American soldiers killed since "Mission Accomplished:" 3,413
American soldiers killed since capture of Saddam Hussein: 3,735
American soldiers wounded: 28,530
Iraqi civilians killed: between 77,323 and 84,240
Imagine the ripple effect of this. For each person killed or wounded, there are several, if not many, surviving family members whose lives will be permanently devastated.
And what have we really accomplished? In the movie "American Gangster," the Chinese General selling heroin to Denzel Washington advises him, "Quitting while you're ahead is not the same as quitting." Someone should explain this to George Bush.
-- Modified on 11/23/2007 3:34:28 AM
Yes I agree American GI deaths and wounded are bad in any amount.
Given that and looking at the big picture of history and our involvement in previous wars, the number of deaths and casualties is still fairly small compared to say the likes of Vietnam over a comparable time period-4+ years. But I realize even a relatively small number of casualties per year compounded over many more years can be a bad thing, especially if we have to stay another 5 to 10 years or more. This one is like the tar baby, hindsight indicates we should not have gotten involved in Iraq the way we did. Care to speculate what the consequences would be if say we pulled out of Iraq today?
Then there is the matter of Afghanistan--my opinion is we were correct to use Special Ops there and combine our interests with other locals fighting the Taliban but that mess is still not over with either. Like it or not, we are now in a war with Islam-o-fascism. If we give in and capitulate now, I dare say the consequences would be extremely dire. You can kiss your whole way of life goodbye if that were to happen.
--Just my 2-bits worth.
Even the first death in Iraq was one death too many. What have we gained from the lives lost? We executed Sadaam Hussein and instead of a stable secular nation with no religious agenda, we now have a failed state that is fertile for the growth of more terrorism; we have created more anger toward the U.S. and given Muslim extremists a good reason to hate us, and we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.
Bush has put us in what seems to be an impossible situation. And it's gonna take a greater intellect than my own to figure out what to do from here.
"Given Muslim extremists a good reason to hate us"? Where you been? Muslim extremists have hated us since the eleventh century. The Crusades ring a bell? Ever hear of King Richard, III? What about Salahadin and the first Caliphate? There were more people killed in the geographical area between Boston and Wash.,DC in 2006 than GI's in Iraq since the war started. Over 500 in Philly alone. Why aren't you concerned about that? That is a much smaller land area than Iraq. BTW, the Iraqis tried, convicted, and executed Saddam Huessein, we didn't. We only arranged for them to get together. The military believes in their mission in Iraq and that they can complete it. Why don't we believe in them?
You must be kidding. You make no sense at all. Comparing the number of people killed in Iraq to the number of people killed in the area between Boston and Washington is absolutely insane! It's not even comparing apples and oranges. It's more like comparing apples and dryer lint. How can we have any sort of rational debate when you're engage in such wacky reasoning?
You must have the reading comprehension of a 3rd grader. You missed the point entirely. There was no comparison between the deaths of troops and civilians expressed or implied. The intent was to delve into your concern for, or lack of, the deaths of your fellow citizens, or if you were merely looking for another excuse to bad mouth the war in Iraq. Guess neither you, nor the media are concerned about the murder rates. Why? Doesn't fit your agenda? Where is your 'concern'?
does it occur to you that they have orders to complete their mission? I hope to god we don't have a mutiny.
Hated us since the 11th century? Who are you? French or something? By my calculations, the Americans haven't existed for 300 years yet. I was kind of thinking that one of the big reasons we came here was to lose that old world shit.
BTW, what IS their mission? Because AFAIK, Bush hasn't shared it with any of us mere voters.
Just asking.
Albert, I knew your brother...seriously. Nah, not French. Swiss actually, from Naters, Wallis, near the Italian Alps. Since the military is all-voluntary, you shouldn't worry about a mutiny. There are, and always will be those that don't follow orders, but they are weeded out pretty quickly. Of course they have hated us from the 11th century. Not americans specifically, but rather all non-muslims, westerners, if you will. They were really upset during the Spanish Inquisition. AFAIK, their mission now is to reduce the level of violence down to the point where the freely elected Iraqi govt can get off their asses and form some kind of stable democracy. Not a democracy as we know it, but at least have a constitution and more freedoms than they had under Saddam. e.g.Iraqi women have many more chances now than before. They are not considered 'chattle' as before. But, it's still difficult, if not impossible, to change attitudes that have existed for 5,000 years. If you remember history, it took 17 years after the revolution began, for this country to form a fully functioning democracy. Iraq has about 10 more years to go to equal that. As a side note, the British came back in 1812 to try to take back what they lost in 1776. They almost succeeded.
but it would be nice if you would try to ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!
Let's try a simple one. What is this mission?
You know, the one the you know they believe in, that would get done if everybody else just believed too?
For that matter, we could save a lot of money by just believing things, and not worrying about confirming anything, or even about facts generally.
Did you read the part after AFAIK, or is the first couple of sentences the limit of your attention span? Maybe the man I knew wasn't your brother. He had excellent cognitive abilities. You, on the other hand.......
because then International Communism would have taken over the world.
What's the body count there now?
Your statistics are flawed. Saddam was captured 7 months after Bush made his "mission accomplished speech" so it is impossible that more soldiers have been killed since Saddam was captured on December 2003 than since the mission accomplished in May 2003.
The numbers you posted show that 322 more Americans have been killed since Saddam was captured than have been killed since mission accomplished. Mission accomplished was in May 2003, Saddam's capture was in December 2003. So how can more soldiers have been killed since an event that took place seven months later than the first one? Put it this way: the total number of Americans killed in Iraq is equal to the number killed since Saddam was captured PLUS the amount killed from May 2003 until December 2003. That total has to be more than the number since Saddam was captured but your stats show the opposite, which is impossible unless -322 soldiers were killed in the May-December 2003 timeframe.
BTW: the Iraqi's are mostly killing themselves. So, if the USA had not invaded, what would that number be?
Well, at least no one had any bad things to say about my earlier post. 