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655,000 dead: The toll of war in Iraq


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Its not us killing many of them now, its insurgents.

According to the report, 31% of the 655,000 deaths were caused by US/UK forces.

 

Define "caused".

As in "shot or blown up by".

 

Your personal definition, or that of the contributors relevant to this report?

 

Also, what were the victim's own role(s) as regards culpability for their own demise, what did their personally define their status as at thier time of death? eg. "Freedom Fighter" or "innocent passer-by" etc etc.

I don't know without the report in front of me, but you could try googling for it.

 

I say let them fight their civil war and just make sure we have access to the oil as we wanted all along. After all truthfully in the UK a few more dead Iraqis wont make any difference but the cost of fuel at the pumps will.

Is the wrong answer. We won't have access to the oil until the security situation in Iraq has vastly improved. When we kill Iraqis, we simply create more insurgents, making the security situation worse, not better.

 

Very curious how you got from A to B with that cause/conclusion.

 

I can only speak for myself, but if some soldiers killed a member of my family, I would probably hold a less favorable opinion of those soldiers as a consequence.

 

Oh, undoubtedly....but how exactly would that create more insurgents?

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After all truthfully in the UK a few more dead Iraqis wont make any difference but the cost of fuel at the pumps will.

 

I fear Styles is right to think that the deaths of thousands of Iraqis will matter less to the man in the UK street that the price of oil. In fact it is likely that only the death of our own troops really makes most of us take any notice of the conflict. That is sad. The death of a friend or relative must hurt as much to an Iraqi as it hurts us.

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Your personal definition, or that of the contributors relevant to this report?

 

The contributors of this report didn't mean that they caused the death with harsh words and rude gestures, that much is certain. You can split hairs over the definition of 'caused' if it makes you feel like a 'winnar on teh interweb', but that is missing the point.

 

One could argue that all these deaths have been caused by the UK and US since we are the nations responsible for this horror in the first place. Arguing over just what percentage is fair to attribute directly to our countries is like an arsonist saying that people who died in a fire they started was caused 60% by burning and 40% by smoke inhalation... or something

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Define "caused".

As in "shot or blown up by".

 

Your personal definition, or that of the contributors relevant to this report?

That's how the report's authors appear to define it.

 

I can only speak for myself, but if some soldiers killed a member of my family, I would probably hold a less favorable opinion of those soldiers as a consequence.

 

Oh, undoubtedly....but how exactly would that create more insurgents?

 

To create an insurgent, all you need is a angry person with a gun. There are plenty of guns in Iraq, and killing people's relatives and neighbours tends to make them angry.

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After all truthfully in the UK a few more dead Iraqis wont make any difference but the cost of fuel at the pumps will.

 

I fear Styles is right to think that the deaths of thousands of Iraqis will matter less to the man in the UK street that the price of oil. In fact it is likely that only the death of our own troops really makes most of us take any notice of the conflict. That is sad. The death of a friend or relative must hurt as much to an Iraqi as it hurts us.

 

Doesn't it effect your consience? Like ghostrider hinted at about joint culpability, I think as a country we are jointly responsible for the actions of our government. As such we should be feeling extremely guilty right now.

 

And how does killing peoples families create more insurgents? Well I can only speak personally, but if someone killed someone in my family, and the ONLY thing I could possible do in revenge to get some sort of justice, was to get a gun and fire back, then that is exactly what I would do. Iraqis are helpless with one exception: they have access to guns.

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Your personal definition, or that of the contributors relevant to this report?

 

The contributors of this report didn't mean that they caused the death with harsh words and rude gestures, that much is certain. You can split hairs over the definition of 'caused' if it makes you feel like a 'winnar on teh interweb', but that is missing the point.

 

The point is, that unless you know the definition of "caused" as used by the compilers of the report, there is no way of verifying it's accuracy, levels of bias etc etc.......the exact criteria used has the potential swing the percentages involved here significantly.

 

One could argue that all these deaths have been caused by the UK and US since we are the nations responsible for this horror in the first place. Arguing over just what percentage is fair to attribute directly to our countries is like an arsonist saying that people who died in a fire they started was caused 60% by burning and 40% by smoke inhalation... or something

 

By the same token one could argue all the deaths have been caused by Saddam Hussein's government, it was their walking in to Kuwait in 1990 that put in motion what is still continuing. The buck for this one stops with a very many people, not just one small group.

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After all truthfully in the UK a few more dead Iraqis wont make any difference but the cost of fuel at the pumps will.

 

That is one of the most vile and despicable things anyone has said so far on this forum.

 

To be fair, he's not saying that this is the correct view, nor how it should be... just the sad truth...

 

I beg to differ Fjool. I refer you to the sentence before the one I quoted:

 

I say let them fight their civil war and just make sure we have access to the oil as we wanted all along.

 

And to address your next point:

 

It is wrong but Styles isn't the only one promoting this situation - we're all guilty of it. Have you stopped driving your car in protest?

 

I don't have a car......or a driving license.....

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By the same token one could argue all the deaths have been caused by Saddam Hussein's government, it was their walking in to Kuwait in 1990 that put in motion what is still continuing.

 

This time round we have invaded Iraq on false pretenses. The WMDs have proven to be a hoax and we're increasingly unable to demonstrate a valid reason for these actions.

 

Life may not have been great under Saddam but it's much worse now; which rather puts paid to the whole 'liberating the opressed' notion.

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Define "caused".

As in "shot or blown up by".

 

Your personal definition, or that of the contributors relevant to this report?

That's how the report's authors appear to define it.

 

I can only speak for myself, but if some soldiers killed a member of my family, I would probably hold a less favorable opinion of those soldiers as a consequence.

 

Oh, undoubtedly....but how exactly would that create more insurgents?

 

To create an insurgent, all you need is a angry person with a gun. There are plenty of guns in Iraq, and killing people's relatives and neighbours tends to make them angry.

 

An insurgent by definition is a foreign national, with no prior connection to the nation in question, who enters said nation with the express intention of causing death, destruction and general unrest. Usually for their own personal agendas, or the agendas of the organisation to which they have affiliations.

 

Angry relatives friends and neighoburs of victims of the military are unfortuntely inevitable in any war, but they are usually considered rebels or vigilantes.

 

Any non-Iraqi national/pre-2003 resident involved in causing death in Iraq is an insurgent, who is there for very questionable motives. How many of that 655,000 are victims of bombings, shooting, kidnapping/execution by such insurgents? These are victims of mercenaries who are just taking advantage of Iraq and Iraqis for their own unconnected agendas.

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I beg to differ Fjool. I refer you to the sentence before the one I quoted

Yes... but you didn't quote that, did you?

I don't have a car......or a driving license.....

 

Somehow I knew that was coming. My point still stands.

Replace 'car' with your choice of luxury activity. You can attempt to duck your share of the responsibility if you like but not owning a car does not make you innocent.

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After all truthfully in the UK a few more dead Iraqis wont make any difference but the cost of fuel at the pumps will.

 

That is one of the most vile and despicable things anyone has said so far on this forum.

 

To be fair, he's not saying that this is the correct view, nor how it should be... just the sad truth...

 

I beg to differ Fjool. I refer you to the sentence before the one I quoted:

 

I say let them fight their civil war and just make sure we have access to the oil as we wanted all along.

 

I dont mean it is the right thing to do, but with what is happening in Iraqi at the moment I see civil war (which many say is what is happening at the moment) the only way to get some sort of peace from the whole mess. We should just leave them to it. We are only there for the oil, everything else is a pretence as we cant say that openly. It may be horrible but its the truth.

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To create an insurgent, all you need is a angry person with a gun. There are plenty of guns in Iraq, and killing people's relatives and neighbours tends to make them angry.

 

An insurgent by definition is a foreign national, with no prior connection to the nation in question, who enters said nation with the express intention of causing death, destruction and general unrest.

 

According to www.dictionary.com, an insurgent is

"a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, esp. a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel."

 

( See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insurgent )

 

An insurgent does not need to be a foreign national.

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By the same token one could argue all the deaths have been caused by Saddam Hussein's government, it was their walking in to Kuwait in 1990 that put in motion what is still continuing.

 

This time round we have invaded Iraq on false pretenses. The WMDs have proven to be a hoax and we're increasingly unable to demonstrate a valid reason for these actions.

 

The reason the media tried, and surprisingly seemed to succeed in a large number of cases, to have us believe the occupancy of Iraq was for, has very definitely been proven a hoax, simply because it was a media fabrication all along. The reasons given by the relevant politicians etc for the occupation still stand good as they are neither provable or disprovable, they were a calculated action to address issues of probability and liklihood. The situation in Iraq arose from the unavailability of knowledge, and the impossibility of acquiring that knowledge, rather than from knowledge already possessed.

 

Life may not have been great under Saddam but it's much worse now; which rather puts paid to the whole 'liberating the opressed' notion.

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. Such things I suspect are very much a matter of opinion, and the only relevant opinions are that of those Iraqi citizens who have lived with both. We, stuck her several thousand miles away have no real clue just what the opinion of your average Joe Public Iraqi is on this.

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To create an insurgent, all you need is a angry person with a gun. There are plenty of guns in Iraq, and killing people's relatives and neighbours tends to make them angry.

 

An insurgent by definition is a foreign national, with no prior connection to the nation in question, who enters said nation with the express intention of causing death, destruction and general unrest.

 

According to www.dictionary.com, an insurgent is

"a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, esp. a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel."

 

( See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insurgent )

 

An insurgent does not need to be a foreign national.

 

Very well, you understand it to mean one thing, I understand it to mean something slighty different, we know where we stand.

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Somehow I knew that was coming. My point still stands.

Replace 'car' with your choice of luxury activity. You can attempt to duck your share of the responsibility if you like but not owning a car does not make you innocent.

 

I am absolutely not responsible for the deaths of 655,000 people in Iraq.

 

There are a few, very powerful, men in this country and the states, who engineered the situation, and most definitely are responsible. It is a total disgrace that they've still got their jobs.

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