So we got rid of Sadam.....Was it worth it?

[Skyrad 0]

Military Fatalities: By Month
Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
5-2005 22 1 2 25 2.5 10
4-2005 52 0 0 52 1.73 30
3-2005 36 1 3 40 1.29 31
2-2005 58 0 2 60 2.14 28
1-2005 107 10 10 127 4.1 31
12-2004 72 2 3 77 2.48 31
11-2004 137 4 0 141 4.7 30
10-2004 63 2 2 67 2.16 31
9-2004 80 3 4 87 2.9 30
8-2004 66 4 5 75 2.42 31
7-2004 54 1 3 58 1.87 31
6-2004 42 1 7 50 1.67 30
5-2004 80 0 4 84 2.71 31
4-2004 135 0 5 140 4.67 30
3-2004 52 0 0 52 1.68 31
2-2004 20 1 2 23 0.79 29
1-2004 47 5 0 52 1.68 31
12-2003 40 0 8 48 1.55 31
11-2003 82 1 27 110 3.67 30
10-2003 44 1 2 47 1.52 31
9-2003 31 1 1 33 1.1 30
8-2003 35 6 2 43 1.39 31
7-2003 48 1 0 49 1.58 31
6-2003 30 6 0 36 1.2 30
5-2003 37 4 0 41 1.32 31
4-2003 74 6 0 80 2.67 30
3-2003 65 27 0 92 7.67 12
Total 1609 88 92 1789 2.28 783

Period Wnd-RTD Wounded
19-Mar-03 thru 03-Apr-03 115 426
04-Apr-03 thru 02-Apr-04 963 1484
03-Apr-04 thru 09-Apr-04 59 222
10-Apr-04 thru 16-Apr-04 119 242
17-Apr-04 thru 23-Apr-04 138 96
24-Apr-04 thru 03-May-04 193 76
04-May-04 thru 11-May-04 82 116
12-May-04 thru 18-May-04 100 93
19-May-04 thru 24-May-04 73 85
25-May-04 thru 31-May-04 86 114
01-Jun-04 thru 09-Jun-04 121 10
10-Jun-04 thru 16-Jun-04 71 54
17-Jun-04 thru 22-Jun-04 79 54
23-Jun-04 thru 29-Jun-04 64 59
30-Jun-04 thru 20-Jul-04 209 201
21-Jul-04 thru 03-Aug-04 183 100
04-Aug-04 thru 11-Aug-04 56 133
12-Aug-04 thru 17-Aug-04 129 92
18-Aug-04 thru 24-Aug-04 152 41
25-Aug-04 thru 31-Aug-04 84 142
01-Sep-04 thru 07-Sep-04 114 -4
08-Sep-04 thru 14-Sep-04 81 138
15-Sep-04 thru 21-Sep-04 116 52
22-Sep-04 thru 28-Sep-04 62 57
29-Sep-04 thru 05-Oct-04 87 111
06-Oct-04 thru 12-Oct-04 86 46
13-Oct-04 thru 19-Oct-04 90 64
20-Oct-04 thru 26-Oct-04 77 57
27-Oct-04 thru 03-Nov-04 60 77
04-Nov-04 thru 09-Nov-04 83 88
10-Nov-04 thru 16-Nov-04 120 378
17-Nov-04 thru 23-Nov-04 267 103
24-Nov-04 thru 30-Nov-04 184 42
01-Dec-04 thru 07-Dec-04 62 152
08-Dec-04 thru 14-Dec-04 50 28
15-Dec-04 thru 22-Dec-04 65 72
23-Dec-04 thru 04-Jan-05 176 95
05-Jan-05 thru 11-Jan-05 67 53
12-Jan-05 thru 18-Jan-05 36 94
19-Jan-05 thru 25-Jan-05 106 14
26-Jan-05 thru 01-Feb-05 86 62
02-Feb-05 thru 08-Feb-05 39 62
09-Feb-05 thru 15-Feb-05 53 44
16-Feb-05 thru 22-Feb-05 69 32
23-Feb-05 thru 01-Mar-05 75 76
02-Mar-05 thru 08-Mar-05 31 34
09-Mar-05 thru 14-Mar-05 55 4
15-Mar-05 thru 22-Mar-05 83 43
23-Mar-05 thru 29-Mar-05 54 44
30-Mar-05 thru 05-Apr-05 35 61
06-Apr-05 thru 12-Apr-05 193 31
13-Apr-05 thru 19-Apr-05 132 2
20-Apr-05 thru 26-Apr-05 93 32
27-Apr-05 thru 03-May-05 65 31
Total 6128 6115
Wnd-RTD: Wounded in Action Return to Duty within 72 hours


Wnd: Wounded in Action Not Return to Duty within 72 hours





And still the figures rise....

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[tcnelson 1]

ask the iraqi olympic teams

"Don't talk to me like that assface...I don't work for you yet." - Fletch
NBFT, Deseoso Rodriguez RB#1329

[Botellines 0]

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ask the iraqi olympic teams

The Iraqui olimpic team told me that they wouldn´t have changed some of their family lives so they could play in the olimpics.

Must be a western thing.

[markd_nscr986 0]

My friend Jamal,a Kurd from Mosul thinks so........and he thanks the American people for their sacrifices...........

I had mixed feelings about our presence in Iraq,but after talking to Jamal about it I began to think the good did outweigh the bad.....especially when he recounts his life and times under Saddam's rule

Marc SCR 6046 SCS 3004

[DrunkMonkey 0]

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ask the iraqi olympic teams

The Iraqui olimpic team told me that they wouldn´t have changed some of their family lives so they could play in the olimpics.

Must be a western thing.

Personal attack deleted. Again.

[SpeedRacer 1]

well its May 10, 2005.

whether or not this was worth it? right now the answer would be No. But in a year or two, the answer may BECOME Yes.

I'm willing to keep an open mind on the subject.

It does give me hope that when I read the "Have Your Say" sections on the BBC website, the posts by actual Iraqis (from BBC/Arabic) seem to contain hope for the future, unlike nearly all of the posts from Europeans and half or more of the posts from Americans.

I wish it was easy to get a clear, balanced view of what is going on in Iraq, but not even all Iraqis agree on what that would be.

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[n23x 0]

boy, i was able to read it just fine.

Keep up the witty comments, they make you sound particularily clever.

Let me add an actually useful portion to this post now:

I think it is a good thing now that Sadam is no longer in the picture, but I cannot pretend to know what the Iraqis have gained and what they have lost. Further, the loss of both civilian lives in Iraq and enlisted lives is just rediculous. I cannot really say if it is worth it, because I am not over there, but neither can all the people on here with military experience who go over there, fire a gun, and distribute some food. To them it is a war zone, to others, a home.

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[Botellines 0]

El equipo olimpico iraqui me dijo que no hubiesen cambiado la vida de algunos miembros de su familia para poder jugar en las olimpiadas.

Debe ser una cosa occidental.

I hope you understand Spanish better than English. If not, it must be your reading skills.

[justinb138 0]

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boy, i was able to read it just fine.

I could read it, but I don't really understand the point.

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Keep up the witty comments, we all appreciate them.

As a side note, do you imagine cheers from the trailer park when you write this sort of drivel?

Keep up the witty comments youself, if you don't get banned.

[DrunkMonkey 0]

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El equipo olimpico iraqui me dijo que no hubiesen cambiado la vida de algunos miembros de su familia para poder jugar en las olimpiadas.

Debe ser una cosa occidental.
I hope you understand Spanish better than English. If not, it must be your reading skills.

Te entiendo. Es facil comprenderte en esta idioma. Pero no estoy de acuerdo contigo.

Hay algunas personas en el EEUU que estan de acuerdo contigo, pero creo que ellos no son veteranos de las fuerzas armadas. Si una persona es un veterano, tiene un lugar mejor de hablar sobre la guerra o la politica que circundan la guerra.

El hecho es que muchos de nosotros no se significan que dicen los extranjeros. Yo se muchos de ustedes nos odian, pero esa es la vida.

Disculpe la carencia de acentos. No se como escribirlas a máquina.

Y me uso de la idioma es?

[Alias 0]

Always a complicated issue.

But since Saddam was not responsible for 9/11, The UN and the US have not found WMD, I guess the only real thing we can hang our hat on _is_ that Saddam is gone.

But I am quickly thinking this huge US sacrifice is not the role we should be playing in the world....because the list of "saddams" is very long in regards to the lack of human rights

No confusion! I SUPPORT OUR TROOPS! Just starting to doubt our leaderships ability

Carpe Diem

[Zenister 0]

no.

call me selfish is you wish, but i'd rather have my friends back...

not that the invasion will not have positive results in the end as i believe ultimately it will. But we could have done this SOOOOOO much differently and significantly increased the chances of their survival..

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[billvon 2,396]

I wish we had concentrated on getting rid of Osama Bin Laden, someone who actually attacked the US. But we don't care much about him lately.

[AndyMan 7]

I think any judgment is premature.

The political process in Iraq is far from stable. Attacks continue against the government, civilians, and Iraqi and American troops.

Insurgents continue to use violence to unsettle the process, and to create divisions within the country.

To me, Iraq appears to be in the process of being pulled (by the insurgents) into a very dificult civil war that will have much in common with genocide. I see disturbing mirrors in the pattern of attacks between Iraq and Rwanda. I hope I'm wrong.

Only after the dust has settled should we figure out if it was worth it. I have no doubt a lot more blood (Iraqi, American and otherwise) will be spilled in the process.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Alias 0]

I'm wondering if you would still think a "stable", "democratic" Iraq is worth the expense of US deaths and funds? After the dust settles that is.

Where next with this mentality? Or can we agree the main motivation was oil? Or even stabilizing the dollar for that matter. If the administration would admit to this type of reasoning, I might have to agree with war. I still feel mislead

Carpe Diem

[dorbie 0]

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I'm wondering if you would still think a "stable", "democratic" Iraq is worth the expense of US deaths and funds? After the dust settles that is.

Where next with this mentality? Or can we agree the main motivation was oil? Or even stabilizing the dollar for that matter. If the administration would admit to this type of reasoning, I might have to agree with war. I still feel mislead

If the motivation was oil we'd have let the UN lift the sanctions and opened the spigot.

Nobody thought that a war with Iraq would stabilize the dollar going in either.

I think the real reason was geopolitics and ties to terrorist affiliate organizations, including a pattern of interest in WMD. Making a democratic sandwitch of Iran was an ambitious goal but the long term alternative of letting the region fester would have been disasterous. Time will tell if it pays off.

[dorbie 0]

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I wish we had concentrated on getting rid of Osama Bin Laden, someone who actually attacked the US. But we don't care much about him lately.

We've been capturing and killing enough of his close associates to show that this isn't the case.

If Kerry had been elected you'd be proclaiming that the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi demonstrated how Bush had been slacking and now we're refocusing on Al Qaeda. Instead it doesn't fit your anti-Bush picture so you just ignore it, promulgating the rubbish that we don't care about Osama Bin Laden.

[Gravitymaster 0]

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Quote

I wish we had concentrated on getting rid of Osama Bin Laden, someone who actually attacked the US. But we don't care much about him lately.

We've been capturing and killing enough of his close associates to show that this isn't the case.

If Kerry had been elected you'd be proclaiming that the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi demonstrated how Bush had been slacking and now we're refocusing on Al Qaeda. Instead it doesn't fit your anti-Bush picture so you just ignore it, promulgating the rubbish that we don't care about Osama Bin Laden.

The only way we are going to "get" Bin Laden is to go into Pakistan along the border with Afganistan. This will in effect constitute an invasion of a foreign country(I can hear the screams now). This isn't going to happen because he is being hidden by the anti-govt. tribes that live in the area and because there are many anti-American factions within Musharifs govt that would most likely gain enough support from the Pakistani people to overthrow Musharif. Bin laden is considered somewhat of a modern day hero by many in Pakistan and a polarizing figure at the very least. Killing him by invading Pakistan with American troops would be a very bad idea. I think it is more likely Bin Laden will be taken out by someone close to him and be martyred once his power diminishes and is transferred to Zarkawi et al.

[dorbie 0]

Your crazy straw man idea not mine.

Considering Pakistan has caught several of the senior Al Qaeda targets including the one I mentioned, invasion is not the only option.

Capturing him would have mainly symbolic value. It may never happen but keeping the pressure on him and his band of scum is something we should keep up. That necessarily means using proxies in Pakistan but it's working after a fashion.

I don't doubt that the US and UK have people collaborating in Pakistan right now.

[bodypilot90 0]

yes, looks like freedom my be spreading to other nations as well.

[Alias 0]

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I'm wondering if you would still think a "stable", "democratic" Iraq is worth the expense of US deaths and funds? After the dust settles that is.

Where next with this mentality? Or can we agree the main motivation was oil? Or even stabilizing the dollar for that matter. If the administration would admit to this type of reasoning, I might have to agree with war. I still feel mislead

If the motivation was oil we'd have let the UN lift the sanctions and opened the spigot.

Nobody thought that a war with Iraq would stabilize the dollar going in either.

I think the real reason was geopolitics and ties to terrorist affiliate organizations, including a pattern of interest in WMD. Making a democratic sandwitch of Iran was an ambitious goal but the long term alternative of letting the region fester would have been disasterous. Time will tell if it pays off.

I see it a bit different. The first gulf war was about oil, not just Kuwait. Kuwait was part of it, but protection of Saudi oil was the goal.

The need to dominate oil from Iraq is also deeply intertwined with the defense of the dollar. Its current strength is supported by OPEC's requirement (secured by a secret agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia) that all OPEC oil sales be denominated in dollars. This requirement is currently threatened by the desire of some OPEC countries to allow OPEC oil sales to be paid in euros.

Iraq switched to Euro's, we invaded, switched it back. Call me crazy, but then I read Venezuala considering "leveraging" by taking profits in Euro's vs $. It is coincidental a coup attempt the following month kept that from happening.

http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/TaskForceReport_Final.pdf

Good read on why we are so concerned about the oil in Iraq ans Iran.

Sorry, but I see much more evidence pointing to the ($ and oil) scenario, then I do WMD and terrorist connections.


I voted for Bush, support our troops, have been supporting one troop in the 160th SOAR since before we invaded. I bought the WMD, Terrorist, Liberate show as it was presented. Then was made aware of others thinking. Researched and have concluded that I was mislead in my beliefs about this war.

As I mentioned before. If it was presented that it was an issue pertaining to US securing energy and protecting the dollar, I might think differently about this...I might be behind it


It certainly is not cut and dry

Carpe Diem

[Darryn 0]

we con only hope that this happends

[SpeedRacer 1]

It is clear that there was more than one motivation for the invasion.

I think part of it was to start a democracy Domino Effect.

They sure went about it in the clumsiest, most ill-advised & ham-fisted way possible, so it remains to be seen whether it will work out.

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[AndyMan 7]

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I'm wondering if you would still think a "stable", "democratic" Iraq is worth the expense of US deaths and funds?

Well, it really depends on how "expensive" it is.

I wish that the US had worked with the global community to build a consensus against Iraq, though. Going it alone was very risky. The Gulf War (part 1) gave a very good model of how it can work very well. If they'd played well with others, the war would be FAR less "expensive".

One thing I detest is the notion among many western countries that they should stay out of dangerous places because their soldiers might get killed.

I already mentioned Rwanda once in this thread, and it's a great example of the west staying out of a region because the administrations felt they couldn't afford a few dead soliders. Over 8 million people ended up being brutally killed in Rwanda, certainly had a few American soldiers died there it would have been worth it, if they could have stopped the violence before it started. That was the mandate of the understaffed UN mission BTW. The UN mission was never staffed because no western nation was willing to put in troops.

Ironically, papers from the Pentagon ended up coming out that said the bean counters felt a dead US solider would have been worth it had that soldier saved 80,000 Rwandan people. It's ironic, because people on the ground were asking for just a few thousand well equipted troops, and all evidence suggested they would have saved millions.

The exact same scenario is unfolding right now in Darfur, and again the west is hiding, with one exception. Canada is mobilizing for Darfur, and as a Canadian I'm proud. Sometimes you need to do what's right, even if that means you might lose some good soldiers.

I do think Iraq will eventually turn out for the better, and "yes" it will probably be worth it. It's really impossible to tell though, that finality is a long way away and I suspect even the pessimists are underestimating the cost. It would have been far easier if the US had worked within the international community.

American leftists who pushed for the war on their own terms have nobody but themselves to blame for the high cost.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Alias 0]

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I'm wondering if you would still think a "stable", "democratic" Iraq is worth the expense of US deaths and funds?

Quote

Well, it really depends on how "expensive" it is.

Another 80 billion in the pot today bringing us to almost a quarter of a trillion dollars and over a thousand deaths and counting. I forgot to mention the many thousands seriously wounded-

I think the cost is high now on both issues. I understand the signifigance of war - but not to liberate, chase UN santions and blindly follow a terrorist trail that ends up going no where at this expense.

I whole heartily agree with you on Rawanda. Another example of why we are in the middle east and not africa - oil. Which is important to us. I'm not tryingto say it's not. Just trying to make the clear point that it was the major motivation and the other reasons, however noble in concept, have been window dressing some still cling to with Nationalistic pride.

I guess I'm pisssed about being treated like a sheep.

Carpe Diem

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