Iraq: Bush "very pleased"

The image of sewage spewing all over seems quite fitting for the Shrub. The only concept more appropriate: a set of steel bars.

And ALL of these problems have been assumed by the Iraqis now Revere. Reason for the increase in price? Economy is booming and they have bigger and better things to do with the concrete they are making. Price inflation.

Of course it might have been fixed now if Al Sadr militia hadnt had to be quelled first. Getting shot while trying to pour concrete I hear is a real bitch.

The electricity is just about where it was before the war. Health care might have been a tad better but Iraqi's have almost 100 billion in the bank now and they are sitting on it. They can let a contract just as good as we can.

They have my permission to spend THEIR 11 billion to fix the Baghdad sewers that were disintegrating before we dropped the first bomb. Basically put they spent it on bombs and bullets rather than taking care of the problems.

TO BE EXACT REVERE LETS PUT IT ALL UP THERE FOR EVERYONE TO READ AND NOT CHERRY PICK. A GOOD PART OF THE PROBLEMS ARE THE IRAQI MINISTRIES PROBLEM WHO REFUSED TO CONSIDER A LAGOON TYPE SYSTEM...... BUT DO READ THE FULL REPORT. ITS TELLING AND THE TELLING IS THAT THEY WANT US TO PAY FOR EVERYTHING.

http://www.sigir.mil/reports/pdf/assessments/PA-08-144_to_148.pdf

Its a better idea as I said before to just bomb the living shit out of a country, never put a soldier on the ground and let them deal with the problems. If they attack us post of that, then we put our boots on the ground, attack them, drop their population by 1/2 or so in a full on ground attack and then see if they want to take their toys and go home or go another round.

Hey, anyone seen that 650 million of uncirculated bills from the palace walls with the French stickers on them? Bet they could build a helluva lot of outhouses with that.

Note that part where it says that when the locals did hook up to it they simply bashed a hole through the side of the sewer connection and thats what causes a lot of the leaks.

Cherry picking at its finest. What they need to do is get people from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Dubai in there and get on with the fixing. They NEVER had in house plumbing before Revere in many place. New concept.

I sent you the link to the Centcom news feeds which are a lot of propaganda in some cases but not the majority.

Randy: So what? What does anything you have to say have to do with anything I said? Other than you'll blame anyone but Bush. Thee's plenty of blame to go around. Bush, Bush's people, the Iraqis, you.

I think you misrepresented the situation and who/what the causes are for no sewage treatment in Iraq. Bush IS pleased. I am pleased too.

Blame? Oh yeah, plenty to go around. Start with Bush 1 for not knocking the living snot out of them completely and leaving the Iraqi's to deal with that sonuvabitch Saddam. Should have put me in charge. Dead dictators dont kill people.

Sewers require electricity. No electricity because the Iraqi's keep stealing the transmission lines. So, we move to direct generators, but no fuel because the refinery is 40 years old and they keep knocking holes in the pipes.

But if your assertion is that they are worse off than they were six years ago, I disagree. My people on the ground there tell me that they arent taking fire any longer, the Iraqi police are in charge and NOTHING we could do in Guantanamo is as bad as what they do to people who shoot at the IPF.

So all of these things you keep citing now are under Iraqi control save I think 12 projects that we said we would do. The reason for the price balloon is as stated and a redesign is underway, along with the REQUIREMENT THAT THE CONTRACTOR MAKE THE PHYSICAL HOME CONNECTIONS. Hell Revere, thats 2/3rds more right there. Got to have a toilet to connect it too. Now they have to buy toilets to connect to the pipes that are being provided. No toilets? Its the reason that the sewage is running in the streets. .

Randy: It's good to know they are in control. Let's bring our folks home. The Iraqis are in total control.

Happy Thanksgiving revere.

And Happy Thanksgiving to you MRK.

Randy,

Even before the US invaded Iraq, the infrastructure was very poor. The subsequent war, fighting and bombings put an end to what little Iraqi infrastructure there was.

Randy, try to put the shoe on the other foot. If there was hot and cold running poo poo at your front door, I am willing to bet that you would not be putting your thumbs up saying, "Good one Bush".

Randy, could you please ask your people on the ground what the Iraqi towns smell like. I am willing to bet, that on arrival, and standing at the plane door, all one would smell is a toilet.

If I had to live in those conditions you can better your bottom dollar that I would be as mad as hell.

Even before the US invaded Iraq, the infrastructure was very poor.

Actually, before Gulf War Part I, the infrastructure was about the best in the region. It was the destruction wrought in GWI followed by the sanctions regime that wrecked it.

"Should have put me in charge. Dead dictators dont kill people. "

Living ones like the one you just said you'd like to be do though - for example a few posts up you just proposed exterminating half the population. Remind me how this makes you not a worse (let alone better) than Saddam?

My daughter's best friend just got back from Iraq on Sunday. She said the place is a "fucking mess". She also said many of the Iraqi people wish we would just leave and take our inefficient contractors with us. They think they can do the job just fine without us.
Maybe they can and maybe they can't, but what is 100% known is we can't do it either.

The war to detroy Iraq accomplished its two purposes:
1. destabilized the oil producing market,
2. guaranteed that the US military contractors continuing profit by making 1/4 of the world population (Muslims) into enemies.
3. counteract the goodwill of Muslims toward the US from Clinton's unprecidented support for Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

THAT is why the right wing hate Clinton so much -- he put American lives at risk to support Muslims instead of participating in the right wingers dream: a crusade to end all crusades. The right wingers's accusations about Muslims is projection, plain and simple.

But the right wingers do not understand that their hatred and need for violence are projections -- they refuse to try to understand why they are so fearful and hateful. You gotta wonder: what is causing all of their horrific hatred?? Probably a lot of hurt and shame in their childhoods - for what was done to them, and for things that they did.

It is so sad that the unexamined personal problems and failures of the right wingers ended up killing so many American military men and women and Iraqis.

There is no doubt in my mind that MRK would give the shirt off his back to any human being. With that said one must look past the words, no matter how difficult a feat that may be for many who visit EM.
Not all right wingers are hateful and not all those who have had a difficult childhood end up in despair.

Call yourself charitable and kind and yet when it comes to a difference of opinion the left wingers attack.

These religious wars have been going on for centuries and nothing will ever change that. What will change is ones attitude towards each other coupled with compassion and greater understanding. While at the same time basically eliminating the mindless individuals who kill innocent people.

The wealthiest of the world are the ones pulling the puppet strings and until ordinary folks in masse realize this and do something about it - it will be business as usual.

I've learned a great deal here at EM. I've grown a great deal here at EM. But there is one constant, I can see the good in MRK.

Gindy: go to the Centrcom site and see for yourself all the good things that are being done for the Eye Rain E Un's on a daily basis.

Well for starts Andrew taking out half of the population means that 1/2 wouldnt be hitting the toilet for starts. Problem half solved. Next is that it is a war. I dont give a shit about the people on the ground and ESPECIALLY the Fallujah Triangle when dropping not so indiscriminate bombs would fix 1/2 of one problem and about 80% of another. '

Unloading a couple 1000 pounders into the area would have made sewage a non problem. Maybe the holes that were left could be used as latrines? Most of our soldiers didnt have toilets until early this year. Hmmmm.....Its okay for a soldier to crap in a latrine but not the opposition population... Bigger Hmmmmmm.

Some think this is a blood thirsty approach. It is if you take the humanity out of the situation. I have done that frequently in the past and yes with horrific results. Hopefully you never get to that level of excitement. BUT, if you go into a war, you win it. We tried to soft pedal it just after we got into Baghdad. Every General out there knows it. We actually let some dimwits say that we killed 650,000 and then finally when it was called as BS it was too late. WE were killing civilians in some wholesale manner.

Mission Accomplished? I stood up when I saw that and said that GWB just made the biggest mistake of his career. The other and primary one was putting Rumsfeld in charge. My wife saw me go into a total funk for a couple of days when he was put in. I knew then that Bush wasnt going to last long with his popularity. The job simply wasnt finished. Sewage was just one of the ones that wasnt.

Finishing it meant that another 3000 or so Americans got tagged and tons of military flesh would come home wounded.

Militarily the single largest mistake made was that they didnt take the Mahdi Army out with large bore weapons and starting with the head honcho's stronghold. Inflame the locals? Great, they come out of their holes and we get them. It gave rise to beheadings on TV that I gave my two young and now in the military kids a birds eye view of from Dutch TV and a feed. Stunned is what they were. I was so pissed that I think that I actually quit worrying about Iraqi sewage and turned my anger towards... Oh shit.. Winning it? My God in Heaven. How could I think about our people more than the Iraqi's and their poop problem.

There is no such thing as limited war CC2. Right wingers? Shit son we are all going to be right wingers in the Obama Nation. That 6% win margin is going to melt like a Global Warming glacier when oil goes to 500 a barrel in two years. Inflation alone is going to ensure it. They might put another ban into place on drilling. Then the Iraqi's can hire more contractors to work in Fallujah on their own. Hey 500 a barrel? 7.0 billion people in 2012. Business is going to be GOOOOD!

Gindy-I have troops that I trained on the ground in Baghdad and frankly your D.'s friend is correct. Its a mess. But its a better mess from what I can tell from their emails and video feeds. Somewhere between getting it right and bad. A lot of it is governmental red tape on both ends, some is that its still a military situation. Some areas are good though. Perhaps they are right. Lets for once just agree to slam smack the crap out of an enemy and then do it again and again until they call unkle. Then we just simply leave. Let the UN deal with it. We dont have to put troops into harms way any more. Nothing says we have to rebuild a country after its been hit.

Dictatorship.You know I get that a lot about the dictatorship thing. That assessment doesnt hold up...ever. The reason is that if I decide to drop a bomb its not on civilians, its against enemies hiding amongst civilians. Cowards way out unless your name is Obama. He wasnt worrying about the sewage. He was pissed that we hit the Triangle and hard. His idea must have been that we were too damned busy that day strafing women and children to worry about sewage treatment.

So that we could worry about sewage we hit them. Repeatedly in fact. We killed civilians that just happened to be carrying weapons. Many were women and children. All packing. But they GOT RIGHTS! And then they scream Geneva Convention, get them a lawyer, its an outrage at the amount of force and collaterals that was used. Uh-huh. So the alternative is to lose hundreds of your own people to placate some liberals misguided attempts to socialize a war. You cant kill someone as a collateral to prevent putting your own people into the way. War crime? For CC2 and others, justification and motivation are two big factors in a war.

I think that the idea is that if you could just go out there and arrest these people then your arguments hold some water. You got to first find someone to do a Wyatt Earp and second he has to have enough firepower to do it. Sorry, but walking into an IED booby trapped area to pick up a guy simply isnt the formula. You are generally and simply outgunned. Shit, try building a sewer system when someone is using RPG's or a M72 LAWS on your concrete trucks. Then you need both a contractor and a new truck. So after all that you get the Iraqi's into the fray with a demand that you put in a full system rather than a partial. Cant have our people shitting like bears in the woods. Gotta have toilets. They didnt before. So now you got to buy 24,000 toilets for Fallujah that werent budgeted for. Then you get the nasty gram from the NY Times that you arent doing such a good job.

I wonder. Is it medias job to fire up the liberals or is it to report the news? ALL OF IT?

But, this kind of stuff has happened in every holding action war. Same thing happened in Vietnam. Costs, casualties, nation building....Yeah right. Would I have done the population? Nope, only in the known areas such as the triangle. Would I do them and immediately leave?.. Depends as thats a political goal as well as a military one. You have to assert your military and political goals every time you start down this road. We were a little scarce on the brains dept and could have simply ended it with the wholesale destruction of that area. Anyone can argue it if they want, but without a 33,000 man army standing you down every time you do something I think conditions would have been much better if they were dead. I will take a hit or two from the lack of humanity, but they aint wearing a uniform and thats the problem. No one ever acknowledged that they outgunned us. We had toilets, they didnt. That made us better than them. So we try to placate the population and put in the shitters. They stole the pipe.

And for those of you who loved Clinton it was Madeleine "Kill them All" Albright that first suggested that we do Saddam to then Colin Powell head of the Joint Chiefs. He told her what I just did. If you go, you go to win. You establish clearly what your political and military goals are before you start down the path and you bluster as much as you can before you go, just in case they want to negotiate to an acceptable political position for both sides.

Is sewage a military goal? Nope, but we made it one. Is it a political goal...Well politics is a shitty business. If the sewage being processed became the all consuming issue with the Iraqi government they would have done something about it. That didnt happen. Nor was the security of the contractors in the area which was under their control as of the early part of LAST YEAR. Cant get people to work if they are getting shot at.

Victoria-Re: your question. Indeed it was bad and is bad in Fallujah. Baghdad is picking up faster and faster. Fallujah -It is a military enclave of Al Mahdi army people. It is well behind the rest of the military projects but most others are well ahead of schedule. There are about 20 military projects that are underway and this is one of them. If you want a list let me know. Most of the others are just about done though. The power is the problem according to one Major R. C. Parker and SMSgt. Julia Broussard. Sis Brou as we called her says that the contractors lost almost as many as the USArmy has in casualties. The Mahdi's shoot indiscriminately to prevent any contractor actions. To control the power is to control the people. They control fewer and fewer parts of Fallujah.

Ever seen "Baghdad ER" on TV? Most I am told were victims of shootings in the Triangle. Broussard was a two striper that I trained and she got the first hand view of two combat zones with me before I quit. Black chick who I would be more than happy to have on my 6 in a firefight. She doesnt back off. 21 when she started and is now 33 and baddass.

But sewage ISNT the problem and the people here just dont get it. Its an Iraqi control zone now and we are seeing that trying to run a military contract in a combat situation with no security isnt going to work. They cant even keep the wires on the poles because copper is in demand around the world. They steal it. Now do you get someone like me to take care of that or the local Iraqi Wyatt Earp? Political decision to make it a military problem you know? Once made, dont define what butcheries I can assemble to remove a problem. Fettering a commander is the worst thing you can do and killing "civilians" who are packing heat and then letting them bitch afterwards isnt my cup of tea. I would simply go and stick their face into a troops body bag where his used to be and ask him which he felt was more important.

CC2-I hated Clinton because he and his pals were selling the US down the river to stay in power. Nuke technology, missile technology. Ron Brown got dead the day before he was to testify in Congress about his dealings with the Chinese and whether the Clintons were traitors or just business people. My personal belief was it was a combi of both. I also hated the Clintons because of the abuses of power and what he did to women and that idiot Hilary believed him as did others when he said with intensity, "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Every guy in America knew he was lying then. The other part was that the people should NEVER have to even be questioning it, nor should we be spending 70 million to get ejaculatory matter off a dress. Getting a BJ in the White House is fine, be discreet. But lying about it in front of a Grand Jury and a Federal Judge will get you impeached and me pissed at you... Priceless. 100 years from now, will it be the impeachment or the re-runs of the denial that people remember? Anyone got that video on YouTube?

Destabilizing the oil producing market? Well we dont need to go and do that CC. We have Democrats who do it for us and insist that, yes we can change. And that change would be to solar and wind and this is somehow going to work. In fact its a classic screw us routine and an ecological disaster in its own right. Cant drill when oil is past 150 a barrel. Jeez what a bunch of idiots. 20% of our power in how long? Yeah, the Obama Nation is about to wake up to the realities of the world.

Electricity is going to cost MORE as a result of Cap and Trade, solar and wind. Enjoy the bill as your life style if you are in the US suddenly starts to drop like a rock to a 2nd world status. We will be the worlds superpower but only militarily. Everything else will be in total disarray. Sewage in Iraq is going to become a media nothing in under 60 days now. It will be about the economy stupid..nothing meant there. This will be the all encompassing single item and Victoria you wont hear a thing about it after this week. I promise you that the next thing you hear about it will be that its not on and never going to be, or that it is and functioning. None of this other crap.

My assessment? The power will go on, the sewage treatment will eventually come up. Someone will ensure it happens. We all in the developed world will pay for it in some way and thereby increase a population which will ensure that the next war will be a hummer. It will be about resources and people fighting over it. Sewage aint on that list.

CC, its good that you think beyond the headlines.. You are one of the few and while I think you are a lib from your post, its good thinking down a line. Dont fixate though on that line. Always assume the tangent and think them all through. The truth always lies in there somewhere. Clinton was a good President in about 80% of his dealings with the people. The other 20% is what got him.

In a year, we will hear just about nothing about Iraq. All stable because the Obama Nation is and will be in charge. The Messiah though is going to have to produce what he offered up and that was change. He will of course fail. He will fail as all Presidents have and not be able to deliver because of the entrenched politico's in DC, London, Bonn, Moscow. You do catch that it seems orchestrated CC and you too Victoria. I dont disagree with that assessment at all. That is something that you CAN see as certain people, companies are always at the forefront and making money off of it. Here, the UK, even Russia. But it will take a major upheaval to get it to change and sewage isnt going to be the tipping factor. Might add to the weight against the door but not that. My bet? Iraq pops a nuke cap. Then the shit hits the fan. Hezbollah is sitting on a verified stash of 24,000 missiles. Many are very large and could be loaded with nuke residue. When that day comes and it will, I think that sewage will not be on anyones mind. Sewage treatment is a tangible and needed thing. It though isnt a pre-condition for us to leave. Crap, leave them with it as far as I am concerned. They'll fix it or not.

Lea: I'm fine with Randy as a person. I also find him personally generous and he has a mushy interior. But on a blog all we have is our words, so that is what you and I and he have to represent us here and no one should be surprised that words are taken seriously. And Randy is not short of words. And they are taken seriously and literally, as they should be.

Lea,
In your infatuated ode to MRK you ignore his bloodthirsty immoral ruthlessness: "Its a better idea as I said before to just bomb the living shit out of a country, never put a soldier on the ground and let them deal with the problems. If they attack us post of that, then we put our boots on the ground, attack them, drop their population by 1/2 . . ." READ IT. He advocates killing off HALF of a national population - i.e., non-combatants.

The Iraqis had not harmed any Americans until we invaded them. What did you expect them to do, NOT defend themselves??

Nearly half a million Iraqis and more than 5,000 US military men and women have been killed by the Iraq war. Thousands of Iraqi physicians have been killed. Thousands upon thousands of Americans and Iraqis have been injured, many of them maimed for life. And now you right wingers shrug off your responsibility for the destruction.

You haven't shown any evidence that you have learned a single thing.

"... taking out half of the population means that 1/2 wouldnt be hitting the toilet for starts .. I dont give a shit about the people on the ground ... when dropping not so indiscriminate bombs would fix 1/2 of one problem and about 80% of another."

Tell me, Mr Kruger, you sick socipathic murdering fuck, what would you think if someone suggested doing this to you and your family? You don't get that these are people, do you?

Jesus, this kuger person just get's crazier and crazier

The reason is that if I decide to drop a bomb its not on civilians, its against enemies hiding amongst civilians. Cowards way out unless your name is Obama.

Sorry, are you saying that your president-elect is an enemy hiding among civilians? You really have that little respect for your own constitution, by which he was elected?

His idea must have been that we were too damned busy that day strafing women and children to worry about sewage treatment.

Wern't you? But no-one is expecting you to fix the sewerage, just to stop indiscriminately shooting Iraqis long enough to allow them to fix it.

We killed civilians that just happened to be carrying weapons. Many were women and children. All packing. But they GOT RIGHTS!

Just like in Texas, or any US state, in fact. Do you need to be reminded that its their goddamned country, that you are an invader shooting up its citizens?

Electricity is going to cost MORE as a result of Cap and Trade, solar and wind.

Electricity is going to cost more because we have burned most of the oil. Blame it on those damn liberuls all you want - you had conservatives controlling all three brances of your government for the last decade, and that totally fixed everything, right?

My bet? Iraq pops a nuke cap.

Not going to happen. You probably think any tool with a shed in the back yard can build a working nuke.

Hezbollah is sitting on a verified stash of 24,000 missiles. Many are very large and could be loaded with nuke residue.

Which they got, no doubt, by collecting the spent munitions that you bastards are poisoning their country with. You are all going to hell for what you are doing to the people over there.

I'll leave the last word to you, it tells us what the whole mess is really about.

Enjoy the bill as your life style if you are in the US suddenly starts to drop like a rock

Armed robbery. It really is that simple..

You don't get that these are people, do you?

Posted by: Paul Murray | November 27, 2008 9:44 PM [kill][hide comment]

I think he gets that they're people. It's just that they're the wrong people, if you get my drift.

Phila and Paul. You dont get it. The military doesnt have the right to make the decisions to go, once they are gone they pretty much leave us to our own devices.

CC2-I challenge you to come up with ANY documented proof and that proof would be a body count, that there have been 500,000 Iraqi casualties caused by the US. Dont give me the cases of typhoid and other diseases either because they didnt get them from us and they had them long before we got there. Besides the number of cases is few of that percentage wise too. Remember the lack of chlorine for the water treatment ? Duh. They wanted to handle that too. Nor did we cause their power problems to do anything but get better in the last two years. But, you got to have domestic security before you can have any sort of possibility of a turn around like you want. So, bomb the shit out of the Mahdi Army. Its exactly what will have to happen sooner or later.

PM-IN addition to that it is standard accepted practice of every military in the last 500 years to win by attrition. Or drop the big one which is the best cause of attrition out there. The UK and the US bombed whole cities off the map in WWII. How about a non-uniformed army in residence. What do we do? Knock off at 5 every afternoon and run into the house. Only an idiot would suggest that we limit our attacks when under attack in those areas. They can always cower and run.

Also their rights stop at the time they pick up a rifle. They are combatants and not that civilian population you want to defend so strongly. They run into their hidey holes and we decide to hit it with a 500 pounder rather than a 50 thats a command decision. Make it so costly to attack that they decide its not a good idea. But you dont get that part I guess. Oh I get it that they are people. But the wrong kind of people as Phila says. The kind that shoot at us when we are trying to put things right. You really should run on down to Fallujah and tell them that you are on their side. Maybe they wont show your particular beheading on TV.

When dropping bombs of large capabilities CC2 you dont seem to understand. They would have been dropped into Fallujah and selected other places where armed nationals and militia were shooting at our people. You know, preventing us from getting the sewage treatment plant up. So you either bitch about us being there, you bitch about us not having a sewer treatment plant up. Is there anything else you want us to put soldiers into harms way for when the Iraqi's said they want to do it themselves? Please do tell.

Phila-If you want to call me a racist then fine, but dont beat around the bush about it. The right kind of people are the ones that are behaving themselves and not shooting at us or the IPF. I always say to people in a combat zone that you arent in Kansas anymore. That applies to you too Phila. As long as you are here in the US, where there are at least some rules you do okay. You wouldnt last ten seconds in a combat zone. I have seen your types before. UN this and UN that, Amnesty International etc. Its not the real world where you live. Thats what we call it too. The real world. In the real world it would be nice that we dont have to worry about Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, Osama and quite a few others. But, once the balloon goes up you had better hope that we do our jobs really well because your little world would be gone in an afternoon. Do you think that the Georgians were negotiating with the Russians on the day of their attack? Do you think that they let any UN observers see what they were doing? Its a war and things get broken. People like you dont understand that complete annihilation of the enemy as designated by the Congress and the President actually limits the number of casualties. But, you will of course disagree.

BTW Paul... Sociopaths would have come looking for you by now. Me, I am watching a football game.

60 days or so til Bush leaves. Then the Obama Nation takes over. Bitch to them. I'll still be watching my football games. But, if called I will go back in a heartbeat. If they did call, it would be because the poo has hit the rotary grinder. I can safely assure you that the next one out is going to be far worse than this and it will happen. I also can safely say that they will want me and others to kill as many of the "opposition", "wrong people" as possible if and when they do. Thats if you get MY drift.

The military doesnt have the right to make the decisions to go

and who here was blaming anything in particular upon the military, as opposed to its civilian (executive branch) supreme command?

Well gee Nomen it would seem that everyone is displeased with the progress of certain projects under military control in Iraq. IN PARTICULAR a sewage treatment program which got this rolling in the first place. It didnt matter. The NY Times would have found something to complain about anyway. The media is going to be vastly underwhelmed by the Obama Nation and its policies, even less with the results they they produce.

You get something wrong in combat and now you have to look over your shoulder not only for the enemy but the UN, Geneva, Amnesty. Rarely is anything malicious against civilians and I have stopped things from happening before when troops got wound up. Its great to feel the support of your own country when out in the bush. Even that piece of crap Murtha is now having to defend himself from military members for defamation by name.

I also would love to put the weapons down but each time we do in this country we get something like Pearl Harbor, Korean War, Vietnam, 9/11. Shit the list is long and each time someone comes up and calls us sociopathic murderers. If we were, those people making the statements would have been gone.

What part of "blaming" the military did you miss. Its alluded to of course but there it is out in the open for you to dissect.

Now we have to go into combat with lawyers too....

What part of "blaming" the military did you miss

in this thread? apparently all of it. but since you're so sharp-eyed, how about you point it out to me?

(free hint: the easiest way for the USA to avoid becoming partially responsible for that sewage debacle, and thousands of other clusterfucks in Iraq, would have been to not invade the place. we would have lost nothing, and saved much blood and money, by simply staying the hells out of there. that mistake, too, can only be blamed on the political leadership and the Bush administration --- not on the military.)

Nomen, maybe you just dont understand. WE DID INVADE THE PLACE. To you it was for the wrong reasons. To boot Saddam wasnt complicit in the Osama thing either. He was neck deep in it. He transited Iraq regularly and when there were international warrants for him. He was in Iraq just one month after 9/11 and they did nothing. Saddams banks were moving the money around for the terrorist groups. In fact Iraq was a terrorists paradise.

http://ktar.net/blogs/dankarlo/2008/02/28/abc-news-1999-the-osama-sadda…

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/7/11/154020.shtml

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Defensewatch_112603_Connecti…

You guys can say what you want. Taking the asshole out was a good thing and if for no other reason than he was committing genocide. At what level do you get fired up enough to do something? We are there and countering Iran and its ambitions and if you cant see what would happen if they gain control of the straits then well its lost on you.

Now I guess your level of expertise is IT which means you dont get out much. You probably sit around reading trade rags and with a NN name it means you are probably pretty anonymous there too. Me, I am in the book and anyone who wants to stop by are welcome to. I am pretty tired of this Iraq this and Iraq that, Bush is the problem in the entire world bullshit. The military is killing women and children and in some cases they are right, but its very limited. You guys lose no time in denigration and calling anyone who says you are wrong, all sorts of names. Bet they wouldnt do that in my presence. If they did they would need a doctor almost a quarter second later.

Its about denigration and calling our own people murderers. The military is going to be needed again in very short order and all I hear is denigration by the people in the US. My own kid in his last year of HS had to put up with constant harassment by the leftists in the schools, both teachers and classmates. He had to also enjoy one of those classroom attempts at conversion to the cause which I put a stop to. The give the world a hug crap isnt working out because there are entities out there that are building up more and more each day. Mark above says that its by collection of our missiles that are unused. What a load of crap. Yeah, we just leave 20,000 plus missiles laying around. Yeah, they are like some kids bottle rockets. Fact is they weigh several hundred pounds each and they also need launchers.

The lefties have gotten us this far and they'll flip the cart over again. Much to your dismay. But it wont be Afghanistan this time around. It will be much closer to the doorstep of NATO and you guys will thrash and gnash teet, bitch about how Bush got us into it and the Obama Nation will talk about economic sanctions, just like B. Clinton did and they were TOTALLY ineffective. They'll never go into place because the Russians have the EU in their pocket because of natural gas. But, its a balance of power and if you have none you got to go for the big ones when the tanks start rolling in.

We are just getting ready for the next one and this one is going to be bigger I think than anyone could imagine. If Iran launches against Israel or the US, there is no imagining what could happen. I have an idea but its likely underscaled.

You have constantly derided Bush, his policies and well the country just seems to be ticking along with or without him. There has been little leadership in Bush. We wont get much more if any from Obama. We got a guy in there now that says CHANGE. His change will be that he will gut the military and THAT is when the Russians are going to go for it. They have everything to gain to re-occupy Georgia/Ukraine and nothing to lose. Piece by piece they will get what they want. Meanwhile all you lefties will express your outrage over this over your cappuccinos.

There are 5 divisions just across the border in Russia from Ukraine and you probably havent heard they are building a Berlin Wall in Georgia. But gee, we are supposed to just ignore yet another deal along the lines of Saddam/Stalin and Putin. Get ready NN because its coming again and the lefties wont believe it until it happens.

Free better hint NN: Always invade while you can and when you can. If you dont, you lose more on the back side than the front.

The right wingers are squalling that those of us who are against the Iraq war "blame the military" to set up a straw dog. We do not blame the military -- we clearly point our fingers at the right wing civilian Bushites who voted for the Bushes. The right wingers love their straw dogs, and use them wherever they can to wriggle out of taking any responsibility for their bloodthirsty greed.

MRK, how silly of me: I didn't add a caveat as to HOW all those Iraqi people lost their lives in our invasion. The stats aren't current so I estimated an update at 1/2 million +/-100,000 -- but maybe you'd say I'm not qualitied to do that, me being a mere Ph.D. statistician.

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Iraqi Health Ministry casualty survey for the World Health Organization:
In January 2008 the Iraqi health minister, Dr Salih Mahdi Motlab Al-Hasanawi, reported the results of the "Iraq Family Health Survey" of 9,345 households across Iraq which was carried out in 2006 and 2007. It estimated 151,000 violence-related Iraqi deaths (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) from March 2003 through June 2006. This was out of a total of 400,000 excess deaths they estimated due to the war. Employees of the Iraqi Health Ministry carried out the survey. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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An equivalent death toll would be 6 million of our US population.

The Iraq invasion has killed approximately 2 percent of the Iraq population, and about 10 percent have fled the country. Iraq was one of the most well-developed of the Middle East nations before we leveled it. They had a tertiary-level medical care system, and health care was free for all citizens. They have a broken healthcare system now because 5000 physicians have been killed, and their specialist docs need retraining in primary care. Their sewer system worked before we bombed it into smithereens.

An invasion so that military contractors and oil companies can make profits -- that is just about as immoral as it can get.

CC2-Those stats were debunked a long time ago, here in particular.

Me, being ex-military simply say where are the bodies. Turns out the Phd's that were doing the counting used "estimates." Really got a lot of people pissed off on both sides of the equation.

But thats okay. We all make mistakes.

The reasons for the invasion were many. I doubt profits were one of them because they are going to lose their asses for the next few years. Oil killed the economy. If the Obama Nation gets in, Al Gore stand by my count and based upon previous jumps in First Solar and others about 30 million dollars. Check out where his money is too CC. You probably didnt know that his daddy was on the board of Occidental Petroleum.

Their sewer system was questionable at best. We didnt bomb their sewers. Its not a target of opportunity either. We did hit their power production...We didnt get the contract for the fix either.

So if there was so much money to be made, how come that Bushite company had its contract terminated? Couldnt possibly be that they couldnt build it in a combat zone?

Randy: They were never debunked here except in your delusions. I know the folks who did the JHU/Columbia cluster sampling and they did the best job done so far. No one knows for sure how many people we have killed. We only have estimates. And CC2's estimates are among the best we have. These are difficult techniques and you do not have the expertise to critique them. All you can do is repeat what people you agree with say. That's not sufficient to debunk something.

I say it again Revere where are the bodies? In WWII we killed 6 million Germans across about a dozen countries. If we killed 600,000 then it would have been more than the Republican Guard and Army combined.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E5DA1230F936A15750C0…

So if hostilities ended in that year, we would have had to have killed the entire army times roughly six. Huh? How can that be? We can account for only about65,000 in the last war and that was war dead. Another 4500 of civilian casualties. Thats CentComs total roughly and I am sticking to it.

Produce the bodies. I dont have the expertise to assess this or critique them? Right. How many combat zones have you been in? I do know that they conveniently tried to count the dead that Saddam had put into the graveyards. But, those guys at the NEJM should stick to medicine in the US rather than assessing dead in a war zone. Who gives a crap how many are dead, deal with the living. Thats work for the Army burial details and they are required to document every last one of them. Part of the Geneva Conventions. You know, guys in uniforms. Not guys with AK's and RPG's wearing local garb. I believe the total is about 15,000 for that particular group according to CentCom and they aint MACV and we didnt have any SOG's working after 07 anyway. The Iraqis wouldnt allow it.

Produce the counts too and who did them. Only the UN and the DOD have done any assessments as best I can tell that might have any accuracy and the Iraqi deaths (civilians) are I think about 15,000 for total non combatants. You were a combatant if you had a rifle next to you or in your hand.

Listen, we kill on a 7 to one ratio. We had about 58,000 on the ground so the numbers are pretty much right on the Iraqi dead because we could only get 20,000 up country at a time and onto the line. 20,000 x 7=Republican Guard and Regular Army. The percentage of civilian casualties done in are in line with previous actions as well.

So 20,000 killling at 7 to 1 is about right and we didnt kill any 500,000 civilians. If we did I would be the first to raise hell about it because all hostilities (major) ceased about a week after the fall of Baghdad. Where were all of these munitions being deployed. Was there another army out there we didnt know about? There are also other factors. IF we had killed 500,000 then we would have killed about 4% of the 1996 census population and there would be graveyards full of bodies. There arent. Sorry folks the numbers dont flush up. CC2 you also cite a 95% uncertainty. I am certain that the certain estimates are inflated by a factor of 10. Even then, produce the graveyards at least. There would be huge graveyards for these people.

Now if it had been Fallujah and I had been in charge then you would have needed about 24,000 new headstones. Total and complete bombing campaign-Dresden raid stuff. We would have been done and out of there by now if we had. But thats just me... the sociopath. Difference between a guy with a job to do and a sociopath? The guy with a job watches sunday football in between fire missions and air raids.

And the sewers and power would have been working by now.

The numbers you guys are citing are TOTALLY inconsistent with any other war in recent history. So, lets see the heads legbones or graves. Thats how we count them you know.

But I am not qualified to make that assessment.

Why aren't you fighting in Iraq, MRK? You passion for destruction has not gone unnoticed and shouldn't go unrewarded. There are, as you point out, plenty of Iraqis to go around for a magazine round. Now, now, don't tell me that you are too old or "did you time" in a previous war because with enlistments rates dropping a few good old-time soldiers like you could really shore up morale by showing incompetent Iraqi officials how to truly run their own country. As your patriotism is of the most unwavering color, it can be faithfully expected at this science-blog that your next posts will be from the front lines of Iraq, saving Iraq single-handily.

Consider enlisting in the branch of your choice today! You could have a monumental impact on the outcome of the war since the "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003! Just be sure to find those sneaky WMD's; you know, the ones that Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George Bush denied existing past 2005? Hell, why not pick up a nuke in Colorado, sneak it into Iran on your back, and then cry "wolf!" to the world? I'm sure that after 7 years of war America is ready to fall for the same ol' trick again.

Yes, MRK could do a lot for this country if he weren't so tied up striking down liberals (synonymous with cowards)on this forum. The only remaining question is: "what day does MRK deploy for Iraq?"