Question

[Syed]

This is probably an dumb or old question, but do you believe in war or not


Me i believe in war to an extent, but what bush is doing is pissing everyone off - more soilders have commited suicide in iraq then have got killed in battle. Saddam wouldnt rebuild our country if he ever had defeated us, why shold we rebuild his country?

Post what you think i'd like to hear

[RexChaos]

To quote Bushwick Bill from the Ghetto Boys, circa '91 or so...

"I'll lay one missle on Iraq and blow that little piece of shit off the map,

Yeah, I wouldn't give a fuck who dies, cuz I'm tired of paying these high ass gas prices,

Only the rich benefit, it'd be a cold day in hell before I enlist...

The enemy is right here G, them foreigners ain't never did shit to me

And when you come to my house with that draft shit...I'ma shoot your funky ass bitch..."

I miss Bushwick's political wit. :)

[Stealth_raptor]

War is a reminder that we are only human.

On another note (Have to add this on the topic of 'war')...No wonder there are people who don't like the US when they have killed over 500,000 children under the age of 5 (Yes, that's half a million) because of their sanctions. That's close to the number of innocent people they killed in Hiroshima with those nukes.

Nice to think about...isn't it?

[RexChaos]

We've killed them eh? Hmmm...interesting. Riddle me this Batman - Why didn't anyone else save them from us? Why didn't anyone send them aid? Why didn't anyone send them billions of dollars?

Because the rest of the world is no better than the US. It's not *just* the US...it's the way the world economy is. Government and corporation lines are blurring.

I'm not saying the US isn't to blame for anything, but we're not alone...

And you're off on your Hiroshima death toll -

"Also in 1946, the Hiroshima police estimated the dead at 78,150 and the missing at 13,983, for a total of about 92,000 if all the missing are presumed dead (again, a very unlikely hypothesis). So this estimate is not radically different from the American estimate. "

from http://www.danford.net/hirodead.htm

[Shadow-Wolf]

On another note (Have to add this on the topic of 'war')...No wonder there are people who don't like the US when they have killed over 500,000 children under the age of 5 (Yes, that's half a million) because of their sanctions. That's close to the number of innocent people they killed in Hiroshima with those nukes.

excuse me for being a jackass but when the hell did the us kill over 500,000 children? and aperently you dont pay attention to news alot, sure maybe bush went in for the oil but theres no hiding that saddam killed over 1 million people in his rule, i read an article in Time mag that alot of people buried in a Holy graveyard(i believe they siad the most holy in iraq or the middle east cant remember) were killed by saddam.

[ltlruss]

Also, if you remember, during the sanctions, there was a program called food for oil... Saddam was taking the money that was made from the oil that was supposed to be used to feed the people of Iraq and using it to build his palaces. The world tried to help the Iraqi people but the Iraqi leader wouldn't..... As far as I'm concerned, Saddam killed them too.

[Shadow-Wolf]

although i agree most of his people we killed not by starvation or anything but by himself, he hired henchmen to do he dirty work and kill people who didn't like him or his policies.

[Stealth_raptor]

Hmm...Some info about Sanctions, etc.

http://www.accuracy.org/iraq.htm

April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon "the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in" specific paragraphs of the resolution, "the prohibitions against financial transactions ... shall have no further force or effect."


November 26, 1997: UNICEF reports that "The most alarming results are those on malnutrition, with 32 per cent of children under the age of five, some 960,000 children, chronically malnourished -- a rise of 72 per cent since 1991. Almost one quarter (around 23 per cent) are underweight -- twice as high as the levels found in neighbouring Jordan or Turkey."

http://rwor.org/a/v23/1110-19/1119/iraq_water.htm

These sanctions have inflicted death, disease, and suffering on an enormous scale. In 1997 the UN reported that over 1.2 million Iraqis had died since the Gulf War as a result of medical shortages caused by the war and sanctions, including 750,000 children below the age of five. In 1999, UNICEF, the UN organization focusing on children, reported that Iraqi kids under five are dying at twice the rate they were before the sanctions began, now estimated to be 5,000 deaths per month. Much of this suffering can be traced to the U.S. coalition's destruction of Iraq's water system. Eight out of every ten instances of disease in Iraq today results from contaminated water, and Iraqi children are dying from the diseases of impure water--like diarrhea.


http://www.arabmediawatch.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=67

Seven years after the imposition of the blockade on the people of Iraq, more than 1.2 million people, including 750,000 children below the age of five, have died because of the scarcity of food and medicine. - Verified by the UN, June 1997.

[quote]"Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq.

[JohnRev]

Aye war is a reminder we are human, but we are human. It is human nature to try and out do each other, and try to be number one is it not? Therefor, war is actualy necessary. If the world had peace, like it does violence,war, and hatred now...people like you anti-warhawks would complain about peace.

Shit's shit, so deal with the shit...It's there, and there's nothing you nor I can ever do about it.

[Stealth_raptor]

Why would 'anti-war' types of people complain about peace?

I think the term you're looking for is 'pro-war'.

[RexChaos]

I will still point out this fact -

We went to WAR with Iraq in '91 and after the war, there were conditions to be met by their ruling party. They did not meet those conditions, hence the sanctions. It's not "our" sanctions that killed anyone. It's the lack of compliance by the ruling party that got those kids killed. They had ulterior motives, as did we.

Indirectly did we kill them? Maybe. But let's state the real FACT of this...

Sanctions are conditional...not meeting conditions cause sanctions to persist. This is why people died.

I'm not condoning or condemning sanctions against Iraq. Just stating things as I see them.

I'd like to dissect this however:

"Seven years after the imposition of the blockade on the people of Iraq, more than 1.2 million people, including 750,000 children below the age of five, have died because of the scarcity of food and medicine."

7 years... 750,000 children eh? Interesting... Well if you look at this page:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=iz&v=26
you'll see that Iraq is pretty low on the list as death rates go per 1000 people.

Let's compare the United States death rate http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=26

to that of Iraq's death rate http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=iz&v=26

You'll see that Iraq has a significantly lower death rate per 1000 people.

Iraq's population has grown as well http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=iz&v=21

Since there were shortages of food and medicine and all of these deaths were happening, wouldn't you think that such an atrocity would have put a dent in their population?

[Stealth_raptor]

Hmm...the figures come from UN/UNICEF. I see this webpage (http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=iz&v=26) has figures from the 'CIA World Factbook' lol. I wonder just how accurate that is... Find me another and i'll start to actually look at it.

By the way...what were the conditions of the sanctions and are you totally sure they weren't met? I'm sure...that's fairly interesting also.

Edit: By the way, the sanctions WERE put in place by the U.S. I think you may want to rephrase this statement. It's not "our" sanctions that killed anyone.

[RexChaos]

http://www.indexmundi.com/about.html

Not associated with the CIA.

Just because the info is from a CIA source (Central Intelligence Agency), does not mean that it's not valid. What do you think they made up all those figures? To what end? If they were making stuff up, I'm sure they wouldn't have placed the US death rate higher than Iraq. And why is the Ukraine's death rate double what the US is? And triple what Iraq is?

So how about YOU tell me why those figures would be made up and I'll get you some other ones. Disbelieving for the sake of not believing isn't a worthwhile endeavor.

Oh alright, just to make it easier on you, how about you go compare figures at http://www.who.int/country/irq/en/ That's the World Health Organization.

http://www3.who.int/whosis/country/country_select.cfm?path=whosis,inds,country_indica tors&language=english

You can look up Iraq's statistics there. Somewhat incomplete as they didn't report a whole lot to the WHO either. Ya know...looks kind of bad when 1000's of people are "missing".

"Oh yes...they have all run away. They left for a mass gra...errr...they have gone to Florida"

[Stealth_raptor]

Obviously didn't find this page in the World Health Organisation website.

http://www.who.int/disasters/repo/5249.html

Also, I never said anything about them being associated in any way with the CIA lol...

[RexChaos]

Obviously didn't find this page in the World Health Organisation website.

http://www.who.int/disasters/repo/5249.html

Also, I never said anything about them being associated in any way with the CIA lol...

Yeah...I saw that...and I also saw it was from 1996. In case you aren't good at math, I'll help you out. That's 8 years ago. You mean to tell me that since 1991 (13 years ago) they couldn't get their shit together? Sorry. I'm not buying it. It's not sanctions that did it. It was a ruling party, governed by a tyrant, that didn't allow for that to happen.

http://www.who.int/features/2003/iraq/briefings/july11/en/

That's a little more recent.

And just to let you know, I don't look for statistics in articles. The WHO doesn't report on good conditions in case you haven't noticed. Go get the raw data and we'll compare notes.

And yet one more update for you that shows the reported cases of malaria in that country have dropped dramatically in the last couple years. Rock on Iraq...rock on...

http://www.who.int/disasters/repo/10980.html

[Stealth_raptor]

I didn't realise I was talking about the effect of the sanctions on (and after) 11th of July 2003 when '500 tonnes of medical supplies' were shipped to Iraq. The damage was done by then....in case you forgot about that part.

And...also...what ARE you talking about? Why do I have to get raw data when the things i'm talking about are right there in that nice big report?

[RexChaos]

On another note (Have to add this on the topic of 'war')...No wonder there are people who don't like the US when they have killed over 500,000 children under the age of 5 (Yes, that's half a million) because of their sanctions. That's close to the number of innocent people they killed in Hiroshima with those nukes.

I'll go back to your original post to comment on it...

You're wrong. Plain and simple. Wrong. Sanctions didn't kill. You're only reading half the story. The sanctions weren't in place so the US could say "Hey! Let's see how many babies we can kill today!" They were there because Iraq invaded Kuwait and had stockpiles of weapons. (I still don't believe the WMD theory...not theory...bullshit basically). The alternative to sanctions? Going in and blowing the place up (hey...weeeee're baaaack).

And since you want to post random statistics without some sort of logic behind them, I'll post statistics back that only tell half the story. By your reasoning, we killed a whole lot of Jews too, because we didn't intervene in WW2 soon enough.

As for your Hiroshima comment... still wrong.

[Stealth_raptor]

Yes, I admit I was wrong with the Hiroshima thing. Spoke too soon and it was late. However, i'm not backing down at all on the subject of the sanctions.

You're wrong. Plain and simple. Wrong. Sanctions didn't kill. You really want me to quote my second and fifth post, don't you? Just read them again if you're still unsure.

You seem to be running out of puff, Rex :)

[RexChaos]

Yes, I admit I was wrong with the Hiroshima thing. Spoke too soon and it was late. However, i'm not backing down at all on the subject of the sanctions.

You're wrong. Plain and simple. Wrong. Sanctions didn't kill. You really want me to quote my second and fifth post, don't you? Just read them again if you're still unsure.

You seem to be running out of puff, Rex :)

Nah, I'm just getting bored, but to amuse you I'll repeat myself and you can try addressing my statement this time instead of skipping it:

"You're only reading half the story."

It's kind of like saying, "well he died of a bullet wound so a gun must have killed him" Why did he die of a bullet wound? Who pulled the trigger? Who sold the gun? Who didn't stop the killer?

What the point of this has been all along is that you can't just pull out facts and say "This happened because of______" There's many reasons why things happen.

Initially you gave no dates, so I assumed you were talking about recent events. So I was disputing your claims based on the past several years. Your figures are correct in the matter regarding the deaths of children of Iraq...BUT, you should go back and read ltruss's post regarding the Oil-for-Food program. People did try to help. And because of the ruling party, that help was ineffective.

My point is that you are not wrong, but you are not stating all of the facts involving this.

And that's how I'm going to wrap this up. This shit is starting to depress me...I'm just gonna go beat up sand giants now and pretend they're Saddam.

[Stealth_raptor]

You know, I feel exactly the same way as you. I find it boring also, but I keep coming back to post again and again.

Now... i've posted LOTS of information that i'm sure you haven't read in full (This is in regard to the effect of U.S sanctions). At least go read it.

I did read about the 'oil-for-food' program, by the way...Sounds like it was established in 1995 when quite a bit of damage had been done by the U.S sanctions already.