Real World Event Discussions

Why terrorists will ultimately fail...

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 26, 2026 00:13
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GINOBIFFARONI

Friday, March 17, 2006 5:22 AM

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
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You could also include the death toll caused by the sanctions against Iraq for the WMD that they didn't have.....

Oh, I did. I don't think it's that high, it's between 500 and 600K. Clinton is an evil bastard. I'm not sure yet that Bush is an evil bastard, he might just be an incompetent moron. Also, the first Gulf war. But it's not just us, I think Saddam gets some credit, but still, you can't blame the wolf for being a wolf, at some point you have to take responsiblity for the fact that you locked it in the hen house.

For this war, I think honestly, the 30K figure is low, and while I think the 150K figure is high, it's likely to be somewhere in between the two.

I guess, objectively, not as bad as Clinton or Kerry is really damning with faith praise. To the extent Bush is Clinton, he's as bad, to the extent he's a republican, he's nto as bad, and on the budget, for whatever reason, he's clearly worse, as in - look at the budget - but even and average of 'better than Clinton' is not enough - I'm not grading on a curve.

Clearly there are many things worse than having Bush as president. For instance, we could have Osama Bin Laden as president, or even school building contractor. Or Al Zarqawi roaming about telling the democrats and republicans to bomb each others houses and places of work. Or we could have any of a number of presidents of other countries such as Kim Jong Il, Thabo Mbeki, Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe. Or anyone from Hamas. We could be the new Bolivarian Socialist Republican of America.

But again, this isn't the contest at hand. My objections to Bush come from "he's not better than any random republican senator" I think even someone from Bush's corner of the political spectrum, there are a number of people who do be far better. I'd be completely up for putting all 55 names in a hat and drawing a new Prez and VP.

What I'm really dreading is the new Hillary admin. This is a woman who has essentially already promised us a war to conquer Iran and install a new govt. This will be potentially harder than Vietnam, because Iran will have not just China backing it up, but also Russia. It'll be pretty easy for the Hillster to spend a trillion dollars killing a million people and failing to take Iran.

I think your numbers are low, I wish I had time to look for some estimates I read before, but here is what I found with the time I have

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/sanctions.html

" *Citing information on maternal and child mortality rates collected by UNICEF, Professor Richard Garfield estimates that between 1991 and 2002, the number of excess deaths in Iraq among children under age 5 is 343,900 to 525,400. "

And that is only five and under in age....

Other factors are the denial of chlorine products for water purification and the increase in chorea
and related diease... denial of equipment to clean up debris from depleted uranium munitions and increases in cancers and related diease...

Even if the wolf wanted to fix some of these problems, he actually had no opportunity to......

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

CITIZEN

Friday, March 17, 2006 9:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cartoon:
Well, regardless of what people in here may say and think about America, it's still the one place in the world that everyone else is trying to get into so they can live the best life imaginable on earth.

As ussual Cartoon talking bollocks again. It would be nice if you could say something that's true for a change.

Here's a hint, there's plenty of developed countries in the world outside of the US (yes really, the USA isn't the only country in the world) which have immigration. If you look on a map (well get someone to do it for you, I realise you're incapable of doing it yourself) you'll see what I mean.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

GINOBIFFARONI

Friday, March 17, 2006 7:39 PM

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Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cartoon:
Well, regardless of what people in here may say and think about America, it's still the one place in the world that everyone else is trying to get into so they can live the best life imaginable on earth.

As ussual Cartoon talking bollocks again. It would be nice if you could say something that's true for a change.

Here's a hint, there's plenty of developed countries in the world outside of the US (yes really, the USA isn't the only country in the world) which have immigration. If you look on a map (well get someone to do it for you, I realise you're incapable of doing it yourself) you'll see what I mean.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

I think the sad thing is that much of the immigration you speak of is from places that have been screwed over by the US and others in the first place causing the economic conditions that force people to leave...

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

KPO

Friday, March 17, 2006 9:12 PM

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I'm not off in paranoia city, but I'm not sure this is true. I think that the Iraq Body Count, though it started as an anti-war group, is not an official US govt. source. The govt uses it, Bush himself has used their figures. I think their estimates are seriously low by any serious attempt at a realistic projection.

I like what you did here. You made the one cosy assumption that my figures are wrong, and then you ran with it for the rest of your post. You completely failed to face up to the point I was making.

And to prove it:

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I don't get the difference

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Most of the deaths probably come form our bombing of overcrowded neighborhoods in arial attacks on cities

No! No! No! Look, I don't claim to be an expert, but unlike you I took some care to understand exactly what the figures were before I quoted them, and I don't come up with outrageous conclusions like this just because it's what I'd like to think.

In your post you made a lot of points - Some I thought were ok, some not particularly relevant (although you are free to say them) and some ones I could argue over.

But I'm not going to be drawn on any point but the original one. Partly because we'd be deviating from the original thread topic but mainly because I don't think I'd ever be able to nail you down on any single point.

So back to the beginning, one false notion at a time

The figures. I'm going to go out on a limb and tell you exactly what both our sets of figures are, without being 100% sure (I don't want to have to hunt down the report you got your figures from to find the true context for you).

So. I quoted a figure of about 10,000. This is a tally of all the reported civilian deaths at the hands of the coalition forces. It likely is an underestimate because some things will not have been reported, but there's no way someone could do the same tally and get 150,000, agreed? No, those people were counting something different - still dead Iraqis but ones that died anywhere for whatever reason. People die of natural causes all the time - you can't blame Bush for everything.

Now it could be you were quoting excess deaths, which means (i think) that 150,000 more people since the invasion have died than would have been the case if Sadaam was still in charge of them. This is sad, but possibly less alarming than you think. Do you know that summer heatwaves killed tens of thousands across europe in 2003? Certain people in any society are susceptible in harsh conditions. With the poor sanitation and electricity supply in Iraq due to the current chaos death from these more natural causes (as opposed to direct military action) will be accelerated.

So, I think my figure is more relevant in terms of 'the amount of blood George Bush has on his hands' as you might like to say. You didn't have any good grounds for dismissing my figure - Bush may have quoted these figures himself but that just means he's being honest when it would be transparently stupid not to. He can't well con us with a lowball 'official civilian death toll' when there are people totting up the numbers from the media reports such as Iraq body count. As a Bushaphobe you may well take issue with a version of events that supposes an instance where Bush has failed to be either stupid or dishonest. In that case go ahead and believe iraq body count is a government conspiracy.

Now I suppose you will want to talk about the 150,000 dead some more. 'They wouldn't have died if we hadn't gone in', and so forth. That's true enough - and so you say 'Bush has killed all those people, even if he didn't achieve it with bombs'. And here I disagree, and I'm not sure you have acknowledged why even though I said it in both of my previous posts and it was the kind of thing the arab-american lady was referring to at the start of this thread.

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The Iraqis are doing the only sane thing they can: resisting a foreign occupation

Do you watch the news? Radical Sunni muslims are killing Shia muslims and bombing holy shrines trying

DREAMTROVE

Friday, March 17, 2006 10:07 PM

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Now it could be you were quoting excess deaths, which means (i think) that 150,000 more people since the invasion have died than would have been the case if Sadaam was still in charge of them.

Sure, this was a eurofigure, and that's what it meant. But also there was a 30,000 figure from Iraq of bomb victims in the morgue. Not all of those bomb victims were ours, many were killed by terrorists, but they are still a result of the war.

I meant the majority of the 30K were probably arial bombardment numbers, the bulk of the 150K were civilians, as likely were the bulk of the 30K.

As for the rest, I don't know what you're on about. No offense, but your argument comes across like democrats, ie. not taking a strong enough stance.

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Do you watch the news?

Of course not. I don't own a TV. I read the news. I was refering to the Iraqis we fight who fight us, the insurgents, they are doing the natural thing. 700 Al Qaeda and a few looneys bent on civil war are another thing.

It's by no means anywhere near the tally of our slaughter, which is still going on right now today. The civil war has killed upwards of 2500 people. Right now, right this second, we're engaged in a massive bombing campaign with more explosive force than hiroshima. It's bound to kill a couple folk.

KPO

Saturday, March 18, 2006 3:43 AM

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I meant the majority of the 30K were probably arial bombardment numbers

Ah, that's much less outrageous - apologies for misinterpreting you. Not too far off, IBC has a running total of some 35,000, about 10,000 killed by us. And I was always agreeing that they are mainly civilians, not combatants.

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Of course not. I don't own a TV. I read the news.

Haha, cool. But it depends what you read I guess.

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I was refering to the Iraqis we fight who fight us, the insurgents, they are doing the natural thing. 700 Al Qaeda and a few looneys bent on civil war are another thing.

But I still don't think you have a realistic view of what's going on, glorifying and upscaling the 'iraqi resistance' and downplaying al qaeda and rival sunni/shia factions.

The only thing we are forcing on the iraqi people is democracy, which is pretty much letting the people choose themselves how things are run, instead of the previous psychotic dictator. Your idea that the iraqi people are united in resisting the occupying americans is a strange one, since the two rival factions are carrying out attacks on each other pushing the country to the brink of civil war. I don't see how you can downplay this in light of the figures:

Coalition forces killed by Iraqi militants - about 2k

Iraqi civilians killed by Iraqi militants - at least 25k and rising all the time

Look - you see exactly who the Iraqi militants are fighting aginst? The Iraqi militants are killing their countrymen and you call them freedom fighters and blame the deaths on George Bush!!! Crazy stuff. And you also blame all the civilian deaths from the resulting instability on Bush as well.

As for the current operation, this is the largest scale military action for some time, and it's not a regular thing. I say, best thing for long term peace and stability is to try to take out the insurgents if you can, even at the risk of civilian casualties. If you disagree, fine, but at least keep some perspective. Get a media reported civilian casualty figure, double it, and compare it to the estimated deaths this month from sectarian violence.

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No offense, but your argument comes across like democrats, ie. not taking a strong enough stance.

Hmm, ok. Well I'm not a democrat. If my stance isn't strong on something it's usually because I'm not sure where I ought to stand. Iraq is controversial for good reason - it's a complicated mess with lots of blame to be dished out. I think in hindsight we will all have a better understanding of who was to blame where and whether it was all worth it. In short, no offence taken - i'm quite secure holding the opinions I do as lightly as I do - I think for someone like me who only dabbles in politics now and then it's for the best. It doesn't stop me pulling up people as ignorant as me with much stronger views that I don't think are justified though

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, March 18, 2006 6:59 PM

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Ah, that's much less outrageous - apologies for misinterpreting you. Not too far off, IBC has a running total of some 35,000, about 10,000 killed by us. And I was always agreeing that they are mainly civilians, not combatants.

The rootbeer company? just kidding. Seriously, The sheer quantity of explosives dropped on Iraqi cities by use mandates a higher toll then 10,000. My gut tells me this. That would unsdoubtedly be less than one casualty per bomb, perhaps far less.

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Haha, cool. But it depends what you read I guess.

Fox, Newsmax, Chrisitan Science Monitor, Guardian.co.uk, and google news. Also blogs.

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But I still don't think you have a realistic view of what's going on, glorifying and upscaling the 'iraqi resistance' and downplaying al qaeda and rival sunni/shia factions.

Oh, I completely disagree. I'm not only not glofying it, I'm giving far too much compromise here. The reality is there are 700 oppositon soldiers who are technically literally "Al Qaeda" and 200,000 which are "Saddam Loyalist" My compromise is based on the idea that a lot of the former millitary are now fighting for Al Qaeda, but even so, I'm certainly not conceding that this is a majoirty by any means. It may even be a remote fringe.

Furthermore, from the reports I read daily, the civil war seems to be being sparked by a few isolated perpetrators who are seeking to create a larger scale conflict than exists. Becuase of this, the 2,000 dead would likely be disporportionately high for the number of combatants involved, which is like in the hundreds. So, Civil War Agonists and Al Qaeda I think we're talking about a thousand, maybe two. Add in their mindless followings, maybe we have it up to 10,000.

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The only thing we are forcing on the iraqi people is democracy,

Not at all. We also are forcing westernization, which to them means gays, whores and AIDS. Furthermore, we actually did force on them a law which allows foreign ownership of business, which, to a country which has only one asset, is a total and complete distruction of their society. I don't doubt that the Iraqis are "right" to oppose us, from a moral perspective, but they are not realistic in doing so. I think it would be better for the Iraqis to surrender, and then renegotiate their relationship with us after the attacking administration has left office, which it will do shortly. This is what SK and Japan did to good effect.

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which is pretty much letting the people choose themselves how things are run, instead of the previous psychotic dictator.

Not a fan of Hussein, or any socialists. But this statement is completely unrealistic. The vast majority of democracies in the world are de facto dictatorships, one party rule where all votes are rigged. This is extremely widespread in the third world, and is common in some parts of the devloped world. The idea that democracy will bring self rule to the Iraqis is probably just patently absurd.

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Your idea that the iraqi people are united in resisting the occupying americans is a strange one,

Not my idea at all. I never said they were uniting. I think Americans and brits come into a town, shoot some guy's cock off, pull the fingers off of children, and rape some eight year olds, and then what does it matter that 99.9% of allied forces don't do these things?
If you know anything at all about the muslim world you know that these stories spread like wildfire, and especially when they are accompanied by photos, they lead people to action. Individually, Iraqis decide to resist.

Quite frankly, I think the same thing would happen here.

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since the two rival factions are carrying out attacks on each other pushing the country to the brink of civil war.

Isolated groups with an interest in sparking civil war, to take over in the ensuing chaos, are doing this. This is probably Al Qaeda, it really seems to like chaos.

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I don't see how you can downplay this in light of the figures:
Coalition forces killed by I

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KPO

Monday, March 20, 2006 1:45 AM

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Oh, I completely disagree. I'm not only not glofying it, I'm giving far too much compromise here. The reality is there are 700 oppositon soldiers who are technically literally "Al Qaeda" and 200,000 which are "Saddam Loyalist" My compromise is based on the idea that a lot of the former millitary are now fighting for Al Qaeda, but even so, I'm certainly not conceding that this is a majoirty by any means. It may even be a remote fringe.

I think you've glorified the insurgents just by saying their cause is a 'moral' one. From then on it seems, you are free to blame the deaths of all the people they murder on Bush.

It seems likely to me that the insurgency is to a large extent made up by Al Qaeda and Sadaam Loyalists. I think we can both agree that these are bad guys.

These are the people with an obvious motive for disrupting the process of forming a new governement. They are also the ones who will have had the arms and expertise to carry out the violence. We have seen from the high turnout in the elections that the Iraqi people in general are not as opposed to a democratic Iraq as you think.

So my conclusion is Sadaam loyalists and Al Qaeda are to blame for the insurgency (remove Al Qaeda from the equation if you want). I'm sure they are constantly recruiting members from the disaffected civilian population all the time (Seems it's possible to recruit suicide bombers anywhere in the muslim world), but the core leadership, the weapons and the expertise must be in their hands. This just seems like a sensible deduction to me, but if you have any other insight i'm happy to hear it.

Most Iraqi's hated Sadaam and his henchmen, and most celebrated on the streets the day they were removed from power. Any Iraqis joining the ranks of the insurgency will likely be the minority Sunnis, who got a taste for power under Sadaam's Baath party and don't like the idea of a ruling Shiaite government. I'm sure almost all Iraqi's dislike the presence of coalition troops, but you will notice in the Shia south of the country there is much less violence targetted against them and even less against the 'collabotrators'.

Anyway, that's how I look at things. With this view the insurgents are not fighting for their country but for their own grip on power. When they kidnap and murder iraqi security forces they are not slaying infidel 'collaborators', but murdering iraqi people who work for the democratically elected provisional iraqi government. In analysing everyone's motives i'm no doubt over simplifying, but don't you see something like this as the reality?

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This is exactly what the french did in WWII

Nowhere near as brutal and indiscriminate.

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Quite frankly, I think the same thing would happen here.

Nowhere near as brutal and indiscriminate. Ok, I can only guess but that's my honest opinion. At the risk of scandalising liberals everywhere, I'll say I think it's a commentary on muslim society.

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I didn't get this until you reacting violently to a criticism of Bush

What? Now you've got me pegged as a Bush lover? Honestly, it's like all you do is skim over my post to try and gauge my political mindset and then you rail against it - taunting me with sarcastic quips thus:

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Crazy to speak my free opinion against beloved leader.

Ok, I'll help you out. He's not beloved, and he's not my leader. Honestly, my 'Crazy stuff' exclamation was a criticism of your crazy logic, not a protest that you dare denigrate George Bush - otherwise I think I would have use'd the term 'blasphemy'.

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Have you ever read the constitution?

Nope. Reckon i've gathered the gist of it from american tv so I can guess the kind of thing you're alluding to.

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Do you want a Saddam Hussein of your own?

no...

Seriously, I'm not a fan of Bush - I feel like I'm repeating myself when I say this but I'm suspicious of the motives and competence of the administration. I'm right leaning politically, but I'm not American and therefore not republ

DREAMTROVE

Monday, March 20, 2006 4:00 AM

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I think you've glorified the insurgents just by saying their cause is a 'moral' one. From then on it seems, you are free to blame the deaths of all the people they murder on Bush.

This is just spin. Of course it's a moral one, they're defending their country, ie, they are driven by their conscience. It's far easier for them to capitulate. The fact that they don't isn't because they're corrupt, it's because they're patriotic. Loyal to Saddam or the state of Iraq. I'm not agreeing with their position, I personally think Saddam should be locked up and Iraq should be dissolved into three smaller states. But it's no glorification, it's the least you can credit them with. I think anything less falls in the spectrum of pure racism.

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It seems likely to me that the insurgency is to a large extent made up by Al Qaeda and Sadaam Loyalists. I think we can both agree that these are bad guys.

Intelligence reports repeatedly report that Al Qaeda is a very small portion of the Iraqi resistance, and it is probably present only as an opporunist, and sure, they're blatantly bad guys. I just watched both republicans and democrats from the senate intelligence community, and the consensus was clear in line with this.

Many are Saddam Loyalists, and I agree, they're loyalties are misplaced. But they are still loyal, so it's a moral issue for them, just not one I agree with. Loyalty, BTW, according to the Tao te Ching, is a failing, and not a virtue. Which really only effects me. You should follow the leader because he is right, not because he is the leader. I followed Bush for a while, then he was wrong, many many times. It took a while for me to give up on him completely. I try to avoid being loyal to a fault.

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So my conclusion is Sadaam loyalists and Al Qaeda are to blame for the insurgency (remove Al Qaeda from the equation if you want).

Sure, in part. I won't remove Al Qaeda completely, I think they're largely responsible for the civil war aspect.

But moreover, I can't blame the loyalists for being loyalists. It's not evil or immoral of them. It's a position I disagree with, but in a free society, they should have the right to hold that position. Resistance is what happens when you invade and subject people to your will. Our will, at the very least as perceived by them, is to steal the oil. To what extent that is true is irrelevant, because they believe it to be so. They also believe that our will is to create greater Israel. Since we do seek to establish a multi-natioinal mid-east union, there is a chance that such an institution might represnt more Israeli and penninsular power, and the Iraqis, like Pirate News, view the pneninsular kingdoms more or less as in collusion with Israel. To what extent any of this is true, again, is irrelevent, because they believe it to be so. We have failed to prove them wrong, not only to their own satisfication, but in the eyes of the world, since internationally, most of the people of the world seem to agree with them, particularly in the muslim world.

Personally, I think they're mistaken, but that to a lesser degree, there may be some truth in their position. I know for certain we have taken some oil to offset reconstruction costs, which feeds this image, and that we are much closer with countries they view as enemies (Israel and the pennisular kingdoms) and we are not at all close to their potential allies (Syria for the Sunnis, Iran for the Shiia)

It's a war of conquest, as any war of liberation which comes from outside is. Even arguing that this is a war of liberation is very weak, since our wars in Europe and Asia have all been to free a foreign occupying force. Saddam Husseins Baathists are at least Iraqis, so it's hard to credit that we are removing an occupier. In fact, we are an occupier. This is a statement of objective fact, even Bush has used the term "Occupation." But in any event, it's a war of conquest, and resistance is a natural part of that. The degree of resistance is connected most strongly to the behavior of the oc

CITIZEN

Monday, March 20, 2006 9:36 AM

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Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
The proper thing for the US to do was probably to agreesively move in to block germany in one of those early conflicts, in the manner in which we did in Kuwait. It wouldn't have been that easy, but it's what we should have done.

The US wasn't capable of that at the time. Link that with the population desire to stay well out and if you'd tried, it would have been a disaster.

I have to agree on preemptive strikes. I'm currently reading a book about the battle of Stalingrad, that also goes into some detail on the lead up. I didn't know this but Hitler's declaration of war was given as a pre-emptive strike with a list of 'offences' commited by Russia.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.