One Way to Say It

Whether you love President Bush, hate him, or are somewhere in between, you have to appreciate the, shall we say, effectiveness of this particular placard.

(Photo by Fred Melmoth).

Comments

[JT]

only 89000? after 9-11 the dumbasses are lucky - if I was president I'd have nuked the whole fucking middle east and turned it into a big glass bowl of oil. And I would have ground their dead bodies into dog and pig food. I wouldn't have stopped there either. I'd have all the fags and other religious zealots around the world packaged in purina bags too.

[Mike]

Dan A,

This is war. Of course--and unfortunately--there are going to be many deaths. But what about the Korean War? On the American side alone, 54,246 dead and 103,284 wounded.* (In Iraq, only 29,080 have been wounded.**) According to Wikipedia (not a strong source, I know, but I believe that this information is fairly accurate), the range of total casualties given (including Americans) is 1,190,000-1,577,000+ and the total number of civilians killed or wounded is simply listed as millions. Yes, technically the Korean War is still going on, but these statistics only include the period of fighting from 1950-1953. Four years. Shorter than the five years we've been in Iraq.

Now, don't get me wrong. The 96,663 killed (using the high civilian death estimate from your data) is still an unfortunate tragedy, but this number is still very low compared to previous wars (620,000 in the five-year-long Civil War, 1.1 million soldiers and 2-5.1 million civilians in the Vietnam War).

Also, you said, "This war is a crime against humanity. It involves torture, it involves massive ammounts [sic] of civilian casualties and it's based on a lie [WMDs in Iraq]. The liar....needs to be....arrested and tried...." At that point of time when we went into Iraq, we believed (as did the UK) that Iraq still possessed WMDs. And we were right. Since the start of the war, we have found hundreds of WMDs in Iraq.*** In addition, Bush isn't the only reason we are at war with Iraq; many democratic Senators and Representatives agreed with Bush prior to our invasion of Iraq.**** And recall that members of Congress gave Bush the power to go to war with Iraq by voting for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Therefore, going by your logic, the US gov't should also arrest and try each member of Congress who voted in favor of this resolution (including Hillary).

Ultimately, my point is that it could have been much worse and it isn't all Bush's fault.

Sources:
* http://members.aol.com/usregistry/allwars.htm
** http://icasualties.org/
*** http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html
**** http://www.thevrwc.org/speakOut.html

[Daniel]

I only wish I could vote for President Bush again.

He is an honorable man, who has done what he was elected to do. Being the Commander in Chief means making decisions that may not be popular at the time. The dems are a bunch of waffling wimps who will do whatever it takes to gain or keep power. That is not called leading, that is called following.

The courage to make an unpopular decision, because you believe it to be right, and stand by it, takes balls beyond anything any WWW hothead can imagine.

Besides, if Prez Bush HADN'T gone into Iraq, and they DID have WMD's and used them against us or our allies, then all of you nimrods would be here crucifying him for not "doing his job".

It is time for the liberal-communist left to be held accountable for their hypocrisy.

[Matt]

Anyone worried about the accuracy of the number is just trying to flame bait. The important part is that a lot of people were killed and nobody is denying that Bush is the reason for the war.

[a NORMAL person]

You guys really need to relax.Bush is a asshole and guilty of so much its pointless to even go through it all.If there is a hell Im sure he will enjoy his stay there.You guys in here need to cut it out with the smarter than the average bear crap.Half of you probably dont have girlfriends and the other half jerk off to anime porn so who care is you think your smarter than the guy above or below you.?Get a life outside of your keyboard.You guys do realize that you have a running argument in the comment section of some random web page right?

[joe]

well liberals love stalin, ho chi mihn, pole pot..etc etc.

[Alex Rupert Douglas-Mann (amusedfrog@gmail.com)]

'nobody is denying that Bush is the reason for the war.'

Daniel you asinine shit gobbler, no informed, rational person denies that Bush was the sole reason for the war. Why don't we discuss this like men in private? My email is amusedfrog@gmail.com . That goes for any of you other greasy pedophiles who aren't too busy peddling your own mother's cunts out.

[Prey]

Most of you are a bunch of liberal faggots who only follow this way because you're young and don't know any better. I happen to be young and still have a brain. You keep thinking with your hearts, queers.

[Andrew]

With some of the misinformation and knowledge, or lack thereof, some of you guys are spouting, it's scary to think you are legally entitled to a vote.

SOO FUNNY LOLOLOLOL!!!! I'M GONNA GO HANG MYSELF IN THE FUCKING LAUNDRY ROOM!

[Cameron]

For the love of god, I'm sick of all of this. Was the war in Iraq necessary? In hindsight, probably not, but it happened quickly enough that a decisive move had to be made. The problems we had came almost entirely in the endgame.

The Administration was led to believe there were WMD's in Iraq. Not by Bush, or any cabinet member or higher up, they were the ones who GOT duped. Mostly it was alarmists in the Pentagon who were mislead by European PMC companies and so called 'joint task forces' designated by the UN in the nineties the inspect the country after the Gulf War for WMDs and the like. These forces had taken their supposed info on WMDs to the UN years before the war, and the UN denied their request for more troops, for essentially trying to instigate a war they would benefit from.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, the evidence provided by these companies to the UN was taken up by military operations groups in the CIA responsible for tracking down possible terrorist threats. At this time, there were no inspections teams in Iraq. The US convinced the UN to put together a new security force for inspections in Iraq. Of course, Hussein said he would not allow inspection forces back into the country because his obligation to permit them after the Gulf War was over. The reaction from the UN, as well as the US, was the threat of bringing inspections and military teams into the country by force.

This was about the time the thought of a war in Iraq came up in the media. The somewhat impromptu reviews and planning sessions that were behind closed doors became a full-scale Senate hearing and political fiasco almost immediately. Bush began talking about the matter mostly exclusively in press conferences and the like. The UN of course said that they would not get involved if it became necessary to actually start a war.

Saddam reacted to the talk of a war by mobilising his Army to defend key invasible points along his borders. Bush and the Administration saw this as a turning point, that Saddam really was hiding something. Bush declared he would invade Iraq with or without the backing of the UN.

Of course, after Saddam was deposed, and eventually captured, and no WMD's were found, the Administration saw fit to occupy the country forcibly and develop a new government. The people of Iraq didn't see this as any sort of 'liberation,' but rather, slavery. The insurgency, which had previously been a minor concern compared to the Iraqi military, became the primary opposition.

While small forces exist for the task, the larger portion of the US military has no experience fighting civilian combatants, and the whole thing blew up in our faces. The military lost and had to recapture Fallujah, etc., etc., and it's still going on.

Really, while the initial invasion and removal of Saddam from power was essentially justified, the US presence in Iraq consisted almost entirely of military and PMC 'security' personnel, who were not equipped to handle the political volatility of the war.

Either: We should have removed Saddam and his followers, then set up a much smaller force in Iraq, dedicated to stopping insurgencies and removing Saddam's military infrastructure with little political involvement. This would have prevented the fear in Iraq that the US was simply taking over the country, but still would have allowed us to prevent another Saddam.

Or, we could have made a more intelligent political move and divided the country into two or three smaller pieces (which was suggested by many political advisers), and had the people of these more easily controlled regions set up their own system of government with our nearly unconditional support. This would have allowed not only for the restructuring of Iraq, but the formation of multiple major governing bodies in the Islamic world favorable to the US.

Unfortunately, prevailing politicos called this plan 'too costly.' They said it would take years and cost billions. If the irony of that wasn't so sad it'd be funny.

[tomas]

gary glitter likes to protest..

[White trash]

To be fair, you should really only count U.S. and allied soldiers. None of the others are actually people. lol

Furthermore, how in gods name is 89,217 anywhere close to a million?

[die obama]

as if odipshit's ass is perfect. odumbass is blaming bush for his wrong doings but everyone seems to love him tea bagging them.

[Thor]

Anybody who supports any elected official to argument has got a fucking screw loose. It's nothing but sports team mentality that doesn't really gain you a thing except a fleeting identity that only matters to other lemmings. Have you ever really watched a huge room full of people clapping during a speech of their favorite politician? Like cavemen pounding rocks together. Surreal.

[almus]

Hey guys this is a message from 2010. This guy isn't the president anymore, get the fuck over it.

[rgray222]

Obama let the world down at the Copenhagen summit on global warming
Obama has strenthened the patriot bill which he promised to eliminate.
Obama promised to stop the wars and he has escalated them.
Obama promised to eliminate earmarks and he has escalated them like no other.
Obama promised to post bills on the internet for 3 days before signing...a lie.
Obama promised to wait 5 days before signing a bill into law....a lie.
Obama promised transparency in Govt..a lie
Bush may have had his head up is ass but Obama has his own head up his ass so far he can see the bottom of Rham Emanuels shoes!
Obama is the president not George Bush!
The current president is not truthful or honest and has made no effort to live up to his campaign promises. We now know that heathcare promises on cost were another lie!!!!