Dying for your country

[freediver]

It is easy to sit on a forum and rant, as Cynik does about the all Iraqi babies dying because of this war while ignoring those that have or would die because of the tyranny that caused the war, to pretend it was a comic book choice between paradise, peace, and war, but that simply was not the choice.

You care so very desperately about the Iraqi child accidentally killed by a stray US bomb, but the tens of thousands killed by Saddam or the insurgents, that would have died had if his tyranny had continued, well, they just don’t count in your mental arithmetic.

The Iraq invasion has caused a few hundred thousand extra deaths, on top of what would have happened without the invasion.

[mantra.]

If Saddam was such a mass murderer - why was he only hung for the deaths of 148 Shiites? It makes you suspect that there was more to the genocide of 100,000 Iraqi Kurds. Why didn't the US & UN intervene then? The US made excuses that technically it wasn't a genocide, yet they used this as one of their excuses for invading Iraq - twice. All evidence points to the fact that Saddam was only a pawn in the US oil game and he was shut up by an execution before any further details of co-operation were brought to the world's attention.

Yes - a lot less babies would have died under Saddam before the invasion of the Coalition of the Willing - but there would have been even less again if the US had not placed sanctions on Iraq.

[freediver]

If Saddam was such a mass murderer - why was he only hung for the deaths of 148 Shiites?

You can only hang a man once mantra.

[JW Frogen]

Actually, given Saddam’s record of genocide (the latter which is documented by Human Rights Watch) and endemic war I think it is dubious claim children fewer children would have died if he remained in power.

And then the generation under his murderous sons.

Indeed, most the children who have died since the 2003 invasion to remove Saddam have been because of him or his forces, or Al Qeada, both of who randomly killed Iraqis, destroyed infrastructure and attempted to ignite Sunni-Shia Civil war, in a desperate, nihilistic bid to remain in power.

It is the US forces respecting the will of the Iraqi democratic voter, risking their lives to established rule of law and peace.

There is a very sad, and I do find it sad, condescension many in the Western Left have toward the Iraqi people. They can say the “word” peace a lot, tell Iraqis they were better off under Saddam, but they don’t really care about Iraqis future, how to stick it out and stop random killers from taking the country back, nor about the Iraqi voice in three elections.

You have made one good point however, Saddam should have been tried for the genocide of the Kurds and Shia first, but the Shia dominated government believed his continued existence was fueling the insurgency so went for the quickest way to take him out.

Given the collapse of the Sunni insurgency, and Sunni Al Qeada cooperation, one could argue they made the right military decision, if not gave justice to all those hundreds of thousands Iraqis killed by Saddam.

Where ever Saddam was, as leader, or even in prison, his legacy was always the death of Iraqis.

[gadgetron]

...The point being, ele, that folks don't generally aim to "die for their country". They aim to kill for the king's shilling, or like frogen, to suck cock for the marine corp and get a pat on the head whilst the (blah blah)
And we curse suicide bombers who strike out at those who have destroyed their families with profitable bombers, because we fear their anger.

That is the war on terror, ele. That is the heroism of "sacrifice", in the context of the media war.

And this all now relates in context to all Waki-stan and All India How?????

[gadgetron]

I can only add Edmund Burke:-

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

[JW Frogen]

I can only add Edmund Burke:-

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

Indeed.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but evil can only thrive in one.

[JW Frogen]

Dying is easy. (Just ask the Democrats.)

Victory is the hard part.

Victory is the only part.

Unless you want to go easy.