Comparing the WTC/Afghan Bodycounts
I find it interesting that the count of civilian casualties of the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan is so close to the number of people who died in the September 11 attacks: a little over 3,000 in each case, with the edge apparently going to the U.S. government in the killers-of-innocents contest. Rumsfeld and Co. make grand claims about how hard they worked to keep the civilian death-toll in Afghanistan “as low as humanly possible,” but I think these numbers really beg the question: what exactly is the point of being the good guys in a war on terror, if we end up killing more innocent people than they do?
March 14th, 2003 at 7:29 pm
War has no winners. Of course, tell the poli(tricks) this and you’ll be jailed as an “enemy combatant”.
March 15th, 2003 at 5:56 pm
A correction on the previous comment – war (total war, anyway) definitely has winners. Why else is the side that lost always “the bad guys”? I’m betting that 50 years from now nations like Afganistan and Iraq will be completely “evil”, regardless of what we know now.
March 16th, 2003 at 5:30 am
The idea that “War has no Winners” is from the civillians standpoint. You’re thinking of “History is written by the Victors.”
March 18th, 2003 at 10:38 am
Hey jbc, look at the numbers when it comes to Pearl Harbor and WWII. We killed a hell of a lot more innocents than they did, but had we not, people on the eastern half would be speaking German and those on the western half of what would have been the U.S. would be speaking Japanese. Would you all like to salute with a straight arm? You also seem to forget that we liberated a highly oppressed people in Afghan-land. I bet you didn’t know that certain territories of Afghanistan are of Asian ethnicity and Bhuddist religion. They suffered tremendous cultural homicide when the Taliban rolled through there and blew up Bhuddist statues that were thought to be monolistic because they’d been there for milliniems. The Taliban and all the other so-called “muslim” terrorist groups say they are fighting a holy war, but they are the intolerant ones…not us. They hide behind and slander the Muslim faith so they can justify their tyranny. Those descendents of Gangus Khan are greatful that we’ve liberated them. You know what else? We gave them ataunomy. They support our actions in Iraq, because they know we’ll give the Curds and other victims of cultural and literal genocide the chance that they now have.
March 18th, 2003 at 3:08 pm
Paul, you know so little of what you speak about it’s amazing. Japan had actually SURRENDERED to us, but thier fighters didn’t get the message before attacking Pearl Harbor. There’s also no way Germany could have conquered all of Europe… they were fighting a blitzkrieg and although they easily took land they had no hopes of holding it. Russia and England could have easily handled them.
We don’t really “liberate” anyone. We’ve interfered in the middle east before and look what it’s gotten us. Our version of liberation is to remove a regime and take what we want, then bug out. Without question an even worse one takes power out of anger toward the U.S. Most of the world doesn’t want Big Macs and Baseball. They value certain things higher than money, and to them we seem little more than a country of whores.
Hell, Osama Bin Laden is all pissed because we trained his people and offered our support in their fight for independence, but then, as most things, we didn’t follow through. They were slaughtered as a result.
Anyway, hope this gives you a litle food for thought, Mr. “fucking” Revere.