideally no one gets killed ever - in real life wars kill people.

I had a Lebanese friend in college who got extremely scared during some blasting for a new building on campus. He never talked much about what happened to him in Lebanon, but that day he told me that I did not know how lucky I was to live in a country where no war had taken place within the borders during our lifetime. He went on to mention that life has terrible choices, you can be walking down the street and find yourself confronted by a 10 year old kid with an AK-47, you have two choices at that point, die or kill - one is unacceptable as a human the other tortures the mind.

No, I said the viewpoint is disturbing. It is precisely this frame of mind which made possible Abu Ghraib, the rendition+torture program, Guantanamo etc.
 
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rhubroma said:
And this is precisely what I mean by a lack of objectivity coming from the conservitive mouths today. Effectively there exists an infamous viewpoint in America which cries over a group of innocent Israelis, for example, blown up by some terrorist human bomb, but doesn't shed one tear if a missfired US missle drops smack down on a civilian appartment building in downtown Bagdad. Same tragedy, two different ways to assess it. The same could be said about the horrible state of Palestinian lives caused by Israel and by US unwavering support of the Zionist regime against Palestinian legitimacy and nation-state recognition. Few are crying about this in America.

Fundamentalist religious regimes (Iran) and dictatorships (Saddam Iraq) are the worst form of governments out there, however if the US want's to earn a credible voice in these highly strategic zones (oil), then it needs to put an end to the masacre in Iraq and its own hypocricy.

For how can a nation that self-proclaims to be the beacon of civility and human rights and a democratic model to be exported around the world (by force if necessary), at the same time drops bombs on civilian sites? To say that "sorry, it wasn't our intention, just an accident" blah, blah, blah, frankly isn't quite enough to make up for the murders and destroyed family lives the "mistake" has caused.

American propaganda in the media (both consevative and liberal alike) keeps the US people in the dark about the tragedy that has taken place in Iraq for years, which it's war machine has caused. To do otherwise, that is actually inform the American people, would undermine the very notion of moral superiority upon which Americans arrogantly presume gives them the God given right (Bush actually infered this) to decide the fates of entire nations as convenience or problematics makes fit. And we remember that the CIA once supplied Saddam Hussein with gas bombs against Iran in the 80's, which the bloody dictator then used against his own people. And it is the same presumption of moral supperiority which the government (and to a certain extent Americans themselves) has made into an alibi to excuse for what the military has really caused for hundreds of thousands of people around the world (most of whom have nothing to do with the terrorist web to be dismantled): namely, death and suffering.

It's time to put an end to the destruction and stop the killing and get back to diplomacy. It's time for more objectivity.

This is one of the best written posts I have had the pleasure of reading in this thread, thank you.
 
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rhubroma said:
It's time to put an end to the destruction and stop the killing and get back to diplomacy. It's time for more objectivity.

Diplomacy did not work in Iraq when Saddam was in power. Perhaps someone could explain how it will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
Diplomacy did not work in Iraq when Saddam was in power. Perhaps someone could explain how it will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?

And how was it our business to stick our nose in their internal business, Saddam was no threat to the USA. Oh that's right OIL, they have it and we believe every drop is ours.
 
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titan_90 said:
And how was it our business to stick our nose in their internal business, Saddam was no threat to the USA. Oh that's right OIL, they have it and we believe every drop is ours.

Canada and Holland are reducing their troops. The UK is holding hearings to confirm that Saddam, while a punk,was not a threat to the UK or the US. Oil will come to the forefront of why we attacked and we will look sillier still.I would rather have dialog tahn dead bodies any day
 
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fatandfast said:
Canada and Holland are reducing their troops. The UK is holding hearings to confirm that Saddam, while a punk,was not a threat to the UK or the US. Oil will come to the forefront of why we attacked and we will look sillier still.I would rather have dialog tahn dead bodies any day

Still no answer to how diplomacy will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
Still no answer to how diplomacy will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?

Are you now admitting that - by realist standards - removing Sadam was a rather poor idea, as, in effect, it disturbed the BoP in the region?

I was also wondering which Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ites you are talking about, because the way you are describing it, they essentially are monolithic, dehistoricized, abstract entities onto which you seem to project interests, and the notion that they fundamentally have a deep seated hatred for one another.

You have religious Sunnis, and secularized Sunnis, Iraqi Sunnis and non-Iraqi Sunnis, Female Sunnis, Veteran Sunnis, Baathi Sunnis, Non-Iraqi Sunnis affiliated with Al-Qaida, and Iraqi Sunnis opposed to Al-Qaida, and so on and so forth.

You have Kurds that want (more) autonomy within a federal Iraq, others that want their own state, muslim, Sunni, Christian Kurds, non-religious Kurds, Kurds that fight Kurds, Kurds that fight Iraqis, Kurds that fight Turks and apolitical Kurds who just want to live a life.

etc.
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
Still no answer to how diplomacy will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?

What do you mean by 'works'? In the end it's always about something: autonomy, religious/cultural freedom, distribution of resources/income from oil wells, etc. People do not desire to live in a state of eternal warfare. In the end, the solution will always be some form of agreement/coexistence. There's no reason to believe that the only way to get there is through war.

Anyway, back to my question: What do you define as realistic goals for the region (short, intermediate, long term)? Give a good reason for each goal, why we should care. Then think of ways of how to reach those goals. Then explain which goal cannot be reached without diplomacy.
 
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CentralCaliBike said:
Still no answer to how diplomacy will work with the Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis who have been going at each other in that region for centuries? How will it work with when Iran goes after Iraq as it has in the past?


While doing business in NYC,LA and Detroit I have found diplomacy works fantastic. Having broke bread with both Iranians and Iraqis I have found both peoples regardless of sect to be very nice and a pleasure to be around. If religious leaders of the Middle East don't want MTV or young girls sending a video crotch shot to a web-boy I applaud their sense of right and wrong. As we have seen,everywhere we try a force our values and systems on other cultures both young and old it does not work...ever. Many Sunni,Kurd.Shiites live here in the US and elsewhere in the west without much fanfare. We have so much great to export and exchange with others I think history and values would be some of the last things on our list. I could probably find a story about the Arab that insisted on selling an Eskimo a pair of flip flops no matter how much he protested,then we can take turns swapping the people and things in the story. No matter what not everybody wants what the other guy has got.
 
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