WHO report on Iraq deathsFollow

I find your ability to look at the cess-pool of misery, segregation, death, disease and destruction that is Iraq today, and find in it any justification whatsover for the disgusting and illegal war of aggression waged by a government that is acting in your name, somewhat endearing.

To be able to believe that that hell on earth was created with the best of intentions and that what is happening there is for the 'good' of the people of Iraq, shows to me that ignorance is indeed, bliss.

No you're not. You're indoctrinated by the realist school of thought, with a bit of proportionality thrown into the mix. Any alternative to that is something at which you would only laugh. I could say a lot more about that, going on about restorative justice, or different theories of war, or the self-perpetuating cycle of violence which is bred by realism and machismo, and a lot of stuff like that, but it would be pretty pointless when it just reinforces the first sentence of this post.


I will say though, that it just amazes me when I hear people talk about necessity of violence, about realism, about the true way in which we have to proceed in dealing with other people; the duty of a country is to look out for it's own best interest and such, but there never seems to be respect for another group of people to do the same, or even the recognition that they are doing the same...

Have you ever read the final instructions to the 9/11 hijackers? They really sound pretty mellow and familliar, aside from being targetted at us. No one seems to stop to think "hmm... I have to be an evil son of a *****, because my enemy is an evil son of a *****, because I believe that he is an evil son of a *****, because he believes that I am an evil son of a *****... mainly because that I am an evil son of a *****; I wonder if there is a problem with that"

Edited, Jan 10th 2008 10:09am by Pensive

I cannot say that I've ever seen a "realist" apply his/her realism to another country. That indicates either a lack of respect for the function of another group, or a lack of recognition of the inherent hypocrisy of a doctrine which ignores an effort to change external factors. The relationship of you to the external is the primary one of life; the very first and last relationship that you will ever have to this world is an ethical one.

Anyways... that's a bit of a tangent. You either missed what I was getting at or ignored it, so I'll try to be more clear.

Realism is true. It is true that the world is a pretty wretched place, and that there will often be violence in order to solve international problems. It is true, however, only insofar as you, and people with similar beliefs have arbitrarily decided it to be so. There are reasons why this ideology emerged as pervasive as opposed to some other ideology, but none of them are important right now, and all of them are very lengthy expositions. The problem with realism though, is that it fulfills it's own premises; realism only is true because... realism is true, and it need not be that way. Of course, if you don't think that realism is an arbitrary policy, then you don't have to accept that. If you believe, however, that it is arbitrary, then it can be changed (also arbitrarily), to some other policy which reduces the loss of life.

***

I have to leave for the morning now

Edited, Jan 10th 2008 10:29am by Pensive

It's pretty sad state of affairs that for people who defend the Iraqi war, you consider the fact that only 151K Iraqis have died, as opposed to a controversially high figure, as evidence of your righteousness.

As an argument for the war or an indictment of the anti-war contingent, this particular point is laughable. I'll be honest, I can't believe anyone would think a point like yours was the basis of a solid argument against the war.

Edited, Jan 10th 2008 2:42pm by Annabella

And dont forget that the study period ended in June '06. 18 months ago. That survey was for the first 3 years of the occupation only.

And that 151k was a median estimate. Nearly quarter of a million was the upper limit.

Also it should be noted that Iraq had a population of about 20 million. Extrapolate that to the population of the US and the equivilent death toll in the US would have been 10 times or well over a million people killed 'for their own good'. If you include the 1.2 million refugees, most of whom were the educated and proffessionals (the ones who have the best hope of rebuilding post-war Iraq) then any visions of a bright future for the remaining Iraqis looks a little less rosy.

But as long as some people out there find that acceptable....

Death and war are both horrible consequences of war. Touting the fact that LESS civilians died than reported should NOT be a battle cry of victory. It should be seen as still, a too high figure. But, war is war. War will never be eliminated. If there are differing opinions, there will be conflict, and not everyone will want to take the high road and peacefully work their issues out.

Yes, we can try to take the diplomatic stance, but if that does not work, what choice do we have? More talking? More bowing to pressure? Sometimes, war, and the equally horrifying collatoral damage, is inevitable.

Let us get disgusted at war. Let us get disgusted at all deaths, both of the civilians and combatants. Let us not turn into a country that is told this war is justified and these actions are justified, lest we turn into Germany of the early 1900's. But, let us not forget, war is inevitable.

And that's really the important point here. Those who think they are on the side of "truth" have had one of their truths challenged and defeated.

What this should do is make people question the facts that they've been spoon fed (and which some of you have repeated without even blinking) about Bush, Iraq, and the war. Let me connect the dots for you. The group that came up with the survey that determined a death toll of 600,000 Iraqi citizens is called "Open Society". It's funded by a guy named George Soros. You may have heard of him, since he's a super wealthy Liberal who's been involved in a number of questionable deals over the course of his life, and who most recently has been spending a whole bunch of money to influence public opinion. He funded Air America. He funds Moveon.org.

When you parrot some liberal talking point, there's a very good probability that what you're saying was written down by a Soro's funded think tank a year ago, and underlined with a notation like "We need to get people to repeat this as often as possible".


Oh. And the survey? Totally bogus and obviously politically motivated. Want to talk about lying? They fabricated a grossly exaggerated death toll in Iraq and then published the results through a UK paper with the stated requirement that the survey be released just before the US elections in 2006. Hmmmm... Odd bit of requirements if they just want people to know the truth. Also, I'll point out the amusing aspect of an organization called "open society" lying to people in order to manipulate them into a specific politically-oriented viewpoint.


Ask yourself this? If those things were so "true" and so absolute, and if everyone already agrees with them (appeal to popularity is a common fallacy used by the left), then why did they need to fabricate the numbers? If 151,000 dead Iraqi citizens were really a high enough number to convince people that the war in Iraq was a disastrous mistake, then why inflate the numbers? All of you sitting around arguing that this new number is still too high are kinda missing that point, aren't you? Obviously that number *wasn't* seen as a high enough number to generate the kind of outrage Soro's groups wanted. Otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much cash generating higher ones...


Maybe some of you might just want to re-examine what lies you've been told. You probably wont though...

Pfft. I'll take these stats with the same pinch of salt I used to season all the others.

I'm not sitting wringing my hands in guilt or wondering how this could happen. Like Massa ToUtem says, innocents died in every mechanised war in History, and since we got airyplanes to drop things out of the sky, the numbers are bigger than ever.

My debil's advocate processes ask me if we could have saved thousands of lives in Kosovo and Rwanda if we'd been a bit more gung-ho, just as I think we could have saved lives by planning Iraq better.

I think the Iraq war was badly prosecuted and there was a lack of honesty about the reasons. I still think it's set back progress in the middle east by a few years, but it won't spoil my enjoyment of this tasty alcoholic beverage, or interrupt my dreams of being the meat in an Allafemmes sammich.

Oh, and ToUtem. I thought about you today as I sat in a traffic jam on the motorway watching the Helicopter Ambulance carting off some crap driver. Needless to say, out of respect, I shouted racist insults at the pilot and rubbed one out.

Like the greatly exaggerated bits in your post?

As Smash would say, nice Googling work.

See, GW fails expectations even when it comes to killing Iraqi's.

Worst president evar.

Edited, Jan 10th 2008 5:37pm by bodhisattva

The overall point is not that having only 151K dead is alright, rather it is that the war opponents and critics have grossly exaggerated the death toll to support their cause and that is evidence that they are also grossly exaggerating all their other justifications for opposing the war.

That's a compelling argument. I tend to think it's not true, however, since I've never seen you claim your arm was 40 feet long.

Exactly. I have no problems with people criticizing something. But at least base your criticisms on what's actually happening instead of some gross exaggerations and baseless rhetoric.

And I'm still amazed at how selective people can be here. The same people who jump up and down about Bush's "lies" leading us into war seem to not be phased at all when they hear something like this. It just seems like people don't care about the truth nearly as much as "truth that leads to a result I agree with". Which I suppose is a rational approach if that result is something you believe is really important. But then don't get on a high horse about truth and lies though, cause then it's just hypocrisy...