what the Pentagon told Helen Thomas about the dead

[donsu]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6695128.htm

Who's counting the dead in Iraq?

-snip-

The reply to my first Pentagon call was: ``We don't track them (Iraqi dead).''

Weeks later I pursued the question and was told by a Defense Department official: ''They don't count. They are not important,'' meaning the casualty figures.

I later asked for an explanation of why there has been no attempt to find out the number of Iraqi war dead. A Pentagon officer patiently responded: ``In combat operations, we have objectives. We don't have an objective to kill people. Our objective was to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq.''

''If the Iraqis laid down their arms,'' he added, ''there was no problem. But if we have to go in by force to kill them, the numbers don't make a difference. It's not something we are concerned with.'' He said that U.S. forces used precision weapons to minimize the casualties.
-snip-
---------------------------------

the inhuman bastards

[DisgustipatedinCA]

1. And we're supposed to celebrate this sort of thing

Ignore the war dead--they're not people anyway. Focus on fresh-faced Jessica Lynch instead and cool pictures of jet fighters in a blue sky and sharp, snappy salutes. Let's have a freaking parade and celebrate the murder of 45,000 innocent people.

Do you recall the outcry, mostly from our own government, when al Jazeera showed pictures of mutilated children, victims of US aggression? They want to avoid the real truth of war coming out, and avoid it at all costs.

Inhuman bastards is right, although you're letting them off cheap even with that. All of them deserve to burn in hell.

And hell no, I don't fucking support the troops, unless that means bringing them home right now. I will never support the brutality that they have fostered, in Iraq and in other places.

Burn in a literal hell for eternity, Donald Rumsfeld, and then double the sentence.

[pippin]

4. yes, but note bab bush's sickening comment at the end.

yes, but note bab bush's sickening comment at the end.

i am going to post her remarks on a separate thread because it's important to know how this sickening bunch of elitist republicans regard the very people who are doing their dirty work.
:mad:

[DisgustipatedinCA]

7. I had missed that part

Thanks for pointing it out. What a soulless whore.

[leesa]

2. They can't count because then the myth of precision weapons would

be exposed. Why anyone would believe that those huge explosions cause no deaths is beyond me, but....'Merikans would believe just about anything as long as it justified their raping and pillaging.

[LittleApple81]

3. there was a similar thread yesterday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=9631

If you read the Helen Thomas article in its entirety, you will find this quote by Barbara Bush:
-------
snip
On March 18, two days before the U.S. invasion, Barbara Bush had an interview with ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer.

''Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen?'' Mrs. Bush declared. ''It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'' Maybe she is right, but I don't think so.

snip
_________

So now you know why Nixon said the Barbara Bush is a woman who knows how to hate. (quoting from another post in that thread)

[uptohere]

5. its more human to carve notchs on your guns for each kill ?

this lesson was learned in Viet Nam, it made no difference to the public if the "them" count was higher than the "us" count and the commanders hated it because this purely political action forced them to take on missions that would guarantee enemy casualties (and ones on our side) with no real military objective being accomplished.

But if you still want to know and bring on those sorts of risks, start hammering on your representatives.

[Ivory_Tower]

8. On the other hand....

I recall reading that some Pentagon official gave a similar claim (about not counting Iraqi casualties) during a congressional hearing. A congressman asked him if it wouldn't be useful for the Pentagon to count Iraqi, if only to measure the effectiveness of their precision weapons for future development. The Pentagon official conceded that it would be useful.

So why are they deliberately avoiding measuring the effectiveness of their weaponry?

(Sorry I don't have the details about the testimony -- does anyone else remember this?)

[donco6]

6. I can think of a good reason to count them.

For every dead Iraqi, assume at minimum 5 relatives, 3 of which are now convinced the US has to go. For every dead Iraqi, you've now created 3 resistance fighters, who will be seeking out anyone with weapons (i.e., underground Red Guard, al Quaeda - whoever - doesn't matter - as long as they are against the US. Heck if the Catholics and Protestants can combine forces over abortion, I would think Saddam and al Quaeda can combine to fight the US).



You've created a Hydra. Counting the dead might give you some idea of how many "heads" you've going to have to kill.

[uptohere]

9. yea but how do you factor in those other family mambers

murdered by Hussein ?

Great statistics but way too convoluted to gain any useful information out of.