Bolding mine. Stupidity all Ryan Liam’s.
We also did not fight the Civil War to free the slaves. We fought it to preserve the Union. Slavery was a separate issue, and in fact resolved while the war was still ongoing.
And yeah, 6 billion != a few thousand.
Wonder how long it’ll take for some wingnut to call me a “Saddam lover” or some such bullshit?
Point being, facts are facts. And said facts demonstrate that the American invasion has been far deadlier and generally devastating (infrastructure/living conditions) to Iraqis than was the Saddam regime.
RedFury, note that I’m asking for figures which don’t include the massacres of the 80’s/early 90’s, but rather something which gives us an idea of how many people Saddam’s regime was killing once they were under the sanctions and U.S. surveillance. This seems like it would give a much better idea of how many people we could have expected them to kill had we not invaded, which is really the relevant figure when calculating the cost of the invasion to the Iraqi people.
Understood from the start, Giraffe, but that is the best my Google-fu could come up with. But if we can both agree that somewhere between 85/95 % of his murders were done prior to and immediately after GW-I, I think some simple arithmetic would lead to a figure of roughly 20/30,000 in that timespan. Horrific no doubt. But then what do we call the past three and a half years?
“Mission accomplished”?
Sorry Redfury, but I didn’t invade Iraq. I don’t get off on the slogans you shoot at me anymore.
Decimated military my ass, he invaded Iran and Kuwait, for ten years he was in a state of constant warfare with his neighbours. Something which you take into account when determining whether or not a regime is a threat to it’s neighbours.
And your mothers cunt was one too early for me to kick you dumb piece of shit.
I am, as always when faced with this line of argument, mildly curious about which nation we shall invade next. If the mere fact of a country’s leader being dangerous to his own citizens or his country’s neighbors is enough to justify a U.S. invasion, I should think there are a whole slew of nations on the list. When do we invade Zimbabwe?
That was kinda the point, dude.
No, but if your motives are supposedly humanitarian at least in part (which they were), then whether you’re going to reduce or increase the misery in the world by your proposed course of action should be an important factor in your decision to proceed. I’d hope that’s obvious.
It says nothing right now, one way or the other. You haven’t even bothered to produce back-of-the-envelope calculations, just a ‘wager’.
Does the level of bloodshed in the Civil War trouble me? Enormously. One of the things I appreciate about Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy is that he doesn’t sugarcoat the carnage with visions of glory. War should always be a last option because war, quite simply, kills people.
Even kiddingly, all you’ve put behind this facetious claim is your ‘wager.’
The country was breaking up over slavery, you verminous idiot. No slavery, no secession, no war.
You have consistantly supported it, which makes you murderous scum, an enemy of humanity.
And he lost, and his military was crippled long before we invaded. That’s one of the reason we invaded; being bullies, Americans only attack people who can’t fight back.
Why go that far ? By that logic, we should invade ourselves.
In fact, it was not. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the states of the C.S.A. While at least one state (Maryland) abolished slavery during the course of the war, it was the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December, 1865 that put paid to slavery.
This is correct and would be a valid argument for the '90/'91 Persian Gulf War (this is when he attempted to absorb Kuwait). We’ll ignore the fact we supported Iraq both politically and militarily as a counterbalance to Iran during the Cold War.
What does it have to do for the 2002 argument? This is the time in dicussion, when his country was gutted by two no fly zones, had no WMDs, no respectable army, and was contained. Was he going to hurt our feelings with his anti-US speeches?
I suggest we do it by alphabetical order, in which case Ireland is next in line. A box will be placed on a table by the door. Please drop in a slip of paper listing potential reasons why and we’ll pick one of them. 
Oh, not to worry. I’m quite sure we are all well aware by now that you do all your cheerleading from mommies’ basement.
Trust your ass was decimated by choice. But let’s move on. I’m not interested in The State Of Your Anus.
OTOH, you delusional fuck, want to guess when the Iraqi Armed Forces were at the peak of their power? If you say “during the Iraq/Iran war and prior to the Kuwait invasion when the US fully supported them” you’d be right for…well, the first time ever on these boards. And you want to know what kind of “resistance” the Iraqi forces put up during GW-I? Not to worry, I’ll tell you anyway:
Now then, we all know ('cept for you it appears) what happened afterwards. Namely crippling sanctions, constant harassment by way of illegal fly-overs, random bombings and inspections up the kazoo. Yet you have the yarbles to write, and I quote: “a state of constant warfare with his neighbours.”
Cite or get off the sauce, kid. Like I said, if Iraq’s military couldn’t do shit at the height of its powers, where do you get this stuff that it was “threatening” anyone since? Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia…all of them neighbors, all of them could have kicked Saddam’s dilapidated army’s ass in no time. And then you go on believing fairy tales such as the infamous “Iraq is a grave and gathering danger.” To the US of A no less! The mightiest force the world has ever seen!
Pull my fucking finger, pencildick.
Besides the fact that the above sentence makes no sense whatsoever, you’d need to be a necrophiliac to get near my Mother as she died earlier this year.
Mind you, not that it would surprise me coming from such a scumbag as yourself.
Go easy on the poor chap Red. He is a person who thinks that without military involvement Hitler would have sent a “few thousand people to the death camps”. He also seems to think that the death camps are the reason for the war and not defence due to aggressive acts. Imagine a Brit thinking such things.
Ignorance on that level should be pitied not attacked 
“How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”
Bah! Right you are, a waste of time it is.
Just gets my blood boiling when I see little Scyllas, duffers and Sam Stones popping out of the woodworks.
I can’t imagine what kind of world we’ll have if they ever become a majority. Luckily, I doubt I’ll see it happen in my lifetime – guess there have to be some advantages to being decrepit 
WTF is it with Godwinising this thread? I mean, seriously, I realize the neocon school of foreign politics has fallen flat on its arse, but this Hitler = Saddam shit is simply deranged and reeks of desperateness. As is the assumption that Dubya is some sort of Churchill to Gore/Kerry’s Chamberlain.
Is that really all you’ve got left?
:rolleyes:
I’m thinking of that scene in Forest Gump where that Pinko beats up Jenny and then blames it on how angry he is at Nixon.
Do you remember that scene?
Untrue, and rather disingenuous of you to so state. The wager itself is moot. I am pointing out the ridiculousness of measuring the just or unjust nature of the civil war based strictly on suffering caused versus suffering avoided.
It’s disingenuous in the extreme because I provided other examples to illustrate my point. For you to ignore those and claim that I have not provided enough to support my reasoning is not a particularly resounding show of good faith you brunetticidal dictator, you.
Scylla,
I happened upon this post of yours in GD. As hot-blooded as I can and tend to be, I’m also not much in the “holding grudges” department.
If you’re sincere in what you wrote – and I can’t think why you wouldn’t be. This is not a game we’re playing – that’s good enough for me. Because, ultimately, I believe we both want the same thing: a better world, if not for us, for our children. And I kid you not when I say that 2nite’s results are rather crucial for the near future; I shudder to think what an unbridled BushCo could do in the next two years.
Honestly, I think that WW-III wouldn’t be out of the question should an unprovoked attack on Iran happen.
Truce.