(Iraq) War report lauds, faults US, Britain (Human Rights Watch, civilian casualities)

The Boston Globe ^ | 12 December 2003 | Bryan Bender

[Stultis]

WASHINGTON -- The US-led invasion of Iraq was one of the most humane military conflicts on record, although American and British forces could have avoided hundreds of civilian deaths if they had not used cluster bombs and if aircrews had relied on more-accurate bombing procedures, according to the first independent study of the war.

[Dilbert56]

400 Civilians - that's very close to the estimates of 250,000 before the war.

[Dallas59]

What about all those dug up Iraqis? All 400,000 of them?

[Hunble]

To a Liberal or Socialist, they have not been taught about percentages.

Seriously, I once asked a Liberal friend of mine, what 10% of $100 was, and her answer was $25?

To her, the larger the percentage is, the better! K-Mart special.

However, she had absolutely no concept of the math involved.

[Stultis]

HRW essentially admitted that The Coalition made extraordinary efforts to avoid civilian causalities, and we all know those efforts were achieved literally unprecedented success considering the size and scope of the war.

Good, right? NOT GOOD ENOUGH (for the left). Belligerents must make every feasible effort sez the left. If your policies or procedures were less than ideal in hindsight, you're a war criminal.

What's the goal here? (Not necessarily so much of HRW, which is merely persnickety, at least in comparison to much further left groups like Amnesty International.) IT IS TO MAKE THE LEGAL PROSECUTION OF WAR QUITE LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

The result? When war is criminal, only criminals will make war. The left is seeking to further "revolution" by rendering civil society defenseless against terrorists, insurgents and warlords.

[Billthedrill]

Noam Chomsky estimated 3-4 million.

[Hunble]

Translation:

Socialism good.

Capitalism bad.

Wake me up when then idiots of this world face reality.

[Stultis]

400 Civilians - that's very close to the estimates of 250,000 before the war.

We (and conservative commentators/columnists) need to shout these figures long and loud. The article I posted here was by far the least objectionable headline. Most played up the 'Mericans-'n-'Brits-are-wanton-murderers angle. The left will spin this mercilessly.

[OXENinFLA]

grok (41 posts)



Fri Dec-12-03 03:03 PM
Response to Original message

1. We should leave both Iraq and Afghanistan.NOW

Edited on Fri Dec-12-03 03:04 PM by grok
It's not worth one American soldier's life so 50,000,000 should have one chance in hell at freedom. They are not our people. They should do it themselves. Not our problem. we have enough problems with our starving people at home. Besides, we don't know better, they do.

And we are definitely killing more than we are saving. Who are we to say?

Grok

---

FROM DU(of course)

[Stultis]

HRW Press Release
U.S.: Hundreds of Civilian Deaths in Iraq Were Preventable Cluster Munitions, ‘Decapitation’ Attacks Condemned

The Report
Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq

[JoJo Gunn]

I have a question for "Human Rights Watch", and their credibility rides on it:

Did Rolf Szabo ever get his job at Kodak back?

[Cicero]

There were probably fewer civilian casualties for a war of this scale than any war in history.

In most wars, unintended civilian casualties outnumber military casualties. That was certainly the case in the last war we fought in Yugoslavia--although in that case many of the civilian casualties seem to have been intentional. Yet hardly a peep out of these screwballs, because their beloved president clinton was in charge.

[onedoug]

"No device of man can remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent." --George W Bush

[witnesstothefall]

So the liberation of Iraq cost appx. 400 civilians' and a like number of our soldiers' deaths (so far).

Truly, we live in an age of miracles.

[DarthMaulrulesok]

So, how many US soldiers died to keep the number of Iraqi civilian casualties so low? How many Americans died due to reluctance to fire through human shields?

Would the human rights activists care to answer?