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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI think I just threw up in my mouth...
I refuse to watch the GOP convention, however I just got home and turned on MSNBC and watched Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes speaking with Steve Schmidt. In speaking about the previous administrations war policies Chris Hayes just told Schmidt that wether or not we believe that Bush and his administration lied us into war, we still have to deal with the fact that nearly 5,000 Americans have died, but very, very conservative reports conclude that 95,000 Iraqis have died.
100,000 people are dead because of the Iraq war. I have never thought about it like that, a hundred thousand people?
I feel sick and I am not just being dramatic, I think I want to vomit.
kimbutgar
(21,172 posts)cynatnite
(31,011 posts)This will forever be a scar on our nation as it should be.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)This should be a center piece to this election cycle. It's disgusting.
babylonsister
(171,075 posts)I remember reading 1M plus were killed due to the occupation...
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)Over the years I think I've fallen into the trap of number confusion. Sometimes we are talking about budgets or deficits, millions, billions, trillions. We have had lengthy conversations about the quantity of American lives lost. Somewhere in all the rhetoric we have failed as a country to highlight the real cost of these wars. The people.
My god, what in the fuck is wrong with us?
proReality
(1,628 posts)that the Cheney/Bush administration embedded reporters and cameramen, so they could only report what the administration and Generals wanted reported. They also kept the flagged draped coffins from being seen, and funerals of dead soldiers were not to be photographed or written about by the MSM. No sacrifices had to be made by anyone (outside of our military and their families), so people forgot that blood and bodies and devastation are what war is all about.
That's the shortened answer.
moondust
(20,000 posts)flamingdem
(39,313 posts)A complete and total disgrace
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)So just to get a visual, it would be like loosing every human being in the US Virgin Islands, conservatively. But by the numbers that everyone is correcting, it would be like loosing every human being in the State of Rhode Island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
eridani
(51,907 posts)The 95,000 is just those shot or blown up. The other deaths are babies dead of diarrhea because we blew up their water purification plants, and people dying because war-damaged hospitals could not treat them.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)It has taken us 52 years to begin, just to begin to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)The sobering realities however can't be dismissed as many other studies have proven that initial tally correct (and probably under-reported)
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)killed. I would hope that figure might register in some idiots' heads. They certainly werent responsible for 911.
Mopar151
(9,992 posts)Not to mention the proportion due to the predujices of fundie commanders in the military.....
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Vietnam...what 3 million?
Iraq BEFORE the recent war due to the 8 year embargo by Clinton... half a million kids?
Latest Iraq war.... hundreds of thousands
Afgahnistan...?
It's a blood fest and the US is the biggest arms dealer too.
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)flamingdem
(39,313 posts)barbtries
(28,808 posts)that's a very conservative number in my opinion. not to mention the people displaced and all the loved ones of all the dead and all the injured and orphaned and widowed...
it's hard to imagine that you never thought about it like that. that is how i have always thought about war. but even though you feel sickened today, i am glad that your consciousness has been raised by this realization.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)And even worse, we as a country, in the media have had said very little about the loss experienced by other nations.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)We had no right.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)We should be discussing the end of America's longest lasting war in history.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Afghanistan will be exactly the same as when the English left and the same as when the USSR left. What a waste, and all of it was obvious from the start. Oh well, Haliburton and Blackwater are happy.
Raster
(20,998 posts)Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Hell dick cheney* had far more do with 9/11 than ANYONE IN IRAQ, including Saddam Hussein.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,205 posts)You can probably multiply the deaths by a factor of ten to count the total number injured, a large number of those with significant disabilities. We used shells made of depleted uranium in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. It's caused a 15x increase of birth defects and cancer, and OUR SOLDIERS were exposed to it too. Radioactive half life? 4.5 BILLION years!
The cost of the war in Iraq? $800 Billion and counting. +The cost of the war in Afghanistan? $500 Billion and counting [link:http://costofwar.com/| Think of the things that could have been done with that money.
Mopar151
(9,992 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)...people who used the chaos to kill a neighbor they didn't like because there were no cops to stop them.
For that matter, the rapes and suicides.
Then there's the mass migrations away from the fighting. People ALWAYS die during those.
Hell, think of those that die here from heart attacks from an earthquake. Imagine sonic booms slamming your house from jets.
classof56
(5,376 posts)if Sheldon Adelson has his way.
I've been sick about Iraq since before the invasion, stood on street corners in protest, argued and tried to reason with those who supported it, all to no avail. I'm still sick and it may get worse.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)And they will allow any excuse to do so.
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)about Dems bringing up the Bush legacy after "all this time." The Bush legacy was, indeed, a foul chapter in American history. I don't know how our own history books of the future will describe it, but the history of the Middle East will be clear. How long will it take for the the grandparents, parents, spouses, brothers, sisters, cousins of 100,000 people to complete their grieving and give up their resentment? Foul indeed. Stinks to high heaven. Our own grandchildren won't outlive the stench.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)If I'm remembering correctly.
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)2,000 pound high explosive bombs on a city of 4 million people in the middle of the night, I would say 95,000 is a pretty low estimate. That is correct, 1.6 million pounds of high explosives on a city of 4 million people in an evening, with video provided for your viewing pleasure. My nausea was then. We did carnage in Iraq in WWII style with far more effective weapons with the other side barely able to even shoot back until we got in close quarters with them.
Ever seen the photos of the "highway of death" from Desert Storm? The second go round, we just did it all over the place.
Do you recall that during the height of the insurgency, the US Marines had to make an emergency order for more bullets, because they were running out? The whole f***ing US Marine Corps was running out of bullets... They had alot of bullets going in and I think we train them to be pretty good shots. Alot of people had to die to run the US Marine Corps out of bullets.
gtar100
(4,192 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 31, 2012, 12:22 AM - Edit history (1)
is only what they will admit to. They have a highly vested interest in keeping that number low.
Still, to think that even 100,000 people were killed because of lies told by the Bush administration is just sickening. How anyone can "support" war is beyond my comprehension. It's either out of ignorance or psychological issues. Humanity has spent *at least* the last 4,000 living years through war after war after war. And we have not slowed down, despite the unusual climate of human rights that has grown over the last couple hundred years. We only need to look at republicans to know that any tendencies towards justice are still very fragile.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)gtar100
(4,192 posts)riverwalker
(8,694 posts)anyone says they vote republican and (to me) they are automatically drenched in blood, they wear the gore and remnants of human beings as I see it. They are AS guilty as as if they pulled the trigger, tortured a detainee to death themselves. None of this crap "my brother-in-law is a republican, but a good person".
BULLSHIT.
TomClash
(11,344 posts)The American media and government condition you to block it out. And you do. We all do.
Here's another fact: before the Iraq War, 500,000 Iraqi children died as a direct or indirect result of the UN sanctions, according to UNICEF.
"Every life is precious." Bullshit. It's money, power and glory that are "precious."
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)speaking. I yelled at my husband to TURN OFF THAT DAMN TV. (Sorry, but I can't stand any of those war-mongerers.)
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)I cannot wait for Paul Ryan to carry the full load of his congressional votes this election.
GEOpix
(65 posts)Not only did he sound like a shill for the defense industry, but he was one of the loudest voices protesting the cost of our air support of the rebels in Libya at the time. His comments regarding the supposed timidity of our president were especially grating, since Obama, Biden and Clinton have gone the extra mile to renew our positive foreign policy image after Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld et al shamelessly trashed it.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Whisp
(24,096 posts)don't watch. according to her none of that matters.
well, we knew that
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)...party rolls.