Hillary Was For It. Obama Was Against It.
By
And Congress hasn’t had the balls to defund it. For those of you who shouted for war, voted for it, or didn’t vote to end it – the blood of a million people is on your hands.
NYT: More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain’s leading polling groups.
The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes.
The last complete census in Iraq conducted in 1997 found 4.05 million households in the country, a figure ORB used to calculate that approximately 1.03 million people had died as a result of the war, the researchers found.
The margin of error in the survey, conducted in August and September 2007, was 1.7 percent, giving a range of deaths of 946,258 to 1.12 million.
Our President and his complicit enablers managed to kill more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein would have imagined in his wildest dreams. You can argue all you want about what the intelligence said and whether Bush lied, but the fact is that many of us were against the war before it started. While people shouted, “You want Saddam Hussein in power?!”, some of us imagined that Saddam Hussein’s rule might be preferable to the consequences of invasion. We watched the Big Lie coming out of the White House and watched legislators sprint to see who could get on board the fastest.
I’m glad to see Obama and Clinton talking about how to get our troops out. Neither of them is willing to go to the mat in the Senate for it, but I tend to believe that a President Obama will likely end the occupation, and a President Clinton might. Aside from a very few members of the House and Senate, none of our leadership comes away from this war without a share of responsibility for a million unrecoverable lives.
22 Comments
January 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am
That last tagline on the poster should be changed to:
“You can’t break eggs without making an omelet.”
I forget which poet wrote that as a parody of attitudes toward Vietnam, but it’s equally apropos of this administration’s attitude toward Iraq.
More on topic, though, it’d be nice if Obama or Hillary (or both) would at least endorse the plan put forward by
A man can dream, can’t he?
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January 31st, 2008 at 8:58 am
Gordon, what do you feel is the best plan to help the Iraqi government and stabilize the country?
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January 31st, 2008 at 8:58 am
Well let’s not forget our own casualties! According to http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org there are now 72,000 American Casualties from Iraq & Afghanistan Wars (injured and dead)
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January 31st, 2008 at 9:26 am
bob,
there is no Iraqi government, at least not one that can govern the country as a whole. If you want a stable Iraq, you have to address the underlying problems, which are not just unique to Iraq, but the middle east as a whole (this will not happen for a variety of reasons the main one being $$$)…but the best we can hope for for now (which is something approaching a stable government that will last 15-20 years) is for another “Saddam” to arise, and to hold the country together with brute force (and with lots of lovely weapons supplied by American oil lust).
the thing is an unstable Middle East is good for business; the oil business, the arms business, and for those that are in between. this has been American policy for 60 years, and I doubt it will change unless there is a total collapse in the the various regimes we prop-up.
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January 31st, 2008 at 10:25 am
Neither Obama nor Clinton are running on a non-interventionist foreign policy position. They may both oppose the current war in Iraq. After all, it was prosecuted by their political rival: George Bush. They simply want to start their own imperialist, non-defense military adventures elsewhere. This leaves only one genuine anti-war candidate.
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January 31st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
You’re correct, Tim. Unfortunately that in and of itself doesn’t make Ron Paul the best candidate.
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January 31st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Ya know, I still don’t know why people think Ron Paul is some conspiracy theorist.
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/solicitation.pdf
Oh, that’s why.
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January 31st, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Shad,
So your only idea for stabilizing Iraq is to 1)abandon it and 2)hope some despotic tyrant arises to rule with an iron fist?
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January 31st, 2008 at 10:27 pm
bob,
keep trying. Yes I think we should install another brutal dictator (because that always works out so well for everyone involved)…but only after we nuke ‘em.
What do you think will bring stability to Iraq? And what do you consider stable to be? And where did I say we should abandon it?
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February 1st, 2008 at 9:02 am
OK shad, I’ll keep trying (or you could just tell me).
I’m assuming you’re being sarcastic with installing a brutal dictator, but you did say, in your first post, the best we could hope for was the rise of another Saddam to rule via brute force (I didn’t say anything about us installing one). Thus, one would assume, we wouldn’t be there if another Saddam were to come to power. Abandonment, withdrawal, call it what you will.
So were you serious or not about a new Saddam or not? How about a Saddam more akin to Ahmedinejad?
The only way we’ll bring stability is by training a new military and police force – that would be self sufficient – that would be aided by a multi-national peace keepers. However, the UN doesn’t have the best track record with peace keeping. In any case, no matter what happens, we’ll be involved with Iraq for years to come, withdrawal or not.
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February 1st, 2008 at 9:07 am
Man, I messed up that bold stuff something awful (it was supposed to be one word).
Help Admin? I promise not to try to use tags again.
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February 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
This is where we have a disconnect, Bob. Your assumption is that U.S. Troops occupying Iraq and training their forces will make things better faster. We’ve been training troops and police for five years now, and when our SURGE!!! drawdown begins soon, the violence will likely increase to where it was before the SURGE!!! Our presence fuels the insurgency, and anyone who works with us is a target for murder.
The idea that more of the same is going to make things magically better has no basis in experience.
That being said – there are no good options in Iraq. The Bush administration and their enablers have created a quagmire. My first question is how do we stop doing what’s not working? The answer is to withdraw troops and stop trying to be an executive power in what ought to be a sovereign nation. I think we’ll need some residual forces to protect American non-combat contractors until they can either pull out or get other protection, but we don’t need to be refereeing a civil war, even if we did create the conditions for it.
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February 1st, 2008 at 10:30 am
Gordon, obviously our troops are the main target of many insurgents, but you also have to admit that insurgents are targeting civilians as well. You admit that if we withdraw the violence will not disappear and will likely become worse. I agree, but I can’t accept that.
I don’t think there is some magic solution, but I don’t think abandoning the people of Iraq will make things any better.
I admit, it’s a mess with no easy answers and I don’t presume to have the solution. I’m just as frustrated as you are, but I want the most humanitarian path available and I believe we have a responsibility to provide that.
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February 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am
bob,
Yes, they are targeting civilians as well. The assumption you make is that our staying can improve things. I haven’t seen the evidence to support that. What if our staying will prolong the conflict? What if more die as a result?
If our responsibility is to aid in the resolution of the conflict, and we haven’t had success in doing so, what makes you think that more of the same will help? This is a break in logic that I truly don’t understand.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:03 am
Gordon, more are going to die. This is unavoidable.
Yes, my assumption is that staying will improve things, but not on our own. But we need HELP. As I said, part of the solution (only part!) is we need to have some sort of multi-national assistance here. Let me be clear, I’m not saying “more of the same”.
Is it your assumption that, given no more outside assistance after a withdrawal, that it will be more peaceful? You already said that there was a civil war going on, so should we let it work itself out?
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:27 am
Bob,
Due to the Bush administration’s arrogant go-it-alone foreign policy, other nations are leaving Iraq, not clamoring to come “help”. Where will this aid come from? The U.N. is not chomping at the bit to stick blue helmets into the war zone either.
“should we let it work itself out?”
It is working itself out. It’s simply a question of whether we’re going to be in the middle of it.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am
bob:
Re: your earlier comment – I fixed it. All that happened was you did this:
<b>installing<b>instead of this:
<b>installing</b>The forward slash closes the tag.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
I’m confused, how in the world is it “working itself out” at the present yet you say that once the surge drawdown begins the violence will erupt again?
Sigh, in any case, discussing this is good for me, because it refreshes my loathing of Bush for getting us in this mess in the first place and setting us at odds with one another.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:43 am
Ah-ha! Thank you Arratik! Now I’m dangerous.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am
I think the civil war will likely intensify and accelerate when we draw down. When we withdraw I think it will intensify further. This is regrettable. What would be more regrettable would be to continue the same strategy we have now knowing that when we eventually pull out, the same series of events will need to play themselves out. The civil war is happening. It’s just happening on simmer instead of boil.
Unless we plan to occupy the nation for generation, of course, then we could have a permanent state of low-level civil war, Americans dying, Al Qaeda training ground and recruiting station, etc.
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February 1st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I’ll agree to disagree over our continuing role since, sadly, neither of us will be President any time soon.
I mostly agree with your assessment above once we withdraw. What I’m fearful of is what Iraq will be once the civil war is over.
Annexed by Shiite Iran is my guess. In any case, the Middle East will be less stable and more hostile toward America.
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February 1st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Agreed.
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