As several of the last few posts have suggested, you can no longer judge a person as "Left" or "Right" based on their enchantment or lack of same with President Bush. Those lines of delineation do not apply anymore.
As several of the last few posts have suggested, you can no longer judge a person as "Left" or "Right" based on their enchantment or lack of same with President Bush. Those lines of delineation do not apply anymore.
not saying that Rosie isn't a bit crazy, but her assertion that upwards of 650,000 Iraqi deaths since the Invasion in 2003 is not without merit.
the link is to a study funded by MIT and Johns Hopkins, and carried out by the Johns Hopkins Center for Refugee and Disaster Response in collaboration with a University in Iraq. This is a very thorough and reliable study.
it was made in October of 2006, the number of Iraqis dead has of course continued to climb since then.
bill maher thinks a conservative republican should be the next president. i think thats interesting. his show is biased yes, i think that bill maher is in general pretty smart though.
tchock, That stuy has been debunked by several groups who do not have a bias. The people who ran the survey went in with a preconcieved bias against the war. putting that aside even if the numbers were accurate the fact is it is not the US who is killing Iraqis as liberals like Rosie imply. It is the Iraqis and terrorists who are not from Iraq who are doing most of the killing. All this really shows is the Anti American thinking of Rosie and others on the left.
Dick Radatz wrote:
tchock, That stuy has been debunked by several groups who do not have a bias. The people who ran the survey went in with a preconcieved bias against the war. putting that aside even if the numbers were accurate the fact is it is not the US who is killing Iraqis as liberals like Rosie imply. It is the Iraqis and terrorists who are not from Iraq who are doing most of the killing. All this really shows is the Anti American thinking of Rosie and others on the left.
Why is every study that puts the US in a negative light biased? Why is John Hopkins and MIT biased? Is it because the place is crawling with Secular Progressive scientists and doctors? Sure it could be 650k, it could be more, it could be less. We'll never know. What we do know is the America really screwed this one up. That is not anti-American bias it is fact.
Who cares if it is the Iraquis and foreigners doing the killing? It wouldn't matter if Barney is killing them it is still our fault.
You are so dumb it is not even funny... The U.S. invaded Iraq in the April of the year 2002, and it is now 2007, so we will call it 5 years. Divide 650,000 by 5 years, and you get 130,000 deaths per year. Divide 130,000 by 12 months and you get 10, 833 deaths per month. Divide that by 30 days, and you get 361 deaths per day. If 361 Iraqi civilians were dying daily, it would be all over the news!!! How come we are not hearing about this? Oh, lemme guess, George Bush has somehow figured out a way to cover this up too. Bullshit he has. You are a liberal moron. There is no way in hell that 130,000 Iraqi are dying yearly, 10,833 Iraqi are dying monthly, and 361 Iraqi dying daily. No way at all. Thank you and goodnight. -Stradlater
tchock wrote:
not saying that Rosie isn't a bit crazy, but her assertion that upwards of 650,000 Iraqi deaths since the Invasion in 2003 is not without merit.
the link is to a study funded by MIT and Johns Hopkins, and carried out by the Johns Hopkins Center for Refugee and Disaster Response in collaboration with a University in Iraq. This is a very thorough and reliable study.
it was made in October of 2006, the number of Iraqis dead has of course continued to climb since then.
Dick Radatz wrote:
tchock, That stuy has been debunked by several groups who do not have a bias. The people who ran the survey went in with a preconcieved bias against the war. putting that aside even if the numbers were accurate the fact is it is not the US who is killing Iraqis as liberals like Rosie imply. It is the Iraqis and terrorists who are not from Iraq who are doing most of the killing. All this really shows is the Anti American thinking of Rosie and others on the left.
I believe that the term "Anti American" should be removed from this discussion. The right wants you to believe that anyone who thinks that the U.S. could actually be at fault in some way must be Anti American. This is rediculous. Do you really believe that Rosie O'Donnell is Anti American? Or is she just trying to do, what in her mind, will make the country better. (Not that I'm defending her, I actually know nothing about her)
Also, it seems that anyone who is against the war is labeled as not supporting the toops. This is perhaps even more rediculous. If someone dies for a bad cause, continuing to fight for that cause and pretending it's good does not justify that death.Being anti war could easily be seen as being much more for the troops than being for the war.
calm down buddy... i was merely referencing a study i had seen which was conducted by one of the most respected universities in the nation.
What makes this study seem believeable though? It is widely accepted that UN Imposed (and US backed) sanctions on Iraq were responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 children from the end of the gulf war (1991) through 2001.
500,000 children/10 years = 50,000 children per year dead equals about 137 children dead per day.
this was of course not taking place during very heavy combat, and this figure applies only to children.
why is it not possible to believe that during a time of war, with the inclusion of adults, the figure of deaths per day would not rise to the level of approximately 361 deaths per day?
I am not saying that this study is right, i read the critique that was posted on here and it made a lot of sense, but given the history in Iraq, and the level of violence we are seeing today and have been seeing for the past five years, to me at least, this study made sense. that's just me though... and MIT, and Johns Hopkins, and much of the academic community.
it would be all over the news? let me ask you this question then. do you realize that on average, 2 US soldiers die every single day in Iraq? you probably think that stat isn't real either because it's not "all over the news". but sure enough, we're at 3528 US military deaths. how about the fact that we're spending 200 million dollars a day on the war? i thought conservatives were against government spending. aren't the democrats the party of tax and spend? i guess the republicans are just the party of spend.
Actually many on the left(not all) are anti american. That is why I brought up the Rosie point. First she brought up the inflated number of 650 thousand dead. Then she tried to say Americans were the ones who killed them. dis regarding the actual number why would she try and blame our troops when she damned well knew it was the insurgents and outside terroists who are the actual people responsible for the killing.
Regardless of how you feel about the war. A good case can be made for us having made a mistake in going to war. The fact remains that we are trying to help Iraq and trying to bring a peacefull less tyranical govt to the country. We may have been wrong in trying to do so. but it is also wrong and I think anti american to use bogus casualty statistics to and to then use those stats to prove americans are killing thousands and thousands.
i'm hoping that people on the right don't take rosie as seriously as you do. of course the death toll that was proposed by this study did not say that they were death caused by American soldiers. the study however does look at the death rates of Iraqis before and after the war. so while of course not all the deaths are a direct result of the United States, but they most assuredly are a result of the invasion and subsequent anarchy which has taken hold of Iraq.
your definition of Anti-Americanism is frightening to say the least. Since when were dissent, freedom of speech, a concern for human life, and a critical world view considered un-American? your definition borders on facism (i am not calling you a nazi), which seems kind of un-American to me.
my post seems very overstated compared to your latest post, so i appolgize for jumping on your back a bit. still, as stated earlier, the term un-American should probably be stricken from this thread entirely.
I do realize that on average, 2 U.S. soldiers die per day. It is all over the news. I take it you don't read the paper, do you? I admit that 3528 soldiers have died, and I mourn the loss of each and every one of them. The thing is though, is that you view it as soley a statistic... You do realize though in WWII thousands of U.S. soldiers died in each battle, and it would not be rare for 10,000 to die in one day? 3528 soldiers dying in 5 years compared to 10,000 in a day... Think about it buddy.
hianus wrote:
it would be all over the news? let me ask you this question then. do you realize that on average, 2 US soldiers die every single day in Iraq? you probably think that stat isn't real either because it's not "all over the news". but sure enough, we're at 3528 US military deaths. how about the fact that we're spending 200 million dollars a day on the war? i thought conservatives were against government spending. aren't the democrats the party of tax and spend? i guess the republicans are just the party of spend.
The people of Letsrun are not moderates...
Middle of the Road wrote:
What are your thoughts on the topic, Letsrun moderates?
[quote]Stradlater wrote:
I do realize that on average, 2 U.S. soldiers die per day. It is all over the news. I take it you don't read the paper, do you? I admit that 3528 soldiers have died, and I mourn the loss of each and every one of them. The thing is though, is that you view it as soley a statistic... You do realize though in WWII thousands of U.S. soldiers died in each battle, and it would not be rare for 10,000 to die in one day? 3528 soldiers dying in 5 years compared to 10,000 in a day... Think about it buddy.
You know the difference? In world war II we were fighting a truly evil enemy that was threating the entire free world and that the everyone agreed had to be defeated. Now over 3500 soldiers have died but instead of it being a necessary and just war its because we have an idiotic president who thinks he can do whatever he wants. In war world II thousands died for our freedom, now thousands are dying for no reason in a war that cannot be won no matter how big of troop surges we use or whatever other BS the white house puts forth. I support our troops but the terrible truth is that they are now dying in vain and that is the difference.
Stradlater wrote:
I do realize that on average, 2 U.S. soldiers die per day. It is all over the news. I take it you don't read the paper, do you? I admit that 3528 soldiers have died, and I mourn the loss of each and every one of them. The thing is though, is that you view it as soley a statistic... You do realize though in WWII thousands of U.S. soldiers died in each battle, and it would not be rare for 10,000 to die in one day? 3528 soldiers dying in 5 years compared to 10,000 in a day... Think about it buddy.
What are you trying to accomplish by referencing WWII? That the death rate of US soldiers are lower in comparison? That, Mr Stradlater is truely idiotic...
Let me help you out. You could make a better point by comparing Iraq to Viet Nam where over 50,000 US Troops lost their lives in a much shorter time period. Then you would only come accross as an a$$hole rather than idiotic...
hey "buddy", nice comparison. war should only be used as a last option. if we really think that the iraq war is a last option, and something we're totally committed to, how come only the soldiers and their families are the ones sacrificing. why aren't we instituting a draft (including the sons and daughters of our hawkish republicans). we aren't we even willing to increase taxes to support the war. we aren't even happy when the media tells us there are 2 deaths a day, we say that they're focusing on the bad stuff. the honest truth is, a tiny tiny fraction of our country is even slightly affected by this war. nice try "buddy".
the j hopkins study is also now being referenced as accurate by the british military...
it is only here in the USA that it is being disputed.
tchock, I have no problem with dissent or even being anti american. It is a free country and freedom of speech is the one thing that makes us better than all the other countries that profess to be free. All I'm saying is that when people go out of their way to blame america for events that probably can be blamed on several different factors I call that anti american. Case in point sanctions against Iraq. I have heard several left wing groups lay blame on the US for children starving in Iraq. This is false. The sanctions made exceptions for medical supplies and humanitarian aid. The fact is Saadam was not distributing the aid. He was dealing and trading for personal benefit. Even if the lefts claim that the US was responsible for the children dying had any shred of validity they fail to acknowledge the fact that the sanctions would have been lifted if S.H. had complied with the UN. So once again we have a case of people letting their anti americanism get in the way of the truth.
It's ok to be antiamerican I just wish people would be a bit more honest about it. I used to be a hard core lefty in my younger days and I know that many on the left really detest what the country stands for. Of course few will admit it.
here is a pretty good read from Robert Fisk's book concerning the sanctions in Iraq.