| Alistair 2007-09-27, 6:55 pm |
| On 27 Sep, 16:21, SkippyPB <swieg...@nospam.neo.rr.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:02:09 -0400, donald tees
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> Besides, I didn't say the number of non-combatant deaths since the US
> invasion had surpassed those who died under Saddam's rule (many of
> which died with US's blessing when the head of CIA George H. Bush
> supported Saddam's rise to power in Iraq). I said it was nearing that
> count.
>
> Donald is correct that the US government wont reveal the true figures.
Not won't but DOES NOT KNOW the true figures. There is no indisputable
source of accurate figures; despite best intentions by some
organisations.
> And why should that surprise anyone? They faked the body counts in
> Vietnam to make it look like the US was winning.
It is a poor argument that you make here. I understand that much of
the fakery was at the Grunt level and by people counting bodyless-
blood trails. There may have been rounding-up errors at a higher level
and exaggeration but the whole principle was phallacious and/or
fallacious.
> Why wouldn't they
> hide true facts to show how brutal this invasion has been on the
> innocents. And don't give me that crap about most are due to
> insurgents. That may be, but there was no civil war, no insurgency
> before the US invaded.
Just institutionalised murder, rape and robbery. Oh, and ethnic
cleansing.
>
> There are several organizations that attempt to keep track of the
> number of innocents killed in Iraq. Amnesty International, The
> International Red Cross are a couple. There is a group call the Iraq
> Body Count (seehttp://www.iraqbodycount.org/) that is also attempting
> this daunting task.
>
All of whom use methods which are inaccurate and produce contradictory
results. I have heard of figures from 80,000 up to 600,000 plus and
seen documentaries which attempted an analysis of the methods and
results and concluded that the figure was much less than the lower
80,000 figure. In Iraq, everyone claims that their 89 year old
grandmother died as a result of the invasion and occupation becuse, by
doing so, they are entitled to compensation from the Allies.
> IBC is currently stating there have been 80,248 violent civilian
> deaths that have occurred during and since the 2003 invasion. The
> count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary
> action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion.
>
> Stephen Cass who received his Ph.D. in Iraqi history from Oxford
> University and is the author of a book on Iraq. A former GBN (Global
> Business Network) consultant, Stephen co-authored the 1990 GBN
> Scenario Book "On the Plains of Babylon." He is the cofounder of
> AgentArts, a P2P analytics and entertainment CRM technology company.
> Mr. Cass wrote in a GBN article in 2003 called Iraq Watch
> (http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplaySe...d=2400&msp=1242) the
> following:
>
> "Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Center
> for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000
> civilian executions in Iraq.
The afore-mentioned documentaries leave one in no doubt as to how wide
of the mark the 600,000 figure is and why. But, Hell, the truth
doesn't sell papers.
> Human Rights Watch reports that in one
> operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis.
Which occured long before the second invasion. The second invasion is
the one to which the disputed body-count applies.
> Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war
> with Iran.
If you count the dead Iranians then that figure swells to in excess of
1.5 million. BTW, that was a war that Saddam started and you can not
lay the blame for that at the door of the US or the Allies.
> Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of
> Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between
> 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd
> days in power."
>
> By contrast the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has been going on
> for approximately 1,668 days. So that amounts to approximately 48
> civilian deaths a day (using IBC's number for Iraqi deaths).
>
> Now it should also be pointed out that study done in 2006 and
> published published on Saturday 10/14/06 in the British medical
> journal the Lancet, that was conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
> School of Public Health by sending teams of Iraqi doctors across Iraq
> from May through July of 2006 found over 600,000 innocent Iraqi
> deaths.
And the accuracy of the figures is questionable and disputed. See
above.
>
> Also in 2006, Human Rights Watch had estimated Saddam Hussein's regime
> killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years.
>
> And let's look a little closer at those deaths attributed to Saddam.
> The Kurdish deaths happened because they Kurds were going to revolt
> against Saddam under the premise that the US governments (Ronald Regan
> and GHB as CIA director) were going to support them. That didn't
> happen and Saddam took it out on the Kurds. The US should share the
> blame with Saddam for those deaths.
Sort of true. A cavalier statement was made by the then US
administration to the effect that any anti-Saddam uprising would be
welcome (and by implication probably supported by the US and the
Allies) but when both the Kurds and the Shias revolted, the Saddam
regime used it's helicopters (which we all allowed in the 'no-fly'
zone) to put down the uprisings. The Anfal was in revenge (and to test
WMDs) but was at sufficient distance to the revolt as to be
effectively unconnected. An act of vengeance not a military act
putting down an uprising. There is nothing you can say about the fact
that he targeted unarmed civilians as the British did that in Iraq (in
the first quarter of the 20th Century) and the US have done the same
elsewhere (witness Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
> And lets examine Iraq's war with
> Iran. GHB once again was Saddam's support with arms, money and
> intelligence. But when it looked like Iraq might actually win the war
> and take over some of Iran's oil fields, the US switched their
> allegiances and started (illegally) selling arms to Iran (hence the
> Iran-Contra affair).
The Iran-Contra affair was a way of passing arms to Iran in exchange
for hostages from the ill-fated US Embassy siege in Tehran.
> So many of the deaths of innocent Iraqi
> civilians during that time period should also be shared by the US.
>
Bollox.
> The numbers many not be 100% accurate, but they are close and they do
> tell a picture.
Probably not even 20% accurate.
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