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The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.It is an interesting question. Good piece by Dennis Kusinich.
The number of civilians killed in recent US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is rising. As we bomb villages to save villages isn't it time to look back to 2002, when President Bush was so sure Iraq had WMDs that he launched a war which killed over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers have been killed. The monetary cost of the war in Iraq will exceed three trillion dollars. The US war in Iraq is in its 14th year.
Now President Trump, with the support of Saudi Arabia (which has helped fund many of the ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra fighters from 90 different countries who have descended on Syria) is escalating the war, amid rising calls for regime change, in the face of a recent gas attack (which has still not been independently investigated).
Why are the innocent civilian deaths acknowledged to be caused by US bombers less consequential?
Why Do Civilians Killed by US Bombers Count Less?
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
Give me an example of where our military has intentionally attacked civilians without a high value target being involved. I'll be waiting forever for you to dig that one up.
Train bridge in Serbia. Circa 1997. Hit a commuter train. Chinese embassy (for crap sake) in Belgrade. Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghan -- recently. How many more you want?
Intentionally? Wrong answer, dumbass!
Someone pulled the trigger. Bombs don't decide to launch themselves --- dumbass.
So, you have irrefutable evidence that we intentionally bombed that train, bombed an embassy and a hospital?
Are you in the running for the "Biggest Moron" reality show?
No.. The "biggest moron" contest is between the guys who let those bombs loose on bad coordinates. In the case of the Chinese embassy -- they used the wrong map.. That's NEGLIGIENCE -- not an accident. Because our expectation is now that we can KILL from 4000 miles away and never risk a scratch. Makes us a bit sloppy in signing off on targets and ground support to VERIFY collateral issues.
First, it was the UN, not the US that handled the sanctions regime, so why are you blaming the US for a failed relationship between Sadam and the UN? There was occasional bombing during the period between the wars, and these were military objectives, so civilian casualties if any were very light. What civilian casualties there were between the wars was the result of Sadam's relentless attacks on the Kurds and Shi'ites. We didn't allow him to use fixed wing aircraft, but did not stop him from using his tanks and helicopters.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Back that truck up there Speedy!
Who were we bombing in Iraq? Albright was SECSTATE BEFORE OIF! I think you are quite confused.
You back up up Chief.Did you nod out for the 10 years of Iraqi containment under 2 bushes and clinton that took the keys to their economy completely away and locked them up with a madman for 10 years?? That cost 200,000 to 300,000 Iraqi lives before Bush Jr decided to end that carnage.
Sanctions against Iraq - Wikipedia
UNICEF: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago." (As is customary, this report was based on a survey conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi government and by local authorities in the provinces not controlled by the Iraqi government)[36]
Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.[37]
"Probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20 October 2003[38]
350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001.[39]
"Richard Garfield, a Columbia University nursing professor ... cited the figures 345,000-530,000 for the entire 1990-2002 period"[40] for sanctions-related excess deaths.[41]
Zaidi, S. and Fawzi, M. C. S., (1995) The Lancet British medical journal: 567,000 children.[42] A co-author (Zaidi) did a follow-up study in 1996, finding "much lower ... mortality rates ... for unknown reasons."[43]
Half-Million Iraqis Died in the War, New Study Says
Outlines estimates taken POST invasion.....
http://reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml
After September 11, the anecdote received new life, as in this typically imaginative interpretation by Harper’s Editor Lewis Lapham in the magazine’s November issue: "When Madeleine Albright, then the American secretary of state [sic], was asked in an interview on 60 Minutes whether she had considered the resulting death of 500,000 Iraqi children (of malnutrition and disease), she said, ‘We think the price is worth it.’"
Albright has been dogged by protesters at nearly all her campus appearances the past several years, and rightly so: It was a beastly thing to say, and she should have refuted the figures. Quietly, a month after the World Trade Center attack, she finally apologized for her infamous performance. "I shouldn’t have said it," she said during a speech at the University of Southern California. "You can believe this or not, but my comments were taken out of context."
Garfield concluded that between August 1991 and March 1998 there were at least 106,000 excess deaths of children under 5, with a "more likely" worst-case sum of 227,000. (He recently updated the latter figure to 350,000 through this year.) Of those deaths, he estimated one-quarter were "mainly associated with the Gulf war." The chief causes, in his view, were "contaminated water, lack of high quality foods, inadequate breast feeding, poor weaning practices, and inadequate supplies in the curative health care system. This was the product of both a lack of some essential goods, and inadequate or inefficient use of existing essential goods."
Ultimately, Garfield argued, sanctions played an undeniably important role. "Even a small number of documentable excess deaths is an expression of a humanitarian disaster, and this number is not small," he concluded. "[And] excess deaths should...be seen as the tip of the iceberg among damages to occur among under five-year-olds in Iraq in the 1990s....The humanitarian disaster which has occurred in Iraq far exceeds what may be any reasonable level of acceptable damages according to the principles of discrimination and proportionality used in warfare....To the degree that economic sanctions complicate access to and utilization of essential goods, sanctions regulations should be modified immediately."
The biggest thing we did wrong during that period was turning the containment and sanctions regime over to the UN, which was not competent to handle it.
There would have been NO CONTAINMENT if the US and Brits didn't enforce all that. Oil for food was an AMERICAN initiative because Mad NotSoBright got a conscience. And that WAS a mistake to let the UN handle the administration of that. But all the daily bombings, naval blockades and corralling the squirrelly Euros was ENTIRELY our doing. .
The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.It is an interesting question. Good piece by Dennis Kusinich.
The number of civilians killed in recent US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is rising. As we bomb villages to save villages isn't it time to look back to 2002, when President Bush was so sure Iraq had WMDs that he launched a war which killed over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers have been killed. The monetary cost of the war in Iraq will exceed three trillion dollars. The US war in Iraq is in its 14th year.
Now President Trump, with the support of Saudi Arabia (which has helped fund many of the ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra fighters from 90 different countries who have descended on Syria) is escalating the war, amid rising calls for regime change, in the face of a recent gas attack (which has still not been independently investigated).
Why are the innocent civilian deaths acknowledged to be caused by US bombers less consequential?
Why Do Civilians Killed by US Bombers Count Less?
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
Train bridge in Serbia. Circa 1997. Hit a commuter train. Chinese embassy (for crap sake) in Belgrade. Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghan -- recently. How many more you want?
Intentionally? Wrong answer, dumbass!
Someone pulled the trigger. Bombs don't decide to launch themselves --- dumbass.
So, you have irrefutable evidence that we intentionally bombed that train, bombed an embassy and a hospital?
Are you in the running for the "Biggest Moron" reality show?
No.. The "biggest moron" contest is between the guys who let those bombs loose on bad coordinates. In the case of the Chinese embassy -- they used the wrong map.. That's NEGLIGIENCE -- not an accident. Because our expectation is now that we can KILL from 4000 miles away and never risk a scratch. Makes us a bit sloppy in signing off on targets and ground support to VERIFY collateral issues.
You have no fucking clue as to what you are yammering about. Negligence still does not make it intentional you dip shit!
Ground support? Are you serious? Please find another topic. You are embarrassing yourself beyond belief in this thread. Everything you post is dead wrong.
The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
It's still not peaceful though. Saddam was killing people all over the place. I don't really know about Assad, but all we are doing there is replacing one bad guy for another bad guy. The only ones who can change things over there are the people who live there. If they don't stand up for themselves, which they probably won't, they will continue to live as if in the middle ages. I want no part of it. I wish we would have nothing to do with that part of the world.
Prior to the instability in Syria (which I'm sure we instigated) Assad was a SECULAR -- pro-western leader that unfortunately leaned towards Russia and Iran. But the country was VERY stable. As was Iraq. And not damaged enough to become a breeding ground for terrorists and revolutionaries.
AMERICAN emphasis needs to be on humanitarian relief. Not by WISHING that all those refugees want to be German or French or Americans. But by establishing LONG TERM safe zones in cooperation with Iraq, Jordan and ALL of the neighbors.
I was right with you up until your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. We got involved in Iraq because Sadam wasn't keeping the peace. In fact he was starting wars with his neighbors. The goal of the first Gulf war was to establish peace by driving Sadam back, and the goal of the containment and sanctions programs was to maintain the peace. So saying we needed Sadam to keep the peace makes no sense since he was driving the ME into war. Similarly, Assad is in trouble because he failed to keep the peace and his brutality and incompetence resulted in a regional sectarian war. It was you evil bastards who broke the peace and forced us to become involved to protect our own interests.The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
No containment would have meant Sadam could have rebuilt his military and started more wars, clearly not a good choice. The UN was not up to the job of managing containment and sanctions, but who else would do it? The only alternative was to invade and occupy Iraq until a new government could be formed, but after the first Gulf war, there was no political support for that and no international support for it. There were simply no good choices.First, it was the UN, not the US that handled the sanctions regime, so why are you blaming the US for a failed relationship between Sadam and the UN? There was occasional bombing during the period between the wars, and these were military objectives, so civilian casualties if any were very light. What civilian casualties there were between the wars was the result of Sadam's relentless attacks on the Kurds and Shi'ites. We didn't allow him to use fixed wing aircraft, but did not stop him from using his tanks and helicopters.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Back that truck up there Speedy!
Who were we bombing in Iraq? Albright was SECSTATE BEFORE OIF! I think you are quite confused.
You back up up Chief.
Sanctions against Iraq - Wikipedia
UNICEF: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago." (As is customary, this report was based on a survey conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi government and by local authorities in the provinces not controlled by the Iraqi government)[36]
Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.[37]
"Probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20 October 2003[38]
350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001.[39]
"Richard Garfield, a Columbia University nursing professor ... cited the figures 345,000-530,000 for the entire 1990-2002 period"[40] for sanctions-related excess deaths.[41]
Zaidi, S. and Fawzi, M. C. S., (1995) The Lancet British medical journal: 567,000 children.[42] A co-author (Zaidi) did a follow-up study in 1996, finding "much lower ... mortality rates ... for unknown reasons."[43]
Half-Million Iraqis Died in the War, New Study Says
Outlines estimates taken POST invasion.....
http://reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml
After September 11, the anecdote received new life, as in this typically imaginative interpretation by Harper’s Editor Lewis Lapham in the magazine’s November issue: "When Madeleine Albright, then the American secretary of state [sic], was asked in an interview on 60 Minutes whether she had considered the resulting death of 500,000 Iraqi children (of malnutrition and disease), she said, ‘We think the price is worth it.’"
Albright has been dogged by protesters at nearly all her campus appearances the past several years, and rightly so: It was a beastly thing to say, and she should have refuted the figures. Quietly, a month after the World Trade Center attack, she finally apologized for her infamous performance. "I shouldn’t have said it," she said during a speech at the University of Southern California. "You can believe this or not, but my comments were taken out of context."
Garfield concluded that between August 1991 and March 1998 there were at least 106,000 excess deaths of children under 5, with a "more likely" worst-case sum of 227,000. (He recently updated the latter figure to 350,000 through this year.) Of those deaths, he estimated one-quarter were "mainly associated with the Gulf war." The chief causes, in his view, were "contaminated water, lack of high quality foods, inadequate breast feeding, poor weaning practices, and inadequate supplies in the curative health care system. This was the product of both a lack of some essential goods, and inadequate or inefficient use of existing essential goods."
Ultimately, Garfield argued, sanctions played an undeniably important role. "Even a small number of documentable excess deaths is an expression of a humanitarian disaster, and this number is not small," he concluded. "[And] excess deaths should...be seen as the tip of the iceberg among damages to occur among under five-year-olds in Iraq in the 1990s....The humanitarian disaster which has occurred in Iraq far exceeds what may be any reasonable level of acceptable damages according to the principles of discrimination and proportionality used in warfare....To the degree that economic sanctions complicate access to and utilization of essential goods, sanctions regulations should be modified immediately."
The biggest thing we did wrong during that period was turning the containment and sanctions regime over to the UN, which was not competent to handle it.
There would have been NO CONTAINMENT if the US and Brits didn't enforce all that. Oil for food was an AMERICAN initiative because Mad NotSoBright got a conscience. And that WAS a mistake to let the UN handle the administration of that. But all the daily bombings, naval blockades and corralling the squirrelly Euros was ENTIRELY our doing. .
I was right with you up until your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. We got involved in Iraq because Sadam wasn't keeping the peace. In fact he was starting wars with his neighbors. The goal of the first Gulf war was to establish peace by driving Sadam back, and the goal of the containment and sanctions programs was to maintain the peace. So saying we needed Sadam to keep the peace makes no sense since he was driving the ME into war. Similarly, Assad is in trouble because he failed to keep the peace and his brutality and incompetence resulted in a regional sectarian war. It was you evil bastards who broke the peace and forced us to become involved to protect our own interests.The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
It is remarkable to me that you can claim to be upset about what harm the US may have done but are untroubled by the harm savages like Sadam and Assad have done.
It was the Security council that made all the decisions and no one had any better Ideas on how to deal with Sadam's Iraq. The US had no hidden "geo-political purposes". We were just trying to prevent Sadam from rearming and starting another war. The US can't demand the UNSC "bless" a plan if the majority doesn't approve of it and if any permanent member objects to it.The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
It was US/Euro policy done thru coalition. Clinton and Dems demanded that the UN "bless" the plan for geo-political purposes. So it didn't look like another Christian Crusade to the Arab League and others.
If you remember, the Euros bailed early. Started having talks with Iraq about "nomalizing". Leaving the US/UK holding the entire bag from about 1997 -- 2002..
Yes, Sadam was no longer a threat as long as the containment and sanctions programs continued, but they were breaking down. Containment or occupation were always he only two ways to prevent Sadam from starting more wars.I was right with you up until your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. We got involved in Iraq because Sadam wasn't keeping the peace. In fact he was starting wars with his neighbors. The goal of the first Gulf war was to establish peace by driving Sadam back, and the goal of the containment and sanctions programs was to maintain the peace. So saying we needed Sadam to keep the peace makes no sense since he was driving the ME into war. Similarly, Assad is in trouble because he failed to keep the peace and his brutality and incompetence resulted in a regional sectarian war. It was you evil bastards who broke the peace and forced us to become involved to protect our own interests.The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
It is remarkable to me that you can claim to be upset about what harm the US may have done but are untroubled by the harm savages like Sadam and Assad have done.
And for the 10 years of containment with 100s of thousands of Iraqis dying, what was the MAIN REASON that the sanctions and containment was continued all those years? Not a trap. There's an illuminating answer for all this.
After 10 YEARS of daily bombing, Iraq was NO LONGER a threat to ANY neighbor.
It was the Security council that made all the decisions and no one had any better Ideas on how to deal with Sadam's Iraq. The US had no hidden "geo-political purposes". We were just trying to prevent Sadam from rearming and starting another war. The US can't demand the UNSC "bless" a plan if the majority doesn't approve of it and if any permanent member objects to it.The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
It was US/Euro policy done thru coalition. Clinton and Dems demanded that the UN "bless" the plan for geo-political purposes. So it didn't look like another Christian Crusade to the Arab League and others.
If you remember, the Euros bailed early. Started having talks with Iraq about "nomalizing". Leaving the US/UK holding the entire bag from about 1997 -- 2002..
Yes, Sadam was no longer a threat as long as the containment and sanctions programs continued, but they were breaking down. Containment or occupation were always he only two ways to prevent Sadam from starting more wars.I was right with you up until your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. We got involved in Iraq because Sadam wasn't keeping the peace. In fact he was starting wars with his neighbors. The goal of the first Gulf war was to establish peace by driving Sadam back, and the goal of the containment and sanctions programs was to maintain the peace. So saying we needed Sadam to keep the peace makes no sense since he was driving the ME into war. Similarly, Assad is in trouble because he failed to keep the peace and his brutality and incompetence resulted in a regional sectarian war. It was you evil bastards who broke the peace and forced us to become involved to protect our own interests.The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
It is remarkable to me that you can claim to be upset about what harm the US may have done but are untroubled by the harm savages like Sadam and Assad have done.
And for the 10 years of containment with 100s of thousands of Iraqis dying, what was the MAIN REASON that the sanctions and containment was continued all those years? Not a trap. There's an illuminating answer for all this.
After 10 YEARS of daily bombing, Iraq was NO LONGER a threat to ANY neighbor.
So your better idea was to allow Sadam to rearm and start more wars, endangering the ME oil supply and threatening the global economy. Perhaps it's the word, better, that confuses you.It was the Security council that made all the decisions and no one had any better Ideas on how to deal with Sadam's Iraq. The US had no hidden "geo-political purposes". We were just trying to prevent Sadam from rearming and starting another war. The US can't demand the UNSC "bless" a plan if the majority doesn't approve of it and if any permanent member objects to it.The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
It was US/Euro policy done thru coalition. Clinton and Dems demanded that the UN "bless" the plan for geo-political purposes. So it didn't look like another Christian Crusade to the Arab League and others.
If you remember, the Euros bailed early. Started having talks with Iraq about "nomalizing". Leaving the US/UK holding the entire bag from about 1997 -- 2002..
And that brings up back to the OP topic. You said "NO ONE had better ideas on how to deal with Saddam's Iraq". Actually a handful of CONSISTENT leaders -- LIKE DENNIS KUCINICH, Ron Paul and others DID advocate that we let Saddam out of containment after pulverizing and killing Iraqis for over a decade. And my Libertarian Party for example who NEVER changed their principles or opinions on the matter. And then there were the French and Germans who calling for "normalization" 8 years into the containment and eventually left the "coalition". A LOT of folks had the CORRECT idea to let Saddam out of containment rather than pursuing the faulty and highly EXAGGERATED WMD fallacy.
Took a lot of guts to call for walking away from a TERRIBLE policy that went on FAR too long. And ole Dennis was right there all along.
Not like all those Dem/Rep heroes who voted consistently to CONTINUE that policy. And then expected the Iraqis to LOVE US when we triumphantly marched into Iraq. Who do blame most for this carnage? Bush Jr who AT LEAST did something to end that situation or the Dems who didn't have the guts to ACKNOWLEDGE the humanitarian crisis we created with the containment and the bombing and suggest we wind the containment down?
He was no threat at that decision point but once the sanctions were lifted he could have rebuilt his military and then he would be a threat. Germany was no threat after WWI until the allies let Hitler out of those sanctions. Kucinich is a fool, and the world should by very grateful he is no longer in politics.Yes, Sadam was no longer a threat as long as the containment and sanctions programs continued, but they were breaking down. Containment or occupation were always he only two ways to prevent Sadam from starting more wars.I was right with you up until your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. We got involved in Iraq because Sadam wasn't keeping the peace. In fact he was starting wars with his neighbors. The goal of the first Gulf war was to establish peace by driving Sadam back, and the goal of the containment and sanctions programs was to maintain the peace. So saying we needed Sadam to keep the peace makes no sense since he was driving the ME into war. Similarly, Assad is in trouble because he failed to keep the peace and his brutality and incompetence resulted in a regional sectarian war. It was you evil bastards who broke the peace and forced us to become involved to protect our own interests.The reason that Americans can't fathom Bush Jr's decision to END the deadly and disasterous "containment" policy is that too many Americans like Adm. and toomuchtime forget about the humanitarian costs of that failed 10 year policy. And when Dems blasted Bush Jr for doing SOMETHING to end all that -- they don't want to tell you that if it was up to them -- Iraq would STILL be "under containment". There were no good options other than letting Saddam out of containment. Which we NOW KNOW --- was being conducted on the faulty WMD premise.
The villification of Saddam is much like the current villification of Assad. Or the previous villification of Khadafy or the Somalian leadership.. America needs to learn that PEACE in Mid-East REQUIRES some evil bastards to keep it peaceful...
It is remarkable to me that you can claim to be upset about what harm the US may have done but are untroubled by the harm savages like Sadam and Assad have done.
And for the 10 years of containment with 100s of thousands of Iraqis dying, what was the MAIN REASON that the sanctions and containment was continued all those years? Not a trap. There's an illuminating answer for all this.
After 10 YEARS of daily bombing, Iraq was NO LONGER a threat to ANY neighbor.
He had no way to be a military threat at that decision point. Had no economy, no military budget for a decade and over a 1/3 of his military had been decimated in the 1st Gulf War. No air defense left in the ENTIRE country. He was a sitting duck.. We MADE it that way to enforce the No Fly zones.
He should have been let out of containment. Dennis Kucinich was correct about that then....
Why dont you rewrite this and come back when all of your errors have been omitted.It is an interesting question. Good piece by Dennis Kusinich.
The number of civilians killed in recent US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is rising. As we bomb villages to save villages isn't it time to look back to 2002, when President Bush was so sure Iraq had WMDs that he launched a war which killed over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers have been killed. The monetary cost of the war in Iraq will exceed three trillion dollars. The US war in Iraq is in its 14th year.
Now President Trump, with the support of Saudi Arabia (which has helped fund many of the ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra fighters from 90 different countries who have descended on Syria) is escalating the war, amid rising calls for regime change, in the face of a recent gas attack (which has still not been independently investigated).
Why are the innocent civilian deaths acknowledged to be caused by US bombers less consequential?
Why Do Civilians Killed by US Bombers Count Less?
Unbelievable delusional hypocrisy. Slaughtering innocent women and children is somehow 'ok', as long it's the US doing it. Y'all Warmongers really are demented.
Give me an example of where our military has intentionally attacked civilians without a high value target being involved. I'll be waiting forever for you to dig that one up.
Train bridge in Serbia. Circa 1997. Hit a commuter train. Chinese embassy (for crap sake) in Belgrade. Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghan -- recently. How many more you want?
Intentionally? Wrong answer, dumbass!
Someone pulled the trigger. Bombs don't decide to launch themselves --- dumbass.
So, you have irrefutable evidence that we intentionally bombed that train, bombed an embassy and a hospital?
Are you in the running for the "Biggest Moron" reality show?
The US and Europeans implemented the containment and sanctions programs, but the decisions were all made by the UNSC, so whatever you may believe was wrong with what was done, was the responsibility of the whole world, not the just the US as you have claimed. But what was the alternative? Allow Sadam to rearm and invade his neighbors again? Invade and occupy Iraq? There were no good choices.Bullshit. The sanctions were handled by the UN, not by the US and the oil for food program would have provided all the food and medical supplies, etc. Iraq needed if Sadam had abided by it but Sadam refused to cooperate. The purpose of oil for food was to try to make sure Sadam didn't use his oil to rebuild his military, but Sadam continued to sell oil in violation of the sanctions and apparently none of the revenue was used to take care of the Iraqi people. As far as Iraqi casualties being between 300,000 and 500,000 between the two wars, again you are full of shit.Kucinich never did have much to say that was useful. The US along with Israel has the best combatant to civilian ratio of any modern military and Russia, although it has improved somewhat, has he worst. The US spends a fortune using smart bombs to avoid killing civilians; Russia doesn't use smart bombs. Although the US civilian to combatant ratio was higher at the beginning of the second Iraq war, the US worked hard to bring it down to 1-1. By contrast, Russia's civilian to combatant ratio in the first Chechen war was 10-1 and in the second Chechen war was still 4-1. Of course the claim the US killed 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis is pure bullshit. By actual body counts, there were less than 10,000 civilian casualties, but two bizarre studies using epidemiological models for a statistic analysis came up the the crazy numbers of hundreds of thousands but no one ever found more than 8,000 dead civilian bodies. Kucinich was a crackpot then and is a crackpot now.It is an interesting question. Good piece by Dennis Kusinich.
The number of civilians killed in recent US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria is rising. As we bomb villages to save villages isn't it time to look back to 2002, when President Bush was so sure Iraq had WMDs that he launched a war which killed over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers have been killed. The monetary cost of the war in Iraq will exceed three trillion dollars. The US war in Iraq is in its 14th year.
Now President Trump, with the support of Saudi Arabia (which has helped fund many of the ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra fighters from 90 different countries who have descended on Syria) is escalating the war, amid rising calls for regime change, in the face of a recent gas attack (which has still not been independently investigated).
Why are the innocent civilian deaths acknowledged to be caused by US bombers less consequential?
Why Do Civilians Killed by US Bombers Count Less?
You're wrong. Before we even INVADED Iraq, the US "containment/embargo" was responsible for somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 dead Iraqis. We STARVED them, deprived them of medicinal supplies and BOMBED them DAILY for about 10 years. Mad Albright farted out a statement that all that was "acceptable collateral damage".. Get a clue. After ANOTHER 10 years in country, that toll is CERTAINLY north of 500,000 at least.
Enforcement of the sanctions was done EXTERNAL to the UN. By a coalition of the US and Euro partners. And the "no fly" zones and embargo was LARGELY all American. Then there was the EVIL "oil for food" program. That was an attempt to LESSEN the humanitarian crisis from these 10 years of neglect. Ending up exposing a LOT of UN graft and corruption. OBVIOUSLY -- a lot of folks have not learned a THING from all those past mistakes. We're TOO STUPID to be "an empire"..
