What Obama Said About Taking Vacations in 2008!

[Xavier_Onassis]

You would have to look up the number of Iraqis Saddam killed, and come up with an annual average, then come up with an annual average of those killed as a result of the invasion.

I am pretty sure that the total is higher after the invasion.

We did not, by the way, invade Iraq to save Iraqi lives. It was all about the WMD's, you know, the ones no one ever found.

[sirs]

We did not, by the way, invade Iraq to save Iraqi lives. It was all about the WMD's, you know, the ones no one ever found.

...although most believed they did, supported by intelligence agencies across the globe

So, how that proof Bush knew there were no WMD but bamboozled everyone into believing Saddam did, coming along?  Don't worry, no one's holding their breath

[Plane]

You would have to look up the number of Iraqis Saddam killed, and come up with an annual average, then come up with an annual average of those killed as a result of the invasion.

I am pretty sure that the total is higher after the invasion.

We did not, by the way, invade Iraq to save Iraqi lives. It was all about the WMD's, you know, the ones no one ever found.

  Why per year?
Does the statute of limitation on mass murders expire that fast?

Should I really leave out the Kuwaitis and Iranians that Saddam is responsible for killing?

Hey , I even want to count the communist party that Saddam practically wiped out early in his career.

   Saddam racked up a very high score over thirty years, and he and his sons seemed set to keep at it indefinitely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

[Plane]

The war cost both sides in lives and economic damage: half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers, with an equivalent number of civilians, are believed to have died, with many more injured; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

Man this is a long article , more detail than anyone this side of the War College would need.

....
Human rights organizations have documented government-approved executions, acts of torture and rape for decades since Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 until his fall in 2003.

......
According to The New York Times, "he [Saddam] murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more. His unprovoked invasion of Iran is estimated to have left another million people dead. His seizure of Kuwait threw the Middle East into crisis. More insidious, arguably, was the psychological damage he inflicted on his own land. Hussein created a nation of informants — friends on friends, circles within circles — making an entire population complicit in his rule".[9] Other estimates as to the number of Iraqis killed by Saddam's regime vary from roughly a quarter to half a million,[10][11] including 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds and 25,000 to 280,000 killed during the repression of the 1991 rebellion.[12][13] Estimates for the number of dead in the Iran-Iraq war range upwards from 300,000.[14]


Of nearly 2 million refugees created by the 1991 crackdown on dissent, it is estimated that 1,000 died every day for a period of months due to unsanitary and inhumane conditions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq

   Saddam didn't leave us precise records for everything he was up to , these estimates are probably the best I will find, other estimates seem just as valid even though the math is different, so I will look again ,sometime.

    So the number of Dead Saddam Hussein can be held responsible for is a hazy estimate with a floor of one million and an upper side that could be four million .

Can I count the starvation death caused by sanctions?  There isn't a reliable count on these either , but because they died for the sake of the continuation of Saddam's regime I feel that these also deserve mention.

[Plane]

1990-1991



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Casualties
The exact number of Iraqi combat casualties is unknown, but is believed to have been heavy. Some estimate that Iraq sustained between 20,000 and 35,000 fatalities.[126] A report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force, estimated 10,000–12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign, and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war.[129] This analysis is based on Iraqi prisoner of war reports.


......................

The DoD reports that U.S. forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths (35 to friendly fire[139]), with one pilot listed as MIA (his remains were found and identified in August 2009). A further 145 Americans died in non-combat accidents.[130] The U.K. suffered 47 deaths (9 to friendly fire, all by U.S. forces), France 2,[130] and the other countries, not including Kuwait, suffered 37 deaths (18 Saudis, 1 Egyptian, 6 UAE, and 3 Qataris).[130] At least 605 Kuwaiti soldiers were still missing 10 years after their capture.[140]

The number of Coalition wounded in combat seems to have been 776, including 458 Americans.
According to the Project on Defense Alternatives study, between 20,000 and 26,000 Iraqi military personnel were killed in the conflict while 75,000 others were wounded.[125]

[Plane]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

2003 till present.

Estimates of  Iraqi  casualties due to this war are very imprecise.

Ranging from one million to only one hundred thousand. "only" can be a ridiculous word in this context.

As of 23 October 2011, hostile-fire deaths accounted for 3,777 of the 4,799 total coalition military deaths.

  Yes this is a lot of hurt , but in terms of warfare not especially so.

[Plane]

  I am going to call it .

   Saddam Hussein was responsible for more deaths during the times that he was not actively at war with the US than he was during the time that he was actively at war with the US.

    Combining the casualties of US action altogether does not enter the same order of magnitude of the toll required to keep Saddam in power.


    Even though the numbers are hazy , there is so much difference that there is no doubt that Saddam was so destructive that the price paid to keep him would be higher than the price paid to depose him.

    If he is indeed replaced with worse , there would be good reason to over throw that too, wouldn't there be?

[Plane]

We did not, by the way, invade Iraq to save Iraqi lives. It was all about the WMD's, you know, the ones no one ever found.

I do not think this true.

WMDS were one justification of several.

It may be the only one critics can remember, and it was important .

But Saddam was participating in the misinformation, there were a lot of very creditable people who thought Saddam had plenty of WMD already.

And everyone that knows anything about Saddam would guess that when the sanction was lifted , the Iraqi WMD machine would resume right where it had left off.

Other stated reasons for the invasion included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers,[65] Iraqi government human rights abuses,[66] and an effort to spread democracy to the country.[67][68]

......................................................................................
After investigation following the invasion, the U.S.?led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical and biological programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted.[58] Only degraded remnants of misplaced and abandoned chemical weapons were found.[59] Paul R. Pillar, the CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, said "If prewar intelligence assessments had said the same things as the Duelfer report, the administration would have had to change a few lines in its rhetoric and maybe would have lost a few member's votes in Congress, but otherwise the sales campaign—which was much more about Saddam's intentions and what he "could" do than about extant weapons systems—would have been unchanged. The administration still would have gotten its war." Even Dick Cheney later cited the actual Duelfer report as support for the administration's pro-war case.[60]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

[sirs]

Great support of links and facts to back up the claims, Plane.  We could all take a lesson and learn

[Xavier_Onassis]

Juniorbush wanted to invade, no matter what the facts were. It was not a rational decision, and the facts were fudged.
Americans were killed and maimed for no good reason.

The US does not have any obligation to depose evil dictators by force. The American people will not abide this again.
The war was fought for emotional, not rational reasons, poorly managed and with no plans for withdrawal.

[sirs]

Your opinion on this matter keeps getting squashed by facts to the contrary, unfortunately.

for instance, and subtracting the notion of it supposedly being an irrational decision, when it was nothing of the sort:

- What factual support is there to make a claim that Bush was going to invade, no matter what?

- What facts were "fudged", and the corroborating proof they were "fudged"

Plane just demonstrated how well his word can be taken, because he was able to back up his commentary/opinion with actual facts.  Can you?

[Plane]

Great support of links and facts to back up the claims, Plane.  We could all take a lesson and learn

   Wicipedia has one fault here, detail and length , there is just so much it would make a book.
But of course it is the nature of the internet .

[Plane]

Juniorbush wanted to invade, no matter what the facts were. It was not a rational decision, and the facts were fudged.
Americans were killed and maimed for no good reason.

The US does not have any obligation to depose evil dictators by force. The American people will not abide this again.
The war was fought for emotional, not rational reasons, poorly managed and with no plans for withdrawal.

   I think dictators should feel at risk because of our nature, the people of the US are really seldom eager for war, but they can be persuaded to fight for good reason.

     So rulers should try to avoid looking like villains while we are around.

    That is how to be a good influence.

       There have been examples of US power exercised for aggrandizement and this has to be avoided , I would join the opposition if I thought the main reason for a war was benefit to plutocracy.

       But I don't join the crew when the call is for the US to become less strong, that is really moving backwards into war.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Recent wars have benefited the oligarchy more than anyone else. The secondary benefits have gone to military officers, who have gained actual combat experience sand some promotions. Other than that, the tertiary beneficiaries are people making and selling flags and desert camo. Civilians seemed to have stopped buying actual Humvees, which are quite useful for their intended purpose, but not really all that useful for taking Becky Sue to ballet class. People who make and sell guns probably would have done okay anyway, since so many were frightened by President Obama that they felt a need to triple their number of firearms.

[sirs]

Let's try this again, to see if we can't transition it from mere hard core liberal opinion to an actual reality

- What factual support is there to make a claim that Bush was going to invade, no matter what?

- What facts were "fudged", and the corroborating proof they were "fudged"?