London bombings.

[Master Quan]

master quan i do not set out to change the world by posting in this forum.

i set out to change people's views who see what i post.

Then you can completely understand my motives.

You didn't honestly expect to be able to try and do that and not have any resistance did you?

[Tanwen Strife]

I just heard the toll reached 50 this morning, and that is going to rise as they don't know how many were on the bus, and there are still bodies on the train. May the rest well and their families find peace.

When I say Tony Blair's speach I was glad to see that he reminded everyone that if it was AlQuida that attacked (despite there being no evidence), that it was JUST AlQuida that attacked. Most Muslims abhore this type of violence as much as the rest of the world. It was the act of some cowardly terrorists that left a bomb on a bus or a train, hidden in a bag and then got off and went on with their lives (there was absolutly no indication that they were suicide bombers). I just think that we should remember that.

We've also seen that we can come together and the true greatness of people can be shown. It is a shame that it had too be through an act of the worst of people. I also refuse to call this a terrorist attack. Because I for one am not afraid. I refuse to be afraid of cowards.

And now I will shut up.

[Madame Adequate]

While civilian terrorist attacks are widely despised, it's worth noting that the terrorists, by attacking civilian targets inside London, attacked targets which were arguably far more valid than many of the civilian targets which are routinely attacked inside Iraq. By bombing London, they attacked targets that were as valid in many ways as those destroyed during Sherman's March to the Sea, the bombing (and subsequent firestorms) of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the B-52 carpet bombing of cities in North Vietnam, and arguably about as valid as many of the civilian targets in Iraq which the coalition have attacked at times.

Nobody is disputing that civilians are effective targets. If we hadn't firebombed Dresden, we could have lost the War. If the US hadn't numked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then there would have been far greater loss of life, of both US soldiers and Japanese civilians. The difference is that we in the west aren't ones for just going 'Bwahahaha civilians let's kill 'em all!' Rather, sometimes we accidentally hit the wrong things. It's tragic, but it happens. Very rarely we decide to actively hit a civilian target, and that only occurs when we believe not doing so far outweighs doing so. The terrorists consistantly an deliberately target civilians and only civilians. Seeing the difference yet?

Approximately 130,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war so far, with the majority of the deaths credited to Coalition attacks. Prior to the war, another million or so Iraqis died as a result of sanctions -- sanctions which the U.S. kept racheting up, despite the reported civilian deaths, the increasing poverty and hunger, the inability of Iraqi hospitals to obtain needed medical supplies, and the inability of their country to obtain goods needed to supply their people with fresh drinking water. It was a sanctions program so ruinous that the head of the UN program stepped down in protest of the humanitarian disaster.

Rafl. And indeed, RAFL RAFL. 130,000? That's the highest yet. That's 30,000 higher than a month ago's highest 'estimates' - I must have missed the bit where we indiscrimately bombed Baghdad for three weeks straight. Although I've yet to see a reliable source which puts it at higher than about 25,000... moreover, anyone who pays vague attention can see that whilst the Coalition is responsible for civilian deaths, a hell of a lot of them (read: most) are because of hmmm, who was it again? Oh yeah, terrorists who blow themselves up in queues of Iraqis who are joining the security forces (With the aim of being strong enough to control Iraq, so the Coalition can leave sooner.). There's no way to spin this - the terrorists don't care about Iraq being free from Coalition forces, they just care about bringing death and fear to bear. Either that, or they can't seem to figure out that the more goes bad there, the longer we're there for. And the longer we are there for the more chance there is of us killing civvies, through whatever means or motives.

By the way people, patriotism is not the same thing as nationalism. Although I agree that one can lead to the other only too easily.

[Psychotic]

I think this shows that Britain desperately needs to do something about its terrible immigration and asylum system. Now, I'm NOT saying that this is the work of people who have just entered the country, although it wouldn't surprise me if they had entered the country since Labour came to power. However, it is clear that we do not have sufficient checks on those coming into Britain. Anyone can get in with the greatest of ease, terrorists included.

Personally, I am rather fond of the Conservative Party's plan. This was to only take asylum seekers and refugees from the UN, which when you think about it, is better for everyone. It means that Britain, which needs immigrants due to the ageing population, get secure immigrants who are definitely not terrorists, and also are screened against the likes of tubercolosis. Although a lot of the so-called liberal fascists in the media have called it racist to blame tubercolosis that has re-emerged in Britain's inner cities on immigrants, it's not exactly rocket science to work out where it has come from seeing as the disease was all but dead in this country 50 years ago. As for the asylum seekers, a lot enter the country hidden in the backs of lorries, and other such vehicles, which is dangerous and uncomfortable. The UN would be able to arrange better transport for them to get into the UK.

Anyone who enters this country illegally for whatever reason should be immediately sent back to where they entered from. If they enter this country illegaly to claim asylum, I also think they should be sent back, as they have undoubtedly travelled through several "free" countries in order to get to Britain, and Britain is their target due to our appalling immigration service and free health care. Although, as I said, this does not mean an end to Britain taking in asylum seekers, but just taking them in from the UN instead of whoever stows away in a ship then disappears over the horizon, which is an extremely easy way for terrorists to get in.

[Old Manus]

This begs the question, "What are we going to do?". We can't just sit by and wait for the next bombing to happen, and we still don't want to turn this into another war.

[Cloud No.9]

psychotic: immigrants from the un? well most countries in this world are in the un so it solves nothing. libya's in there, saudi's in there, iran's in there. so what difference would that make? and TB is not very asylum seekers it is from idiots who refuse to vaccinate their children.

you cannot gurantee that people are not terrorists. from they country they come from, the color of their skin or the religion they follow. there are hime grown terrorist, various nutters, folks like the ira and uda, no way of telling and so to shut of immigration and leave it to the UN (which is impossible) because you fear terrorism just leaves stereotypes and prejudice.

and then you get home grown terrorists.

to blame this on any group and prejudice against them for it is a road we do not want to go down. do not turn this into our reichstag fire.

[The Man]

While civilian terrorist attacks are widely despised, it's worth noting that the terrorists, by attacking civilian targets inside London, attacked targets which were arguably far more valid than many of the civilian targets which are routinely attacked inside Iraq. By bombing London, they attacked targets that were as valid in many ways as those destroyed during Sherman's March to the Sea, the bombing (and subsequent firestorms) of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the B-52 carpet bombing of cities in North Vietnam, and arguably about as valid as many of the civilian targets in Iraq which the coalition have attacked at times.

Nobody is disputing that civilians are effective targets. If we hadn't firebombed Dresden, we could have lost the War. If the US hadn't numked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then there would have been far greater loss of life, of both US soldiers and Japanese civilians. The difference is that we in the west aren't ones for just going 'Bwahahaha civilians let's kill 'em all!' Rather, sometimes we accidentally hit the wrong things. It's tragic, but it happens. Very rarely we decide to actively hit a civilian target, and that only occurs when we believe not doing so far outweighs doing so. The terrorists consistantly an deliberately target civilians and only civilians. Seeing the difference yet?

It doesn't seem to me that the piece is saying the tactics are one and the same. What it *does* say is that doing so creates enemies of America, every time. It may create short-term gain, but we *always* end up losing out in the long-run, especially if it's done in something like the Middle East. We're supposed to be better than that, and when we aren't, it pisses people off.

I can be persuaded that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary, but I honestly don't see how Dresden or any of the other examples listed helped end the wars they were a part of.

Approximately 130,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war so far, with the majority of the deaths credited to Coalition attacks. Prior to the war, another million or so Iraqis died as a result of sanctions -- sanctions which the U.S. kept racheting up, despite the reported civilian deaths, the increasing poverty and hunger, the inability of Iraqi hospitals to obtain needed medical supplies, and the inability of their country to obtain goods needed to supply their people with fresh drinking water. It was a sanctions program so ruinous that the head of the UN program stepped down in protest of the humanitarian disaster.

Rafl. And indeed, RAFL RAFL. 130,000? That's the highest yet. That's 30,000 higher than a month ago's highest 'estimates' - I must have missed the bit where we indiscrimately bombed Baghdad for three weeks straight. Although I've yet to see a reliable source which puts it at higher than about 25,000... moreover, anyone who pays vague attention can see that whilst the Coalition is responsible for civilian deaths, a hell of a lot of them (read: most) are because of hmmm, who was it again? Oh yeah, terrorists who blow themselves up in queues of Iraqis who are joining the security forces (With the aim of being strong enough to control Iraq, so the Coalition can leave sooner).

well, there was a *very* thorough study done about a year ago that said 100,000 civilians had died:

The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war suggests that at least 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since their country was invaded in March 2003.

More than half of those who died were women and children killed in air strikes, researchers say. Previous estimates have put the Iraqi death toll at around 10,000 - ten times the 1,000 members of the British, American and multi-national forces who have died so far. But the study, published in The Lancet, suggested that Iraqi casualties could be as much as 100 times the coalition losses. It was also savagely critical of the failure by coalition forces to count Iraqi casualties.

The figures provoked a furious response last night in West-minster. Clare Short, the former cabinet minister who resigned over the war, said: "It is really horrifying. When will Tony Blair stop saying it is all beneficial for the Iraqi people since Saddam Hussein has gone? How many more lives are to be taken? It is no wonder, given this tragic death toll, that the resistance to the occupation is growing.

"We have all relied on Iraqi body counts from media reports. That is clearly an under-estimate and this shows that it was a very big under-estimate. It is truly dreadful. Tony Blair talks simplistically about it getting better in Iraq. These figures prove it is just an illusion."

MPs said the assault on Fallujah expected after the US presidential election next Tuesday would add to the growing death toll among civilians. The figures are certain to provoke fresh demands at the Commons next week for Mr Blair to avoid further civilian deaths.

Alan Simpson, a member of Labour Against the War, said: "Iraq has not seen this scale of slaughter since its war with Iran. At some point, the slaughter of civilians in the name of peace has to become a crime of war. This is not a matter of indifference but criminality. These figures are horrific, but it is a scandal that the world remains silent."

A spokesperson for the Stop the War Coalition said: "The number of dead has exceeded even our worst fears. This war has been shown to be based on lies and to be illegal. It now turns out to be one of the bloodiest in modern times. We must withdraw our troops now and allow the Iraqis to run their own country."

Public health experts from the United States and Iraq who carried out a survey of 1,000 households in 33 randomly selected neighbourhoods of the country in September say that heart attacks, strokes and chronic illness were the main causes of death before the invasion. Afterwards, violence was the main cause of death. Violent deaths were reported from 15 of the 33 neighbourhoods and the risk was 58 times higher in the period after the invasion than before it.

Les Roberts of the Bloom-berg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, said: "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess

deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths." The Lancet, which published the research in its online edition yesterday, said it was "a remarkable piece of work by a courageous team of scientists", which had been completed under testing circumstances.

More households in more neighbourhoods would have improved the precision of the findings but only at "an enormous and unacceptable risk to the team of interviewers who gathered the data".

Richard Horton, the editor, said: "Despite these challenges, its central observation - namely that civilian mortality since the war has risen due to the effect of aerial weaponry - is convincing. This result requires an urgent political and military response if the confidence of ordinary Iraqis in the mostly American-British occupation is to be restored."

The researchers recruited seven Iraqi team members who were willing to risk their lives to interview households about deaths that occurred from January 2002 to March 2003 and from March 2003 to September 2004. In the 988 households visited, which were randomly selected, there were 46 deaths in the 14.6 months before the invasion and 142 deaths in the 17.8 months after it.

Of the 142 deaths, half (73) were caused by violence. More than two-thirds of these violent deaths - 52 - happened in the Fallujah area, scene of the heaviest fighting. The researchers say this makes Fallujah a "statistical outlier" which may not be representative of the rest of Iraq. They therefore excluded it from their calculations.

The researchers are savagely critical of the US General Tommy Franks for his widely quoted remark that "we don't do body counts". They say that the Geneva Convention requires occupying forces to protect the civilian population, and add the fact that more than half of the deaths caused by them were women and children is "cause for concern".

The Lancet said it had received the study at the beginning of October and it had been "extensively peer-reviewed, revised and edited". It had been fast-tracked to publication "because of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq".

Now I suppose you can argue that some of the casualties are due to terrorists killing people, but those terrorists wouldn't be there if the collapse of Saddam's government hadn't created an ideal vacuum into which they could flow. The irrefutable fact is that due to the U.S. invasion, Iraqis are now dying at a faster rate than they were under Saddam, which was 300,000 in thirty years. The region is entirely destabilized and it has given the friends and relatives of 100,000 dead civilians a reason to hate the United States where none existed before.

There's no way to spin this - the terrorists don't care about Iraq being free from Coalition forces, they just care about bringing death and fear to bear. Either that, or they can't seem to figure out that the more goes bad there, the longer we're there for. And the longer we are there for the more chance there is of us killing civvies, through whatever means or motives.

The problem with this is that civilian deaths create insurgents. It's a simple and irrefutable fact, and the CIA agrees with it. I'm not sure that withdrawing is the best solution to this mess, but the longer we stay there, the more people we piss off and the more people want to detonate suicide bombs in our public transportation systems. It's a simple fact, and it needs to be addressed.

Also: RAFL?

[Kappy]

I don't mean to be offensive, but I advise all Britons to be wary of the dangers of nationalism that will come in the immediate aftermath of these attacks. Do not allow yourself to be filled with national pride, or similar nonsense. Instead place your pride somewhere more productive. Be proud of the human spirit, and of human kind, but placing your pride in your country can have devastating results. I know that from first hand experiance.

To be honest, I don't think that way. I see no reason to be not proud that people of the same culture, people I hang out with, come across, and talk to everyday were selfless in the face of danger and fear, by ensuring other people's safety despite their own life being threatened.
This happened in WWII, we all know how terrible the destruction was in TBOB. I may well be slanted, but this was the case with any country caught up in a horrific terrorist attack. Americans, Spainards. They helped each other.
But the British proved once again how resillient they are, and the best of them shone. I think Blair's and the Mayor of London's speeches were fantastic. and we will not cow to any threats or attacks, the country will stand firm as it always has done and always will do.
Therefore I have no reason not to be proud of my country at this current time. It is useless to have pride in just human spirit, because the inevitable source of these attacks were from other humans themselves. If you ask me, my pride in human spirit as a whole has been dented because there exists a type of person that intentionally kills and maims innocent people such as those in London yesterday.

[Psychotic]

psychotic: immigrants from the un? well most countries in this world are in the un so it solves nothing. libya's in there, saudi's in there, iran's in there. so what difference would that make? and TB is not very asylum seekers it is from idiots who refuse to vaccinate their children.

you cannot gurantee that people are not terrorists. from they country they come from, the color of their skin or the religion they follow. there are hime grown terrorist, various nutters, folks like the ira and uda, no way of telling and so to shut of immigration and leave it to the UN (which is impossible) because you fear terrorism just leaves stereotypes and prejudice.

and then you get home grown terrorists.

to blame this on any group and prejudice against them for it is a road we do not want to go down. do not turn this into our reichstag fire.

Not immigrants from the UN, but asylum seekers. Legal immigrants are perfectly fine, as the government will have checked out their backgrounds. As for the UN, yes, those countries are members, but I have faith in the UN to only take those that need it. As for TB, it has definitely come from immigrants. As I said, 50 years ago it was dead in this country due to a vaccination campaign. Now it is back. As Britain has a lot of people coming into the country from countries with high TB levels, it has to have come from them, although yes, people not vaccinating their children does not help things, this is the cause. With proper screening, problems like this can be overted.

I'm not saying Britain should block off all immigration into the country. Not at all. That is much more than necessary. However, I do think that only those who have been given permission by the government to enter should be allowed, due to potential security breaches, rather than just be given citizenship. The fact is, the government of this country owes a responsibility to keep the citizens of this Britain safe from harm, a much greater responsbility than the one it owes to economic migrants. Sure, the UN and the government can't find EVERY potential terrorist, but if it stops just one entering Britain, then it is worth it, in my opinion.

I'm not blaming the London attacks on any group of people whatsoever. All I'm saying is that the immigration system leaves a gaping security hole for future attacks. Yes, there is the problem of home grown terrorists, but this means we don't have to deal with foreign terrorists in addition to those.

[SomethingBig]

What's all this garbage about having no national pride, and national pride causing racism etc. The people of Britain, particularly London where people of all races/religions live together in harmony under one country's flag are uniting together and helping eachother out, showing the terrorists, and the world that the Great British spirit cannot be so easily dampened.

And the US isn't like that? We're the most diverse nation in the entire world, and yet a great portion of our people were easily blinded by national pride during 9/11; so much that we hated everyone that didn't agree with us. Bush tricked us into thinking that we'd be going after the terrorists in Afghanistan and used our time of remorse to the advantage of his motives. He told us that we were going into war to show those doggone terroriss hat our spirits could not be easily dampened.

You can have national pride, just as long as you don't allow it to cloud your thoughts.

[Cloud No.9]

psychotic a seperate thread has been made for immigration.

[Madame Adequate]

I can be persuaded that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary, but I honestly don't see how Dresden or any of the other examples listed helped end the wars they were a part of.

Dresden, and similar RAF bombings of German civilian targets enraged Hitler so greatly that her ordered the Luftwaffe to attack British cities. He was either unaware, or too angry to care, that the RAF was literally on it's last legs, and had the campaign on airfields and production facilities continued, we would have been screwed. Royally. (Of course, upon writing this I realized that the firebombing of Dresden specifically came quite some time after those events. Dresden and the other cities bombed right at the end served to create chaos, confusion, and disruption to aid the Allied advance. I don't actually believe these events can be as easily defended. But anyways, apologies for the mistake there.)

Now I suppose you can argue that some of the casualties are due to terrorists killing people, but those terrorists wouldn't be there if the collapse of Saddam's government hadn't created an ideal vacuum into which they could flow. The irrefutable fact is that due to the U.S. invasion, Iraqis are now dying at a faster rate than they were under Saddam, which was 300,000 in thirty years. The region is entirely destabilized and it has given the friends and relatives of 100,000 dead civilians a reason to hate the United States where none existed before.

I can't argue very strongly with The Lancet, as I don't have the resources to hand to do so (And I suppose that is rather the problem with the entire situation.). I will simply direct you to a couple of places which I feel aid in refuting the claims made
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?...=1100183680513
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I feel IBC is one of the most reasonable estimates, and it seems to tally with most other estimates, other than the US and UK estimates.

However, your argument that the terrorists would not be there if it weren't for the invasion is not necessarily valid. More accurate would be to question how many terrorists this has created, which we honestly have know way of knowing. Now I admit, it has certainly added plenty of fuel to anyone wishing to condemn the coalition. It may indeed have galvanised some people into taking insurgent action. Nonetheless, their failure to acknowledge that the less trouble there is, the quicker we leave Iraq shows plainly that rather than wishing to save a single life, they desire only to attack the west, and very likely to impose their will upon Iraq.

Finally, I must point out that Saddam killed at the least, an estimated million people during his reign. Moreover, the sanctions took many more lives - and those were not the fault of the west, as it has been widely accepted that Saddam would have restarted his WMD program the second said sanctions were lifted.

The problem with this is that civilian deaths create insurgents. It's a simple and irrefutable fact, and the CIA agrees with it. I'm not sure that withdrawing is the best solution to this mess, but the longer we stay there, the more people we piss off and the more people want to detonate suicide bombs in our public transportation systems. It's a simple fact, and it needs to be addressed.

I understand entirely that comment, and I agree with it. However, it isn't fair to lay the blame at our door when the insurgents and terrorists have zero regard for civilian life, whilst we at least make the effort.

Also: RAFL?

Corruption of ROFL, used to signify derision.

Finally, I'll say that the real problem was that we didn't take him out of power in 1991. We had very obvious, and irrefuatably casus belli on that occasion. Now we have to do the best we can, and I believe that staying in Iraq is the only moral course now. Whether one supported the war or not, we've created the situation, we must rectify errors and do as much of what we promised as we can. And if we weren't being bombed daily, we'd be able to go about it better. Unfortunately, the terrorists also know that the longer we're there and the more it costs, the worse the west looks.

[The Man]

I can be persuaded that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary, but I honestly don't see how Dresden or any of the other examples listed helped end the wars they were a part of.

Dresden, and similar RAF bombings of German civilian targets enraged Hitler so greatly that her ordered the Luftwaffe to attack British cities. He was either unaware, or too angry to care, that the RAF was literally on it's last legs, and had the campaign on airfields and production facilities continued, we would have been screwed. Royally. (Of course, upon writing this I realized that the firebombing of Dresden specifically came quite some time after those events. Dresden and the other cities bombed right at the end served to create chaos, confusion, and disruption to aid the Allied advance. I don't actually believe these events can be as easily defended. But anyways, apologies for the mistake there.)

Fair enough, the original entry probably should've mentioned that it was specifically referring to the firebombing itself.

Now I suppose you can argue that some of the casualties are due to terrorists killing people, but those terrorists wouldn't be there if the collapse of Saddam's government hadn't created an ideal vacuum into which they could flow. The irrefutable fact is that due to the U.S. invasion, Iraqis are now dying at a faster rate than they were under Saddam, which was 300,000 in thirty years. The region is entirely destabilized and it has given the friends and relatives of 100,000 dead civilians a reason to hate the United States where none existed before.

I can't argue very strongly with The Lancet, as I don't have the resources to hand to do so (And I suppose that is rather the problem with the entire situation.). I will simply direct you to a couple of places which I feel aid in refuting the claims made
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?...=1100183680513
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I feel IBC is one of the most reasonable estimates, and it seems to tally with most other estimates, other than the US and UK estimates.

ehh, I can't be bothered reading through all the dry, boring scientific language to compare the two studies, so I'll just concede the point.

However, your argument that the terrorists would not be there if it weren't for the invasion is not necessarily valid. More accurate would be to question how many terrorists this has created, which we honestly have know way of knowing.

well, yes. However, before Saddam's government was toppled, Iraq was not a noted hotbed of America-hating terrorist activity. Now it is.

Now I admit, it has certainly added plenty of fuel to anyone wishing to condemn the coalition. It may indeed have galvanised some people into taking insurgent action. Nonetheless, their failure to acknowledge that the less trouble there is, the quicker we leave Iraq shows plainly that rather than wishing to save a single life, they desire only to attack the west, and very likely to impose their will upon Iraq.

That's quite true, but unfortunately that's not the way the insurgency works. And regardless of the fact that they're not helping their cause, they're still going to be attacking westereners.

Finally, I must point out that Saddam killed at the least, an estimated million people during his reign. Moreover, the sanctions took many more lives - and those were not the fault of the west, as it has been widely accepted that Saddam would have restarted his WMD program the second said sanctions were lifted.

A million? I've heard 300,000 from considerably right-leaning sources, which I'd expect would favour painting Saddam in the most villainous light possible at this time.

However, yes, from my understanding of matters the sanctions themselves are believed to have caused the starvation of millions. I'm personally torn on whom to blame for these deaths; I can see rational cases for blaming it on Saddam, blaming it on the UN/US/coalition/whatever, or saying that no one is to blame.

The problem with this is that civilian deaths create insurgents. It's a simple and irrefutable fact, and the CIA agrees with it. I'm not sure that withdrawing is the best solution to this mess, but the longer we stay there, the more people we piss off and the more people want to detonate suicide bombs in our public transportation systems. It's a simple fact, and it needs to be addressed.

I understand entirely that comment, and I agree with it. However, it isn't fair to lay the blame at our door when the insurgents and terrorists have zero regard for civilian life, whilst we at least make the effort.

I'm not saying we should be blamed for it, but I think we need to at least take a fair amount of responsibility for creating this mess in the first place.

Also: RAFL?

Corruption of ROFL, used to signify derision.

right, I'd never heard it before. ;p

Finally, I'll say that the real problem was that we didn't take him out of power in 1991. We had very obvious, and irrefuatably casus belli on that occasion. Now we have to do the best we can, and I believe that staying in Iraq is the only moral course now. Whether one supported the war or not, we've created the situation, we must rectify errors and do as much of what we promised as we can. And if we weren't being bombed daily, we'd be able to go about it better. Unfortunately, the terrorists also know that the longer we're there and the more it costs, the worse the west looks.

yes, and it's as important that this fight be won in appearance as it is that it be won in fact, really. I agree that we should've taken Saddam out in 1991, but basically we'd have had to deal then with most of the problems we're dealing with now regardless and I can understand why Bush Sr. didn't want to shoulder that burden. That said, I think he should have, because at least then it'd have been a more or less unilateral UN action and we wouldn't be going it alone. We also wouldn't shoulder the vast majority of the blame for turning Iraq into a mess in the first place; it would be a natural, understanded consequence of Saddam's actions and I don't think anyone would question it, except maybe Saddam himself.

But eh, I guess there's no real use in dwelling on the past.

[Madame Adequate]

ehh, I can't be bothered reading through all the dry, boring scientific language to compare the two studies, so I'll just concede the point.

Well, my belief on it is that any death is too many, but that it is an inevitability of war.

Hwell, yes. However, before Saddam's government was toppled, Iraq was not a noted hotbed of America-hating terrorist activity. Now it is.

True. Can't argue that. There weren't many targets there, and I doubt Saddam would have taken to terrorism in his own country much either.

That's quite true, but unfortunately that's not the way the insurgency works. And regardless of the fact that they're not helping their cause, they're still going to be attacking westereners.

Sadly so. Man... we need to get all Greek on them or something. Nevermind propoganda, drop copies of Herodotus or something on their cities. xD

A million? I've heard 300,000 from considerably right-leaning sources, which I'd expect would favour painting Saddam in the most villainous light possible at this time.

However, yes, from my understanding of matters the sanctions themselves are believed to have caused the starvation of millions. I'm personally torn on whom to blame for these deaths; I can see rational cases for blaming it on Saddam, blaming it on the UN/US/coalition/whatever, or saying that no one is to blame.

Hmmm... I have heard most estimates vary between 600,000 to about 1,200,000 (Though a couple as high as 3 million) of people killed directly by Saddam, with about as many again killed by sanctions. I don't think sanctions were the best way to do it, but it was either those, WMDs, or take him out.

I'm not saying we should be blamed for it, but I think we need to at least take a fair amount of responsibility for creating this mess in the first place.

Alright, that's a point I can concede to you. And I do think the war could have been done better, and it'd certainly have benefitted from a little while longer looking at the situation and trying to get a couple more big players on board.

right, I'd never heard it before. ;p

No problem, I think it's still a newish one xD

yes, and it's as important that this fight be won in appearance as it is that it be won in fact, really. I agree that we should've taken Saddam out in 1991, but basically we'd have had to deal then with most of the problems we're dealing with now regardless and I can understand why Bush Sr. didn't want to shoulder that burden. That said, I think he should have, because at least then it'd have been a more or less unilateral UN action and we wouldn't be going it alone. We also wouldn't shoulder the vast majority of the blame for turning Iraq into a mess in the first place; it would be a natural, understanded consequence of Saddam's actions and I don't think anyone would question it, except maybe Saddam himself.

But eh, I guess there's no real use in dwelling on the past.

That is true, yes. Having the UN backing would have massively helped the process. Techincally we should have it now, it's just that nobody cares much (Each individual incident of firing at our aircraft was by itself an acceptable case for war, for example.). And as you say, we have to look like we win almost as much as we plain have to win.

[The Man]

Well, my belief on it is that any death is too many, but that it is an inevitability of war.

Yes, which is why I believe that wars should be seldom fought and as brief as possible.

True. Can't argue that. There weren't many targets there, and I doubt Saddam would have taken to terrorism in his own country much either.[/quote]Yes, it seems that he and al-Qaeda were incapable of working with one another and I doubt that any other organisation would have fared much better.

Sadly so. Man... we need to get all Greek on them or something. Nevermind propoganda, drop copies of Herodotus or something on their cities. xD

That's actually an excellent idea. Too bad our politicians are too closed-minded to consider doing it.

Hmmm... I have heard most estimates vary between 600,000 to about 1,200,000 (Though a couple as high as 3 million) of people killed directly by Saddam, with about as many again killed by sanctions. I don't think sanctions were the best way to do it, but it was either those, WMDs, or take him out.

Agreed. Which comes full circle back to the "We should've just taken him out in the first place" argument, really.

Alright, that's a point I can concede to you. And I do think the war could have been done better, and it'd certainly have benefitted from a little while longer looking at the situation and trying to get a couple more big players on board.

Definitely. Bush earned a lot of flak even while still going into the war for not being as diplomatic as he could have been, and it's really come back to bite us in the ass here.

That is true, yes. Having the UN backing would have massively helped the process. Techincally we should have it now, it's just that nobody cares much (Each individual incident of firing at our aircraft was by itself an acceptable case for war, for example.). And as you say, we have to look like we win almost as much as we plain have to win.

Agreed on all points.