What About the Numbers of Dead Iraqis ??

[JPZenger]

We constantly read about "over 1,000 dead American service-persons in Iraq." Why don't we hear much about the dead Iraqis. While some of the dead Iraqis deserved it, many thousands more were innocents killed by U.S. action or by insurgents who would not be blowing them up if we were not occupying the country. Maybe the families of these 20,000 dead Iraqis should be asked if they are better off with Saddam removed from power.
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040909/news_1n9deaths.html

excerpts:
"Number of Iraqis killed in war hard to establish
ASSOCIATED PRESS, September 9, 2004

At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns since the war began last year ... private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003.

The violent deaths recorded in the leather ledger at the Sheik Omar Clinic come from only one of Iraq's 18 provinces and do not cover people who died in such flash-point cities as Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Tikrit and Ramadi.

Iraqi dead include not only insurgents, police and soldiers, but also civilian men, women and children caught in crossfire, blown apart by explosives or shot by mistake – both by fellow Iraqis or by American soldiers and their multinational allies.... ...Amnesty International...estimates that more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians died in the first year of the conflict alone.

Iraq Body Count, a private group that bases its figures in part on reports by 40 media outlets, puts the number of civilian deaths since the conflict began between 11,793 and 13,802. The Iraqi Health Ministry began tabulating civilian deaths in April, when heavy fighting began in Fallujah and Najaf. The ministry's figures indicate 2,956 civilians, including 125 children, died across the country "as the result of a military act" between April 5 and Aug. 31."

[G_j]

1. same reason we never

hear about three million dead Vietnamese I guess.

[Malva Zebrina]

2. even if it were reported the kick their ass, get their gas neanderthals

would not give a damn. The more the better, according to some I have heard.

I don't think anyone deserves it. An army fights an invasion and they are the enemy--just as our soldiers are the enemy to them. In this case the attack and invasion was not because they or Iraq or Saddam was a threat. It was clearly a barbaric attack to get what Iraq had that Bush , Blair, Howard and Israel wanted, according to the latest leaked document from the Pentagon.

[Skittles]

3. dead brown people do not count

nt

[mopaul]

4. ssssshhhhhhhhhhhh

don't be a turd in the punchbowl, you'll cost us the election.

[MatrixEscape]

5. Wait ...

You are expecting compassion for other people's loss, suffering, and circumstances to be a virtue in America, generally speaking? Now, that's pushing it.

Oh, and I don't subscribe to the "insurgents" as being the biggest, or only, threat there. My take is that it there is also an uprising in response to Paul Bremer's pie-slice and rape approach.

A good portion of the violence there, in my estimation, is very much inspired by a, "you won't take everything we have in exchange for your Democracy gift" attitude. It is similar to a much more bloody and protracted RNC protest than mere party-crashing by outsiders. There is a building resistance and the US only recognizes that as terrorism.

The violence has pretty much ruined Bremer's Walmart/McDonalds approach to so-called "reconstruction". In that case, and with little other options, the revolt is successful. The pie slices are covered with too much blood, they are explosive, and that takes away the hard-on from lusty investors who were all signed up and ready to pillage that new, open, and free, market "model".

I speculate that, had Bremer not been acting as the US Ambassador of Greed, we might have seen greater stability and success for the sake of the Iraqi people. All he managed to do was incite a "riot".

You can read up on it and decide for yourself. In essence, it runs counter to the spin and puts a shadow on the propaganda mill:
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
(long article from a personal perspective)

More insight in the idea of a "resistance" versus insurgency:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1316154,00.html

A little interesting history, (repeats itself?):
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040313/asp/opinion/story_2991297.asp

[JPZenger]

6. Justifications

Yes, Saddam was responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people. However, most of that was in the 1970s and 1980s, including a useless war with Iran. I haven't seen any evidence he was regularly killing large numbers of Iraqi civilians in recent years. He was too busy building large palaces and successfully hiding his location from the U.S.

It concerns me a bit for some people to say that because 3,000 Americans died on 9-11, that we are justified in doing whatever we want to, regardless of how many civilians in Iraq die.

And don't forget - THERE STILL IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM HUSSEIN AND 9-11. Bin Laden and Hussein hated each other.

If the U.S. had not invaded and occupied Iraq, there would not have been this insurgency, and those tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians (with more to come) would not be dead. There were other ways to take Saddam out of power without invading and occupying the whole country for years -- with no end in sight.

George W. has generated the greatest recruiting tool that terrorists could ever have wanted.
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Here's something people don't like to talk about: Saddam Hussein was clearly a threat to Israel. He was funding terrorism in Israel. A surprising number of the people who were pushing for the Iraq war in the Bush Administration were Jewish or had worked as lobbyists for Israeli corporations.

[Cheswick2.0]

7. Why do you hate our troops? Why do you hate america?

What are you a commie? Those people should be grateful to be dead and liberated.

</sarcasm>

[jumpstart33]

8. You will hear plenty about the 35 children killed by insurgents today.

But you will hear little about the thousands of childrend killed by US bombs and sanctions over the years.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Racism and jingoism.

Throw in a little paternalism and you have a nice brew of what America stand for in the Middle-East.

Old story, new victims.