Thursday, August 31, 2006

An Insurgent's Bullet

Damn it if facts aren't always getting in the way of the opinion's of the uneducated

The following is an excerpt of a communication between myself and yet one more person who refuses to investigate before he opens his mouth. To those of you who are throwing around numbers of "Innocent civilians" murdered by US and coalition forces, and how horrible and ineffective we have been over there, try using facts. By the way "George Bush stole the 2000 election", "Bush is wrong cause I don't like him" and "Bush is wrong cause he mispronounces nuclear" are not facts they are, opinions. If you are unsure of the difference between fact and opinion then you can try the following.

A, Use a dictionary, or
B, CNN might be hiring.

The following communication included responses from multiple persons on both sides of this issue. I elected only to include my arguments and the arguments of the individual who initiated this debate. My comments are in yellow and his are in red. I have taken certain things I felt were important and made them bold, they were not in bold print in the original communication. "Yagloo", the initiator of the post, is British and has told me that he considers his political views to be "progressive Marxian anarchist". I "ChrsMcA" am American and consider myself a moderate conservative, and have NO political party affiliation. Finally an excerpt from an article written by Steven Cass is included in italics. The site that this communication occurred on allows people to vote on weather they agree or disagree with the initial post. At the time of this post the votes were 28 in favor 45 opposed. I am not surprised that the majority of votes were in opposition but I was appalled and shocked that there were so many supporters of the sickening position taken by this individual.

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yagloo says:
Recent american/UK operations in Iraq were a terrible attrocity. The amercan/UK military has killed over 10 times as many innocent women and children as Saddams lackeys did in his entire reign, Iraq remains in ruins, virtual civil war and the proposed new constitution will leave it a theocracy.
The 'troops' are all directly responsible for this continued and pointless slaughter and are no better than common murderers. When they signed up of their own free will they did not gain some magical absolution for their crimes. Every one of them had the moral responsibility to defect, desert or work to sabotage the war effort from within. Every one of them who did not do this deserves not our support but an insurgents bullet.
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ChrsMcA says:
Yagloo you are clearly one who considers himself an intellectual... you are in fact an embarrassment to mankind as a whole. I am pleased to know this as it is clear that there is no point debating any topic with you as it would be akin to debating with a rock... a small rock at that.

For those of you who do not need to be forcibly removed from the gene pool, the following was written by Stephen Cass an expert on Iraq and Saddam, who lives in San Francisco. Not exactly taking the popular opinion in his area but the true one none the less.

"My sixteen years of study of Iraq, doctoral work on Saddam, and time spent in the Middle East make no difference. I am daily condemned by the mantra that the US is taking "hundreds of thousands" of civilian lives in Iraq-- and that my support makes me an accomplice to murder.

For my own part, I am embarrassed to watch the daily "Showdown with Iraq" news graphics that turn human suffering into a Steven Segal movie. I know that what is at stake are precious human lives. I know that many who oppose the war do so out of deep respect and concern for human life.

Let me say that there are those supporting the disarmament of Saddam who do so for the same reason.

Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power.

By contrast, taking at face value Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf's recent claims of total Iraqi civilian deaths since the start of the campaign we are left with the tragedy of 38 civilian deaths daily since the start of the war.

In other words, even accepting the Iraqis own numbers and the highly-suspect assertion that all were caused by US weapons, and discounting the numbers of humanitarian organizations, the civilian death toll has, in fact, fallen since the start of the war. Indeed, it has fallen precipitously.

One civilian death is rightfully a tragedy-- not only for the Iraqis, but for Anglo-American efforts to disarm and remove Saddam with minimal loss of life. Yet it is more of a tragedy that a hundred thousand civilian deaths under Saddam are treated as a rounding error-- or worse, a politicized, uncomfortable, and therefore ignorable fact.

For those who would question my math, I point out that at least I have tried to apply math to the claims made for and against the war. I agree that lives cannot be treated as numbers in a balance, but it is the protestors who have moved the argument on to that playing field. For indeed, they accept that Saddam is evil, but believe that his disarmament is more evil because-- in the now familiar phrase-- it will kill hundreds of thousands of innocents."

At the very minimum the daily death toll in Iraq has dropped by nearly 50%. Where were your protests for Iraqi civilians when those "hundred of thousands" were being slaughtered during the past two decades? Probably trying to learn how to spell "progressive Marxian anarchist" your political definition of your self, this can be abbreviated to simply fool.
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chrsmca says:
Come to think of it I have got an idea. Being as you have obviously never been in the military but know the mindset and the heart of those who are (you're psychic I'm sure), Al Qaeda is looking for the radically foolish. You qualify. You should call up Osama, and ask for a job. I bet he is hiring. In fact I hear that suicide bombing is beautiful this time of year. You could be like a suicide bomber test pilot. But if crying about how horrible the world is without getting that involved is your thing then I have an alternative that requires no training. Those poor innocent Iraqis that are being killed by the terrorists, who are in agreement with your every view I am sure, and by the heathen US & UK militaries, are in need of human shields. I would have the utmost respect for you if you volunteered for that. Of course I am sure that it is easier to stay at home and point fingers then to actually do something.
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yagloo says:
You twist the figures by including the iran-iraq war. And of course the deaths have fallen since the beginning of the war - they were enormous at the beginning because of the bombings. Oh, and the claims of Iraqs information minister wouldnt be biased at all towards making his government look like it was doing a good job. ^ - Any good derived from deposing sadam is far outweighed by the consequences of the war.
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Chrsmca says:
First off, Genius, the daily death toll in Iraq prior to the war was higher than it has been during the duration of the war, not the death toll has lowered during the duration of the war. Maybe I should draw you a picture. Second the claims of the Iraqi information minister were inflated to incite persons like yourself to jump on the idea that so many innocent civilians are being killed by US & UK forces. Finally the numbers aren't twisted, the 500,000 referred to are in fact not military, but civilians who died during the Iran-Iraq war, including and excluding them is where the 70 to 125 came from as opposed to 38 per day now. So your argument of American's killing 10 times as many innocent civilians is a completely fabricated number. But why use facts when you can lie to prove a point.

"yagloo said:
^ - Any good derived from deposing sadam is far outweighed by the consequences of the war."

70 to 125 civilian deaths per day under Saddam primarily during peace time > 38 per day during A WAR... evidently the scale you use to show how something outweighs something is broken. Probably operator error.

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yagloo says:
As for good outweighing the bad, the insurgency will likely continue for a good 15-20 years, vigilantes are likely to kill far more than sadams police, and huge damage has been done to the infrastructure - which america has catagorically stated it will not repair.

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Chrsmca says:
"huge damage has been done to the infrastructure - which America has categorically stated it will not repair."???
Which America are you talking about? The one who is rebuilding their telecommunications systems? Or maybe the one who is rebuilding Iraq's water systems? Maybe you mean the America who is repairing, updating and installing new sewage treatment facilities! Yeah that must be the America you are referring to. Or is it the America who is repairing the Iraqi oil wells and pipelines that Saddam ordered destroyed, so that Iraq has a strong industry after the war. Of course there is always the America that is rebuilding and training Iraq's military, Iraq's police, Iraq's firefighters, Iraq's EMS personnel, and Iraq's government officials, not to mention, working to rebuild Iraq's construction market by using more and more Iraqi contractors. Oh and don't forget the transportation infrastructure including airport repairs and road repairs that are ongoing due to constant IEDs. We won't think less of you if you don't have a legitimate argument, you don't need to fabricate one for us!

by the way I know this first hand. My brother-in-law is working on telecom, father in law sewage treatment municipal plumbing. My fire department is training Iraq's firefighters, Iraq's EMS, and Iraq's ARFF (Airport Rescue Firefighters). Oh and I read, watch and listen to multiple, legitimate news sources, not just left wing, conspiracy minded, print anything to incite anger and fear news mediums.


"As for good outweighing the bad, the insurgency will likely continue for a good 15-20 years, vigilantes are likely to kill far more than Sadams police"
Yagloo we have already gone over this. If the daily death toll is still lower DURING A TIME OF WAR, than it was DURING PEACE TIME, there is an increase in the people living as a result of our presence. If this goes on for 20 years with no change for the better, the death toll still will not reach the 20 year death toll of Iraqi civilians under Saddam's reign.

These are facts, but as is your style, you have yet to allow facts or truth of any kind; to get in the way of a half educated opinion, based on your two omniscient news mediums.
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Once again facts and reality have gotten in the way of an uneducated opinion, backed by made up statistics. It's like they say 89.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot. I rarely comment on the individual in the manner that I have here, I allowed my frustration of dealing with the deceitful and the unwilling to think or research to get the better of me.

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