I'm quite sure that the enemy is just as ruthless, moreso even, than our own forces are. I like to think that my remarks are somewhat reasonable and not "diatribes." In any case, I don't say that our forces are evil, only that they are highly potent armed forces and that they have done a vast amount of shooting and bombing in Iraq that has earned them the well-deserved enmity of most Iraqis.

Our forces are not "imperial forces," but their employment in this cases does serve, I opine, an obviously imperialist policy. I mean, why do you think that enormous embassy is being built? It's a big as the freaking Pentagon. (Fortunately from my point of view, it will never be used as intended.) These opinions would not give rise to much disagreement most places in this world, even in Europe. But in the United States, so deeply cherished here is the belief that we Americans are always the white-hatted purveyors of democracy and truth, such observations are considered irrational and disloyal.



Oh, I fully recognize that it is in "our" interest to keep down the death toll, but I believe that the history of the war shows very well that it isn't possible to keep the toll of civilian deaths within limits that any reasonable person would consider acceptable; AND wage the particular war we are trying to wage. And it hardly excuses the truly vast amount of destroying and killing that we have done, and are doing, in Iraq, to say that we are trying very hard not to do quite so much. Really, after beholding this conflict for four years, I'm surprised that someone would point to our "precision" weapons as evidence of what humane, careful warriors we are. Look at the photographs, for crying out loud.

The ultimate test of these notions, in any case, isn't here, but in such places as Baghdad and Ramadi. And in those fora, I am very certain, my point was moved, seconded and carried long ago. Then again, the Foreign Affairs article (what a journal!) to which you point might be persusave to these people. Perhaps some of those here who claim close acquaintance with the Iraqi ground would like to go to door to door in Ramadi and hand out Arabic translations of it.

Let me add, in parenthesis, that I am willing to say "our" when talking about America as a nation, but I don't like to use "our" as you do, which would seem to identify you the U.S. Government and its policies. Oh, I suppose I am existentially complicit in this revolting and brutal excercise of power, through my being an American. But I am under no obligation to identify with it or to cheer for it, and I am disgusted that anyone would.

Of course, the pictures. There are many pictures that are not being shown that show a better picture, but opponents of the war don't wish to view those because of how it does not validate their position. I don't disagree that there is some serious carnage in and around Bagdhad, but most of the country is quite.

I posted this a while back ago, but I feel it needs to be posted here in this thread as well.

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months. Continued here!

I should tone down my own rhetoric and retract 'diatribe'. I actually agree with the sentiment in both paragraphs. Due to blunders of our own doing and various public relations perceptions fueled by the media, we have become, in many respects, our own worst enemy in Iraq.
What rankled me was the phrase 'shooting and bombing with abandon'. Knowing first hand the restrictions and emphasis placed on direct and indirect fire weapons in Iraq, I can say with surety that that phrase does not define what we are doing. The problem with civilian casualties is in most part due to the insurgents themselves, whether they are detonating explosives indiscriminately or using them as shields. It can be argued that it is still our fault, because if we weren't there, they wouldn't be dying.........but I'm not going to absolve them of the blame when it is due.
And the colossal embassy is merely icing on the crap cake we are baking over there. But if the level of casualties and the method we are using in Iraq is unacceptable, then why should we even bother to limit innocent casualties? Seriously, if we are to going to garner criticism anyway, why make things harder on ourselves? I don't really believe we should take that route, but the logic seems sound.

I admit, "with abandon" was hyperbole, but I don't think that it would seem so to many who have been in our gunsights. It's not the world's opinion that counts here, so I think, but that of the Iraqis.



Well then, winning this war should be a complete piece of cake.

Oh, and all honor to our men and women in uniform. I only wish they would not be called upon to fight for such bad causes as this one. As for the Mudville Gazette, it is rather frightening. It reminds me of a very vivid picture book I once thumbed through in a bookstore, which reproduced much of the "best" photography of Signal magazine, along with some translated articles. I couldn't find any Signal content on the web, but here are some sample covers: http://www.chez.com/luftwaffe2/index.htm. The prose in Signal was just about as over-the-top as the Mudville Gazette, but not quite. "Lions," indeed!

We should honor the soldier, not necessarily the cause. The soldier, after all, doesn't get to choose the battles in which he fights. And we should bear in mind that the soldier, at the end of the day, is no more than a citizen. Exhaltation of the soldier qua soldier is a notable hallmark of fascism, and its modern emergence in such examples as the Mudville Gazette is something a little bit dangerous.

But, what the heck? Victory, Hail!

I am not advocating that we are within grasp of victory. That boat has already sailed since we are unable to get the Iraqi military up to par, nor able to sustain any sort of reliability of what troops are there. I do advocate that there have been some great accomplishments there. Much of the area is living in peace. The hot spots revolve around Bagdhad and Eastern border. All we hear about is the negative as you so indicated in your post.

Regarding the Mudville Gazette, yes, they have their own bias and wish to show that there is some good. Some of my comrades, stationed at Fort Carson pointed out this site to me. The letter was directed to them in paticular. They blew it up and posted right in the commissary for others to enjoy.

Well, notwithstanding our political differences, thanks for your service. I myself put in eight years of active duty, back in Vietnam times. That cause was not a good one, nor do I think this one is, but soldiers don't get to pick the wars they fight in.

"Well-deserved"? So does this mean you think we'd be doing the Iraqis a favor by pulling out? That's a question that really needs to be addressed by the war's opponents, and unfortunately I've seen precious little of it.

Yes potent and accurate that is why we kill/injure the lowest number of civilians in the history of warfare DESPITE the enemy’s use of civilians as cover. The enemy on the other had indiscriminately kills men, women and children. Did you miss any of this? Did you miss the videos of heads cut off of live captives? These are the most barbaric tactics used in war for centuries.

And what exactly is out ‘imperialist interest” in Iraq? Are we going to have their oil? NO. Did we force them to give us land or treasure – NO.? In fact we have spent hundreds of BILLIONS and thousands of lives giving these people a chance at real freedom – without strings attached. IMO there is nothing imperialistic about our policy there.

I'm surprised that you would contradict yourself in the same post. You say: We should honor the soldier, not necessarily the cause. The soldier, after all, doesn't get to choose the battles in which he fights.
While previously stating that the website Mudville Gazette is frightening, on par with a Nazi Party propaganda magazine.
I'm not beholden to promote or advertise for their website, but it is a Military blog by a soldier and his wife....not part of the 'Rovian propaganda machine'. I'm merely stating my .02 here, but I've found over the last few years and the advent of blogs, that the MilBlogs consistently and primarily reflect both what is happening on the ground and the sentiments of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

I don't understand how I contradicted myself. Upon casual inspection, I found the Mudville Gazette rather frightening in its somewhat bloodthirsty enthusiasm for this war and seeming equation of that with patriotism. I mean, look at that banner. When I was in, not many troops were all that gung ho about Vietnam, you know? I've looked again at it, and I admit it seems a little less over-the-top than I originally thought, but I still think it looks mostly like a political, support-your-lionlike-sturmtruppen sort of thing.

Frankly, I think the whole all-vol thing is pretty damn scary. I don't like the idea that the troops are a special breed, apart from ordinary citizens. I don't like the over-the-top, gung-ho, I'm-a-killer crap that seems to go along with it. I don't like it at all. But that's offtopic.



Oh dear me. Our enemies are very, very bad people. Yes, I see now why we should spend four more years and $300 billion trying to subdue them. Then we can have this very same discussion in 2011. Except that I doubt the American people will stand for that.

Further, I doubt every much that we kill/indure "the lowest number of civilians in the history of warfare," even if that nebulous quantity could be measured, since however accurate our weapons are, conventianl firepower today utterly utterly dwarfs what it was in, oh, 1943.

I mean, how do you think upwards of 100,000 Iraqis have died to date? They all had their heads cut off? You can read in the paper almost every day about the women and kids who got blasted by some misdelivered piece of ordnance. I don't blame our troops, much, since I'm sure it's very hard to throw so much lead and be sure of what your hitting. But I do blame the people who sent them there.

In any case, it isn't me you have to convice, but all those folks in such places as Faluja. Somehow I doubt that they would find your arguments persuasive.



Obviously to almost everyone, this was about gaining control of Iraqi oil, transforming the Iraqi state, and establishing permanent military bases on Iraqi soil. Oh, and profiting enormously from all sorts of sweetheart commercial relations, both during and after reconstruction. If that isn't good old-fashioned imperialism, I don't know what is. I doubt that our embassy in Amman takes up 80 acres, you know, like the one we're building in Baghdad.

The reason why none of this is actually going to happen, and why that 80-acre embassy is unlikely ever to be fully occupied, is that the Iraqis are kicking our tails out of there. You can drape any number of diplomatic fig-leaves over it, and I'm sure they will, but in a few years, Iraq is going to be a more or less independent country that is more or less unfriendly to the United States. The war is lost, in other words.

Sieg Heil was quite uncalled for you and I both know it.

As far as work on the ground have you been there? have you seen the schools? roads electrical systems potable water facilities. we are trying to make iraq into a good place and a good 90% of iraqis know this.

Most of the "Insurgents" are foreign fighters who either murder or take the locals hostage and use their homes as staging bases for their attacks.

In many cases the ones pointing out the insurgents are the local iraqis.

The words of that letter were written by an Arab and culturally they tend to be much more flowery than we, so you can back off a bit about the prose being "frightening"

I have My SWACM do you ?

So 9-11 occurs, we then invade Afghanistan looking to combat the people responsible. While this is going on and America is still largely in the grasp of fear and terror, we somehow invade Iraq, under the same banter, I don’t remember how much talk was put into making Iraq free, more or less I remember Iraq=terrorists being the main talking points.

So we then invaded, rushed to Baghdad, and wow, no wmds or terror connections. Sometime after that an insurgency started, and finally we had our terrorists, and we still do, I mean they are Muslim after all right.

So all these years later, we have a war, that inside the war is a civil war, and most all of this came about because of our actions.

Now the big deal is making a stable government, well, they had one, just not one we like. So I guess our honor is to use violence and force of action to make a nation fit to our views, or the views of our current leadership, no matter if the civilian death count from it all is getting rather staggering, only to be compared to death counts of our troops and then of course the wounded and psychologically scared folks who will never be the same.

On top of this, we have Iraq aiding in a recruitment tool for terrorist cells, simply again because they don’t have a base of operations they are an entity within a larger cultural group.

I have to ask what honor, maybe it would be better to put intelligence higher on the order of operations just possibly.

There still is no plan for Iraq, stay the course is code for such.

It will take until 2009 and a new president for our troops to come home, he or she will probably be elected alone on that ticket just like the dems were recently. The fact as I see it is Iraq has done more to harm us currently and well into the future then it will ever have saved us from.

No, and I have never laid an egg, either. But I'm a pretty good judge of omlettes.


No doubt that's why the war is going so wonderfully. But seriously, I know "we're" trying to make Iraq "a good place." We're also trying to bend it to our will, and a great many Iraqis seem to resent that.


Based upon everying I have read and heard, that is completely false. An overwhelming proportion, something like 98 percent of the insurgents, if I recall what was said on a recent "Hardball", are native Iraqis. I would also point out that al Sadr and his numerous people, while not technically insurgent, also have expressed the very strong opinion that we should leave.


The fact remains that the insurgents have the support of a most of the Sunni population. I think I recall reading that more than 60% of Sunnis expressed the view that it was a good thing to kill an American.

Our enemies are bloodthirsty, callous, barbarous, ruthless, etc., etc.? Well, welcome to war! Also I have a sneaking suspicion that the insurgents say the same thing about us, and probably with some justification.


Fair enough. I've already said that upon closer inspection, the Mudville Gazette doesn't look quite as obnoxious as I first thought it was. I'll retract "Victory, Hail" as well.


I assume that this is not a reference to the Southwestern Association of Clinical Microbiology, but what it refers to, I do not know -- something military? I don't recall that acronym from my own days of service. If your purport is that since I am not in uniform or an Iraq war veteran, I cannot possibly address these questions knowledgeably, I reject it.

One thing I do have is a DD Form 214. Thank God.

WRONG. Please give me sources for the 100,000. I have seen the guess but that is garbage and you know it. And show me stories and numbers for the “the women and kids who got blasted by some misdelivered piece of ordnance” - Absolute nonsense. What I do read every day is 50 – 200 men women and children blown up by our enemy in Iraq. Do I have to give you the links?



So what “control do we have”? None of course. The oil is sold on the world market and all we get is the bill. Some imperialism!

Dear me, THIS again? See here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116...ff_main_tff_top

Note I said only 100,000, not 600,000.

The Iraq Body Count project is only up to 50,000, and that is almost universally seen to be an undercount.

As to "that is garbage and you know it," you should at least give me credit for believing what I say, dear interlocutor. Since I don't live on Planet Limbaugh, I perhaps don't see the world just the same as you do.

SWACM = SouthWest Asia Campaign Medal
( now called the south west asia service medal)

and yes i have my own dd214 you get them at the end of each enlistment...

GuardianAngel,

It was always referred to as the South-West Asia Service Medal. A DD214 is issued only in concurrence with a discharge, not after each enlistment.

If you're going to try and use military experience and accolades to prove a point or bolster an argument, try and make sure you are correct.


Vladamir,

I have always looked to IraqBodyCount as fairly non-biased source, even though they are against the Iraq war. Can you cite anything that would indicate that they are universally seen to undercount?

I have these two among others from it.

Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. I think everyone in the military has those by now actually...

Some unlucky people in all reality probably have four of each really, along with other high end awards like a bronze star or something, I still see the situation in Iraq not something a military was ever created for, militaries are to fight wars, that is all, its not for the military to go and change the perception of a culture.

I also could care less for that stuff, I ETS in one year and I cant wait anymore, I do care a great deal for my country, but Mr. bush I don’t really consider its president, nor do I care to follow anything he tells me to do at this point.

This is personal opinion of course, and my views represent only myself for all I am concerned.

Again, I still do not see any honor in Iraq.

I made bold the comment by you- since this comment is universally thought to be untrue- by our own military- I am curious- where do you get this information?

Vermillion:

Couldn't find the work at the time, but now that I've dug it out of the one box, let me add to my last remarks to you re our "first deterent." Hopefully, I won't run afoul of forum rules, but from the late Gen. Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader [Macksey/Da Capo Press 1956]:

"A profound study of the First World War had given me considerable insight into the psychology of the combatants. I already, from general experience, knew a considerable amount about our own army. I had also formed certain opinions about our Western adversaries which the events of 1940 were to prove correct...
***
In addition there were a number of other aspects in our general evaluation of the enemy which, though of less reliability, were still worth taking into consideration.

We knew and respected the French soldier from the First World War as a brave and tough fighter who had defended his country with stubborn energy. We did not doubt that he would show this same spirit this time. But so far as the French leaders were concerned, we were amazed that they had not taken advantage of their favourable situation during the autumn of 1939 to attack, while the bulk of German forces, including the entire armored force, was engaged in Poland. Their reasons for such restraint was at the time hard to see. We could only guess. Be that as it may, the caution shown by the French leaders led us to believe that our adversaries hoped somehow to avoid a serious clash of arms. The rather inactive behavior of the French during the winter of 1939-40 seemed to indicate a limited enthusiasm for the war on their part.

From all this I concluded that a determined and forcibly led attack by strong armored forces through Sedan and Amiens, with the Atlantic coast as its objective, would hit the enemy deep in the flank of his forces advancing into Belgium..."

So, someone did a profound psychological study. And they didn't want to fight. Even after they said they would. Recall here, yes, that first Germany takes back the Rhineland, joins up with Austria, takes over the purportedly German part of Czechoslovakia, and then moves on Poland, but not without the British and the French both saying that you can't have Poland and it will mean war if you try. But yet, when they tried to take Poland, the Germans not only tried, they were also amazed that with their entire armored force now in Poland, those claiming that such meant war stood on the sidelines and did nothing. And so the prior declaration that this meant war was of a rather limited enthusiam. And it invited attack.

Read the man's book. According to Guderian, the French had better and more tanks than the Germans. But Guderian decided to lead a determined and forcibly led armored attack [the exact opposite mindset of those hoping to avoid a serious clash because they had a limited enthusiam for the war, as he put it]. More correctly, we have the report of the decision to lead a determined and forcibly led [not of limited enthusiasm] attack [the response to the invitation implied by demonstrated timidity and weakness of spirit/will] by strong armored forces [they don't know squat about mobile warfare and still think that it's all a matter of position, and since the little cretins are timid but otherwise have the numbers, let us hit them strong aka hard and with everything we've got, and let us see how their psyche deals with notions of impending defeat with us deep in their right flank].

Some can say all they want about this, that and the other thing military, but how often do some get a rise from contemplating an attack on an enemy who is superior both in number and in quality of arms? And you're going to rely on the gambit that you know mobile warfare and they don't as the offset to number and quality? Or maybe, instead, since they've showed a complete lack of spine until now, one hard charging push with everything we've got, who knows, we might even reach the Atlantic but we are surely going to put the fear of God into these less than enthused people along the way and that might very well be all we need to achieve victory [Chamberlain can once again descend the aeroplane reporting that he and we have achieved peace in our time]. But it was a profound study giving considerable insight into the opposing psychology that serves as the introduction to the General's whole discussion. So draw the appropriate conclusion. They didn't have the stomach for it, and though being superior in both number and quality, they don't really know what this war's gonna be about, but we do... Sound familiar, yes? And so, as I said, it invites attack and so we are familiar with it as it keeps happening again and again. And what was that it that Mr. Buchanan said, "we do not lose?" That wasn't what General Guderian was thinking and so he attacked. So might I again just what message our "honorable" departure sends?

Right. Something about "Donttreadonme" makes me wonder if he actually wore stripes, you know? I do have some Vietnam-related crap somewhere, not that I plan to show it proudly to my grandchildren.



Well, I have read that they mostly count bodies that have been turned in to morgues -- those are also the ones that get reported in the press, so I understand. Considering the vast confusion over there, the distrust of the state, the Muslim imperative to bury with one day and all, I think it highly plausible that that wpuld produce a very serious undercount. But does it really matter if the war has taken "only" 50,000, not 100,000 Iraqis? On 9/11, we Americans thought that 2,800 dead was a terrible national loss. If we had suffered 50,000 in 30 million, which is at least what the Iraqis have suffered since we began this abominable war, we'd have lost well nigh 500,000. I doubt if that would've left us saying, but our enemies used very >accurate< weapons, and tried not to kill us. (Yes, I know, we probably didn't directly kill most of the dead Iraqis, but it's our fault nonetheless, I opine.)

I could look for something on the web to cite about this, but maybe someone else could as well.

Frankly, it appalls me that we have people here still believing how freaking immaculate and lily-white everything we do over there must be. War is war, for crying out loud. I don't blame our troops, but let's not pretend that war isn't one godawful stream of hell from front to back, a domain within which the notion of innocence is ironic at best, nonsensical at worst. There seems to be a species of American that thnks of war as a kind of high-tech computer game, with American flags waving in the background and dramatic music playing while precision strikes from whatever gizmo take out the Bad Guys.

actually every time you reenlist you are given a 214 for completeion of THAT enlistment


and i did check my 214 i had to pull it out of the fire safe and i guess i misspoke it is a southwest asia service medal i didnt work in personel so you will have to forgive the misstatement.

I don't mean to quibble, but I've re-enlisted numerous times and only received a DD214 when I ETS'd and had a break in service. Translation.......discharge.
My main point was this, having a SWASM doesn't automatically place one above reproach when we are debating OIF, since the SWASM was awarded for service in Operation Desert Shield/Storm, and can be accoutered with up to three campaign stars.

Wow! I once attended a lecture by a respected educator, Dr. Bernie Mehl (my wife was taking his course at the time). During one outrageous digression, he said, "Did you know that Hitler won World War II? Well, all the Jews think he did!" Reading that post, I have an inkling of what he meant.

But seriously, do you not see the affinity between the ideas you champion here and such Nazi hobbyhorses as "the triumph of the will?" Yes, of course, with sufficient >will<, the Soviet hordes could have been defeated at Kursk; repulsed at Koenigsburg; even turned away from Berlin. I am sure that Hitler believed that, right until the Russian infantry broke into the Fuehrerbunker. At some point before then, however, reality should have intruded, as it must in our thinking about Iraq.

I had thought that Guderian's book had been entitled, Verlorene Siege, which was much more apt, but perhaps Panzer Leader was its English title.



I reenlisted, not numerous times like Donttreadonme, but once (I was active duty USAF enlisted, and we did a four-year tour, so that's how I put in 8 years), and I don't recall receiving a DD Form 214 until I was discharged. Let me tell you, that was one happy day.

Well, we used far less accurate weapons in WWII, with far less concern for their accuracy, and yet I'd wager most Germans were probably glad we rid them of the Nazis. This post invokes a major strawman that a lot of far-leftists love to use to attack the war in Iraq: that of comparing it to a country invading the U.S., right out of the blue, for no reason at all. But if you're going to make that analogy, make it complete. The U.S. would have to have been a bleak and paranoid place suffering from a sadistic regime that imprisoned and tortured innocent people at the drop of a hat. The invasion would have to have provided us with a means of voting in our own government, but thwarted only by the terroristic actions of a minority among us who would in an instant bring us back to those dark days pre-invasion. Any "analogy" that doesn't take any of those things into account is just the product of a deceitful liar with his own agenda that is anything but peace and happiness.


What's even more appalling is the fact that you just completely made that up. Par for the course, by the looks of things.

However- if whomeever that invading force is Blackstone, killed more poeple, and pretty indiscriminately, in 3-4 short years, whether they meant to or not- than the despot- ya, I would probably take my chances on the despot.

600,000 Iraqi dead is the number I will stick with as the only scientific count done so far- everyone else is just guessing. Until someone either repudiates the John Hopkins study SCIENTIFICALLY, IN A JOURNAL- then that is the number that sticks, OR, comes up with a more accurate account, in a scientific and published method- anything else is just propaganda and lies.

It was bad under Saddam- but, apparently, not un-survivable- under the US, you stand a pretty good chance of dying, and your children and lives being wiped out- BUT "we didn't mean it"- probably rings a bit hollow to those loved ones that survived.

Kivrot, I'm sorry, I genuinely and honestly do not mean to be rude, nor am I baiting you or being flippant, regardless of what you may choose to infer. I say with all honesty, what in the name of everything on Earth are you talking about?

The self-serving treaties of a German panzer leader and 'military innovator' written after the second world war has EXACTLY as much relevance to the current war in Iraq as your rather long winded appeal that we 'ask Abraham Lincoln' about the war in Iraq.

I read through your post numerous times, very carefully to see if I could find even an inkling of an issue that was on point or relevant in any way, and was unable to do so.

Though your complete misunderstanding of the basic military reality of Europe in Autumn 1939 is fascinating, it is utterly irrelevant. Perhaps if you would like to know mopre about this, post in the history thread and I would be glad to recommend several books you would find enligtening, one of them mine written as an adaptation of my masters thesis.

However, if you wish to discuss the issue of the thread, I would be most interested in hearing your views on how 'will' can turn this losing war around. I would be curious to hear your explanation of how the supposed 'lack of will' back home bears any connection at all to the physical tangible reality on the ground in Iraq. I would be fascinated to hear your alternative (since you think 'leaving honourably is impossible'), or do you advocate the 'stand still and lose' strategy which has got the US where it is now?

Please provide some backup for that "indiscrimate" crack.


Yup, more and more of that fingers-in-the-ears, "La-la-la, I can't hear you" attitude that you so proudly put on display on the thread you posted on that very subject, despite the very cogent criticisms put forth by Amlord and others. You can cling to those numbers as tightly as you like, while others continue to point out the serious holes in it, such as the fact that (as I noted), if 92% of the people surveyed had death certificates associated with them, then their results should be within the ballpark of official figures; or the fact that (as Amlord noted) even the study's authors admitted the questionability of the use of their methods in a war situation.

And this is in addition to the fact that even if those numbers are accurate, even the study's authors are in any way claiming that we killed all those people. The vast majority of them were killed by their fellow countrymen. Would you blame an outsider for the evil acts of your own people? Wouldn't that be considered cheap, demagogic, xenophobic scapegoating in any other context? ("Were not the ones with the problem, it's those dirty foreigners causing the problems. Get rid of them and our problems will go away.")

That being said- thier arguments were quite weak- simply because, unless they have a SCIENTIFICLY PUBLISHED REBUTTAL- it is just hot air- you can rip the study all you want- regardless, there are lot's of full time scientists out there that would SERIOUSLY love to be able to shoot this one down- and can't. You choose to "believe" it is not correct- but until you go out and do the math and do a competing study- it is just dust in the wind- no credibility whatsoever- as soon as you are able to beat those big brains with big brains of your own- there is NO rebuttal- because- you are basing your stuff on beliefs, John Hopkins, acredited, accurate, published science- SOO, until someone, anyone, comes up with a published SCIENTIFIC survey that rebuts this number- no one, not the guv, not Iraqi body count, NO ONE, can, in any way, shape or form, use ANYTHING they "believe" is true in the debate- BECAUSE THE ONLY SYSTEMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC attempt at this was done by JH- and everything else is just speculation- because they (you, amlord, whomever)- have simply NOT done the science- Amlords "holes" were completely shot down by folks like DR BTW- and would be completely shredded by any one of the scientists on that project in JH-

So, quite frankly- your beliefs, my beliefs, my dog's beliefs- not science, no impact, just guess as to Iraqi's dead- JH- only scientific count, and everything else is just crap- as the fat dude on Spy who shagged me would say

600k stands until someone can scientifically rebut it- because otherwise- you have no rebuttal at all.

Yes, I would absolutely blame an outsider for creating conditions that allowed 600k more of my countrymen to die than had died there pre-invasion- you betchya. The US is a genocidal mass murderer there, by our very precense- better get used to this label, because I am pretty sure history will see us as this centuries nazi's in Iraq- and I am quite sure all those families of those dead loved ones are certainly going to feel that way.

Wrong. You and DR posted something from Stats.com, which Amlord skewered here. Neither DR or you had any substantive reply to any of it. He further drove the point home by showing how bad sampling would likely have skewed results - both giving a real-world example of this and pointing out that the study's authors even noted that the technique has not been validated for regions of conflict (hence rebutting themselves, essentially).

That's in addition to the fact that not one defender of the study even attempted to take a stab at the question I had about morgue counts. (oh, except where you falsely claimed that the study showed that morgue tallies were only conducted in and around Baghdad)


You're moving the goalposts around now. In the thread you posted, all you asked for were scientific arguments against it, which you received, in spades. Now you're demanding that they be packaged in a way that you find acceptable. Too bad. The arguments stand on their own, just the way you asked for them. You have nothing to say in response to them, but you don't want to face them either.


Right, the same way the Nazis forced the Jews to kill each other by giving them freedom from a tyrant. You're just making this way too easy.

Seriously, if you really would blame your liberators for your own countrymen killing each other, instead of those fellow countrymen themselves who are actually doing the killing, then that's really sad.

Any confirmation of your personal views by another poster does not mean that any holes were poked in it- it just means you agree with him, nothing more, I certainly do not, and a number of others do not- which is all opinion- not science- whenever a poster does an actual scientific rebuttal, and is able to prove in a journal that they have made some valid "holes" in the study- it is still merely your opinion, and maybe some other folk's opinion- but it still only remains that you are convinced- but that doesn't mean a scientific argument was presented in such a fashion that it repudiates the science at all.

You can deny that fact- but that would still be a belief.

The ONLY reliable, scientfic, repeatable study says 600k dead- and until there is any EVIDENCE otherwise- not words on a debate site- so, unless you have an actua (published and reviewed) l study that rebuts it- you have nothing to base your 'beliefs" on vs the facts presented.

So- with 600k dead- I would say 600 thousand dead Iraqis that are dead, on purpose or by the ripple effect we caused- I would say 600k dead Iraqis were WAY better under Saddam.

You do realize the scope of dismay over Iraq escapes the domain of various members on americasdebate.com right. Its all the way up in government right now on both sides of our political representatives overall.

For the most part now we have militias that have come about in Iraq. These militias are made up from Iraqi people, its not a uniform army. To go in and combat them, would to be killing that, not some army of saddam or anything close to that. I ask you how that is going to bring Iraq under our control, for I think that would just further bring Iraq at large to hate our presence then accept it. I mean really at that point you would be advocating crushing the Iraqi public by force to accept our desire for how they should live.

You also do realize that for the most part this is maybe why they don’t do to well when directly attacking and don’t very often, because they are not a military force...

Maybe just maybe the Iraqis thought we would leave when they voted, being a government was what we were telling them, so they did it, and we did not leave.

I am still looking all over for how this is going to make anything better. I mean Saudi Arabia is our ally right, good old Saudi Arabia. Far be it from me to say hey look, terrorists come from Saudi Arabia, heck they come from all over the world, but if we make Iraq a democracy via violence because we are so wanted there to liberate them it will all be better

Besides that, what honor exists in forcing such upon people with a military, I mean if that is our goal we will be there for a rather long time killing people off until the rest don’t care to fight, and then when we leave I am sure all that repressed hatred will make things work just fine.

9-11 was horrible for what it was, I don’t care to return the act, two wrongs don’t make a right and if people followed the golden rule truly humanity is damned simply because of putting ignorance of so much into that function.

Simply put I move past relative terms of hope and optimism and pessimism, I look for realism, and past people talking on the subject all I have to look at is the reality on the ground. If you graph it, on a time line, its simple to see the situation getting worse over that span of time and space in regards to variables that would not only relate to our success from any plans we had, to simply how horrible the situation truly is. Honor to me would be admitting what we did just might have been a bit off and pulled off horribly, and maybe trying to make amends. I don’t think this will occur until we have the human grace to admit it. I think some people are simply to above this, and don’t care what is happening to the mideast, what is happening to Iraq, what is happing to our military, and of course the vote of the American public which basically destroyed a republican base that supports this little shop of horrors, but just like the remark about being confused morally and intellectually such people do not care to live in any reality besides the one in there heads, we are truly being lead by a group of mad men that stole an election.

The reason I didn't reply is because it's an effort of futility. Facts will not get in the way of this argument, so why bother?

You claim my point was "skewered"? Amlord did nothing but throw out terms like "stratification", "multistage", and other sexy terms to discount the Lancet study. So, for Amlord's grasp at any evidence to support his view, you would have to discount all the studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo here, here, and here; Kosovo here and here; and Dafur here and here. After all, none of those studies have been disputed while they used the exact same cluster method your arguments claim to have "shredded" mine.

Cluster sampling is the 'gold standard' of epidemiological research and of determining mortality rates in areas where infrastructure collapse degrades surveyor access or where local security cannot protect the surveyors. The only time this methodology has been disputed is both Iraq studies - go figger.

Everyone makes a deal of the morgue counts and that is a completely absurd point. The Interior Ministry has classified this information and it was very, very crude data as noted here to begin with. Just a snippet:



The rolling-on-the-floor-fall-down-laughing-out-load irony here, is the same group who classified the death counts has been admonished by Human Rights Watch to end the death squads the Interior Ministry has been running as indicated here.

Yet you discount a scientific study because they don't jive with the death squad's numbers. You just can't make this stuff up.

It is an undisputed fact that casualties have been sytematically under-reported as noted in the ISG report. Yet in the face of this fact, the common acceptance of cluster sampling, and corrupt organizations classifying numbers, people still want to cling on to a belief that has no logical or scientific basis. Only words like "stratification" and "multistage" are used as the basis to ignore evidence you don't want to see. Histograms exist because they work - unless the topic is Iraq where they are temporarily suspended until we change the subject.

There is no amount of evidence or common sense that will crack your level of denial Blackstone. You got it bad and it won't go away easily.

I am sorry, but I absolutely do not know what you are talking about with this analogy. >I< was opining that the notion that a strong "national will" is the key to victory in Iraq has a rather Nazistic flavor, and that at some point, notions of what is real must supercede notions of what might come about in some fanciful world where iron national determination is the answer to everything.

Also, I am sorry to be a "far-leftist," but I don't see what that has to do about anything we're discussing here. I am not here to defend "far-leftism," so why are you attacking it?

But the worst comes last. Alas, someone has finally figured out that I'm "a deceitful liar with his own agenda that is anything but peace and happiness!" Oh how perfectly that grapples with and defeats everything I have posted here! I am undone! What shall I do!? But seriously, I am surprised that your hateful remarks, directed not only to me here but also to another interlocutor, haven't drawn a rebuke from the moderators. Debate, you see, consists of engaging your opponent's ideas, not spewing hatred and not name-calling.


Made what up? That war is hell, or that we have people here saying how freaking lily-white everything we do over there is? Is there any lack of evidence for either statement?

It does, when you're completely unable to argue against him. You haven't even made the effort.


This part is just too funny. That thread I linked to was one you started, asking specifically for "words on a debate site" about this study. If you post a subject for debate, that means you're acknowledging that it's debatable. Only when the debate doesn't go your way do you then decide you don't have to listen to any of the arguments presented.



So you're telling me that because I didn't read your mind and predict what you refused to say to Amlord because you