(on news sources printing information on the John Hoskins studies without verification
They do.
That is how journalism works
That is how journalism
should work, but we have plenty of examples showing how items get published without proper verification.
Do we agree that the total number of victims in Iraq, after 2003, is probably over 100 thousands
No, we do not. Iraqi body count puts the number at around 70,000. In the past, their numbers were validated by studies done by the U.N. Therefore, their counts are most likely the correct ones.
Can we agree that the John Hoskin's studies were flawed and their estimates were wildly exagerated?
I told you exactly what the problem is... Iraq is positioning military targets next to civilian targets, so that any 'precision' bombing, regardless of how careful, will result in the deaths of innocents.
Would you accept those deaths as the cost of handling Saddam? (Something tells me that if the U.S. did try such precision bombing, you'd be one of the first ones complaining about the U.S. killing innoncents.)
You know what I think before I do
Well, why don't you verify...
would you accept deaths of innocents used as 'human shields' as the cost of containing Saddam.
Or would you leave those targets, thus encouraging Saddam to use even more civilian targets as human sheilds?
And since in other threads you seem to think that the invasion required U.N. approval, would you have a similar requirement for such precision attacks? Or would you consider it moralistic for the U.S. to engage in such military actions unilaterally? And if you say that U.N. approval is required, and it fails to act, are you going to accept the continued human rights abuses?
You are enlarging the topic unneccesarily
Actually, my questions are
quite necessary.
You claimed it would be possible to contain Saddam's abuses through low-level military action. To do so brings up many issues... who would authorize such actions, what the rules of engagement are. Given the fact that you've criticized the U.S. for actions not sanctioned by the U.N., how other actions are authorized becomes critical.
So, once again... answer the question, or accept that your claim is nothing but hot air...
Is it moralistic for the U.S. to engage in such military actions unilaterally, and if you say U.N. approval is required, are you going to accept continued human rights abuses.
No, they took an action that they felt was politically advantageous. Morality did not enter into this at all.
How do you know?
Racism against Germany?
An idiotic statement that I probably shouldn't respond to.
I've already pointed out Germany's heavy involvement in Iraq's WMD programs. (Even greater than that of the U.S.) And if Germany was so moralistic, how come
they weren't pushing for the same type of military action that you claim would work?
The U.S. certainly isn't innocent. Many of its actions in the past have been motivated by self interest. But to claim that Germany somehow acted above that shows a lack of understaning of world politics.
It still puzzles me.
I have posted a quote, from a reliable source, that some USD 5 Billions were
conveyed to Saddam, by the American branch of an Italian Bank ( Banca Nazionale del Lavoro ).
Hey, I have never denied that the U.S. was allies with Saddam. They did give him financial aid. They also (if I remember correctly) gave him intelligence information in the Iran/Iraq war. And they did sell weapons (although far less than other countries.)
But the amount of support given to Iraq pales in comparison to the amount of support given to Iraq from other countries in the world.
As for 'other nations' not selling guns to Saddam... remember, most of his conventional arms came from communust countries, countries that the U.S. had abolutely no control over.
In this very point, I agree that you have taken me aback, and I am studying to understand more of it
Not sure what you really need to 'understand'. The figures are pretty clear... Russia, France and China sold Iraq most of its conventional arms. The amount sold by the U.S. was less than 1%. Look at the makeup of Iraq's army under Saddam... The infrantry used AK47s, the military used Soviet-made tanks, and the air force flew MiGs.
Therefore, blaming the U.S. for Iraq's military buildup and supression of the Iraqi people is ignoring the facts... other countries played a much greater role in the supression.
Actually, it has... there is more free speech, more freedom of religion, more economic freedom in Iraq now than there was under Saddam. And the current death rate, although unfortunate, is not as bad as when Saddam was in power.
Many people and organizations are not of the same opinion
Please point out those organizations, and please point out what freedoms they think are worse now than when Saddam was in power. If such an opinion is so common, you should have no problem providing references.
So please point to one area where people have less human rights now than under Saddam.
All the areas where suicide bombers operate..
As opposed to the Kurdish areas, or the areas of Southern Iraq where Saddam was engaged in mass killings. Are you saying those people's lives were somehow less worth living?
They did not stop them, but they have, somehow, contained them?
Basically, I think the US could have stopped almost all Saddam actions, without taking him out of power.
Do you agree?
No. Because the cost of 'stopping' him would have required:
- military operations that would have proven to be politically unpopular had they used enough force to actually make a difference militarily
- Continued sanctions, that would have further harmed the Iraqi people (leading to starvation and problems in medical care)
Those factors would have meant a failure in any attempt to 'contain' Saddam's abuses.
I never claimed there were. (There were some claims that that many people died due to sanctions, but I don't necessarily accept them.) But there were 10s of thousands of deaths, in large part due to direct killings. Those deaths were not stopped by continued U.S. and British attempts at stopping Saddam's abuses through low level military action like you were proposing..
Let` s see..
10s of thousands of deaths in a decade from 1991 to 2003.
And, at least 75000 deaths, only from 2003 to 2007
You are grasping at straws here.
I said '10s of thousands' because coming up with an exact number killed is difficult. The number was well over 100,000 though (As witnessed by the post-gulf war 1 slaughters and the numbers estimated killed prematurely through sanctions.
When asked what type of body count is necessary to justify military action
No what? What type of answer is that?
I was not asking a 'yes/no' question... You brought up the issue of Rwanda and suggested that it was more worthy of intervention. You even mentioned the number of people killed. So, where is your justification? How do you measure when a case of human rights abuses is worthy of intervention and when a case is not?
My reply was not just " no ".
You did not quote it all..
Your right, you didn't just say no... you started to bring up some irrelevant questions about whether the invasion of Iraq was necessary, and whey they didn't invate Rwanda.
But you never answered the question I had actually asked...
If you think that the U.S. was wrong for going into Iraq while they didn't go into Rwanda (even though more were killed there), then what number killed do you think justifies military action?
Yes, Prof. Matteo Martini, head consultant from the John Hopkins University, now elaborates, alone, a plan for the U.S. military..
In his spare time..
I just gave you an idea, containing Saddam without taking him out of power
And I gave a whole list of problems with your 'idea' of containing Saddam without taking him out of power. Either deal with the problems I pointed out earlier, or admit that your ideas of containment were not properly thought out and consist mostly of hot air.
(On the claim that Iraq's invasion was prompted by oil, and the counter-argment that if the U.S. wanted Iraq's oil they could have just dealt with Saddam. Matteo claimed that he had dealt with the issue before, but provided no references
By that, I assume you mean "I was wrong... I never did address that issue, now I want to hide the fact that I was wrong".
No, I am busy, not wrong..
Well, you're not too busy to post here...
Remember, skeptics demand proof. You have provided none.
