Its that time of year again!
This is the 7th anniversary of the war the US started with Iraq. The score so far:
- Cost to US taxpayers
- $713 Billion
- US soldiers killed
- 4385
- US soldiers wounded
- 31616 (though December 2009)
- Individually documented Iraqi civilian deaths
- About 100,000.
- Statistically extrapolated civilian deaths
- 655,000 deaths (2.5% of the population of the areas surveyed) directly and indirectly caused by the war (through July 2006).
I don't think I can really describe just how angry this makes me.
What's your point? War is too expensive? I've never heard of a cheap one.
TNO:
Implicit in my post is the belief that this war was pointless, and therefore especially evil. I do not have to enumerate the costs of this war in order to argue against it. But perhaps some who do not agree that this war was pointless and evil will at least agree that it wasn't worth the cost.
I fear from your domain name that you are an Objectivist. If so, please don't even bother trying to argue with me about this.
"I fear from your domain name that you are an Objectivist. If so, please don't even bother trying to argue with me about this."
Then you would be wrong. The domain name has nothing to do with any political or philosophical topic. If you're willing to make such a sweeping generalization about someone without any evidence, then it wouldn't surprise me if you followed a similar line of thinking when you came to your conclusion about this blog topic as well. Of course I wouldn't know for sure since you've given nothing more than contextually meaningless statistics and a vague negative remark.
So no, I won't bother arguing a vague point but I will ask that you add a bit more substance to this post.
You forgot to mention one more statistic.
The most important one.
Gas prices below $3.00
IMO - the war had 2 agendas - Oil and base close to Iran. Unfortunately - the idiots who planned it did not plan to stay there for a while.
US Person,
I wonder if we'll ever really know what this war was about. Getting military bases in the middle east may have been part of the calculation. Though if the point was to gain an advantage on Iran, that must have been a big miscalculation. I don't really buy the idea that this was about oil. Though if that was part of the idea, it seems, again like a screw-up. Have Iraq's oil exports every returned to the level they were at pre-invasion?
I personally believe it was more of a long term move against Russia. There are a number of articles to this effect, one being: http://rt.com/Politics/2009-12-28/soviet-union-afghanistan-war.html
Yeah, I posted the seventh anniversary on many places... no bites... seems no one really wants to admit it or even talk about it...
Your comments assume nothing worse would have occured. After the First Gulf War it was found Saddam was 12 months away from a nuclear device.
The US, Russian, and all Western intelligence agencies through he was trying to construct another nuclear weapon as well as reconsititute his biological and chemical war capabilities (incorrectly). He was maintaining staff and facilities to restart these programs.
By 2003 the sanctions regime was breaking down. Without this war I think we would be looking at a nuclear armed Saddam who was looking for revenge. In addition, he averaged around 40,000 killed per year from 1980 to 2003. This death rate would have continued and most likely increased significantly. The rate is much higher than that caused by the 2nd Iraq war and the people of Iraq now have a chance of self-government.
Technology advance means smaller and smaller groups of people will have the power of Nation-States to kill millions. I expect an dramatic increase in democides. The second Iraq War just delayed/slowed this trend.
I see you agree that only imaginary statistics for civilian deaths can be considered valid. Good start, but given that premise, your death estimates are suspiciously low. Numbers in the trillions, or even higher, can very easily be typed. Unless you're a neocon. You ARE a neocon, aren't you? Oil! Cheney! Oil!
Alan,
I disagree, obviously. I don't want to argue about it, but I will say that we don't actually know what western intelligence agencies thought--we just know what the Bush administration wanted us to know they thought.
sadf,
You're a troll.
Really! I come the a JAVA blog and stumble across your mindless dribble on politics and war. Were you in Iraq BEFORE the war? Was your wife raped by Iraq "military"? Was your family poisoned to death by a dictator? Were you tortured because of your religion?
No! You sit from your comfortable chair spewing out mindless anti-war garbage!
The next thing you know you will be advocating for government run heath care, oh wait...
If you don't like the US move to France and SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Annoyed,
The "move to France" thing is so 2001, isn't it?
I hardly think my posts are "mindless", and at least I have the courage to put my name on them.
I see that you visited from IP address 156.63.195.2, which is part of the State of Ohio block of addresses. Are you a state employee using your time in this way? Or perhaps you spend your time trolling the internet from a public library?