Iraq War Deaths
I’ve updated my earlier posting comparing the number of US deaths in Iraq and Vietnam at equivalent points in the history of the two wars. My previous charts used a projected figure for October that turned out to be overly optimistic; instead of 32 US military deaths in Iraq last month there actually ended up being 42.
Here are the charts again, updated with the actual number for October. (Again, I’m getting these figures from the advanced search tool at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund site, and from Lunaville’s page on Iraq coalition casualties. The figures are for the number of US dead per month, without regard to whether the deaths were combat-related.)
The first graph shows the first twelve months of the Vietnam war, and the first eight months of the Iraq war. (Click on any image for a larger version.)
Next, the same chart, with the Vietnam numbers extended out to cover the first four years of the war:
Finally, the chart that gives the US death toll for the entire Vietnam war:
There were some interesting comments on the original item. Some people would like to see the comparison expanded to include all casualties, not just deaths. The argument is that this would give a better comparison to Iraq, where the human cost is masked somewhat by the fact that we’ve gotten better at keeping wounded soldiers from dying. Another person was interested in seeing a comparison of deaths normalized for the number of US troops present in-theater at any given time. I think that would be pretty interesting; if you know where I can find statistics on the number of troops deployed in Iraq and Vietnam by month, please let me know.
Another person basically accused me of celebrating soldiers’ deaths because of my hatred of the Bush administration. There’s an element of truth in that accusation. I disagree strongly with this war; I think it is a mistake both in a broad moral sense and in a more narrow, practical sense. I see it as a crime against humanity, justified by lies and pursued by people who lack the moral clarity to recognize the wrong they are committing. Besides being wrong in those terms, though, I believe this war is just plain stupid in a practical sense, in that it will hurt, rather than help, the longterm security interests of Americans (along with pretty much everyone else on the planet), while exacting a terrible price in terms of money and lives.
It’s true that I want to see Bush punished politically for his decision to launch this war, and evidence of the ongoing death toll is an important part of making that case. But it isn’t just personal animosity toward Bush that’s motivating me. I’m not just looking for retribution. I’m looking for deterrence. It’s wrong for politicians to lie their way into wars like this, and then lie about the consequences of their having done so. I’m pissed at Bush about that, but more importantly, I want to stop him, and stop other politicians who would do the same thing in the future. I want to demonstrate to them that, as a practical matter, lying your way into an ill-conceived war is a losing proposition, politics-wise.
Yes, the Iraq war is not yet giving us the kind of horrific death toll we saw at the peak of the Vietnam war. But that isn’t the point. The point is that if a war is wrong, then even one death is a horrible injustice. Forty deaths a month is much worse.
The main tragedy of the Vietnam war, in my mind at least, wasn’t the number of people who died. It was the number of people who died needlessly. It was the fact that having pledged their lives to protect their country from harm, soliders had those lives wasted in pursuit of a very different, and much less noble, goal: protecting politicians from the embarrassment of admitting that their policies had failed.
I believe that’s exactly what’s happening now. And I want it to end sooner, rather than later.
June 1st, 2004 at 1:55 pm
[…] in place when the new numbers become available. US deaths in Vietnam and Iraq by month Iraq war deaths November: The cruelest month 41 US Iraq war dead in December Post-Saddam de […]
August 2nd, 2004 at 2:00 pm
[…] in place when the new numbers become available. US deaths in Vietnam and Iraq by month Iraq war deaths November: The cruelest month 41 US Iraq war dead in December Post-Saddam de […]
September 3rd, 2004 at 2:15 pm
[…] in place when the new numbers become available. US deaths in Vietnam and Iraq by month Iraq war deaths November: The cruelest month 41 US Iraq war dead in December Post-Saddam de […]
November 1st, 2004 at 4:10 pm
[…] in place when the new numbers become available. US deaths in Vietnam and Iraq by month Iraq war deaths November: The cruelest month 41 US Iraq war dead in December Post-Saddam de […]
November 3rd, 2003 at 6:36 am
You are an idiot. To compare hostilties by month for Iraq versus Vietnam, is to be blunt mathematically void of any logic.
First the war portion of Iraq is OVER! We never had to clean up the mess afterwords because we cut and ran. In Iraq the war is over, and now we are dealing with insurgents & foreign terrorists. I seriously doubt the Soviets or any other country is going to supply the insurgents with weapons capable of inflicting the harm that we faced in Vietnam.
Give it up!
November 3rd, 2003 at 4:09 pm
jbc, well stated. I do not however think you should admit to any “element of truth” to the accusation that you are somehow “celebrating” American casualties. You have successfully illustrated that the losses in Iraq today are as unacceptable as were those taken in Viet Nam. This is the exact opposite of what the administration and some of the press have been doing by preventing television coverage of returning caskets at Dover AFB and down playing the casualties so far. Your name calling critic seems unaware that the Viet Nam war was also essentially a terrorist insurgency, one that our leaders chose to intervene in for ideological reasons. There, the American military inflicted casualties on the enemy at a rate of at least 20 to 1, a military victory by any standard. Problem was we took a political ass whipping. We did not cut and run (as Laurence insulted) but rather our leaders came to the realization that they had made a horrifying miscalculation. They began to see the real face of the enemy through the fog of their ideology. They realized that in order to win they would have to virtually eliminate the Vietnamese as a people as they would otherwise never give up. This of course could have easily been done, but not without bringing the weight of the rest of the world to bear against us. You see, what our leaders told us we were fighting against then was not at all what the Vietnamese people in fact believed they were fighting for. (See any similarities here Laurence?)
To anyone who still believes in the accepted logic for invading Iraq in the first place, it should be obvious that the insurgents already have WMD’s stashed somewhere with which they might inflict casualties against our forces. Not withstanding the apparently thin veracity of that argument, our forces are still in danger of being attacked anywhere at anytime by RPG’s and AK’s and “improvised explosive devices” which as it seems obvious have already been abundantly supplied to the Iraqi’s by “outside sources”. Don’t forget to factor in that there will be sickness and death resulting from our use of and our troop’s exposure to depleted uranium munitions. (Read Gulf War Syndrome). I don’t think it is beyond anyone’s imagination (except maybe the President’s) that we could yet be in store for casualty levels in Iraq that would parallel Viet Nam. There is no celebration in suggesting this and to say otherwise is slanderous. The commander in Iraq calls the current fight “a low intensity conflict”. I guess that’s different than a war. I wonder if it matters to the families of the dead and wounded. Bring them home now!
To Laurence; you should do a little more reading and a lot more independent thinking before you call anyone else an idiot.
November 3rd, 2003 at 7:18 pm
PR wrote “To Laurence; you should do a little more reading and a lot more independent thinking before you call anyone else an idiot. ”
Or maybe he should just run as Republican candidate for President
November 4th, 2003 at 10:30 am
mmr – Good suggestion. He seems entirely qualified by current standards in that he seems to be unaware of the recent demise of the Soviets.
November 7th, 2003 at 10:09 am
Lawrence Wagman’s observations will go a long way to comfort grieving mothers, I’m sure –
Ma’am, I have some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is your son is dead.
The good news is the “war” ended months ago.
Therefore, your son’s death is mathematically void of any logic.
Have a nice day.
And don’t forget to vote Republican.
Auf vieder sein.
November 7th, 2003 at 10:35 am
One thing you might want to take a look at in your statistics though: the ratio of dead soldiers to total number of soldiers stationed in both Vietnam and Iraq over the same time period. I’d imagine that the charts would look considerably different — at least at this point in the occupation.
This is not to say that dead soldiers in either war were/are acceptable; merely that in a comparison of the relative “success” of the two wars, fairness dictates that you present the facts from as many angles as possible. After all, we wouldn’t want to accuse you of FoxNews-style “fairness and balance.”
At any rate, let’s just hope those brown lines on your charts end well before the green ones do.
November 7th, 2003 at 10:48 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_Theory
November 7th, 2003 at 10:54 am
It is true that there are differences between the number of soldiers posted, just as there is a huge difference between the post-war occupation of Iraq and the early conflict between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. Also, U.S. troops, dressed (as the British Marines joke) like Ninja Turtles in their body armor, cruising through the desert in Humvees and sleeping in well-defended dormitories, are significantly safer than GI’s in the dense forests of the central highlands of Vietnam, trying to shut down the Ho Chi Minh trail, or patrolling the Cu Chi region and its 150 miles of underground tunnels.
Meaningful analogies are difficult to draw – there are always differences between two analogous situations (otherwise, after all, they would be “the same” as opposed to “analogous”), and it is not always possible to discern beforehand which similaries and differences will ultimately prove to be the most salient.
November 7th, 2003 at 10:55 am
I think it would be far more interesting to compare something like the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
We “won” the war, and installed our tame government. That makes the engagement very different then Vietnam.
Of course, we are also dealing with a society that was veeeery militarized. There are militia groups all over, weapons and ammo are spread
out. It’s not like we can bomb the border with Iran (or, hell, if we’re doing nam comparisons, bomb Iran and Syria) and stop supply runs.
We’re dealing here with an insurgancy, not a war. Look at Afghanistan, or the British in India, or something.
November 7th, 2003 at 11:35 am
I have never seen a site that is so straight forward about the facts of Bush’s so called “War In Iraq.” Since Bush has been in the presidency, the towers in NYC have fallen, planes have crashed, and innocent people have lost their lives. The question is: After all this, does Bush, Jr. cry behind closed doors for the damage that he has done in this country? I believe Bush Jr. is continuing his father’s personal struggle with Saddam and Iraq. I personally do not think that Saddam in Iraq is a problem. The U.S. had hired Saddam at one point to assasinate Iraqi leaders so that they could take over the Middle East. My prayers and deepest sorrows to all those who died in the attacks and in “war.” Gentlemen (and ladies) you can thank your president.100.
November 7th, 2003 at 11:53 am
You are an asshole.
You want more deaths of our sons and daughters of our friends and neighbors to make your crapola political argument hold up!!! That is absolutely disgusting. In Saddam’s Iraq your body parts would be hacked off for saying something like that. In America, you can get away with it, but that doesn’t keep people like me from verbally puking on you.
Your ‘analysis’ is a pseudo-statistical load of bullshit. Just because you can use Excel does not make you some kind of whiz-bang political analyst. You tried to use the charts to reinforce your stupid ideas. The wars in Iraq and Vietnam are totally different. It seems that the liberal assholes like yourself love Vietnam and word quagmire. Let me tell you: Iraq’s guerillas are a ragtag bunch of idiots being bribed by someone to use leftover RPGs, rockets and explosives against not only US troops but their own people and people from the UN and Red Cross there to help them. They want to restore a brutal dictatorship that was dedicated to sucking the country dry and killing anyone who got in their way. Vietnam’s guerillas were well-trained, highly motivated, well-financed (by N. Vietnam and the USSR), and well-led fighters. There have have been 300 killed in Iraq. There were 40,000 killed in Vietnam. Go to Washington. Look at the wall with 40,000 names on it. There will not be 40,000 troops killed in Iraq and you know it.
You have absolutely no valid arguments other than the the war is wrong, not practical, and people are getting hurt. That is a Big FG Deal argument. Tell us, wise ass, why you think it is wrong, why it is not practical, and why it is not worth getting people hurt. Anybody can mouth pseudo-intellectual words without an ounce of backup except references to some crackpot anti-war website. You are not paying attention to what is happening to Iraqi society other than the body counts. Look, read, and understand instead of putting your tiny brain in a meat grinder run by some jerks who know absolutely knowthing about geopolitics, war, or geography.
The Iraqi people are good people. They are well-educated people who if given a chance can build a great country. They do not deserve to have your dictator killing and torturing them. They deserve freedom and a chance to do whatever they want to free from fear and tyranny. It is absolutely exciting to see how things are changing in that country. If you read nothing but bullshit from bullshitters all day you learn nothing. There are ample sources for news other than our stupid news media and the hate-filled crap you must read all day. Some of them actually present facts rather than opinions and storylines.
Let me repeat myself.
You are an asshole.
November 7th, 2003 at 12:26 pm
Very interesting. But you know what is more telling than this? The fact that the neocons still believe to this day that we coulda shoulda won the Vietnam war. They still say that the world would be more democratic, the US would be more influential in that sphere. I can’t find it now on the internet, but Rumsfeld once gave a speech to fellow neocons about the lessons of Vietnam. Their point of view is that they were’t allowed to win. Bull turd.
The “hawks” as we called them back then f*cked it up back then and they’re f*cking it up now. We learned our lesson back then, but the people of the US have a short memory. When this debacle finally plays itself out, the US will have lost prestige throughout the world (we already have), will be much less safe due to the terrorists we are creating, and the US will be even more polarized politically than during the fiasco that was the Vietnam war.
November 7th, 2003 at 1:27 pm
Um, there are what, 120,000 Americans in Iraq? How many were in Vietnam in 1961? Not much if I recall correctly. How about we make this an apples to apples comparison — or is that too much to ask from someone who proclaims to devoted to exposing lies?
November 7th, 2003 at 1:46 pm
CPG,
I put some numbers in a comment on the earlier item; here they are again:
On the earlier questions about troop levels at various stages, it’s been harder to come up with definitive numbers. For Iraq, I have a number of 148,000 US troops in July of this year, and 130,000 in October. For Vietnam, I have snapshot figures of troop levels as follows:
Dec 61: 3,200
Dec 62: 11,500
Dec 63: 16,300
Dec 64: 23,300
Dec 65: 184,300
Dec 66: 425,300
Dec 67: 485,600
Dec 68: 536,100
Dec 69: 474,400
Dec 70: 335,800
Jun 71: 250,900
I hope to redo the graphs to include the respective troop levels, since I agree that that would make an interesting point of comparison.
Again, though, for those who find the whole exercise stupid, or annoying, I’m not claiming any particular similarity in the military situations in Iraq and Vietnam. My reason for putting the graphs together the way I did was to help me better understand the domestic political history of the two wars. I wanted to get a better feel for the timeline as it played out in terms of the number of bodies coming home at different points during the war, and what US politicians were saying and doing in response to those deaths.
I’m not saying that’s more important than the other issues people have raised in the comments above. But it’s what I was thinking at the time.
November 7th, 2003 at 2:17 pm
I agree that you need to normalize the numbers based on soldiers in theater. It’s also disingenuous to start the Vietnam line at ’61. Major non-training operations in Vietnam didn’t start until significantly later. If you do happen to find in country troop deployment numbers, KIA, WIA broken down by month would you drop me a line? I’m interested in running the numbers as well. It is unfair to compare Iraq and Vietnam at a high level, there are so many differences between the two conflicts, however what needs to be determined, to further the discussion on the subject is ARE things going worse, from a casualty standpoint in Iraq than they did in Vietnam. Getting the numbers out there will help move that discussion. They are a starting point. Once they’re out there then you can start pointing out differences and why one is not comparable to the other.
A few links for you:
http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/castop.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs/urbcasstudy.pdf
Very interested in what you come up with, I’ve been looking for the same numbers today.
November 7th, 2003 at 5:08 pm
Actually, many people all over the world under threat of terrorism from Islamists are very worried that the US invasion is going badly. The price of failure will be very high.
There seems to be no more mention in the offficial media about WMDs – the purported reason for the war. That makes it difficult for other governments to participate in the war effort, even though they might wish too.
November 7th, 2003 at 8:42 pm
The lesson that perhaps the neocons should derive from Vietnam is not that we “could have” won a military victory (perhaps by bombing the Red River dams, and taking advantage of the mass starvation that would have resulted in the North, or by use of a similarly genocidal tactic that the neocons would somehow justify as morally proper).
They should take the time to take a look at modern Vietnam, which is far more totalitarian than communist, where the army operates a chain of hotels in order to subsidize its operations (and yes, you can serve out your mandatory military service as a desk clerk or maid), and where a very high percentage of workers work seven days a week for a low income, and cheat on their taxes. It’s a neocon dreamland. Given that context, how can they think we lost?
You know what else? With far fewer resources than are presently available to the Iraqi people, they managed to rebuild their own country. When Mr. Slater took time out from his temper tantrum to observe, “They are well-educated people who if given a chance can build a great country”, it inspired me to ask – “Then why don’t we let them?”
November 8th, 2003 at 12:49 am
When Mr. Slater took time out from his temper tantrum to observe, “They are well-educated people who if given a chance can build a great country”, it inspired me to ask – “Then why don’t we let them?”
If you would read something other than the liberal/anti-war/anti-Bush media you will find there are a lot of positive things going on in Iraq. Lots and lots. Schools, hospitals, media, power, oil, political activity, commerce, freedom of speech, freedom from having to worry about being picked up and tortured, etc etc etc etc.
Everyone, including those anti-Bush people, recognize that security is the number 1 problem in Iraq and that security problems will not be solved until more Iraqis are recruited and trained to help with their own security. This has been an on-going priority for the US forces since the end of major hostilities. Bringing in 200,000 more of our own troops won’t solve the problems. We (US and Iraqi security forces) are gradually getting control of the country with what we have. In outlying regions things are under control.
We need to hunt down and kill those elements (outsiders and former Baathists) that are causing the problems. They have watched Blackhawk Down one too many times and haven’t realized yet that Bush will not look at an unfavorable poll and pull out of Iraq like some of our other presidents might have. A lot of these thugs are not doing it for patriotic reasons or because they hate the US but because they are getting paid large amounts of money to do it. Keep in mind that the thugs doing the killing are killing their own people, people who are there to help their country, and not just US soldiers. They are therefore just criminals and not freedom fighters or whatever the media wants to glamourize them as. This, to me, is a short term problem.
It seems that there is a lot of politically motivated impatience in our country with the situation in Iraq. Iraq is a fairly large country with a large and diverse population. The people are well-educated and love the freedom they have now. They have suffered under a brutal dictatorship for 30 years. It is difficult for a country to go from totalitarism to total freedom in a short period of time yet there are those people in our country who expect 6 month miracles while the rebuilding of Japan and Germany took 3-4 years or more. Of course there have been mistakes made. There will be more made. But the fact remains we have removed a dictator that was sucking his country dry and killing and terrorizing his own people and was, whether you think so or not, a threat to the region and the world. Why he was I will leave as a class assignment. Hint: oil.
The Democratic candidates had better tread lightly on the Iraq issue once the primaries are over. I suspect they will. They can’t now or the foaming-at-the-mouth Bush haters won’t nominate them. Lieberman, a good man, will lose because of that. He is too honest to pander to all the loud, goofy groups that make up the Democratic Party. Problem is that the candidates are generating a lot of silly words and images that can and will be replayed at a later date. Running left during the primaries and moving to the center after the primaries may not work on the Iraq issue. Keep in mind that Bush has 100 million in the bank. That will buy a lot of ads to counter Bush Bad ads. If Iraq improves and the economy keeps improving, he will win.
The Vietnam – Iraq comparsion is still a crock of shit. There is no comparsion. None what soever. Anyone who thinks so is absolutely nuts and wasting their time.
And anyone who wants to see more Americans die so they can make a stupid political point is an asshole. I want to hear a Democratic candidate say that if it is so important to the Democratic Party members that they have to say something like that so they win. If they did I would be willing to bet big money that the electoral college result would be Rep 520 Dem 0. Something like “As a candidate for the presidency I want to see 30,000 American troops killed this week in Iraq so our people here at home will realize what great bunch of people the Democrats are (forget we voted for the war too).” would do. Go ahead McAuliffe, Dean, Clark, etc. Take a chance. Some of them would love to say it. That is sad.
November 8th, 2003 at 10:43 am
Mr. Slater, I did not state that there was not a lot of reconstruction going on in Iraq. What I asked was, why aren’t we letting the Iraqi’s rebuild their own country?
There are, incidentally, points of comparison between Iraq and Vietnam, as well as significant points of contrast. It is important to recognize the similarities, so as to avoid repeating mistakes of the past, while also recognizing the differences, so as to avoid making mistakes on the basis of a misreading of history. (At some point, it is fair to point out that even if you’re talking ‘apples and oranges’, you’re talking about fruit.)
As for security, it’s not a talismanic answer to the problems in Iraq. With the amount of territory and infrastructure that needs to be “secured” in order to prevent effective sabotage or “hit and run” guerrilla attacks, security will be a long time coming. Do you not think that, if the local people were more involved in rebuilding their own nation and in the future ownership of their nation’s infrastructure, they would take a greater interest in protecting it from sabotage?
Do you disagree that people are typically far more protective of their own interests and property, than of the interests and property of others? Than of the interests and property of a foreign, occupying power?
November 8th, 2003 at 6:46 pm
Military Fatalities in Iraq
Here is some more information on the fatalities in Iraq. Both are from partisan left-wing websites, however their count is…
November 10th, 2003 at 5:56 am
Dennis Slater said: “A lot of these thugs are not doing it for patriotic reasons or because they hate the US but because they are getting paid large amounts of money to do it.”
That darned invisible hand of the marketplace is causing trouble again!
Speaking of invisible You didn’t mention the WMDs, the reconstituted nuclear program, or the hundreds of tons of bio-chem weapons this invasion was sold on.
And regarding that “your dictator” remark, check your history pal. The only “American” I’ve seen shaking hands with Saddam is Donald Rumsfeld acting at the behest of the Reagan administration about the same time Saddam was gassing all those civilians that only now (nearly two decades later) do the neo-cons feign concern over.
Dennis, do please share with us the list of fair and balanced news sources that have enlightened you to your viewpoint.
And “verbal puke,” as you describe you own remarks, is a truly appropriate description of your rantings. Tell me, do you find it difficult to type while crying and stamping your feet?
November 12th, 2003 at 10:50 pm
There are, incidentally, points of comparison between Iraq and Vietnam, as well as significant points of contrast.
Please tell me how the Viet Cong are similar to the thugs blowing up Iraqi civilians, aid workers, coalition troops, and US troops? How is our overall involvement in Iraq similar to our involvement in Vietnam? I can see few, if any, points of comparsion between the two wars. The geopolitics, the geography, the weapons, the people, the leadership, the opponents, etc., are all considerably different from where I sit.
November 12th, 2003 at 11:03 pm
Do you not think that, if the local people were more involved in rebuilding their own nation and in the future ownership of their nation’s infrastructure, they would take a greater interest in protecting it from sabotage?
Didn’t I say that the long run solution to the problems in Iraq are involvement of the Iraqis in their own security and that the administration was doing all it can to increase the Iraqi level of participation in security matters? All the reports I have seen show Iraqis running the projects involved in restoring the infrastructure of the country. Maybe you have seen them in a different light. I see people starting newspapers, businesses, schools, Internet cafes, TV satellite dishes, etc., without the US getting involved at all.
There are big problems in Iraq for sure. They are not going to be solved overnight. It is going to take time and patience. I feel that it will happen IF a certain level of security is achieved. Once the people of Iraq have tasted true freedom for a year, they will never return to Baathist Party or accept a fundamentalist Islamic government.
November 21st, 2003 at 10:27 am
Slater writes – tell me how the Viet Cong are similar to the thugs blowing up Iraqi civilians, aid workers, coalition troops and US toops? How is our overall involvement etc. etc.
Iraqi thugs, like the VC do/did not want us in their country. The other similarity is that in both cases we interceded in something that was arguably none of our business and our reasons for doing so were arguably based on incorrect premises. Sadaam was threating to burn half of Israel at the same time that photo was taken of him shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld. Can you even for a second imagine that your leaders, willfully or mistakenly might not be acting in your best interest?
November 21st, 2003 at 12:56 pm
Slater also says: And anyone who wants to see more Americans die so they can make a stupid political point is an asshole.
Granted – Thing is though I don’t think you can seriously take that from what the originator of this thread or anyone else is trying to say. Your whole rant to that effect is similar to the kind of tactic we’ll see from the soon to be released RNC ads which will depict anyone who disagrees with the President’s policies as standing in the way in the fight on terrorism. Such tactics are not only insulting but dangerous. Commentators like Coulter and Limbaugh argue this way – agree with me or you are a traitor. If you can’t intelligently debate it, convolute it, discredit it or wave your flag at it. When all else fails – lie about it. That’s how you persuade the uninformed and the weak. The intelligent never fall for it.
November 21st, 2003 at 4:10 pm
Your whole rant to that effect is similar to the kind of tactic we’ll see from the soon to be released RNC ads which will depict anyone who disagrees with the President’s policies as standing in the way in the fight on terrorism.
I haven’t seen the ads so I cannot comment on them.
Do you think that the terrorists do not look at our media? Do you think that they might tailor their tactics to take advantage of the latest anti-war rhetoric. You do not think that hearing and watching Democrats and the media day-in-and-day-out trash the US President doesn’t encourage them and make them more willing to continue with their killing? Listen to their rhetoric. It matches the rhetoric of the angry left. That is not a coincidence in my opinion. Degrading Bush and our country does not take place in a geopolitical vacuum. The Democrats can whine all they want about people accusing them of being less than patriotic during a war because from where I sit they are. It would be nice to hear Democrats say something like this “We support 100% the war on terrorism. We support continuing it until we are 100% secure from attack. We fully support 100% President Bush’s efforts. We, as the opposition party, however, naturally disagree with him on some of the things he has done and how to conduct the war.” I may be wrong but we don’t hear or haven’t heard anything close to that. All we hear is Bush bashing. There is a way to respectfully disagree without encouraging the enemy. The old worn out bumper sticker slogan has an element of truth to it, IMO, “United we stand, divided we fall” It looks like the Democrats want us to fall because they have done absolutely nothing to unite us. (If they have, let me know what it is.)
IMPORTANT-DO NOT IGNORE: These people (terrorists) have zero chance of winning unless they can get the US to pull out and the only way they can get us to pull out is to get rid of Bush and kill enough people to make the faint-hearted in the US give up. Everytime the faint-hearted open their mouth in dissent they help the enemy IMO. They sure have a right to do so but I think they should fine a better, supportive of our country way to do it.
The problem is that the terrorists do not know what an open society is. Ours is an open society and people do not get their ears hacked off for calling Bush names. People who have never known freedom do not understand this. Since we now have a leader who does use polls to determine foreign policy the terrorists have a problem: their tactics will not work like it did in Somalia. We will not run unless a Democrat is elected in 2004.
Remember in 1982 when the Iranians took Americans hostage for over 400 days? Remember what happened when Ronald Reagan took office? Jimmy Carter tried reasoning and everything with these people. Terrorists understand only one thing – force. If you think you can negotiate with a terrorist with an RPG you are, I’m sorry, a fool. This is a war and it would be nice if the Democratic Party would help win it instead of helping the enemy.
November 24th, 2003 at 9:29 am
Slater – I rather doubt that terrorists are sitting around reading the Village Voice and deciding their next moves. I hate to break it you but you will never be 100% secure from attack unless you kill everyone in the world who wishes you harm. Are you prepared to do that? If so, you should know that may number in the millions and that the numbers are growing every day BECAUSE many perceive our actions to be hostile towards them. Can we establish that we are all opposed to having ourselves blown up by terrorists? Some of us just disagree with you as to how to best prevent it. Can you fathom that? If so, can you stop accusing us of being traitors? I don’t support any war, but there are things we can do to fight terrorists. Like not selling them weapons for starters! By not making business deals with them! By spying on them and finding out their plans and stopping them before they have a chance to carry them out. These are all things we had a chance to do for decades and which we failed to do adequately. Can you stop with partisan politics long enough to really work towards correcting these mistakes. The truth is there is only one additional thing we can do to fight terrorists. Stop recruiting for them.
December 10th, 2003 at 9:05 am
Amazing…To compare Vietnam with Iraq is like comparing Boston Redsox to the NY Yankees. Both are baseball teams but one has been successful and one has not been.
First the math. Obviously the individual who posted this article is NOT an actuary. At the rate our soldiers are dying in Iraq it will take between 80-100 years before we reach the Vietnam numbers. Unlike Vietnam where at this point in the process the war was building up. In Iraq the war is over. What we are facing effectively are insurgents and other terrorists. Hardly an organized fighting force backed by two military superpowers (USSR and China) as was the case with Vietnam. (Note to soldiers the saddest thing about Vietnam was you were not allowed to win!)
The truth about Iraq is this…Thank god we are there! Period. Liberals like the author of this article do not realize that we HAVE to WIN this war. Iraq is the third battle field of this war (the first was the US, second Afghanastan, and third is Iraq). In Iraq we have a country that for the most part supports us being there (see zogby.com for information on this – Note Zogby’s brother heads up and American Muslim organization). The prospects of winning in Iraq has caused Al Queda to shift resources to Iraq which shows the legitimacy of our cause, as well as a centralized place to kill them (as opposed to NYC or LA)
In today’s war fare we have different stakes. No longer can we feel safe because we have the strongest conventional army in the world. The reason for this is because of nuclear weapons. If the terrorists or a terrorist state obtains a nuclear weapon, the future prospects of the world becomes very very dim. The United States MUST, defeat these people for this reason if none other.
The liberals on this site like to sympathize with soliders, (Ironically the same ones they spit on when they came home from Vietnam)…The best way to support our soldiers is to support their mission. Our Soldiers understand the risk they have taken, and are very supportive of this commander in chief. In the last election 65% of them voted against the VP of their former commander in chief, and I would expect this percentage to grow despite this war. The mission they are on is just and necessary for the protection of our country and idiots like the author of this article!
Finally, in the 2.5 years since 9-11 we have freed close to 50 million people from some of the most tyrannical governments in the world. Estimates by UN (not a wing of the GOP to say the least) has indicated that Saddam has killed hundred of thousands of his own people. In Afghanastan for the first time in my life time (30 years) the country is not faced with the long term prospect of dealing with Soviet Invaders or radical Islamics. For Liberals to ignore this is an insult to the people who have suffered the most!
December 10th, 2003 at 9:05 am
Amazing…To compare Vietnam with Iraq is like comparing Boston Redsox to the NY Yankees. Both are baseball teams but one has been successful and one has not been.
First the math. Obviously the individual who posted this article is NOT an actuary. At the rate our soldiers are dying in Iraq it will take between 80-100 years before we reach the Vietnam numbers. Unlike Vietnam where at this point in the process the war was building up. In Iraq the war is over. What we are facing effectively are insurgents and other terrorists. Hardly an organized fighting force backed by two military superpowers (USSR and China) as was the case with Vietnam. (Note to soldiers the saddest thing about Vietnam was you were not allowed to win!)
The truth about Iraq is this…Thank god we are there! Period. Liberals like the author of this article do not realize that we HAVE to WIN this war. Iraq is the third battle field of this war (the first was the US, second Afghanastan, and third is Iraq). In Iraq we have a country that for the most part supports us being there (see zogby.com for information on this – Note Zogby’s brother heads up and American Muslim organization). The prospects of winning in Iraq has caused Al Queda to shift resources to Iraq which shows the legitimacy of our cause, as well as a centralized place to kill them (as opposed to NYC or LA)
In today’s war fare we have different stakes. No longer can we feel safe because we have the strongest conventional army in the world. The reason for this is because of nuclear weapons. If the terrorists or a terrorist state obtains a nuclear weapon, the future prospects of the world becomes very very dim. The United States MUST, defeat these people for this reason if none other.
The liberals on this site like to sympathize with soliders, (Ironically the same ones they spit on when they came home from Vietnam)…The best way to support our soldiers is to support their mission. Our Soldiers understand the risk they have taken, and are very supportive of this commander in chief. In the last election 65% of them voted against the VP of their former commander in chief, and I would expect this percentage to grow despite this war. The mission they are on is just and necessary for the protection of our country and idiots like the author of this article!
Finally, in the 2.5 years since 9-11 we have freed close to 50 million people from some of the most tyrannical governments in the world. Estimates by UN (not a wing of the GOP to say the least) has indicated that Saddam has killed hundred of thousands of his own people. In Afghanastan for the first time in my life time (30 years) the country is not faced with the long term prospect of dealing with Soviet Invaders or radical Islamics. For Liberals to ignore this is an insult to the people who have suffered the most!
December 10th, 2003 at 9:06 am
Amazing…To compare Vietnam with Iraq is like comparing Boston Redsox to the NY Yankees. Both are baseball teams but one has been successful and one has not been.
First the math. Obviously the individual who posted this article is NOT an actuary. At the rate our soldiers are dying in Iraq it will take between 80-100 years before we reach the Vietnam numbers. Unlike Vietnam where at this point in the process the war was building up. In Iraq the war is over. What we are facing effectively are insurgents and other terrorists. Hardly an organized fighting force backed by two military superpowers (USSR and China) as was the case with Vietnam. (Note to soldiers the saddest thing about Vietnam was you were not allowed to win!)
The truth about Iraq is this…Thank god we are there! Period. Liberals like the author of this article do not realize that we HAVE to WIN this war. Iraq is the third battle field of this war (the first was the US, second Afghanastan, and third is Iraq). In Iraq we have a country that for the most part supports us being there (see zogby.com for information on this – Note Zogby’s brother heads up and American Muslim organization). The prospects of winning in Iraq has caused Al Queda to shift resources to Iraq which shows the legitimacy of our cause, as well as a centralized place to kill them (as opposed to NYC or LA)
In today’s war fare we have different stakes. No longer can we feel safe because we have the strongest conventional army in the world. The reason for this is because of nuclear weapons. If the terrorists or a terrorist state obtains a nuclear weapon, the future prospects of the world becomes very very dim. The United States MUST, defeat these people for this reason if none other.
The liberals on this site like to sympathize with soliders, (Ironically the same ones they spit on when they came home from Vietnam)…The best way to support our soldiers is to support their mission. Our Soldiers understand the risk they have taken, and are very supportive of this commander in chief. In the last election 65% of them voted against the VP of their former commander in chief, and I would expect this percentage to grow despite this war. The mission they are on is just and necessary for the protection of our country and idiots like the author of this article!
Finally, in the 2.5 years since 9-11 we have freed close to 50 million people from some of the most tyrannical governments in the world. Estimates by UN (not a wing of the GOP to say the least) has indicated that Saddam has killed hundred of thousands of his own people. In Afghanastan for the first time in my life time (30 years) the country is not faced with the long term prospect of dealing with Soviet Invaders or radical Islamics. For Liberals to ignore this is an insult to the people who have suffered the most!
December 12th, 2003 at 2:48 pm
Slater,
In the eight months and three weeks of the Iraq war, roughly 450 American soldiers have died, 69 percent in battle and the rest in “non-hostile” incidents that include friendly fire, suicides, and vehicle accidents. Another 2,500 have been wounded, all but 360 in combat. An additional few thousand have been MedEvacked out of the country for treatment of illnesses; more than 500 in this group were listed as psychiatric cases related to “combat stress, depression, anxiety.” Many of the 2,500 wounded would have been killed had they not been wearing Kevlar vests. So much for “math”.
It’s not the rate of casualties that is at issue here anyhow, it is the futility of the expenditure. What does victory look like to you in Iraq? Iraqis living in peaceful prosperity and harmony? I suppose it’s possible. Want to bet YOUR life on it?
December 12th, 2003 at 2:56 pm
The president is grieved by U.S. casualties. He also worries they’ll cost him votes.
The Bodies Come Home
by Sydney H. Schanberg
December 10 – 16, 2003
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0350/schanberg.php
December 14th, 2003 at 6:57 am
The Democrats have to find something else to complain about now that Saddam Hussein has been captured, a truly remarkable feat. I suppose they can still complain about Osama Bin Laden.
December 15th, 2003 at 3:30 pm
Read the comments…I enjoy the discussion of statistics and reason. Some like to counter that with ideology and thoughtless, empty patriotism. Give us facts, not your right-wing hate banter.
December 16th, 2003 at 9:28 am
In light of the latest news. Any of you naive individuals want to take back your point about Iraq being like Vietnam?
Didn’t think so!!!
December 17th, 2003 at 9:56 am
Wagman,
Did you read any of the comments above other than those that agreed with your position? I didn’t think so. The comparisons have to do with the purpose and likely success of the endeavor. In your mind was the ultimate purpose of the invasion of Iraq regime change? If so, can you conceive of any other scenario whereby that might have been accomplished other than the war as it was conducted? The objections to the war by thinking and unbiased people have to do not with the desired end result but the means by which that result was and is being pursued. Our current problems stem from the fact that we did not think it through. Even after the success of the original invasion and the elimination of Hussein and many of his cronies, what are we left with? Are Americans any safer? Surely not those associated with the statistics that we are citing here. Was the real purpose of the invasion to establish a friendly forward position for further actions against terrorists? If so, good luck doing that on a civil war battle field. Just like in Viet Nam we are meddling here with something that we have insufficient knowledge of. Right now the Kurds and the Shiites are quite pleased and the non Kurdish Sunnis are not. Want to bet your life and the lives of your loved ones on what happens next? Just like I said before, our worst miscalculation in Viet Nam was that what we thought we were fighting against and what the “communist” insurgents were fighting for were two completely different things. There is the crux of your comparison.
December 17th, 2003 at 10:22 am
By the way Wagman, I know a lot of people who opposed the Viet Nam war and absolutely none first hand or anecdotally who ever spit on any returning soldiers. Further more I would suggest that any individuals who ever did so where either completely nuts or were agent provocateurs hired by the FBI to discredit the anti-war movement. A now well known strategy (ever here of COINTELPRO? do a Google search) that apparently worked very well on some of the feeble minded. I would also suggest that anyone who ever spit on any of our returning service men would have ended up on the short end of that encounter. I totally opposed the Viet Nam war then and now and I have supported and honored Viet Nam veterans over the years by donating to groups that have assisted them and by visiting the Viet Nam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago and the Memorial wall in Washington. Your narrow minded implication is an insult to free thought and expression everywhere. Before you ever have the notion to insult anyone in such a manner in person you should be aware that not all anti-war activists are necessarily pacifists.
January 2nd, 2004 at 9:21 am
“There were 506 killed by the time the newspaper (Army Times) closed last Friday. Since then, another seven have died. The newspaper has said this is the deadliest year for the U.S. military since 1972, when 640 were killed in Vietnam”. — Jimmy Breslin.
Follow this link to read Mr. Breslin’s entire article –
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres303605595dec30,0,3326303.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
Those killed supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom – Follow this link for the entire Army Times article.
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html —-
January 2nd, 2004 at 9:37 am
Also follow this link to the Army Times to see the results of a poll they conducted among soldiers serving in Iraq. In fact it does show that although a majority of troops support the Presdident’s policies in Iraq, it’s not by much and a significant number do not respond because it’s supposed to be military policy to refrain from voicing one’s political opinion.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2513919.php
Also follow this link to an article by Scripps Howard News Service that contains detailed information concerning American casualties in Iraq to date.
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=IRAQ-DEATHS-12-31-03&cat=AN
January 2nd, 2004 at 11:20 am
I would like to site from the aforementioned Scripps Howard News Service article a bit of analysis that I believe to be relevant.
– For the first time in the war, a majority of all U.S. deaths from hostile causes in December came from the makeshift bombs designated “improvised explosive devices” by the military. In all, 70 percent of December’s hostile deaths were attributed to the bombs, compared with 34 percent in November.
Draw your own conclusion but I believe it indicates a fundamental change in the strategy and nature of the insurgency and presents a significant increase in the risks to our troops as well as to Iraqi civilians and police. If true, we should prepare for deadlier attacks in the coming months. Much effort has been made by our officials to shift from the discredited original WMD and threat assessment justification for the war to one that heralds the “liberation” of the Iraqi people. Yet very little attention has been paid by our press to the affects on the civilian population of the liberation itself, the 1991 war and the subsequent sanctions, the use of depleted uranium munitions by us during both wars and the effects on the young and unborn, and now the occupation. I can guarantee you that people throughout the Middle East are well aware of all of the above (To see what the average Middle Easterner is reading these days take a look at – //english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E4D19123-9DD3-11D1-B44E-006097071264.htm. One thing for certain, there is a growing and festering hatred among these people for America. No matter what your opinion is on the “liberation” of Iraq I guarantee you that this festering hatred does not bode well for the future of peace in the world. However well intentioned he may be, our President by invading Iraq has not made America, the Middle East or the world a safer place for anyone.
January 2nd, 2004 at 12:40 pm
Even though I seem to be the only one still following this thread I can’t help myself. If you’re still reading, check out the following from one Col. David Hackworth compliments of none other than the right-fringe World Nut Daily.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36375
In it he states:
Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military’s Transportation Command told me that as of Dec. 23, his outfit had evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries.
Of the battle casualties, 473 died and 3,255 were wounded by hostile fire.
That’s right – 3,255 wounded by hostile fire!!!!!!! That’s what it says.
And these are not minor wounds either. They are amputations and crippling shrapnel wounds. Again suggesting that the fatality rate would be much higher if not for Kevlar.
How many Americans are aware of this number?
Statistically speaking – NONE that’s how many.
Shame on the COWARDS and TRAITORS of the mainstream American “free” press.
January 5th, 2004 at 10:44 am
Seems I can’t pick a fight with anyone. Let’s try again. Going back to a previous post by Slater on November 21, he states;
“Remember in 1982 when the Iranians took Americans hostage for over 400 days? Remember what happened when Ronald Reagan took office? Jimmy Carter tried reasoning and everything with these people. Terrorists understand only one thing – force. If you think you can negotiate with a terrorist with an RPG you are, I’m sorry, a fool. This is a war and it would be nice if the Democratic Party would help win it instead of helping the enemy.”
Not sure exactly what the point of this rambling exactly was but the implication I guess was that Carter tried in vain to negotiate the release of the hostages but when Reagan took over they feared he might nuke them or something and that was enough to facilitate the release.
Slater and anyone else interested in this idea should check out the following link:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html
It appears that there is some fairly credible evidence that Reagan and Bush DID successfully negotiate with the Iranian “terrorists” for the release of the hostages “after” the election in exchange for illegal loan guarantees to be used for the purchase of, guess what? Weapons!
Seems enough evidence exists to at least warrant a Senate investigation since the charge is a fairly serious one, TREASON. Or not, but one still has to admit that it was a hell of coincidence that the Iranians decided to wait until Jimmy was out of office before giving up the hostages. Boy that Ronnie was a bad ass wasn’t he? Remember how he retaliated against the terrorists after 23 October 1983 when truck bombs exploded at both the U.S. and French Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The troops were in Lebanon attempting to help end the civil war/unrest. With Iranian and Syrian support, Islamic Jihad (or HizbAllah) had prepared two vehicles with sophisticated shaped charges of Composition-B. At 6:17 AM a suicide bomber drove a truck with a 300-kg charge into the U.S. Marine barracks near the Beirut airport. The building was partially destroyed, killing 241 American servicemen and injuring 146. Three minutes later, at 6:20 AM, a suicide bomber drove a truck with a 75-kg charge into the French marine barracks, killing 58 and injuring 15. Fatalities: 301″. Remember what he did in response to that? I do, he pulled the remaining troops out and brought them home which was probably the smartest thing he ever did.
Or how about his response to the probable act of terrorism which occurred on December 12, 1985 when an Arrow Air DC-8 crashed near Gander, Newfoundland, killing all aboard (101st ABN troops), 248 soldiers and 8 flight crew. The Newfoundland stopover via Cologne, Germany was the last leg in a return flight from Cairo where the 101st had been on a peacekeeping mission in Sinai. Remember what happened after that? Go here if you’re interested:
http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/investigations/union_report/html/_cover_page.shtml
I could see why the Iranians must have been shaking in their boots.
January 7th, 2004 at 6:22 pm
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I believe that no one will harm me because I can talk. I forgot what life is like outside the safe little habitat that I created for myself. So I will negotiate with the wolves when they come to blow down the house, because I forgot to build with brick.
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I love the death of others, it allows me to sink comfortably into my own self delusion that I’m logical. I pray for a soldier to die in order to espouse my lies because I hate a leader who leads.
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I forgot the basis of morality. I love to give away what others have worked for. Stateship should usurp ownership. I didn’t work for it, but I can use government to get it for me and those I pander to. Forget gainful employment, it’s much too painful.
January 9th, 2004 at 11:27 am
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I believe that no one will harm me because I can talk. I forgot what life is like outside the safe little habitat that I created for myself. So I will negotiate with the wolves when they come to blow down the house, because I forgot to build with brick.
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I love the death of others, it allows me to sink comfortably into my own self delusion that I’m logical. I pray for a soldier to die in order to espouse my lies because I hate a leader who leads.
Look at me… I’m a liberal! I forgot the basis of morality. I love to give away what others have worked for. Stateship should usurp ownership. I didn’t work for it, but I can use government to get it for me and those I pander to. Forget gainful employment, it’s much too painful.
Not exactly the kind of informed discussion that I was hoping to stimulate. Looks like Rush is off his meds again.
January 9th, 2004 at 2:30 pm
I really appreciated your web site. Seldom do political pundits resort to reason when stating their arguments but you’ve managed to do so.
On the comparison of Viet Nam and Iraq, I think you’re a bit understating the main distinction: the Iraqis are not the Vietnamese.
The will of the United States, whether righteous or misguided, is not easily deflected. I think the Vietnamese of the 1960s were much more able to stomach the worst that America could give them while the more advanced culture of Iraq could not.
A major reason that the U.S. lost in SouthEast Asia was that we couldn’t break the enemy’s back. We’d knock out a bridge, but locals had it repaired in a matter of hours. We’d bomb a railway line and grandmas on bikes would start transporting the cargo around the demolition site. Meanwhile, every time we made a move, Vietnamese innocents would die, more people would join the VC, and terrorist activities would step up.
Iraqis aren’t that committed. In Viet Nam, pretty much anybody could be an insurgent. Iraqi resistance to U.S. rule, on the other hand, has been primarily the work of the country’s right-wing nut-jobs. The terrorists wracking up daily tolls on American soldiers are Iraq’s equivalent of our KKK.
There’s an argument that Conservatives voiced often in the 1970s in which the Viet Nam war was likened to a badly played hand of poker. They argue that the USSR and Chinas’ unknown intentions kept us from attacking all out from the beginning; we never should have let the Vietnamese see the flop, let alone get to the river. The analogy found popularity again in explaining why Bush couldn’t wait for U.N. support before removing Saddam in light of sketchy intelligence (Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc). Yes, I’m also afraid of people who think the world is a zero-sum game of poker.
I personally believe that Bush et al. did everything they could to screw this up. The Irai people just were not like the Vietnamese. To us, the Viet Nam War lasted about a decade. But the Vietnamese were fighting the same war against the French before us, the Japanese before them, the Chinese before them, and every other imperialistic Eastern civilization to ever venture onto the penninsula. This was an enemy that wouldn’t give up no matter what we did; bomb the dikes, bomb the railroads, kill their leaders, bomb Hanoi, burn the villages, or even use nuclear weapons. Iraqis didn’t have the will nor the stamina for such a war. They didn’t like Saddam any more than Bush.
January 26th, 2004 at 1:01 pm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040124/MCNAMARA/TPColumnists/
Check out this link to see what McNamara has to say about Iraq.
Seth may be right about the Iraqi people’s lack of dedication to such a war. I think the Vietnamese people are a rare breed in their determination for independence. However I would not underestimate the oil, ethnic and religious factors in Iraq. I believe that the real danger that we face in Iraq is that the situation could spin out of control and into a full blown three way civil war between the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites with us again caught in the middle. Arguments have been made here that the Iraqi insurgents are not financed or armed by powerful outside forces like in VN. True, but that could change quickly if this blossoms into a conflict between groups now competing for control of Iraq’s oil fields. I think we have already seen signs of that happening with the bombings that have been directed at civilians and other non-American targets and the growing anger of the displaced Kurds of the northern oil cities that had been driven out by Hussein. Iraq may someday evolve into a secular democratic economy but it may take a few years of civil war before that happens. Who will rush in to help us control things in that event? The fact is there were legitimate reasons for deposing Hussein. But there were ways to go about doing it other than the course embarked upon by Bush and Blair. Unfortunately our leaders have not gotten to the heart of any of those reasons and they have failed miserably in every attempt to justify their actions on any basis. They would do themselves and all of us well at this point to just admit to that which has been obvious to the informed observer from the beginning. That is, that control of the future of Iraq’s oil wealth is far too important to the whole world to leave in the hands of a homicidal dictator like Hussein. That, they just might be able to convince someone of. If you think the potential for civil war exploding in Iraq is far fetched you might consider that because of the impending need to tap Iraq’s immense oil reserves, whoever ends up in control of Iraq will eventually become, like the Saudis, among the wealthiest and possibly the most powerful forces in the world. Obviously it would not have been in our or anyone else’s best interest if that beneficiary were to have been a homicidal dictator like Hussein. But it’s also why the US cannot let prevail any other group with a power agenda, potentially violent radical Islamic fundamentalists for example. The real argument against the war, other than the basic immorality of the destruction and slaughter of innocents, is that with an evil dictator in place, Iraq was a neutralized power. Embargoed, periodically bombed and otherwise contained, Iraq’s oil fields remained just what they were, reserves to be exploited when needed in the future. This seemed to suit just about everyone in the worlds best interest’s except of course the international oil companies and their ancillaries, Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Bush administration, whom of course wanted to commence with the exploiting now rather than later. Now what we have done is we have forced the issue as to who it is who will become wealthy and potentially powerful beyond imagination. Knowing what we know about human nature we might be forgiven if we fear that argument could become a bit messy and out of our control. This religious and ethnic factionalism along with violent fundamentalism, Pakistan’s and Israel’s nuclear capabilities, animosity between the Kurds and the Turks and the Israelis and Palestinians, the interests of the Russians, the Iranians, and the Pakistanis all present a combination of volatile factors in the region that were not similarly in play in Viet Nam. There are many more concerns and potential pitfalls in Iraq than there were in the war we lost. These are not meant to be predictions but rather are warnings lest anyone think that the “mission” is “accomplished”. The fact is, the only other logical reasoning at all for going to war now other than to oust Hussein is if the Iraq invasion was just a preliminary thrust in a planned broader war to be waged in stages to root out violently predisposed Islamic fundamentalists throughout the entire Middle East. Even the casual military strategist can’t help but notice that Iraq is extremely well situated strategically to achieve that aim. Between Afghanistan and Iraq we now have Iran in a classic pincer movement with a cooperative Pakistan in our rear on the east and Israel and Jordan backing our rear west and Kuwait and freindly governments in Saudi Arabia and Turkey on our south and north respectively. The Palestians in Jordan and the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon are trapped between us and the Israelis…pretty neat, huh? If anyone thinks that the sum total of the US response to the first ever attack on American soil was going to be the dropping of some bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq and the deposing of the Taliban and the Baath party and the capture, killing and detention of a few thousand thugs, then they should think again. Oh no my friends this is going to get real serious real soon. When you say? Oh, right around November 8th, 2004 or so depending on how long it takes the Supreme Court to sort out the results of the next Presidential election.
January 30th, 2004 at 10:06 am
Despite the capture of Saddam Hussein, there has been no let-up in U.S. casualties. As of mid-January, 500 U.S. soldiers have been killed–more than died in the first three years of the Vietnam War. Up to 22,000 more have been evacuated from Iraq for medical reasons. Twenty-one have committed suicide.
http://www.war-times.org/issues/15art1.html
February 6th, 2004 at 11:34 am
Some friends of mine who have read the above seem to think I made a better case for overthrowing Hussein than the Bush administration did. (If I did, that should tell you how badly they botched their case). To the contrary, consider this; if we could have taken the $200 billion plus that we spent on the war so far and used it to help finance the development of a hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure we could have rendered the issue of 20 billion bbls of oil under Iraq irrelevant. As far as the terror war goes and retaliation for 9/11 there is only one thing to say. Killing innocent people in response to the killing of innocent people is wrong, period. Nothing can justify it…nothing. And I’m not even religious. There are a number of things we can do to protect ourselves from future attacks. Dropping bombs on innocent heads is not one of them.
February 10th, 2004 at 7:36 pm
To compare Iraq to Vietnam, it might be best to use comparable data. U.S. troops were not committed to combat in Vietnam until 1965, before that time, they were advisors, attempting to train South Vietnamese soldiers to fight their own war. It was not until 1965 when Kennedy, yes a democrat, decided to send over combat troops to fight the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Therefore, to use the statistics from 1961 as the starting point does not give an accurate comparison. Can we have apples to apples please?
February 10th, 2004 at 9:37 pm
I’ve discussed this several times already, including on this page, above, but again, I’m not comparing the two conflicts from a military standpoint. I’m comparing them from a political standpoint. I’m looking at how presidents deal with the pressures they face at home when they have troops committed and bodybags (excuse me, “transfer tubes”) coming home.
Johnson (not Kennedy, who’d already been dead for two years) is the president who ramped up US troop levels in Vietnam in 1965. And yeah, if you wanted to answer a question about which war was more lethal on a per-soldier-in-theater basis, that would be a good place to start the graph for comparison purposes. But that’s not the question I wanted to answer with this graph. Instead, I was interested in comparing the profile of US fatalities for the entire Vietnam war to the profile for the Iraq war. Since December of 1961 is the date of the first fatality that subsequent-President Johson identified as being the “first” US death of the war, that seemed to me an appropriate place to start the graph.
April 7th, 2004 at 6:43 am
Comparing hard and fast death tolls in Iraq and Vietnam oversimplifies this arguement greatly. I’m never surprised at how misled the American public is on issues, especially those of a statistical nature. I teach in CT and I constantly remind the students not to make the mistake of thinking of situations in an islolated picture.
When you review these numbers on deaths in war, would you PLEASE, for God’s sake and the public’s sake, also compare the level of overall escalation of the war, the different cultural dynamics of the area, military and technological differences of the time…. Oh, is that too complicted? So is reality.
At least tell us how many troops were in that area at the time of those deaths. 392 Vietnam deaths by 1964 with 17,000 active solidiers is a MUCH higher percentage than 397 Iraq deaths by 4/5/04 out of 130,000 troops. Yes, there are problems with THAT over simplification also.
I am NOT an advocate of Bush’s policy in Iraq, HOWEVER, I’m even less of an advocate of lazy, pigeon-holed, sound-bite thinking that uses shock value statistics.
John Priest
Wilton, CT
April 7th, 2004 at 7:32 am
As I’ve explained several times, in several different places, I’m not making the over-simplified argument you attribute to me here. I was curious about the respective political histories of the two conflicts, in terms of how US presidents dealt with the ramifications of the respective wars’ body counts. I believe these graphs offer an important perspective on that question.
If you want to make a version of the graphs that starts the Vietnam numbers later, when troop levels were more comparable to those in Iraq, or graph deaths-per-thousand-troops-in-theater, in order to look at the question of how the conflicts compare in terms of relative lethality, more power to you. I include the best numbers I’ve been able to come up with so far for Vietnam troops levels at different points in the war in a comment on this page, above.
But again, that’s not the question I was looking at here.
April 21st, 2004 at 6:19 pm
I wanted the population graph chart for the last hundred years because Ineed to finish my project. by anonimous
April 28th, 2004 at 1:46 pm
!!!!! You know dern well that if indeed Iraq had WMD’s and used them on some part of the world, then you and everyone like you would then be complaining “why didn’t the Bush administration do anything to prevent this?” You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Our casualties are not anything near that of the Vietnam war so those aren’t even legit charts. The main thing you need to do is to support our troops. You and many others may not agree with the war but you can at least have support for those in Iraq. WE don’t have a say so wether or not we go, it’s our Commander and Chief who makes the decision. SO next time you take a walk freely around the block, post political BS on the internet freely, and not are not living in a nuclear winter, or walking around with some kinda gas mask on, you can thank GW, and our troops who are getting limbs blown off, shot at, and living in conditions our poor people don’t even have that bad here in America. Your information about the Iraq War, and GW I believe are LIES.com!! How ’bout you serve in our military and try it on for Size, or are you too coward?
I bet all of these people are too coward, you slimy low life pukes.
April 28th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
When I said “all these people”, I was implying those bashing the GW and the Iraq war.
April 28th, 2004 at 1:49 pm
When I said “all these people”, I was implying those bashing the Bush administration and the Iraq war.
May 2nd, 2004 at 4:23 pm
THIS WAR WILL BE WORSE THAN NAM
May 4th, 2004 at 7:58 am
Worst president in history?
Liberals claim President Bush shouldn’t have started this war.
They complain about his prosecution of it.
One liberal recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.
Let’s clear up one point: President Bush didn’t start the war on terror.
Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.
Let’s look at the worst president and mismanagement claims.
FDR led us into World War II.
Germany never attacked us: Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost,
an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us.
From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost,
an average of 18,333 per year.
John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.
Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost,
an average of 5,800 per year.
Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.
He was offered Osama bin Laden’s head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.
Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
Over 2,900 lives lost on 9/11.
In the two years since terrorists attacked us,
President Bush has liberated two countries,
crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida,
put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot,
captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
We lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.
Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.
Worst president in history? Come on!
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but…
It took less time to take Iraq
than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51 day operation. That’s pretty sad. That wasn’t even an army, let alone a country.
June 14th, 2004 at 4:57 pm
It’s plain and simple, take all of our billions of dollars in foreign aid and put it back into OUR economy, pull all of our peace keeping troops back to OUR country. Who gave us the title of “Worlds Police”? Let countries deal with their own problems. Only support those countries financially who are grateful and loyal to us. Take the billions of dollars spent on the military and create a strong defense for the U.S. and stop being offensive by invading these shit hole countries in the sake of DEMOCRACY! Get us out of this stupid war-time economy we’ve been in since WWII. We need to stop acting as though it is our responsibility to save everyone from themselves. Concentrate our efforts on countries which promote peace. And with all the money we will have saved on our military, Our defensive system would be so strong it could handle any threats which come to us. If the worlds so pissed with our actions stop doing them and make everyone happy, let the rest of the world deal with the issues we’ve saved their asses from.
July 19th, 2004 at 7:25 pm
I do not have the time nor the energy to dissect the logical flaws of the antiwar / anti-bush idiots; although, I would like to say a few words.
When met with a contradiction, which is the backbone of this entire website, you must make a distinction. I guess I am just curious as to your motivation or “reason” for creating this anarchist website. It seems the more facts you become aware, the more conspiratorial the republicans become. The less your statistics add up, the more the republicans lie. I would love continue this thread with facts, points, arguments and opinions, but unfortunately, they will be conveniently misinterpreted and manipulated to support your logically flawed view of the situation.
Under all of your misguided and seemingly spoon feed information, you may have revealed your reasoning for this web site…
“The main tragedy of the Vietnam war, in my mind at least, wasn’t the number of people who died. It was the number of people who died needlessly. It was the fact that having pledged their lives to protect their country from harm, soliders had those lives wasted in pursuit of a very different, and much less noble, goal: protecting politicians from the embarrassment of admitting that their policies had failed.”
In a nut shell, I want to make you aware of the fact that our military is an all volunteer force. I know this because I joined the military as a Counter Intelligence Agent. During the process they make you aware of the danger involved in joining, whether that may be killing someone else or being killed. If you do not agree with the dangers involved, you are disqualified. Although I would like to stay away from irrelevant tangents in most of the previous posts, I would like to define another difference between the two wars in question. The United States is not drafting unwilling people to fight in this war.
You should also realize that death is not the determining factor of success or failure, so take your charts and put them somewhere special. Death for any reason is always tragic and resentful. I wish your compassion was for the families deceased alone and not your political stance.
July 27th, 2004 at 3:37 am
My compassion is for the families of ALL deceased American, Iraqi, Afghan, and all other countries involved.
The chart of deaths in Iraq is NOT accurate. It should include the deaths starting from the first part of the Gulf War. I understand the logic to comparing numbers in order to understand political response. That being said I believe that a chart should be made of all deaths, not just American. I wish i had the time to do this, maybee i will. On my chart I would just like to compare the numbers of ALL dead as a result of political decisions made by “our leaders”
Iraqi, American, or Vietnamise. Such a chart would show the full costs of the Vietnam war including all Vietnamise, French, American and any others killed. The comparison to Iraq could become very difficult indeed. It could start when America first tried to manipulate its government and helped in Saddams rise to power. Better yet it could start with Britians first occupation. It would have to include all civilian casualties durring the “cold war in Iraq” throughout the 90’s, and all American casualties from Gulf war syndrome, war related suicides, murders commited by traumatized soldiers, Rape victums, torture victums (like Abu Ghraib), and future deaths that will be caused by this governments use of Depleted Uranium (or as i like to call them Weapons of Mass Destruction). It would include the Kurds who fought on ourside and the misguided Iraqi’s who died defending A piece of shit dictator instead of overthrowing him first! We hold to these us and them numbers as we claim to be “FOR THEM” Should we not count all who are fighting for the “FREEDOM” of Iraq even if “THEY” (Iraqi’s and Americans) are killing each other for the same thing. Go ahead and call me anti-American. If you think that then you are just to narrow minded to see that i couldn’t be more pro-American, but that sentiment does not make me any less pro-Everybody else to. I have learned from the insights on this site, THANX TO ALL OF YOU. Even the ones who hate LIBERALS. I am a proud Liberal. Look up the word sometime and tell me how any american could say thats a bad thing. Please continue with your charts, they are very usefull tools for education and very thought provoking. I just wanted to make the point that we can argue about symantics or when a certain timeline should begin or end, but when its all said and done WAR is the Dominoe Theory from hell that knocks people of all nations down as it makes its way through our history, throught the present and into the future. IT IS FUTILE AND INFINTILE AND IF WE DO NOT STOP WAR THEN IT WILL STOP US. It is just a matter of time and CHOICE.
I CHOOSE PEACE.
907 Americans Dead (since part 2 of the Gulf war started)
11,000+ (since part 2)
KURDS? (they were part of the “coalition” were they not?)
+ + + + + + + + + +the number is growing
128,000,000 dollars have been spent by US
see costofwar.com to see what other things this could have been spent on.
P.S. to the comparison of bush to other presidents…THANK YOU for arguing for my side and showing all the other PRE-EMPTIVE wars we have fought. Maybee he isn’t the worst president but he is one of them and very likely the Dumbest one we have ever had.
July 27th, 2004 at 3:42 am
Please note the time of my last post and excuse my spelling and lack of periods and paragraphs. IT WAS EVEN HARD FOR ME TO READ
August 5th, 2004 at 7:41 am
Today, August 5,2004 Death count is 922,wounded 5,976.
Today my soldier is in the USA, after serving 1 year in Iraq
from the start of Iraq Invasion. Soon he will be going back over
as was told he would be. They are training more, and more strainous.
If Bush is re-elected then the Draft will start back up and my other
son will soon be drafted after he is out of school.
I am sick of this Personal Revenge, of the Bush Clan.
This war in Iraq is not a war of need it is a war of want.
Even though my soldier, joined before 9-11 he has done his job,
and said he will continue until his time is up, 1 more year active
and 3 reserve.
I will always Support the Troops while they are in doing there job.
But I refuse to Support the (current) President and his Wanted to
be there at war Cabinet. Rumsfield and Wolfwitz were part of the
1st Bush Clan, that never finished what they should have.
Look at United Nations Resolution # 687, in 1991 they also
gave Saddam Hussein 45 days to comply with Full UN support and NATO
ANd they Chickened Shitted out from doing anything then.
This to save Face because of the Oil Barons in Saudi Arabia
gave in to the New Cartyle Group of Bush 1.
Now if this isn’t some bullshit, then why oh why are we there today.
Let’s get Rid of the al-qaeda Here in the U.S.A. first.
There are still hundreds of cells here.
Bush used the patriotism build up of 9-11 to finish job dad should have done. And personal revenge Bush 2 said it.
quote ” I am going after Saddham Hussien because he tried to kill
my dad, so now I am going to get him.”
This was only shown 2 times on National TV channels and stopped.
So don’t try to tell me any different.
I do not believe anything the media says, do not even watch
most of the 24/7 channels because all they do is repeat themselves.
Of course I believe the media is getting a pay from government to
keep up the scandals, reports.
If they only reported it once a day then they would not have
the big staff and jobs they have. This is another BIG problem
that should be addressed. All the corporate big wigs, that
are sending jobs overseaa after closing American places of
employement that made them what they are today.
I thank they are anti-Americans.
There is a list on CNN lou dobbs site for these idots.
For this Site – Keep up the Graphs
September 4th, 2004 at 9:49 pm
i want to see some pictures not read a story.
September 11th, 2004 at 8:51 pm
this site is a joke, i have no idea how i got sucked in this to even read such garbage, but clearly you people voted for al gore and are still sore about the outcome. you people keep listening to what they (cnn,dan rather,micheal moore,etc…) want you to believe you people are just to stupid to think for yourselves its pathetic try to think logic for once. you think this place would be better with saddam in power. if iraq was 10 yrs. behind us in technology, how many years would it take for his scientists to have a stealth bomber and ask yourself, would he use this technology to bring a nuclear bomb in to the u.s.. if we stand back and say let another country take care of those problems and they say the same to us, then it wouldn’t get done. then people let dictators rule even longer and when a dictator gets psycotic ever how many years down the road. he can just end the world as we know it because one day there will be a bomb bigger and better and a strike much swifter. so keep your heads shoved up your ass, and let the children worry about later because your to politically correct or don’t want to get your hands dirty.
September 14th, 2004 at 3:59 pm
two words WEAPONS INSPECTORS
stop supporting the fools who build up the dictator in the first place. Do you think the ass hole dictator in Iraq now is going to be any better? You are a joke. Bush is the most likely person today to use the bomb and HE HAS ONE. Are you going to let your kids worry about the outcome of his policies later so you can KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN. 450 billion dollars + is what your kids and theirs will be paying so go ahead and have your tax cut now (if your rich enough).
What about when Pakistan got the bomb, or India, or North Korea, or now maybe South Korea, what about Isreal, or Iran.
WE GIVE AID AND ARE ALLIED WITH a few of these, and our guys are not good guys either.
I know half of these countries are ruled by dictators.
I did not vote for Gore but most people who voted DID that is a FACT
Electoral college is NOT DEMOCRATIC.
1009 NOW DEAD and still dying, Saddam is GONE and Americans still die…..WHY? NO ELECTIONS YET….Bush and Team are waiting until they can dominate the “elections” with money and established power just like it is done here.
Afghanistan…NO ELECTIONS and they are ruled by an OIL man and War loards.
America turns its head when there is Genocide in the Sudan..sure we may say BAD SUDAN >>NO.. but we don’t send in the Marines.
Iraq we didn’t even say BAD SADDAM we sent Rumsfeild to shake his hand………only years later did we use what he did with AMERICAN HELP as an excuse to invade.
America has ruined more Democracies then it has helped to build
READ HISTORY… READ TODAYS NEWS..Venezuela.democracy we tried to overthrow. Haiti.Democracy we DID overthrow.
If you believe that the American government that is ran by Corporate Elites has your best interests in mind you are very naive
P.S. CNN is on your side. THE MEDIA IS NOT LIBERAL, If it were you would see better coverage of the pain these wars have on Americans and Iraqi’s, and you would see better coverage of the HUGE anti-war movement. Nader would be given enough Free air (like Bush and Kerry get) to actually have a chance in a REAL DEMOCRATIC ELECTION
PEACE NOW…….FREEDOM IS EMPTY WITHOUT PEACE
T
September 18th, 2004 at 10:06 am
Your reasoning is flawed because for the first couple of years in Vietnam, the few troops we had there were advisors only. You need to do your comparisons from the date our troops levels exceeded the 100,000 mark and they were fully engaging the enemy.
You would then see a big difference in your numbers. But I doubt that is what you are looking to prove.
September 18th, 2004 at 10:24 am
No need for mere doubt; I’ve explicitly stated (over and over and over) that I’m not trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison of death-rate per deployed soldier. The flaws you are seeing are not in my reasoning. They are in your own incorrect assumptions about what it is I’m trying to say.
I’m interested in the overall “death profile” of each war, primarily in terms of its relationship with domestic US politics. For that reason, I choose as the “beginning” of the Vietnam War deaths the loss of the soldier later-President Johnson identified as “the first American to fall in defense of our freedom in Vietnam.”
So I’m not drawing the lesson that you seem to think I am. Among the lessons that these graphs actually do bring home to me is that despite the fact that the Iraq war has become a huge foreign policy failure for the US, in which soldiers continue to die not because it advances US interests, but merely because it allows the civilian architects of the policy to avoid accountability, it actually will take a great many more deaths for the roughly 50% of the electorate that still supports Bush to seriously question the war. At least, it took a great many more deaths than we’re currently seeing in Iraq to convince middle America that the Vietnam war was a failed policy.
September 20th, 2004 at 6:43 am
You stupid S.O.B. I fought in vietnam, how can you say vietnam was a failure just because the entire country isn’t free doesn’t mean that it was a failure. Alot of people in south korea are thankful check your facts.
Are you people really surprised that soldiers are dead, do you even know what war is? “IT IS WAR” hello, think people, men shoot at each other someone dies. Just try to be part of the percentage that lives through it. Talk numbers, when you look how many troops are there and how many died its a fraction. More people died in an urban city do to violent crimes than in war. Sounds like those soldiers did pretty good. Don’t help the enemy like they did when i was fighting you people kill your soldiers moral.
Just so you know the president can not send troops to war with out permission. So this means that every time he wants to wipe his ass he has to ask congress. They look at the same facts that the president does. Then they vote if we go to war. So election time vote for your president. But, don’t forget about who really runs the country “CONGRESS”. The president is nothing but a figure head or a fall guy.
September 21st, 2004 at 8:16 am
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/lorentz1.html
Check out this link for a soldiers analysis of the current conflict.
Support our Troops – Bring them home NOW!
September 21st, 2004 at 12:38 pm
I came across this site when I realized I had written and allowed others to respond. I should have checked back earlier — better late than never. Now almost a year later, we have lost 550 more brave soldiers, to which I say we still have to fight another 90 years to reach the level of loss in Vietnam. No escalation of mass death yet, which by the way is the point of this idiotic Blog.
Anyway as I skimmed through I saw a rather defensive liberal complain about my spit on solider comment.
1. We liberals didn’t spit on the soldiers he said. Well my response is some did, some literally and many indirectly.
The anti-war protestors who unfortunately got disproportionate coverage based on numbers, caused a temporary shift in US policy where South Vietnamese. So to all you flower children who allowed millions to be purged by the communists in that region as communism also ended up spreading to Cambodia after the fall of Saigon…sleep well. While many liberals or progressives or whatever they want to be called, describe my country as racists imperialist…I say our enemies in every international conflict we have been in are far more ruthless. Had we went into Vietnam with all our fire power, and killed off the Vietcong along with 500,000 more innocent people, people in that region would still be alive today based on what the communists had in store.
After we went to the Peace table in Paris (that should have cued us up as being a bad omen), we negotiated a treaty, guess who broke that treaty…the Communists…guess who spit on our soldiers, the Liberals who refused to at least provide the funding to the South Vietnamese. So if Liberals didn’t physically spit on our soldiers, they did so by at least refusing to defend the peace our soldiers fought for its spit without the saliva. The legacy in that region is for the most part complete…millions were purged by communists in particular Cambodia where estimates from 1-3 million were killed. Liberals sleep well.
Thankfully the wrong to our soldiers would eventually be undone in part, thanks to the leader ship of Ronald Reagan, who held the communists in check, and eventually allowed them to fall on their own sword. Reagan’s method was simple. Peace through superior Fire Power. In the beginning the Communists tried to keep up, when they failed, the crumbled. Had Reagan not been elected Communism would still be here today. The families of those who were lost in Vietnam can at least feel comfort that the struggle they engaged in and lost their lives in, eventually yielded freedom for approximately 500 million people. 1 American Life for every 100,000 humans freed.
Which brings us to Iraq. We have lost 1,000 brave men in this conflict, but who has been doing most of the killing. It hasn’t been old Regime elements (which would be necessary to call it a literal insurgency) its been Al Sadr and Zarqawi. Al Sadr is funded by Iranians Al Zarqawi is supported by Al Queda (remember those guys some need to be reminded). Essentially we are fighting the war on terror on Middle East Soil, which is preferable to our own. Also we are defending the new nation of Iraq from Iran and Al Queda.
Frankly I have disagreements with the administration. If I were in charge, Al Sadr would be worm food, and Fallujah would be under martial law or flattened. I believe that the evil in this region will recognize only one thing…RAW POWER. Although most agree with me, various liberal elements all over the world have convinced the president to hold back. Frankly he should have gotten the bad news out of the way in January.
Our election today pits to candidates, a peace nick who feels that the UN should play a major role in our Foreign Policy in particular the nations of France and Germany. Or a man who feels that US interests should play the primary role in our foreign policy. Today our president told a bunch of anti-american/anti-semetic/anti-freedom surrogates of dictators that we are staying the course and we are just in our cause, and we will win…in other words he told them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. Americans will soon do the same to John Kerry.
September 22nd, 2004 at 1:30 pm
Laurence
Where did you get the idea that Communism has been eliminated? That has got to be the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get off the floor laughing at this one.
Have you ever heard of a country called China? It’s right next to Korea and Viet Nam. It’s a big reason why all the fire power we could muster would not have been enough to win the Viet Nam Conflict (never a war) just as it wasn’t enough in Korea (again never a war).
I guess anyone that could possibly be under the impression that Communism was eliminated by Reagan could certainly be dumb enough to be duped into believing that Iraq is a justified cause for the loss of 1000 American lives.
You might be as stupid as that candidate you are so fired up about.
September 23rd, 2004 at 5:07 am
Note In my last post, I forgot North Korea.
September 23rd, 2004 at 9:59 pm
“WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION”
EXAMPLE
If the police called you and said that they are tring to get a warrant to search your house for stolen goods. They will be by some time next week. What the hell do you think you would do until then, sit and wait or maybe hide that stolen stereo? You bunch of brainless idiots.
Oh yea, just so you know i am a republican that really hates Kerry and thinks he is nothing but a JOKE! And come voting time i’m going to vote for Kerry. Because I really don’t want to see Hillary in the white house again. Why do you think the democrats stepped up Kerry’s campaign and nominated the worst candidate. I’ll tell you why, they knew that Kerry wouldn’t stand a chance in hell against Bush. And Hillary could take the next spot in 2008, when Bush has to step down and she has no opponent that can compete with her new political record and white house back ground. If Kerry wins all that happens is republicans can get an easy score in 2008 and Hillary is forced to wait until 2012. Which means something between now and 2012 can easily hurt her election espeacially if Kerry wins this one and screws it up somehow giving democrats a bad name.
“SO VOTE FOR KERRY EVEN IF YOU KNOW BUSH IS RIGHT”
September 23rd, 2004 at 10:02 pm
WHO DO YOU WANT KERRY NOW OR HILLARY LATER
September 25th, 2004 at 9:55 am
I love the United States of American. She is not always right; but is there any better country in our world today? Absolutely NOT!
My entry will consist of questions:
Did Germany have a Uranium bomb and delivery mechanism, how close were they to using it?
Did Japan have access to Uranium; and did they have a delivery mechanism?
Was the US correct in dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did Japan have a plan to destroy the West Coast with a Uranium Weapon in August, 1945?
What caused our withdrawal from Viet Nam?
Which political party sent representatives to speak with the North Vietnamese?
Did the representatives encourage the North Vietnamese to continue fighting?
Did the representatives help or hurt our POW’s?
Were our fighting men and women warmly received when they returned home; which party spit on them and called them “Baby Killers”?
Is it possible that we will find IRAQ WMDs like poisonous gases or military equipment buried in the sand?
Was the date of our attack on IRAQ known before hand, and is it possible that they had time to bury deadly chemicals or give them to their neighboring countries?
DO YOU THINK ANTI-WAR RETORIC and calling our president names, helps our enemies to continue fighting?
Do you think any of our military men and women have been killed because the Terrorists are encouraged by the media and US Citizens who downplay the war?
Do you think the TERRORISTS listen to our ANTI-WAR news media and are encouraged to continue to fight in hopes that they are winning?
Is all of the ANTI-WAR rhetoric TRUE?
Is 911 Fahrenheit a film based on fact?
Do the TERRORISTs and citizens of other countries who watch Fahrenheit 911 think it is based on FACTS?
How should the United States have responded to the attack on September 11, 2001?
How long have we known about TERRORISM and Bin Laden?
How many terrorist attacks occurred against the US between 1992 and 2000?
Were the men, women and children who died on 9.11 guilty of any wrong doings?
September 30th, 2004 at 11:11 pm
in regards to shane… who sent a message 23 september 2004,
as a soldier who just returned home, thank you for mistaking the war on terrorism with the war in iraq… people like you have changed my life forever.
i have a question for you…
Where, other than the Bill O’Reilly show, do you get your information on current events, the state of the U.S., and the state of the world?
October 3rd, 2004 at 11:52 am
First the Soviet Union fell because it spent too much money on WMD’s, tanks, guns, jets, and an occupation in Afghanistan….NOT BECAUSE OF THE Actor in the White house!
Cambodia was propelled into the Kamir Rouge because AMERICA bombed it into political chaos. Had the Vietnam war not happened it is probable that the Kamir Rouge would never have existed.
Was F 9-11 based on facts….I have yet to hear real challenges to any of the things put forward as fact in that movie. Most people who attack it stick to the factual argument of how fat Moore is. Hardly a logical response to his claims.
Did Japan plan on using WMD’s against America…. maybe they would have planned it if they had ANY!!
>>>>Frankly I have disagreements with the administration. If I were >>>>in charge, Al Sadr would be worm food, and Fallujah would be >>>>under martial law or flattened. I believe that the evil in this >>>>region will recognize only one thing…RAW POWER. Although most >>>>agree with me, various liberal elements all over the world have >>>>convinced the president to hold back. Frankly he should have >>>>gotten the bad news out of the way in January.
YOU SOUND LIKE A NAZI. “the evil in this region” Does that include the thousands of children who would die in such a TERRORIST attack.
LOOK UP THE WORD GUY BECAUSE TERRORISM IS WHAT YOU ARE ADVOCATING!
I WOULD SPIT IN YOUR FACE WITHOUT HESITATION. A soldier who is in Iraq because he wants to HELP the people deserves respect even it you think he or she is wrong, the ones who tortured people in Abu Ghraib deserve more then soliva in their face.
You are sick, all you care about is Americans. 90 more years of this to reach the toll in Vietnam? How do you figure. Vietnam DEATH TOLL ESCALATED as the war continued. How do you know that this war will not escalate? In fact it has been …92 American deaths in the first 12 days. 279 in the next 183 days. 331 in the following 183 days. and 494 in the last 183 days. If this kind of escalation continues and the war lasts 10 years who on earth knows how many will have died. It doesn’t matter to me if 50,000 died in Vietnam and “only” 10,000 or 5,000 or “only” the 1,198 and the 11-40,000+ Iraqi’s who have already died are the last ones. YOU GO AND tell the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, and children of the people who have died that there is no comparison to Vietnam and WWII….. I wonder if they would spit in your face.
The “Left” were not the only ones against the Vietnam war and they are not the only ones against this one. What kind of brain can blame casualties of war on the people who want PEACE. That is twisted double speak and it is dangerous. The Nazi’s attacked Germans who spoke out against them and their war by saying the same kinds of things our Government and its attack dog followers like your are saying, NEXT THEY PUT THEM IN CONSINTRATION CAMPS like Abu Ghraib or Guantanimo…. As of now there are only a few American citizens in such camps THAT WE KNOW OF. One lesson of history is that whatever tactics a people justify against others is many times turned on them as the lines blur between “enemy combatant” “PROTESTERS” “Traitor” “Muslim (THE AMERICAN JEW?)
What direction are we headed on the road between American ideals and Nazi Ideals? I don’t think America is LIKE Nazi Germany but I can clearly see that we are headed in that direction and not away from it. The mistake of the German people in the 1930’s is they waited and rationalized what their government did. They put the best face on everything that happened and were convinced that it was the world outside full of ENEMIES that was a threat to them and refused to see that it was some of their own that was the True threat.
That being said …YES THERE ARE REAL TERRORISTS but the answer to
9-11 is not to create the same atrocities in other countries but to stop invading and controling other peoples LANDS.
I wonder if Hiroshima and Nagasaki convinced the Japanese people that Americans were as EVIL as their leaders told them they were.
I wonder if all of the attacks on them helped them to justify their own atrocities and caused them to plan others.
It is the same kind of fanatics as some of the above pro-war (not all pro-war people are as “EVIL” and dumb as a few of the above)
that perpetuates suicide bombing, carpet bombing, decapitation, torture, willingness to kill women, children, the elderly, and men too..who are not your enemy in order to get one or two that are.
Osama is a peice of shit and should be shot or better yet let to rot in a cell. I would not be willing to kill 3,000 innocent people to make that point. America HAS killed at least that number (ironic that it is close to the same # that died on 9-11) in Afghanistan and
11,000+ innocent people in Iraq (in a nation of 26,000,000….for us to understand the magnitude and therefor the willingness of Iraqi’s to fight against the odds against America …OVER 100,000 Americans would have had to die on 9-11 to make an = impact on America.
SO SCREW the numerical comparison between Iraq and Vietnam lets
have a MORAL one.
PEACE NOW AND SPIT IN THE FACE OF ANY OF YOU WHO COULD CARE LESS ABOUT INNOCENT IRAQI’S
For those of you who do care and still advocate for the war
I RESPECTFULLY disagree and PLEAD the case of the innocent people
INCLUDING MANY CHILDREN who have died and will die as the war continues…..Please rethink your tactics and if we are really concerned about freedom let us give it too them NOW and leave them FREE to do what they want in their own land.
PEACE
October 3rd, 2004 at 12:09 pm
questions for ErnieG and other pro-war people
Did American foreign policy lead to 9-11?
Has America trained terrorists?
Is American foreign policy going to lead to a future 9-11?
Are Americans more or less free then we were on 9-10?
Do two wrongs make a right?
How many Iraqi’s have Americans Killed?
How many Americans have Iraqi’s killed?
How many Afghans have Americans killed?
How many Americans have Afghans killed? (note the 9-11 terrorist were mostly from Saudi Arabia as is OSAMA)
How many Dictators has America supported?
How many has America overthrown?
Why do we focus on “evil” leaders in the middle east,
while ignoring them elsewhere?
How many of these “evil” leaders have we at one time or another
supported?
Who is the number one arms dealer in the world?
How many countries does America have a MILITARY BASE and or presence in?
WHY SO MANY?
What country do most people in the world think is the BIGGEST threat to PEACE?
WHY?
Why do people assume that America is the GREATEST country in the world?
What do they mean by that?
What is the most ARROGANT country in the world?
HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE TILL YOU KNOW THAT TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE DIED?
Do you want to spit in my face for my views and what I fight for?
Did an anti-war protester EVER KILL a pro-war Cop or national guard durring Vietnam?
Did the national guard kill ANTI-WAR protesters durring Vietnam?
What is worse spitting at another or KILLING PEOPLE?
What do you want WAR or PEACE?
IF it is peace you want…why perpetuate WAR?
Would you give your life, a friends, or families life to secure Falluja?
Would you give your childs?
Would you shoot a child in order to kill Osama?
If yes what makes you so different?
October 5th, 2004 at 6:29 am
It is true that the chances of death tolls getting to Vietnam peak rates are lower for the Iraq on going war. However Iraq is far more penetratable then Vietnam (people who hate the US all around), so I believe over the next 4 years in Iraq we will see at least 2 or 3 major terrorist attacks on troop compounds which could lead to 30 to 300 troop deaths at one time. Not quite at peak Vietnam levels, but far more then what its worth for someone else’s civil war.
October 5th, 2004 at 3:52 pm
The thing that always shocks me is how some folks would rather be lied to.
Fact: Saddam had no link to Osama, had no WMD, had no “stockpiles of chemical weapons”. We had satellites watching Iraq. We had daily flyovers. We would have used those images as proof if we had had them. Saudi Arbia funded the 9/11 terrorists. Pakistan shipped nuclear technology around the world. North Korea is actually far more of a threat (and a far greater despot) than Saddam ever was. Syria, Lebonon, Iran, Saudi Arabia actively fund terrorism.
Fact: Bush and his administration knew they were lying when they told us all the crap about the aluminum tubes, the niger uranium, the links to terrorism. Furthermore, even if you don’t want to believe this just at the moment (and you will one day) the buck stops on their desk. So if they were wrong, they have to pay the piper.
Fact: The war in iraq is going badly. It will get worse. The US Army War college predicted _exactly_ what’s happening. I’ll give you a prediction. Watch to see insurgents killing every contractor in Iraq that they can lay hands on. Those 40,000 guys are supporting our 140,000 troops as force multipliers. They are inadequately defended. When they are gone, american troop casualties will rise. Watch to see more UN troops backing out. Watch to see lots of troops coming home apparently healthy thing turning out to be “disabled”. Cause Gulf War Syndrome and related illnesses have disabled more that 1/3 of the vets that came home from the first gulf war. (look up depleted uranium munitions as one of many causes). If we aren’t out of that country in the next year or so . . . start thinking hard about where to send your 20 year olds to avoid the draft.
Fact: We’ve whacked a hell of a lot of civilians in Iraq. They will never trust us to shape their government. No one in the world will ever trust us again when it comes to intelligence. You can expect every nation on the planet to work very hard to get nuclear weapons. No one screws with the nuclear nations. We are in no position to prevent this because we are over extended in Iraq.
In short, its time to be a member of a true democracy. Demand the truth. Stop voting for liars because it makes you feel good.
October 8th, 2004 at 2:24 pm
Fact: Saddam had no link to Osama,
FICTION – In fact Saddam did have a link to Osama, and in fact it is that link that is chopping off heads today. His name is Al Zarqawi. Fact Mohammad Attah was in Baghdad months before 9-11
…had no WMD, had no “stockpiles of chemical weapons”.
FICTION – we have uncovered WMD’s just not the stockpiles you said Saddam never had stockpiles, that is fiction. He did have them and infact the UN categorized them. The fact they have not been found in Iraq, should be alarming! For they were either destroyed without proof or these weapons are somewhere.
We had satellites watching Iraq. We had daily flyovers. We would have used those images as proof if we had had them.
STUPIDIDTY: Flyovers can’t tell what goes on underground. In fact much of the flyover evidence may have been what mislead many of the intellegence.
Saudi Arbia funded the 9/11 terrorists.
FICTION: Funding for terrorism was not directly funded by the Saudis, in fact the Saudis kicked out Bin Laden, and Bin Laden was an unbashful enemy of the house of Saud. Offcourse certain elements of the Saudi Arabian government probably did fund terrorism but this is more of an issue of the internal strife than a concerted effort. Finally Al Queda was being funded throughout the world, money even coming from our own shores, through bogus charities.
Pakistan shipped nuclear technology around the world. North Korea is actually far more of a threat (and a far greater despot) than Saddam ever was. Syria, Lebonon, Iran, Saudi Arabia actively fund terrorism.
FICTION: Pakistan has not shipped their technology all over the world and currently the Pakistani government has acted in cooperation with the United States, thanks to the current administration. Prior to to Bush, the Pakistani Government funded the Taliban. North Korea is a bigger threat only because they already have a weapon exactly the problem we have avoided with Iraq. Saddam, however was a major threat in that unlike North Korea and Pakistan he has shown a propensity to invasion. Although the countries you mention fund terrorism so did Iraq, and did so very publically, Iraq you may remember paid suicide bombers in Israel, and if you care to look at the evidence had a passenger jet fusealage in the middle of their desert. Finally Iraq was home to two of the most feared terrorists in the world, Abu Nidal and Abu Abbass. In other words Iraq was a very big threat and harborer of terrorism!
Fact
In short, its time to be a member of a true democracy. Demand the truth. Stop voting for liars because it makes you feel good
In reality, it is time to stop with the left wing propoganda and take notice of the facts. We live in serious times and the crap and lies about what this administration is doing is scary. Remember one thing we have not been attacked in three years and that is because we are on the offense. Iraq and Afghanastan are heading in a direction that will spread throughout the middle east. This president has been brave and steadfast, we cannot afford to have a UN internationalist at the helm. For god help us, including the uninformed individual who I just responded to.
I will address the other points later.
October 9th, 2004 at 5:22 am
Fact: Bush and his administration knew they were lying when they told us all the crap about the aluminum tubes, the niger uranium, the links to terrorism. Furthermore, even if you don’t want to believe this just at the moment (and you will one day) the buck stops on their desk. So if they were wrong, they have to pay the piper.
Fiction: The Admnistration got various reports not only from its intellegence but from all over the world, including the not so US Friendly UN. The Dalfour Report, although it concedes no STOCKPILES of WMD’s will be found in Iraq, indicates Saddam’s desire to restart the program. The Uranium claim is true, you are referring to the Joe Wilson affair, which constituted a weakend in Nigeria over tea (believe me thats all it was), British Intel is not backing away from that claim. And logic would dictate, if Saddam once had a nuclear ambitions why would he all of a sudden stop.
Fact: The war in iraq is going badly. It will get worse. The US Army War college predicted _exactly_ what’s happening. I’ll give you a prediction. Watch to see insurgents killing every contractor in Iraq that they can lay hands on. Those 40,000 guys are supporting our 140,000 troops as force multipliers. They are inadequately defended. When they are gone, american troop casualties will rise. Watch to see more UN troops backing out. Watch to see lots of troops coming home apparently healthy thing turning out to be “disabled”. Cause Gulf War Syndrome and related illnesses have disabled more that 1/3 of the vets that came home from the first gulf war. (look up depleted uranium munitions as one of many causes). If we aren’t out of that country in the next year or so . . . start thinking hard about where to send your 20 year olds to avoid the draft.
FICTION & EXTREME PARANOIA: First things are not going badly. In fact if you look at Iraq from any historical context of War, Iraq is going remarkably well. First the lack of an insurgency, is a key indication of how well things are going. For if this were a real insurgency, we would have a lot more dead, the bottom line is this: the majority of the country is under control, where there are “insurgenct” we find that they are mostly foreign fighters or members of Saddam’s elite circle of enablers. They have done more harm to Iraqis. Finally since many of these “insurgents” are foreign (the key guy being Al Zarqawi who is Al Queda) this could be considered a foreign invasion.
You mention the Draft. First the war on terror does not require large army formations, we are not fighting large forces, instead we are fighting pockets of individuals who are well spread out and tend to target not military targets (i.e. people). A draft would not be advisable, nor necessary for this war. Simply put a Draft could never produce the type of soldier necessary to fight this war. Finally Iraqis will have 125,000 police/army by years end, this is an important little fact when looking at this whole Draft Notion, simply put Iraq will eventually be able to defend herself. Also note that last weekend in a joint mission with the US, the US commanders noted that the Iraqi forces performed very well in a successful raid on Sammara (excuse spelling). This is very important as the Iraqis will ultimately drive out the terrorists.
Fact: We’ve whacked a hell of a lot of civilians in Iraq. They will never trust us to shape their government. No one in the world will ever trust us again when it comes to intelligence. You can expect every nation on the planet to work very hard to get nuclear weapons. No one screws with the nuclear nations. We are in no position to prevent this because we are over extended in Iraq.
Lunacy: We haven’t whacked civilians, in fact the ones whacking the civilians are the insurgents and foreign terrorist invaders. Iraqis see that Americans are dying to help them free their country. Under Saddam hundreds of thousands were murdered by the regime, in otherwords a bad die in Iraq today, is a cakewalk as compared with Saddam.
I have refuted everyone of your points, it saddens me that an American (I assume you are) will so willfully spread the propoganda of our enemies and ignore our successes and noble undertaking. Had individuals like yourself been alive during World War II, we all may be Shpeken Deutch.
October 15th, 2004 at 8:02 am
I’m glad I found you webpage. I was trying to make a comparison to the Vietnam war myself. Seems to be another “Vietnam” in Iraq. I think Iraq is a diversion to so we can be diverted from what is going on in the Caspian Basin. I find U.S. involment in the Middle East, starting with the first Gulf War in the early ’90s, more than just a coincidence, with the discovery of 10 trillion dollars worth of crude oil and natual gas in the Caspian Basin in 1989. I think you can also see the Vietnam War started for the very same reason. A U.S. corperation discovered oil off the coast of Vietnam in the early ’50s when France still colonized vietnam. U.S. funds and arms funded that overthrow of the French. Thus, you have the Vietnam War, from that point out it was all about the oil.
October 28th, 2004 at 7:58 am
The issue at hand is not a comparison to Vietnam. Do a little research and put this in your calculator: (1) How many coalition military personnel where killed in the first Gulf War; (2) How many coalition military personnel were killed in training exercises associated with the Gulf region after the Gulf War until we invaded in 2003; and (3) how many coalition military personnel were killed on missions (such as aircraft lost by accident while patrolling the “no-fly zones”) after the Gulf War until we invaded in 2003.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who serve in the military. Any loss of military personnel is saddening, or any life for that matter. However, it’s time to think about what it cost us over the ten years leading up to this. I believe the statistics will show that there is not much difference. For that matter, look at the same statistics for Bosnia.
I don’t hear, nor have I ever heard, anyone getting vocal about those lost in Bosnia (which Clinton got us into and still has Americans deployed as “peace keepers”) nor those in the ten years after the Gulf War. Therefore, unless you’ve been protesting and writing your congressman about these statistics, you haven’t earned the right (through your obvious ignorance) to protest the current situation in Iraq.
Oh, and for those that need a history lesson, after Germany surrendered in World War II, sabotage and killings continued by fanatical German troops for three years. This was while the orders were to submit, when caught, these people to a firing squad. If we started prosecuting insurgents the same way in Iraq, liberals would wet their panties.
November 2nd, 2004 at 1:24 am
Hey, I just thought I’d drop you a line from your coalition partner Australia, where we have just reelected our Bushite Prime Minister John Howard in resounding style. This was not an endorsement of the war in Iraq. We do not have history of voting on foriegn policy, essentially the election was one due to a nonsensical scare campaign about interest rates (which will now go up anyway). No analystrs here believe the bombing of an embassy during the election campaign had a major effect, at least it failed to register in the poles.
To the point however: the war in Iraq/on Iraq was a necessary step.
Or rather, a war in Iraq was a necessary step, the war on Iraq currently being fought is a shambles. For those of you who watch Fox, we in Australia still have balanced news and I have seen both positive and negative stories emerging. The people in Iraq still have hope for a democratic future. The Irish aid worker from CARE who was just kindnapped summed uop the people of Iraq well as secular, hardworking, honest, highly educated and friendly, a society in which democracy could bloom. This hop however is not faith in US soldiers and US security forces who are hated and reviled. The unemployment levels in Iraq, the arrest of Iraqis stealing electricity to cool their homes and refrigerate their food in the blistering summer goes to demonstrate the disconnect between the US allied forces and the the nation they are attempting to build. When that angry madman in Fallujah offered a cease fire in exchange for the right to run in the election Australian journalists made a quick survey of Bahgadad contacts, none would vote for him, all thought he shouls have the right to run. Now, they see banning him from running as an attack not him but on the Iraqi people’s democratic rights. Considering we plopped Chalabi on them from out of nowhere, this guy who is wanted from fraud by the Jordanians and the CIA, who had zero support in Iraq itself and had devoted his life to waiting for a possible American invasion, why would they react well when we take explicit control of candidature? The insurgents are mainly fighting for a) money and b) a sense of purpose, because it gives them a sense of controlling their countries destiny. They will continue to do until we hand that destiny back. The war must continue, in some form, US involvement must continue but it should be a war of nation building, not the reckless encounter so far engagaed in. No rush to privatise publi infrastructure, continue Saddamms’ mosque builing projects to win over moderate clerics, continue mass employment campaigns for as long as possible, make sure the people in position of power are known and popular friends of the Iraqi people, not opportunists like Chalabi. From a military perspective deaths are regretably and unfortunate, but what of the 100,000 civilian deaths since war began? Most have occurred when insugents have targetted allied forces I know its not my house, but Kerry looks, from his rhetoric at least, like he is capable of such a strategy. Osama Bin Laden wants you to vote Bush, he’s the one who allowed him to go free, he’s the one who has converted follwers to his Jihad through clumsy “crusader” foriegn policy which shows no sensitivity for Islamic culture. He is the one who has created sympathy for the devil in your own country amomgst your own Muslim citizens by creating a environment in which they are treated with suspicion and fear. He is the continuation of the neo-con strategic machination which puts US power over and above world security. Bin Laden needs Bush and Bush needs Bin Laden.
Any way cheers for the time and space
g’day.
November 3rd, 2004 at 6:00 pm
to brendan legget
nice spin for kerry but that is why your there and not here. you just like others who support kerry don’t know your head from your ass. people can’t answer the question what good has kerry done or how he will do some good, they can only critic bush for iraq. hell, i could say i had the answer for world peace and given plenty of air time and some supporters others would follow. anyone can talk a good game and critic bush for iraq. people wake up and realize that there is no such thing as a perfect war people die ,hello, its war. but you people listen to the mainstream media which has been proven time and time again to be leaning so far left that they could fall down. kerry should have thanked cnn, cbs, nbc, dan rather, etc… for there support when he finally conceded. and so everyone knows fox called dead on the entire time so now who is bias.
November 3rd, 2004 at 6:08 pm
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
congrats bush
November 4th, 2004 at 9:22 am
Iraq does not want Americans.
Iraq does not need Americans.
Let Iraqi’s choose who they want to help them.
Let America leave now before it’s too late.
November 8th, 2004 at 4:39 pm
Thank heavens Bush won!!!
For even liberals will be safer as a result. I read the diatrobe written by an Australian who is making the argument that somehow Bin Laden wants Bush to win. This was funny, and idiotic. First that 100,000 civilian death claim is absolutely obsurd. The data that was behind that claim was about faulty as the exit polls that showed Kerry up 20 on Bush in PA (note PA was closer than Ohio on actual votes and percentage!). Anyway that being said, I recently visited the land down under, and I have not met nicer folks in my life, so I will end my insults on this particulary Ozzie. Thankfully over 52% of Ozzies support their current leader who has been a great friend to the United States and we thank the Ozzies for their wonderful support.
Today America and Iraqi forces are killing terrorists in Fullujah. This is good for the world, bad for Liberals and anti-war idiots, who somehow feel better when terrorists are allowed to roam free and kill Americans make the world a safer place. The terrorists understand more than left does, that a free Iraq would be devistating to their cause. Successful nations don’t breed terrorists, its the nations where leaders steal from their people and keep their populations poor and stupid. The Arab World (and Iran) are extremely good at this. With Afghanastan and Iraq turning the corner, terrorists are running out of homes, money, and people/lambs. If these countries continue to become more successful, their appeal will be reduced.
Bush understands this, the majority of America and Australia understand this. The individuals who don’t will be proven wrong just like they were when the US defeated the Soviet Union and Communism in Eastern Europe and Central America!!
November 12th, 2004 at 7:23 am
ummmmm……are any of you people in the military???? i’m guessing that you’re all political science majors that think you know something about war….until you’ve been there, you have no room to talk. AND…..if you’re a civilian trying to make some extra money over there you shouldn’t be there!
November 14th, 2004 at 8:18 pm
Great debate everyone. I know many here concentrate on Vietnam comparisons, but for sake of not always looking at American history to teach us I will throw this nugget to nibble on.
Algeria and the FLN insurgency against France.
November 27th, 2004 at 11:23 am
Courtney,
Have you ever been to the moon?
Do you know anything about it?
Why do people always become arrogant and claim that unless you have been through something means you can’t understand it?
I have never lost a parent though i KNOW what it would feel like.
War means death and destruction. I have seen what death looks like.
Not in a war but it is sad all the same. The horrible thing about death in war is that it is MURDER. It is chosen by some people and imposed on others.
Bush is a peice of shit!
I did not vote for Kerry either. Both Democrats and Republicans have their heads up their ass.
I do not yet know if Bush won the election. I will withold my opinion until i have researched the results.
I think he did win the popular vote this time which only makes me ashamed of my country.
AMERICANS are SHEEP
I am a LIBERAL who likes guns.
Liberals fought and won the first revolution and we will rise again.
You people on the right who think that all Liberals who are against this war are out of fear are badly mistaken.
I do not believe in killing for oil. The soldiers in Iraq are not dying for their country they are killing for the countries elite.
PEACE AND FREEDOM
or NIETHER
November 27th, 2004 at 4:00 pm
Mr. Anonymous,
First of all you spelled piece wrong. Second of all you are a fool to think that Republicans support the killing of innocent people for oil. Third as far as I know we are not involved in another civil war, so there is no way that the Liberals can rise again if there is no rising to be done. This is a democratic republic and if the liberals rise and take full frame, then the founding fathers ideals are bashed. I like guns too but what the hell does that matter. And by the way if you can’t put your name behind what you say then it really doesn’t matter what you say.
November 28th, 2004 at 12:23 am
So I spelled piece wrong.
Second of all I did not say that Republicans are for killing innocent people for oil. Though I will say that some ARE and have told me they are.
I do not believe that Liberals should take “full frame” and I am only saying that if the right keeps going in the direction that they are going “THE PEOPLE” will wake up and take this country back from the RICH ELITE.
I said I like guns….I don’t! What I meant was that I am for our right to have them and if the people are no longer represented by our government, WE THE PEOPLE have the right to CHANGE IT. That is what the second amendment is for…..NOT HUNTING. I mention that I am a Liberal and that I “like guns” because I am sick of people thinking that all Liberals are against the second amendment and/or are unwilling to fight for our FREEDOM.
My name might be John, Bob, Sue, Fred, or “Mark Twain” I could lie and you would never know, so what is the point of me typing my name here.
If the FBI or any common hacker wanted to find out who I am they could track my IP address and figure it out easy enough.
Mr. Anonymous, that works for me because thats what everyone on here is to me.
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Oh and if it “really doesn’t matter what I say” why did you respond to me and why are you reading this now.
November 28th, 2004 at 12:33 am
Liberal press? LOL
Who convinced you of that, I hear it all the time on TELEVISION.
LOL
The press calls our soldiers heroes and the insurgents TERRORISTS.
They say they are defending freedom……They are fighting a war that was based and is based on LIES.
Where are the weapons?
Where are the tears for the INNOCENT Iraqi’s who are dying
in our “liberation”?
Where is the coverage of the INNOCENT DEATHS IN IRAQ?
Where is the talk of possible fraud in this election?
Why would a “LIBERAL” press make Regan look like “one of the greatest leaders of our time”?
Mr. Anonymous
November 30th, 2004 at 10:12 pm
If Bush does succeed in Iraq, it won’t be over, he’ll be invading countries until he’s out of office.
Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam, and the US gave him the technology to make the chemical and biological weapons. The US gave him our blessings when he “asked” if he could invade Iran, and we also turned a blind eye when he first went into Kuwait. Daddy Bush was aware of the weaponry we were selling him, even into daddy Bush’s presidency, but somewhere in there, daddy Bush must have had one of those same visions George has, because that’s when the Gulf War started.
And a little more dirt of the Bush family, they have been in the oil business with the Saudi Royal family, and the bin Laden family for more than twenty years. Also included was the Carlyle Group that daddy Bush headed for a period of time, but Carlyle was handling the financial affairs of the SBL Corporation.(a joint venture between the Saudi Royal and bin Laden families.)
That sure makes me wonder why a plane was allowed to leave the US on 9/12/2001 (when all flights were grounded) with more than 24 Saudis and members of the bin Laden family when our FBI wanted to ask a few questions. George Bush Jr. authorized the flight waving the FBI off.
Then, the hunt for Osama bin Laden fades to the background as Bush insists that his high level cabinet finds a reason to go after Iraq. The next thing we know is WMD. Hmmmmmmmm????
December 28th, 2004 at 4:22 pm
So what, Bush invades other countries. Look we have come to the proverbial fork in the road:
1. We can either kill all the people who reside in countries that sponsor/support/or breed terrorism (this would include Saudia Arabia)
2. We can change them and introduce freedom
3. We can capitulate to the United Nations and the Euro-socialist/communists until these radical islamo-facists become nuclear powers, and really screw things up.
Personally an invasion of Iran would be a great next step (with us stepping on Syria) along the way. What is more likely to happen is that Syria and Iran will crumble within. The silent (based on self-preservation motives) majority want freedom. The citizens of these countries are sick and tired of the dictatorships, with a successful Iraq they will be emboldened, as their leaders will be crapping in their gold plated underwear.
Thank god for President Bush and his leadership. Those on the left who call Bush an idiot, cannot stand that this “idiot” is really Churchill in 1933, solving the problems of the world before they bite us in the ass!
Happy new year to all including the misguided liberals on this web blog!
January 5th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
LOL
Bush is an idiot. PERIOD.
just read all of “his” speaches. He stumbles over every word he speaks.
crapping in his “gold plated underwear is exactly what Bush has done his entire life, most of all when others were being sent to die half way around the world….kinda like now.
This country will also “crumble within” because I will not stand idle watching Bush become the next HITLER. Thats right I think he resembles Hitler far more then he resembles Churchill. Bush sanctions torture and the invasion of countries that are NO THREAT to the United states. It is Bush and people like the one above who “breed terrorism”
Yes the people of the world are all sick of dictators, homegrown or ones who come from Texas who pretend that they care about freedom and democracy. Bush was not elected his first term and he didn’t care then. People lost jobs and were attacked for speaking out against his regime, and he just stands up there with his stupid little smirk thinking that god tells him to torture his enemies and bomb cities killing THOUSANDS of women and children.
Bush is a war criminal and he should be impeached and tried for his crimes like our constitution says.
And all of you who support him are like headed down the same slippery slope that the german people slid off in the early thirties BEFORE the murder of 9,000,000+ people.
Bush is no Hitler, thank whatever god you believe in, but he has moved this country closer to Hitlers Germany then he has to a just and peace seaking society.
I will NOT allow arrogant right wing religious fanatics take over OUR country…..The eagle cannot and will not fly with just the right wing.
PEACE
Impeaching Bush would be the best first step in fighting terrorism.
oh and happy new year to you misguided pawn of Haliburton.
January 8th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Referring to the campaign to stabilize Iraq, Mr. Bush said: “I know it’s hard, but it’s hard for a reason. And the reason it’s hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom.”
What an ass we have for president. He alone should be able to clear Iraq of a handful of insurgents
January 12th, 2005 at 7:59 am
THIS SITE SUCKS
gaaaaaaarrr
January 15th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
We were supposed to be saving the world from WMD (none found) and we were told we’d be welcomed as saviors from Saddam (didn’t happen). What, then, has NOT been a lie from the Bush government?
Why is the resistance growing in popular support among both Shiite and Sunni Muslims everywhere? Because of the stupid policies of George W. Bush, that’s why. Can anyone think of a way to make more enemies? Short of attacking additional innocent countries, we can’t.
January 17th, 2005 at 6:06 am
I think the Iraqi’s would be better off living in a democracy, regardless of what happens around them in that area of the world.
Going to the UN to gain a consensus probably gave Saddam enough time to effectively hide, or, disperse the weapons he had, some of which he previously used.
About Vietnam, weren’t we asked to send advisors there by the GOSV in 1954?
February 17th, 2005 at 2:26 pm
I wish people could stop looking at the world in “Black and White”
simplisity. There are obviously positive and negative results to the Iraq war. Saddam is gone…this is very good. Anywhere from 15,000 to 100,000 innocent Iraqi’s are dead and almost 1,500 American soldiers…..that is very very bad. The task for us is to determine what cost we are willing to pay to eliminate a dictator and murderer.
I think that becoming more like him, using torture, murder, and intimidation….holding an election after creating or in this case continuing such practices, and calling the election fair is no way to “defend freedom” or to spread it.
The American people who support and execute this war are only adding more pain to the lives of the people in Iraq….rather that is thier motive or not.
PEACE NOW
February 20th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
I think your numbers are a bit skewed to favor your position. By taking 1961 as the starting point for the war in Vietnam and March 2003 for Iraq, you have created a false analogy.
The differences as I see them:
1. In 1961 JFK ordered 3,000 advisors to Vietnam (This is certainly not war. By using this as the point of origination, one could reasonably argue that the Iraqi conflict began again after the cessation of the Gulf War with the administration of the No-Fly Zone, Oil for Food, etc.)
2. August 7, 1964 saw the passing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. In 1964, there were only 23,300 American troops in Vietnam. That is up from the 3,205 in 1961. From Sept.-Dec. 1964, 94 Soldiers were killed. 36 in the month of December. That would be more than the deaths for month four of the current conflict if we started the graph at the passage of the aforementioned resolution. Now, to be honest, the first four months of Iraq saw 205 deaths, with about 145,000 troops present. So, we are comparing Vietnam’s 1:247 (1 death to 247 soldiers present) to Iraq’s 1:707.
3. Your graph of the green line over the course of years does not seem exactly (visually) accurate. As I mentioned, there were 36 deaths in Dec 1964, more than 1/3 of 100. However, your graph makes it look more like 20 or so.
4. In 24 months of combat, from March 2003 until Feb 2004, there have been 1,469 casualties in Iraq. In 1965 (only 12 months), Vietnam saw 1,930. Totals for ’65 and ’66 were 8,274.
5. If we care to begin the Vietnam war at a later point, such as 1965 when the US showed an actual commitment to the cause by inserting over 184,000 troops in the theatre, our numbers would reflect even greater differences.
I do not begrudge you the right to propagandize this war any way that you see fit. I even applaud your honesty in admitting that you want to see dead Americans. Without them, you cannot thumb your nose at others while singing “I told you so.”
What I find sad is that while you wish to deride Bush for being a “Liar”, you employ the very tactics for which you deplore him.
February 20th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
Thanks for your insightful comment. While I disagree with your overall characterization of what I’m doing with these graphs, I think you make some interesting points.
Covering your numbered comments:
Points 1 and 2: As I’ve said a number of times, I’m not trying to construct a deaths-per-unit-of-troop-strength comparison. I’m primarily interested here in the political dimension of the two conflicts. Given that, I chose as the starting point for the Vietnam graph the death that Lyndon Johnson later identified publicly as having been the first US death in defense of Vietnamese freedom.
You can shift the starting point of the Iraq graph left or right with respect to the Vietnam graph however you want. I’m not really comparing events at time X in Iraq to the corresponding time Y in Vietnam in any rigorous sense. I’m really just interested in the overall profile of the two conflicts, as measured by US deaths, and how that profile affects the US political reality.
Point 3: I’m not sure what you’re looking at. The spreadsheet data that the chart was built from has 64 deaths as the number of US dead in Vietnam for December, 1964. That data point appears as the peak just to the right of the tick mark between years “3” and “4” on the second graph. The months surrounding that point have data as follows:
Sep-64 11
Oct-64 28
Nov-64 19
Dec-64 36
Jan-65 18
Feb-65 54
Mar-65 22
Apr-65 60
That might make it easier to figure out what the graph is actually showing.
Points 4 and 5: Actually, I’m not sure what your point is here.
“Propagandize” is, of course, a loaded term. Equally value-laden is your characterization of my “admitting” that I “want to see dead Americans.” As the one who made that admission, I don’t think you’ve accurately portrayed it.
The information I present in these charts has no ideology. Showing the number of US servicemen and women who died in Vietnam, and who now are dying in Iraq, may argue one way or the other as to the wisdom of Bush’s war, but at least in the graphs themselves, I’m not making that argument. I’m just presenting the numbers in as objective a form as I can. US soldiers died in the Vietnam war. US soldiers are dying in this war. I was curious how the number of deaths over time for the two conflicts compared to each other.
As I keep saying, you’re free to draw whatever conclusions you want about what those charts show. What you’re not free to do, but what some of Bush’s supporters seem to want very much to do, is to make the numbers go away. It doesn’t work that way.
August 18th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
Enough is enough. Forget about the Vietnam War. This is a totally different situation we are facing. Lets for a moment forget about the facts and figures. Regardless of what is happening, the Bush Administration are masters of manipulating and deception and I will later elaborate on that. The truth is there is an invisible line right down the middle of America right now that most of us try to ignore. There are those that sit in the “I know what’s really going on but afraid to say” side, and those who love what the President stands for. “Good Ole Boy, We are the best, How Dare they attack U.S. on our soil, Arrogance”. “Oh yeah by the way, thanks for the Tax cut”. “Everything is fine on our neck of the woods”. There are still Patriots in this nation who will fight to defend our sovereignty. Truth is most of those serving, serve because there are not many options for them, or no options at all, and they want to create a chance for prosperity or something new in their lives. Why do you think there are so many minorities willing to swear their life away for a country whose most of the majority still looks down upon? Or immigrants who can’t even vote, or own land but are willing to fight. How many rich boys in the service? Not many. How many of our leaders have a son or daughter in the service? I served the military proudly hoping I would never face an enemy. But I knew the possibility was there. And I’ve never been a chump so I don’t think I would have been a coward. But I was fortunate to never have to find out. I did benefit from being in the service and that is what I intended for. A lot more than any of you who talk and never had the gonads gamble. I SALUTE any fellow service members for putting their life on the line like I did. Bush is either the damn good Liar, or a damn puppet for that society many of us don’t know about. Neither would we want for a President. He uses his esoteric message to communicate one thing to those in his society and a whole different message to the rest of the naive flock who believe his crap. Uses keywords like “forces of evil” to emotionally draw a nation into thinking that with his judgment we will overcome these terrorist. “We will attack because of weapons of Mass Destruction”. “Oh we found none, now let’s relieve Iraq from dictatorship by capturing Sadaam”. Oh wow we got Sadaam a lot easier than I thought”. Now what are we going to tell the Nation. Oh yes the original reason why we wanted to go into Iraq. We must fight terrorism although very few terrorist cells are actually in Iraq. Even the blind right says “The war is over”. Those are insurgents. So who are we protecting the Iraqis from then? Not terrorists obviously. We are not defending our freedom, we are if anything enlisting our men to fight for Iraq, if Bush is in fact honest of his motives. Look at it how you want. We should not be there. If the war were here many of us would not just sit down and let another nation tell us how we should live or who we should worship or what government to follow. If that were to happen we would fight back and call ourselves PATRIOTS. Wake up Sheep, this whole conflict is about Power and economics. Without the resources we receive from the Middle East, our nation’s way of living would not survive unless we made changes to our energy situation. But wait a minute. “Why would I promote water when I am in the business of selling milk”. Exactly, no one is going to say it. That’s what it all comes down to. Some Ideology isn’t it. If we really care about helping the people of the world why don’t we help the millions of people starving and living in Political tyranny in Africa or right here in the U.S.? No Bush wants to push Iraq around who we know we can beat to gain popularity among his supporters. Korea straight out said yes we have nuclear weapons. Did Bush attack them? No. We know better. That would be too much of an equal fight. This is too much of a risk with too little payoff. Yes you can say what I have said is a little extreme and may enrage many of you Bush fanatics. Your mind is made up. For you to agree I am right would mean you are wrong. You can’t do that can you? Neither can the President when the truth is there. If a common man deceives the government its fraud. If Bush deceives the people he changes the reason. You can ignore all you want. Many of us know what America really stands for. Some think they know. This is the “Land of the Free”. Not land of the free to do whatever the hell I want, wherever the hell I want. By know means do I think we should lie down and let the terrorist have their way. We have to change our approach. We don’t put our force in a foreign land in the middle hell. When we as Americans start giving our rights away to ensure our safety, we are in fact giving in to what these terrorists want. Terrorists want to disrupt our lives and have us in fear. We should never react by giving up our freedom for security. Think about it. The Patriot Act is only the beginning unless we the people stand up for what America is not how it is being presented by our President and our government. Would you give away your freedom to help another Nation? This is being a Patriot according to the Government. Bush promises we will win this war on terror. If in fact terror is the real reason we are there, how will we know we won. Will we sit back twenty, thirty years from know talking about the war on terror like we do about WWI, WWII, Korean, or Vietnam War. The truth is we won’t until we either have no freedom, or get to heaven.
December 29th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I’m curious how religous zealots (American version) ridicule the fighters trying to remove unwanted invaders by blowing themselves up in Iraq but condone the brave act of dropping tonnes of explosives from 3km up in the air from a B52 on kiddies?
To people like Laurence Wagman you didn’t win in Korea or Vietnam and are copping a hiding in Iraq. Your military won’t be invading anyone else anytime soon.
Now let’s see Russia, Iran, China and Nth Korea are all good buddies united by an intense hatred of the worlds biggest users of everything and the biggest polluters. But you are right about one thing – Islam will get nuclear weapons and they will use them and it will be on America.
America has been throwing it’s redneck religous views around for too long and is about to get it back with interest.
Then all those that voted for your current leader will stand there slack jawed asking “why us”?
March 25th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
God gave us minds to find truth.. let us have the courage to find leaders that have minds so some answers for Iraq will be found. The current mindset is just not cutting it.
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Here I am in 2006, looking back at the comment trail left behind since 2003. While it looks like a statistical comparison between Viet Nam and Iraq alone would lead to flawed conclusions, I thought the charts were nonetheless interesting. Today, I’m writing on a day in 2006 when we’ve had about 2,300 U.S. military casualties and God knows how many innocent Iraqi casualties.
I also write in retrospect of seeing Saddam’s capture and bin Laden’s continued evasion of our supposed manhunt. Does anyone remember George Bush saying that he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive? I wonder if anyone would argue that our current position of capturing bin Laden doesn’t sound like a total flip flop.
I digressed a little, but it’s no worse than what we did with the War on Terror, by going into Iraq so clearly in defiance of the world community. By the way, I’m no fan of Saddam Hussein. I think he would have eventually given everyone a reason to intervene just as Iran is now. I’m also a veteran of the U.S. military, so I was one of those people your stickers tell everyone to support.
Yet, I know that someone out there will happily denigrate my service or call it into question. Please feel free to do that; it’s a free country. I think it’s interesting that the one’s I’ve most often heard trashing peacemakers have never served a day in their lives. Enough said on that.
Now that I’m done with that digression, I’ll say that it’s useless to bash the comparisons with Viet Nam merely because there are differences. We can draw comparisons because people are dying every day and the number now stands in the thousands.
Furthermore, we have a leader that wants to stay the course and is now leaving it to another president down the road to get us out. How many more thousands or perhaps millions of lives will be lost? Is it hyperbole to say that millions of lives could be lost? Perhaps, but I’m not limiting my statistics to U.S. combat fatalities. I’m including innocent bystanders and those why may die in the future because we let the real enemies slip under the radar.
While we’re still nowhere close to the 58,000+ U.S. combat casualties of Viet Nam, I think it now goes without sayinqg that we do not have a good plan on the ground in Iraq. While good things are happening there, it does not mean that we have a clear plan or a win strategy. Is it naive to say that? I hardly think so, but that is my opinion (as is all of this posting). I’m sure someone will disagree.
Finally, I seem to recall that the Viet Nam years represented a constant grinding of statistics. Does anyone remember the military coming out with daily kill statistics? It also reminds me of a soldier I once served with. I remember him saying to me one day that his career goal was to tally up 200 kills. Sounds insane doesn’t it? How is our current grind of statistics any less insane?
Thank you.
Bill Graham