BS: 1586 dead now

Subject: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Kaleea
Date: 02 May 05 - 04:43 AM

I just heard the guy on the news say that as of right now there are 1,586 US military troops dead in Iraq--most of them AFTER bush announced that the combat was over. That is one thousand five hundred and eighty six families. That is several thousand friends & family members who are mourning their dead service personnel. How many more hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women & children have died, and international troops, and other people who were in Iraq at the time? How many humans are too many? Seems like it's 'Nam all over but much worse. That seems to be the consensus of the Veterans at the local VA hospital when I'm there all the time these days with my father.   My oldest nephew (33) asked me the other day, why did we bother with the peace movement in the 60's?

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: podman
Date: 02 May 05 - 05:25 AM

"Seems like it's 'Nam all over but much worse."

'Nam there are 50,000 plus names on the Memorial Wall in Washington DC. You just got done saying there are 1,586 casualties. You need to consult a dictionary.


"My oldest nephew (33) asked me the other day, why did we bother with the peace movement in the 60's?"

Explain to your nephew that by participating in loud shouting matches in the streets and angry diatribes to the newspapers and taking over administration buildings in your universities you made the world a better place. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Bobert
Date: 02 May 05 - 08:07 AM

podman,

You apparently haven't ever participated in an anti-war demonstration if you think they are "loud shouting matches in the street"...

And, fir those of us who have demonstrated, we think of ourselves as the true patriots because we are doing what the folks who fought the War fir Independecns did: stand up to the bullies.... Plus, I'm sure Nixon wouldn't have finally seen that Nam was inwinnable if there hadn't been so many folks reminding him...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 May 05 - 08:52 AM

The protesters of the '60s said, in essence, to get out of Vietnam and bring the troops home.

Nixon, however, brought the country his "Peace With Honor" plan (touted during the 1968 election as a secret plan to end the War). In essence, he got out of Vietnam and broght the troops home.

The only difference I could see then and can see now is that Nixon said it.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Amos
Date: 02 May 05 - 09:25 AM

Just to put things in a little perspective:

The European Axis powers killed between 5 and 5.7 million Jews in the Second World War. They also killed roughly 7 million Soviet citizens, 8300 British or American POWS, 3.3 million Soviet POWS, roughly half a million Romanis, about 500,000 homosexuals. In the Nanking Massacre alone the Japanese killed 300,000.

The Western Allied forces killed about 300,000 Japanese civilians between the bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ABout 800,000 German civilians were killed during the war.

The Russian leader Beria signed off on the slaughter of 25,700 Polish captives on a single day.

The United States Merchant Marine lost 250,000 people during the war.

Estimates of the actual fighting men killed on all sides range around 15 million.

In case anyone wonders why tsome of us think war is a really, really stupid idea!


A

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 May 05 - 09:28 AM

If you want to ask someone who thinks it's a stupid idea, ask someone who's being shot at. There may or may not be atheists in foxholes, but there certainly are pacifists.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 May 05 - 12:18 PM

Mine is not a new thought but - I do not understand the concept that because you disagree with or want to punish someone you attack and kill his family. Why on earth is WAR the answer? Why have we not gotten beyond that idea?

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: wildlone
Date: 02 May 05 - 02:12 PM

As Thomas Hardy wrote in 1924

Christmas 1924

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We'eve got as far as poison gas.

dave

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 05 - 03:30 PM

RE: Nixon's 1968 "secret plan to end the war."

Nixon's (and Kissinger's) plan was to escalate and widen the war for more than three years, until the Democrats had nominated a single-issue anti-war candidate in 1972. Then they quickly pulled the rug out from under McGovern by finally making a move towards withdrawal. Pretty cynical, of course, but then we know by now all about CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) and their many dirty tricks, so their cavalier attitude about the war and its victims should not be surprising.

I believe that the anti-war demonstrators and draft resisters, etc., were looking for a somewhat quicker cessation of hostilities.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: michaelr
Date: 03 May 05 - 01:04 AM

100,000 + Iraqi civilans killed so far.

Why did we bother?

Because it's evil. And whe knew then it's evil. And we know now.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Boab
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:05 AM

---and I believe a more accepted figure for Russian fatalities in WW2 is TWENTY million.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:45 AM

Another Brit was killed this weekend in Iraq - Tony Blair has sent his "profuse apologies" to his family. Wonder how they will vote on Thursday.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 03 May 05 - 08:13 AM

Michael:

We knew then that extremisim was evil, and we know it now. Raperooms and mass graces are evil. All the waste and glitzy ostentation of Hussein's regime was evil.

But there is a great deal of evil in the solution as well. Desperate, screaming , agonizing evil. If all the powers of Western states can come up with to solve a problem like Hussein is the age-old insanity of invasion and death, it demonstrates a piss-poor lack of vision and a failure of leadership IMHO.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 May 05 - 08:23 AM

Boab, I think Stalin killed off 20 million Soviets. But I could be wrong.

When the twin towers fell I saw it as a chance for the coutry that calls itself the leader of the free world to change the way a civilized country reacts to violence. My hopes ended when the bombs started to fall on Afghanistan.

We are humans and all we will ever be able to do is to swing the club when threatened, Fortunately those who call themselves Christians and world leaders do not feel compelled to actually follow the teachings of Christ so they can swing that club with impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:03 PM

Stalin actually killed of 30million, in his purges and the (man-made) famine in the Ukraine.

WWII left an estimated 60million dead - with 20million of those in the Soviet Union.

with respect to Saddam being evil, the US already knew that back in the 80's and had no problem supplying him with weapons and satellite reconnaissance against Iran, remember that clip of Rumsfeld running up and shaking hands with Saddam? He was a son-of-a-bitch but he was theirs. (even after one of Saddams cruise missile killed 37 US sailors - an act for which he apologized)

(and the US even supplied Iran with arms illegally- we all know about Iran-contra - except for Reagan who couldnt remember)

The first gulf war between Iraq & Iran lasted 8 years and both superpowers of the time encouraged and supplied arms. between 1/2 a million and 1million estimated dead.

how different is terrorism from strategic bombing?

whatever you may say about nixon, he also bombed Cambodia illegally
an act which ultimately led to the Khmer Rouge taking over and the genocide they committed.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:12 PM

It doesn't matter how many more than 1586 people Stalin or Attila the Hun killed; what matters is that we are losing more all the time in an unnecessary and foolish war.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:30 PM

remember the Mogadishu line..

ie. the number of US dead the US is willing to accept?
Im sure the level of public acceptance has gone up since 911
but the neocons are fully aware of it.

That unfortunately is the weakness of the US military, as a high casualty count is not acceptable at home.

The war planners might want to look at the Algerian insurgency
which the French won by a brutal counter insurgency, but ultimately the public back home was revulsed and guess who became the president of Algeria. The leader of the insurgents. One of the young French officers in Algeria was Jacque Chirac, its no wonder he tried to convince the US not to invade Iraq.

if Bush and Co. have any sense they will ultimately hand Iraq over to the Iraqis, but if they intend to hang on to those 14 bases and keep pulling the strings at some point the Mogadishu line will be crossed.
And this is an administration not known for its planning. Bush doesnt
allow any input from outside his small group. Remember Wolfowitzs rebuttal of Shinsekis estimate that several 100,000 troops will be required to keep the peace or Cheneys assertion the troops will be greeted with flowers. This is also the leadership that disbanded the Iraqi army and allowed all those (angry) and (frustrated) young men to go home with no income and their weapons. That has to be one of the top 10 stupidest military decisions of the past century.

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: michaelr
Date: 03 May 05 - 09:41 PM

Amos, I agree. No argument here. My post was perhaps a bit abridged; I wonder whether you mistook my meaning.

From the original post:
My oldest nephew (33) asked me the other day, why did we bother with the peace movement in the 60's?

We bothered because we had a conscience and knew right from wrong. Some of us still do.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: 1586 dead now
From: Bobert
Date: 03 May 05 - 10:15 PM

Ya' know, the sadest part about 9/11 is that it was the perfect opportunity for the US to shine and because od lobbyiest whoes companiies wourld profit from yet another war cycle, Bush went with his campaign contributors, rather than stepping out from under the influence of the corporate lobby...

Like Bruce Springteen sings: "Sooner of latter it all comes down to money"....

One would think that a president would have the balls to do what is right over what is profitable for campaign contributors and I'm sure that just anyone in the world but Buish would have taken 9/11 and turned it into a rallyin' call to go after the sources of what-we-call terrorism, which is just folks sayin', "Hey, what about our situation?"....

Bobert