100,000 Dead Iraqi Civilians Is An Arab Holocaust

[Tace]

The United States will now be damned by history for all time. May God have mercy on our souls, because nobody else will.

[ixion]

1. oh, wait... we're just getting started

just wait until these psychos decide to start using tactical nukes, then watch that number soar.

You are right. As a country, I fear we are damned now historically to follow in the path of other such brutal empires. :-(

[Tace]

4. : (

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

2. The US was born of genocide, remember

Born damned and will die accursed.

[Tace]

3. Sadly, True

[lpbk2713]

5. That's not too significant to the RWers.

As they see it the civilian casualties are all "heathens", ie: they are not Christian fundamentalists, they don't believe in the same god they do. Therefore, their deaths aren't that relevant. Sounds just like the same rationale that got Hitler started.

[Hey Zeus]

6. and how do we differ from every other country in the world...

in that respect?

[blindpig]

7. not much

But most other countries don't go strutting about claiming to be God's gift while doing the devils work. And if they do their citizens don't buy into the nonsense.

It's talk like this that makes many Americans hate Noam Chomsky. The truth hurts.

[Nihil]

8. Clue:

There are very few other countries in the world with their emblem
painted on the planes dropping 2000lb bombs on cities, helicopters
launching missiles at cities, tanks and artillery lobbing shells
into cities or infantry shooting bullets/grenades/mortars at the
individual civilians in those cities.

That is how you differ from most other countries in the world.

Sadly, the only main exception to the above is my own country.
We, too, carry some of the blame for the ongoing Holocaust.
That doesn't make it right for you to escape the 95% that is due
to your leaders.

[leftchick]

9. the difference....

Saddam was not saying "freedom is on the march" ad naseum while slaughtering Iraqis.

[Hey Zeus]

10. so in our zeal to condemn our own country we now...

point out the finer points of hussein?

[datasuspect]

12. yeah why not

he did have some good points:

1. he created the most progressive islamic nation
2. he modernized infrastructure
3. he was a VALUABLE CIA asset for YEARS

[RBHam]

13. Hussein was America's best friend...

Until he served the more profitable purpose of demonized bogey man and paper tiger.

[Hey Zeus]

14. i do not find it as easy as you to see his redeemable qualities

[Hey Zeus]

18. so you feel he was a man worthy to continue in his role as leader?

[leftchick]

16. yep....

I believe bush* has racked up a lot more deaths than saddam ever dreamed of. I will repeat, Saddam never promised them "freedom and democracy" while he butchered them as bush* does.

[Hey Zeus]

17. on what do you base this belief?

i am certainly no bush supporter, but he is no hussein, and the fact that you sit in your comfortable home and are able to criticize our country is testament to it.

[ermoore]

28. I bet you think Stalin was a good and kind leader too.

I can't believe I'm reading this! According to UNICEF 30,000 Iraqis were dying a year in Iraq before we invaded. Yeah, sanctions were beyond shitty, but those Saddam is ultimately responsible for those deaths. And let's never forget the Iraq-Iran War which Saddam instigated and which resulted in over a million deaths. AND the Kurdish genocide (my how we love to forget that one).

And yes, oddly enough, I am aware that the US backed Saddam against Iran and that we (and the entire rest of the world) chose to ignore the plight of the Kurds in Iraq. However, that doesn't make Saddam one tiny bit less to blame for them (it just means we're all guilty of something else).

[leftchick]

30. I am comparing apples to apples here...

I happen to believe bush* is a much more rotten apple in a much more subtle form. Just my opinion.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

11. Ah

But the American myth says that we ARE different, not that we aren't.

[Gregorian]

15. Having grown up in a family affected by genocide,

I can say that the suffering reverberates for several generations.

I ask who is the one who can remove this cancerous group from our country? The UN? I don't think so. And there is no civil criminal code for killing people the way he is doing. So that avenue is closed.

My grandparents came to America to escape the Armenian genocide. 80 years later, we have not learned. And I am still working my problems out, that I inherited.

Bush will pay. And if we don't stop this, WE will pay. It is our responsibility to stop these mad people.

[Dangerman]

19. Another fact that...

Bush and his administration will join the ranks of Hitler, his Nazis, and Stalin and history's greatest mass-murderers.

[ermoore]

20. I think 100,000 is a bit of an overstatement.

Easy there. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ only puts the civilian body count at about 16,546 (on the high end, the low end is 14,400). That's just civilians, but even so I really doubt that we've killed over 975,000 combatants. If that was so, I doubt there'd be muching fighting left.

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ seems like a pretty trustworthy site. This is not a conservative-run, or even a moderate-run, site. It's not perfect, but I've not seen anything better.

[DrWeird]

21. A lot of people think 6 million jews is an overstatement.

nt

[slowroll]

22. So you're saying

that those who question this single, dubious study are equivalent to Holocaust deniers? Or are you saying that really far fewer Jews were killed by the Nazis than the international Zionist conspiracy would have us believe?

[DrWeird]

23. Same motivation.

Antisemitic nutjobs who apologize for war crimes.

[ermoore]

27. Good grief.

Anti-semitic? Nutjob? WTF? Hey, I at least provided something backing up my numbers. More than you can say.

I'm sorry if the numbers aren't as apalling as you'd like them to be, but personnally, I'm ok with it. It's fine, just keep on ridiculously attacking anyone who relies on actual numbers or who disagrees with you. You're obviously very intelligent. Gosh, I know you sure have my respect.

[Lone Pawn]

25. Here you go: the numbers and a credible source

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html

"About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.

The study, which was carried out in 33 randomly-chosen neighbourhoods of Iraq representative of the entire population, shows that violence is now the leading cause of death in Iraq. Before the invasion, most people died of heart attacks, stroke and chronic illness. The risk of a violent death is now 58 times higher than it was before the invasion."

I would say the Guardian is even more reliable than the ever-popular Guy with a Website, even when he's our Guy ;)

[Qanisqineq]

29. my husband was in Iraq and he says 100,000 is a conservative

estimate.

[talullah]

24. absolutely

I couldn't agree more.

[slowroll]

26. The human toll

in Iraq is certainly horrifying, but I think this study is way out of line. If it's true we're talking about an average of 200 civilians killed every day. And, given that we've seen some pretty "quiet" spells in Iraq where no airpower was used for some time, this figure would probably have to include several incidents where several thousand civilians were killed. No one, not even the most out there Islamic "news" organizations have been giving out numbers like that. The cluster methodology they used is pretty questionable.

I'd say the folks at iraqibodycount are closer to the mark. Not that 15k civilians is somehow acceptable.

eta: Couple of quotes from the article that should make one suspicious of the methodology right off the bat:

"The other increase was in violent death, which was reported in 15 of the 33 clusters studied and which was mostly attributed to airstrikes." Fewer than half of the clusters in the country reported violent deaths?

"The biggest death toll recorded by the researchers was in Falluja, which registered two-thirds of the violent deaths they found." 2/3 of the deaths in the sample from one cluster out of 33?