1,000 dead American soldiers

[Guaranteed]

At this rate, the Iraq war will have cost us over 1,000 American soldiers' lives before the November election. What do you think will be the effect of this extra decimal place on the mind of the average American?

Personally, I think the public having to see that deathometer tick over to a one with three zeros behind will probably be the end of the Bush administration. It's a new order of magnitude, and psychologically devastating. It's just a horrible, huge number.

[FloridaPat]

1. We're well passed that mark. They are not reporting anyone

who dies outside of Iraq. Remember all those wounded? The estimate from other than the DOD is around 20,000 wounded. Either none of them has died, or the administration is lying about the death count.

[BeHereNow]

5. Correct!

Spoke with a family member last night who is
in Afghanistan. He says the numbers are way over what
is being reported and that some of the reports take
as long as thirty days to reach official status.
He says his unit has lost 15 members in the last month-
None of which have been officially reported as of yet.
Troops are beyond depressed and see no end to
being there. Also that due to the fact that 30% of the people
there are reservists who will be released by law soon-
none of which have ANY intention of returning once
they are released, that the draft is common knowledge
among the troops. Ther is no other option than to
activate the draft.
It's coming- make no mistake.
BHN

[alcuno]

23. If you are talking Iraq and not Afghanistan, I believe the # is correct.

754 as of when I looked earlier today. If you go to the site http://www.lunaville.org and go through the pages, you will see Americans who later died of their injuries in Kuwait, Germany, England, and America. There are not that many and it is a credit to medical and transport personnel that so many have survived their injuries.

[NWHarkness]

2. November?

At the current rate of attrition, the number will top 1,000 by the end of June.

[depakid]

9. Yep- my guess is closer to twice that by November

Iraqis are only going to get bolder and better what they're doing- and every day racks up dozens of new vendettas. Ironically, this is probably a good thing for America in the long term- imagine if the strangelove neocons had gone into Syria, Iran or God forbid North Korea! You could add yet another decimal in any of those cases in any of those cases, for certain.

Small solace to the loved ones of all those killed on both sides....

[ShaneGR]

3. It will be over a 1000 by late July

Probably 1500 by November.

[Guaranteed]

4. I just said before November.

I'm not making any predictions, here. Just saying it will be over 1,000 by the election.

What will be the effect on the people? How badly will they take this?

[ShaneGR]

7. Not too well

But you can mark last Friday as the date everything changed. Those prison photos are gonna shake up a lot of peoples thinking. Sometimes it takes a healthy dose of realism to sort people out.

[cjbuchanan]

6. I really hope we don't find out

Few things would make me happier then for the number of dead to stop climbing.

Sadly, with the course we are on, I think we will reach that number.

[bobthedrummer]

8. Pvt. First Class Rachel Bosveld, 19, from Wausau, WI. was one of them.

How many more is anyone's guess, I'm not into this numbers crunching, these are our sons and daughters, parents, spouses-I think of Rachel's death to symbolize all our military losses at the hands of the administration of George W. Bush aka The War President.

[Minstrel Boy]

10. Unfortunately, this is what I see happening:

the more Americans are killed, the greater the homeland bloodlust. All the alleged humanitarian arguments for an enduring presence in Iraq get jettisoned. What remains is only a hunger for teaching a supposedly inferior people a lesson in "American Justice."

[taquinas101]

11. Disagree. Americans, Like WWII Germans, Were Not Misled.

I think the problem with many liberal commentators is that they continue to harp on Bush's lies, as though most Americans are clueless and are expecting us to discover a bunch of nukes in an Iraq bunker. Similarly, many of us point to the rising death toll, the reports of torture by American/British troops, and the rising deficit, etc., as events that will cause Bush to lose support. The assumption is that once the "truth" gets out, the American public will stop supporting the Republicans.

These assumptions are patronizing of ordinary Americans. My question, is what makes you think that ordinary Americans don't know the truth?

Consider Daniel Goldhagen's in "Hitler's Willing Executioners : Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" that contrary to conventional wisdom, many ordinary Germans were aware of, and supported, the atrocities of the Nazis. There are some interesting historical parallels to the Germany as described by Goldhagen.

While the conventional view is that many Germans were simply carrying out orders under coercion, Robert Gellately, the author of "Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany" argued that the great majority of the German people soon became devoted to Hitler and they supported him to the bitter end in 1945. Rather than oppress the German people into submission, the Nazis based their support on popular images, ideals, and fears. Sound familiar?

I am oversimplifying, but here are a few more parallels to consider:

1. You have a country that had recently suffered a devastating military defeat (US: 9/11 attacks; Germany: World War I);

2. Leaders with extreme views who portrayed themselves as moderate (Bush: "Compassionate Conservatism"; Hitler: the closer he came to power, the more he toned down his comments on Jews, and once in power he was careful not to associate himself too closely to the more unpopular extremists .)

3. Loss of liberties justified by the need for law and order (US: The Patriot Act; Germany: under the guise of "law and order," the Nazis suspended regular jurisprudence and substituted arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.)

4. Backlash against liberalized attitudes on morality (Germany: The hedonism of post-Wiemar Republic Germany; US: Post-Janet Jackson crackdown on "indecent" entertainment).

5. Lack of concern about the deficit. (US: Tax cuts amidst war spending; Germany: Rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles).

6. Preemptive war. (Germany: Austria and Poland; US: Iraq).

7. A few supportive countries. (Germany: Axis of Italy and Japan with a non-aggression agreement with Russia; US: Coalition of UK and Italy with passive opposition from Russia).

I am sure the U.S. is different. After all, while the Nazis based their support on popular images, ideals, and fears, we are fighting the "enemies of democracy" and "haters of freedom" to quote our President.

[Karenina]

16. HALLO, Taquinas 101

WELCOME TO DU!!! :toast:

[taquinas101]

20. Thanks!

Needed a new place to get my liberal fix, since Air America was shut down in Los Angeles. :-)

[greendeerslayer]

24. Yes...

...we can only thank the gods Bush is not a failed artist vegetarian half-intellectual with the gift of public speaking! Sometimes it's hard to believe it could be worse but I guess it's possible. Sadly, we may get to find out.

[alcuno]

25. Look at the last question of the CBS/NYT Poll.

Do you think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks. 39% say "yes."

Now, they are either lying or woefully misinformed. Is it any wonder the media is harping on *'s lies? As long as that number remains high, the media is going to continue beating that drum.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

[11bravo1986]

27. RE: 3. Loss of liberties justified by the need for law and order

Hitler's patriot act was named the enabling act..

http://www.govsux.com/enable.htm

[The Magistrate]

28. Your Admission Of Oversimplification, Mr. Taquinas

Certainly takes the biscuit for understatement....

German defeat in the Great War was a years long process, that beggared the country through blockade, killed and maimed a fifth of the adult male populace, and ended in open revolution. Comparing this to the September attacks is laughable.

Hitler never portrayed himself as moderate; he adopted a policy of legality and plausible denial in the latter years of his rise, when the street violence of the brownshirt gangs, in combat with communist and other elements, threatened to provoke decisive police action against his militias. Using the S.S. to destroy the S.A. can hardly be called distancing oneself from the most extreme elements.

There are certainly many bad elements of the law passed under that ludicrous title, but to compare it to the wholesale pattern of arbitrary arrest and police murder of political opponents that went into operation from the first days of Hitler's rule as Chancellor is hyperbole beyond any hope of usefulness.

The flap over the exposure of a nipple-shielded breast has wrought remarkably little dimunition of popular access to liscentious images, nor any reduction in the general level of fun enjoyed by anyone who has already any access to delights of the flesh, nor is it likely to.

The re-armament program of the Reich brought real prosperity to Germany, as experienced by its ordinary citizens, who had suffered under unemployment rates nearing 30% for several years before it began, and a only few years previous to that had seen their savings, and the very existence of money itself, reduced to worthlessness, in an inflation that saw postage stamps denominated in the millions of marks.

The Reich launched not "pre-emptive wars", but wars of un-alloyed aggression and acquisition. Neither the re-occupation of the Rhineland, Hitler's first military venture, nor the Anschluss in Austria qualify: one was the recovery of territory under foreign occupation, the other was an assimilation of a long allied region that was popular with inhabitants of both countries. An excellent case can be made, certainly, that the invasion of Iraq is a war of both aggression and acquisition.

Hitler had far more support than you seem to realize at the beginning of World War Two. He was allied with Stalin's Soviet Union against Poland, through the Hitler-Stalin Pact; he had the open support of Hungary, Romania, and other southeastern European countries. Prior to the Hitler-Stalin Pact, it would be hard to find evidence of hostility in the Chamberlain government of England.

[Skip Intro]

12. Especially when followed by the question, "For what?"

All the horrors, all the blood, all the damage, all the cost - for what?

[Zinfandel]

13. And what if...It doesn't (hopefully) go over "1000" soldiers dead?

This is not how we should be hoping to defeat the fucking fascist Bush.

We can't depend on anything but the truth and somehow getting the facts to mainstream American people.

As difficult as it's going to be with Rove and his FCC incentives for media conglomerates, as well as the republican owned corporate media, who as we saw a small portion of it exposed this week, (Sinclair). They ARE the republican wealthy who control the media, and offer huge favors and financial gain to all individuals (politicians, media people, etc.) who play ball with the right-wing, corporate republican fascist! (Just ask Dennis Miller & Jay Leno).

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/23/deadline-finke.php

[taquinas101]

15. What makes you think that the American people don't know?

Let me put it this way, do you think that most Germans did not know about Hitler's anti-semitism and the existence of the concentration camps? I also think most Americans know that there were no WMD. Nevertheless, most Americans still support Bush. Goldhagen suggested that most Germans were aware of and did not oppose the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

I don't think its a matter of getting the "truth" out. Its a matter of getting Americans to deal with the consequences of that truth of which I believe they are aware.

[Zinfandel]

18. Right, get real, so what you are saying is the corporate media

is not bias and does a good job to inform the 80 plus percent who get their news from television and radio media.

And we all in our hearts, Americans deep down just know the truth, (without any influnce from the media) and we all know that somehow Iraq was involved in the 9-11 attacks all on our own.

Yes, Americans are so well informed and have such keen perception...It's just that some of those dastardly ones who stubbornly keep listening to Limbaugh for the truth is the problem????

[taquinas101]

19. Of Course There Is Bias. However, does that mean . . .

that Americans don't understand that (1) there are no WMDs; (2) that Americans are dying and continuing to die; and (3) that the Iraquis greatly resent the presence of US troops in Iraq. Put another way, do you think the average American disputes those three basic facts notwithstanding media bias?

While I'm not saying that most Americans subscribe to Ann Coulter's "Lets convert all the muslims to christianity" rhetoric (thank goodness), maybe the dirty little secret is that most Americans (like Germans during WWII) believe that Muslims and middle easterners are terrorists who are getting what they deserve. Bush simply taps into and exploits these fears.

Let me ask you, was Franklin Roosevelt racist because he permitted the incarceration of Japanese-Americans or were his actions a reflection of the racism of Americans in general?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Psycho-babble, IMHO.

[Gothmog]

14. it will be past a 1,000 by Democrat convention

At this pace, it will be past a 1,000 by the Democratic convention.

[troublemaker]

17. What if it hits 911 on 9/11? (signs and wonders)

Or hits 1492 on Columbus day? Or reaches 1929 on the anniversary of the crash?

Personally, I think it will 'officially' stay stuck at 999 from this Summer all the way through the election.

BTW 9/11 really was big! The Iraq war is a real war, not Haiti or Grenada, but writing this, it struck me that we will probably bug out of Iraq before reaching 3,000 US KIA. (Of course we probably reached 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed the first week of the war)

[The Magistrate]

21. The People, Mr. Looney

Will not take that figure very well....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[AlinPA]

26. Bush* & Rove need all these soldiers' deaths in Iraq.

This sounds horrible, but I have to say it: Every time we have deaths of soldiers in the news, Rove feels success. They cement the "war president" strategy that Rove laid out for Bush*. As long as the "war" is in the news, good or bad, they think they will win.