The Iraq / war on terror thread

[jgfnsr]

I find the whole "America saving the world's ass in WW2" an interesting topic. God knows Americans are constantly reminding everyone of it, but I wonder how true it really is. Now, I haven't studied history in a while, but in high school WW2 was my favorite topic during history lessons, and from what I've gathered the US had a fairly miniscule effect in the outcome. The Soviet army was simply huge, and the losses Germany faced in Stalingrad were staggering. The eastern front is where the fate of Europe was really determined, in my opinion. The Russians lost nearly 14 million soldiers in the war. What are the 0.5 million US deaths compared to that? I apologize if I make it sound like 0.5 million isn't a lot, because it is, but things have to be put to perspective. I highly doubt "we'd all be speaking German" if it wasn't for the US. The speaking Russian -thing sounds more likely.

If Germany could have put all its focus on Russia, the Germans would have beaten Russia.

You're absolutely right Drunk.? Germany's fatal mistake was fighting a war on two fronts.? If they hadn't done this the Nazi's would have crushed the Russia.

[SLCPUNK]

Slc u say that Iraq did not attack the U.S that it was Osama, quite right, but the main purpose of this war to remove the threat it posed on the U.S. So i don't see a problem with that.

Nope. Bush said he was going to 'get the people responsible.' He did not.

Iraq was not a threat, was not threatening us, and has since been proven (since the invasion) that it was not a threat

I'm from Australia...

Wow, double shame on you then.

[SLCPUNK]

Some notable clips from your post:

Others have asked us to comment on whether the Lancet report's headline figure of 100,000 is a credible estimate. At present our resources are focused on our own ongoing work, not assessing the work of others.

As of this writing we are more concerned with renewed air and ground attacks on Falluja, which last April left over 800 Iraqis dead, some 600 of them civilians (see previous IBC press release below).

The articles you guys use against me seem to back me too. Nightrain said that "everbody was out of Falluja".

both studies have arrived at one conclusion which is not up for serious debate: the number of deaths from violence has skyrocketed since the war was launched (see IBC Press Release September 23rd 2003 [link]; also AP 24th May 2004 [graphic chart]).


Your article points out how the studies were carried out but will not go all the way to totally dismiss the claim:

Nonetheless, the Lancet's estimate of 100,000 deaths - which is on the scale of the death toll from Hiroshima - has, if it is accurate, such serious implications that we may return to the subject in greater detail in the near future.

I have another article that explains in more detail how the Lancet conducted it's study. We could go all day posting things back and forth.

But either way, if it's 20,000 people or 100,000 people it's both because Bush decided to go into Iraq on phony charges. And that is 20,000 -100,000 (depending on who you'd like to believe) DEAD because of your liar in chief.

Using your article alone and calling it the truth (for the sake of argument) is still absurd.

We had 3000 people die in 9-11? So in turn (just in Iraq, not counting Afghanistan) we killed almost SEVEN TIMES the amount of innocent people. Yet, still did not catch the person who was responsible for 9-11.

Gee, wonder why...maybe because...he is not in Iraq?

I bet all those who didn't ask for our help (the Iraqi citizens) are sure glad we came over and 'liberated them', they probably think all the casualties are worth it. Just like you do. 

[SLCPUNK]

Karl Vick / The Washington Post
Suad Ahmed, left, watches over her 1-year-old son, Abdullah, at Baghdad's main children's hospital. Abdullah weighs just 11 pounds.
By Karl Vick

Updated: 11:00 p.m. ET Nov. 20, 2004BAGHDAD - Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

"These figures clearly indicate the downward trend," said Alexander Malyavin, a child health specialist with the UNICEF mission to Iraq.

Services slow to improve
The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under American stewardship.

Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

"The people are astonished," said Khalil M. Mehdi, who directs the Nutrition Research Institute at the Health Ministry. The institute has been involved with nutrition surveys for more than a decade; the latest one was conducted in April and May but has not been publicly released.

Mehdi and other analysts attributed the increase in malnutrition to dirty water and to unreliable supplies of the electricity needed to make it safe by boiling. In poorer areas, where people rely on kerosene to fuel their stoves, high prices and an economy crippled by unemployment aggravate poor health.

"Things have been worse for me since the war," said Kasim Said, a day laborer who was at Baghdad's main children's hospital to visit his ailing year-old son, Abdullah. The child, lying on a pillow with a Winnie the Pooh washcloth to keep the flies off his head, weighs just 11 pounds.

"During the previous regime, I used to work on the government projects. Now there are no projects," his father said.

Feast to famine
When he finds work, he added, he can bring home $10 to $14 a day. If his wife is fortunate enough to find a can of Isomil, the nutritional supplement that doctors recommend, she pays $7 for it.

"But the lady in the next bed said she just paid $10," said Suad Ahmed, who sat cross-legged on a bed in the same ward, trying to console her skeletal 4-month-old granddaughter, Hiba, who suffers from chronic diarrhea.

Iraqi health officials like to surprise visitors by pointing out that the nutrition issue facing young Iraqis a generation ago was obesity. Malnutrition, they say, appeared in the early 1990s with U.N. trade sanctions championed by Washington to punish the government led by President Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait in 1990.

International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002. But the invasion in March 2003 and the widespread looting in its aftermath severely damaged the basic structures of governance in Iraq, and persistent violence across the country slowed the pace of reconstruction almost to a halt.

Doctors in short supply
In its most recent assessment of five sectors of Iraq's reconstruction, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research group, said health care was worsening at the quickest pace.

"Believe me, we thought a magic thing would happen" with the fall of Hussein and the start of the U.S.-led occupation, said an administrator at Baghdad's Central Teaching Hospital for Pediatrics. "So we're surprised that nothing has been done. And people talk now about how the days of Saddam were very nice," the official said.

The administrator, who would not give his full name for publication, cited security concerns faced by Iraqi doctors, who are widely perceived as rich and well-connected and thus easy targets for thieves, extortionists and the merely envious or vengeful. So many have been assassinated, he said, that the Health Ministry recently mailed out offers to expedite weapon permits for doctors.

Violence has also driven away international aid agencies that brought expertise to Iraq following the U.S. invasion.

Since a truck bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed more than 20 people last year, U.N. programs for Iraq have operated from neighboring Jordan. Doctors Without Borders, a group known for its high tolerance for risk and one of several that helped revive Iraq's Health Ministry in the weeks after the invasion, evacuated this fall.

CARE International closed down in October after the director of its large Iraq operation, Margaret Hassan, was kidnapped. She is now presumed to be dead. The huge Atlanta-based charity had remained active in Iraq through three wars, providing hospitals with supplies and sponsoring scores of projects to offer Iraqis clean drinking water.

Poverty breeds malnutrition
By one count, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. The country's sewer systems are in disarray.

"Even myself, I suffer from the quality of water," said Zina Yahya, 22, a nurse in a Baghdad maternity hospital. "If you put it in a glass, you can see it's turbid. I've heard of typhoid cases."

The nutrition surveys indicated that conditions are worst in Iraq's largely poor, overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim south, an area alternately subject to neglect and persecution during Hussein's rule. But doctors say malnutrition occurs wherever water is dirty, parents are poor and mothers have not been taught how to avoid disease.

"I don't eat well," said Yusra Jabbar, 20, clutching her swollen abdomen in a fly-specked ward of Baghdad's maternity hospital. Her mother said the water in their part of Sadr City, a Shiite slum on the capital's east side, is often contaminated. Her brother contracted jaundice.

"They tell me I have anemia," Jabbar said. Doctors said almost all the pregnant women in the hospital do.

"This is not surprising because since the war, there is lots of unemployment," Yahya said. "And without work, they don't have the money to obtain proper food.''

Iraqis say such conditions carry political implications. Baghdad residents often point out to reporters that after the 1991 Persian Gulf War left much of the capital a shambles, Hussein's government restored electricity and kerosene supplies in two months.

"Yes, there is a price for every war," said the official at the teaching hospital. "Yes, there are victims. But after that?

"Oh God, help us build Iraq again. For our children, not for us. For our kids," the official said.
__________________

[SLCPUNK]

  Germany's fatal mistake was fighting a war on two fronts.

 Hmmm...sounds familiar.

[D]

  Germany's fatal mistake was fighting a war on two fronts.

 Hmmm...sounds familiar.

very good point!!!!

[Skeletor]

Yes, everyone knows it was a huge mistake for Germany to fight the war on two fronts. But without the US, there still would've been Britain on the western front. And without the US, the Germans still would've attacked USSR in winter time (well, the assault started during summer time but went on througout the seasons) wearing only summer clothing, and facing massive losses as their troops froze to death in -40 ?C weather.

America is 100% responsible for defeating Germany and for western Europe not speaking German today.

Alright then. I was a fucking moron to expect an intelligent discussion.

[DRUNK]

? Germany's fatal mistake was fighting a war on two fronts.

 Hmmm...sounds familiar.

We are fighting a guerilla war, not massive well finded organized armies.

We have superiority in ever area.

[matt88]

Yes, everyone knows it was a huge mistake for Germany to fight the war on two fronts. But without the US, there still would've been Britain on the western front. And without the US, the Germans still would've attacked USSR in winter time (well, the assault started during summer time but went on througout the seasons) wearing only summer clothing, and facing massive losses as their troops froze to death in -40 ?C weather.

America is 100% responsible for defeating Germany and for western Europe not speaking German today.

Alright then. I was a fucking moron to expect an intelligent discussion.

I see what your saying Skeletor, but if Germany and Russia fought a war one on one, Germany would have won easily. I mean they took on all of Europe and won and were beating England, so one little country like Russia would fold easily.

Germany were withdrawing from Russia when they were losing so say Russia launched an attack on Germany they would have been crushed. So their goes the speaking Russian thingy.

Then all Germany had to do was go over to England and use their V2 rockets and destroy it and win. W

[matt88]

Yes, everyone knows it was a huge mistake for Germany to fight the war on two fronts. But without the US, there still would've been Britain on the western front. And without the US, the Germans still would've attacked USSR in winter time (well, the assault started during summer time but went on througout the seasons) wearing only summer clothing, and facing massive losses as their troops froze to death in -40 ?C weather.

America is 100% responsible for defeating Germany and for western Europe not speaking German today.

Alright then. I was a fucking moron to expect an intelligent discussion.

Sorry i hit the "POST" by accident anyway, Germany would have taken over Europe and Great Britain so Great Britain and Russia and all off Europe would be speaking German. My opinion of course.

[Rain]

I mean they took on all of Europe and won and were beating England, so one little country like Russia would fold easily.

 

Little country ? You're kidding right ? 

[matt88]

I mean they took on all of Europe and won and were beating England, so one little country like Russia would fold easily.

 

Little country ? You're kidding right ??

Military sized....yeah little. If it werent for the snow Moscow would have been crushed like an ant.

[LeftToDecay]

Military sized....yeah little.

Hehehehe."little" What the fuck do they teach in history classes nowadays?Jesus.
The most common estimations about the size of the little Red Army during WW II wary from 17 to 20 millions.

If you actually read your history books,you'd learn that in Stalingrad ALONE, Germany lost about 250 000 men along with thousands of planes and tanks. Germ. Army was never able to fully recover, and after Stalingrad they were more or less retreating.

[GnRNightrain]

Military sized....yeah little.

Hehehehe."little" What the fuck do they teach in history classes nowadays?Jesus.
The most common estimations about the size of the little Red Army during WW II wary from 17 to 20 millions.

If you actually read your history books,you'd learn that in Stalingrad ALONE, Germany lost about 250 000 men along with thousands of planes and tanks. Germ. Army asnever able to fully recover, and after Stalingrad they were more or less retreating.

They werent little, but his point still stands.  Russia would have been crushed on their own.  Especially without the bad weather.  They had more men, but were far less advaned in military technology.  Furthermore, it is a lot easier to defend a city then it is to wage an assault.

[LeftToDecay]

They werent little, but his point still stands.? Russia would have been crushed on their own.? Especially without the bad weather.?

Well..Soviet Union was prety much alone when it was forced to face Germany's war machine at it's prime. First Soviets got their asses kicked..but they endured..and eventually began pushing Germany back.Inflicting and recieving absolutely masive losses.

When it comes to weather remark, yeah.I too think Moscow would have been crushed if winter hadn't helped to stall Germany's advance. Then again, Hitler might have suffered Napoleon's fate: most military production facilities were around Urals by the time Germany's  army arrived anywhere near Moscow.

but were far less advaned in military technology

What do you mean?
When it comes to Soviet Union as a nation, yes it was a complete shithole during WWII..
..But somehow they have always been pretty gifted and even efficient when it comes to creating stuff that kills-a-lot.

Soviet tanks for example survied just fine against most German tanks.
Soviet main battle tank T34 was very easy,cheap and fast to build. Germany's hi-tech stuff like Tigers&Panthers were able to destroy several T34s at the same time  with ease...but building a Tiger/Panther took a long time  and was very expensive. . By the end of 42 Resource and man power was on Soviet's side. They could easily afford loosing 10 tanks as long as they made sure Germany lost 2 at the same time.

Germany was able to conquer major parts of Stalingrad. During last months/weeks of Stalingrad it were the German troops who defended the city against assaulting Soviets.

[neko]

Well Neko if it weren't for America u would be either not exist or be speaking German. U aren't German are u

im Mexican , but my point its that America of course did a lot to help win the war , but the thing about "America won the WW2" i think its a little drastic , because they were millions non Americans  soldiers that were helping and deserve the recognition , so America,Russia,Canada,England and other countrys won the war , not just America .

Hitler never wanted to fight America because he knew they were powerfull , later in the war he tried to make Russia to fight with America , but he couldnt , in some point he knew he couldnt win the war against russia and america (there are some books that imply that hitler belived he could won the war but later studys show that he knew he was going to lose) also there are studys that said the Germany couldnt keep  fighting the war for more time , it was not possible for them to conquest the world , at leats not with a rival like Russia .


sorry for my english.

[MCT]

It's frighfully obvious that you're incapable of following all but the most conspicuous of shorthanded gestures, so I shall refrain from a full-blown reply.

Why did Powell step down other than the fact that he always intended to serve just one term?? Enlighten me.

That Powell not returning for a second term wasn't a suprise, is something that I think we can both agree on; but for different reasons.

You seem to have verifiable information that would show a one term tenure was the plan all along for Powell, whereas I tend toward such watchdog notions as the fallout from Powell's address to the UN in February of last year (you know, the one with the faulty intel...).

...we can be no more isolationist after 911, than we could be after Pearl Harbor.? We can sit here and hope that no one comes and attacks us.? However, the problem with islamic extremism isnt limited to US v. Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, or Palestianian-Israeli conflicts.? It is much, much bigger and I think that anyone that thinks otherwise is fooling themself.

I think I was fooling myself when I first responded..........

Anyway, I'm not trying to be an asshole. Just telling it like I see it. Like you do I suppose....

And one more thing - kudos for always giving it a real effort. I mean that......... .......

[neko]

MCT  its the first sentence for me?

[MCT]

MCT? its the first sentence for me?

Is Sky72 straight?
















...no...

[neko]

MCT? its the first sentence for me?

Is Sky72 straight?

  i really dont know...
















...no...