I think I just threw up in my mouth...

[Firebrand Gary]

I refuse to watch the GOP convention, however I just got home and turned on MSNBC and watched Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes speaking with Steve Schmidt. In speaking about the previous administrations war policies Chris Hayes just told Schmidt that wether or not we believe that Bush and his administration lied us into war, we still have to deal with the fact that nearly 5,000 Americans have died, but very, very conservative reports conclude that 95,000 Iraqis have died.

100,000 people are dead because of the Iraq war. I have never thought about it like that, a hundred thousand people?

I feel sick and I am not just being dramatic, I think I want to vomit.

[kimbutgar]

1. I hear you listening to John McCain lie with his warmongering makes me puke

[cynatnite]

2. Some estimates have been in the 500,000 range...

This will forever be a scar on our nation as it should be.

[Firebrand Gary]

5. I agree, this will forever stain our flag and it should.

This should be a center piece to this election cycle. It's disgusting.

[babylonsister]

3. Nope, that estimate is very conservative...

I remember reading 1M plus were killed due to the occupation...

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/

[Firebrand Gary]

6. I'm horrified to think about it in this context.

Over the years I think I've fallen into the trap of number confusion. Sometimes we are talking about budgets or deficits, millions, billions, trillions. We have had lengthy conversations about the quantity of American lives lost. Somewhere in all the rhetoric we have failed as a country to highlight the real cost of these wars. The people.

My god, what in the fuck is wrong with us?

[proReality]

37. What's wrong is...

that the Cheney/Bush administration embedded reporters and cameramen, so they could only report what the administration and Generals wanted reported. They also kept the flagged draped coffins from being seen, and funerals of dead soldiers were not to be photographed or written about by the MSM. No sacrifices had to be made by anyone (outside of our military and their families), so people forgot that blood and bodies and devastation are what war is all about.

That's the shortened answer.

[moondust]

4. This site estimates about 1.5 million dead in Iraq.

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/index.html

And there were/are millions of displaced refugees.

[flamingdem]

7. Yes, it's a million and those will illness yet to come from toxic residue etc.

A complete and total disgrace

[Firebrand Gary]

9. "Conservatives" are anything but pro-life.

So just to get a visual, it would be like loosing every human being in the US Virgin Islands, conservatively. But by the numbers that everyone is correcting, it would be like loosing every human being in the State of Rhode Island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

[eridani]

8. Lancet says about a million "extra deaths"

The 95,000 is just those shot or blown up. The other deaths are babies dead of diarrhea because we blew up their water purification plants, and people dying because war-damaged hospitals could not treat them.

[Firebrand Gary]

13. Horror, absolute horror. Look how long it has taken is to clean up our mess in Vietnam.

It has taken us 52 years to begin, just to begin to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam.

[riderinthestorm]

28. Remember when even DUers would strenuously argue The Lancet's #s??

The sobering realities however can't be dismissed as many other studies have proven that initial tally correct (and probably under-reported)

[rhett o rick]

10. I would like to see an estimate of how many Iraqi children have been

killed. I would hope that figure might register in some idiots' heads. They certainly werent responsible for 911.

[Mopar151]

26. How does this compare to the conservatives figures on abortion?

Not to mention the proportion due to the predujices of fundie commanders in the military.....

[rhett o rick]

40. Sorry but I have no idea what your talking about. nm

[Bonobo]

11. Do you have any idea how many the US has killed?

Vietnam...what 3 million?

Iraq BEFORE the recent war due to the 8 year embargo by Clinton... half a million kids?

Latest Iraq war.... hundreds of thousands

Afgahnistan...?

It's a blood fest and the US is the biggest arms dealer too.

[factsarenotfair]

12. Helen Caldicott's article about the medical consequences:

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Medical-consequences-of-attacking-Iraq-2763714.php

[flamingdem]

24. Thanks, the medical consequences are another thing swept under the rug n/t

[barbtries]

14. you never thought about it before?

that's a very conservative number in my opinion. not to mention the people displaced and all the loved ones of all the dead and all the injured and orphaned and widowed...
it's hard to imagine that you never thought about it like that. that is how i have always thought about war. but even though you feel sickened today, i am glad that your consciousness has been raised by this realization.

[Firebrand Gary]

15. The discussion about war has been absent from the conversation for years now.

And even worse, we as a country, in the media have had said very little about the loss experienced by other nations.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Even more died from the sanctions.

We had no right.

[Firebrand Gary]

18. I really hope that we have a very serious discussion about Afghanistan before November.

We should be discussing the end of America's longest lasting war in history.

[xtraxritical]

41. If we leave Afghanistan now or, as planned, two and one half years from now

Afghanistan will be exactly the same as when the English left and the same as when the USSR left. What a waste, and all of it was obvious from the start. Oh well, Haliburton and Blackwater are happy.

[Raster]

17. The Iraq War - both illegal and immoral -- based on vanity and greed. Nothing else.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Hell dick cheney* had far more do with 9/11 than ANYONE IN IRAQ, including Saddam Hussein.

[TexasBushwhacker]

19. and then there are the injuries

You can probably multiply the deaths by a factor of ten to count the total number injured, a large number of those with significant disabilities. We used shells made of depleted uranium in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. It's caused a 15x increase of birth defects and cancer, and OUR SOLDIERS were exposed to it too. Radioactive half life? 4.5 BILLION years!

The cost of the war in Iraq? $800 Billion and counting. +The cost of the war in Afghanistan? $500 Billion and counting [link:http://costofwar.com/| Think of the things that could have been done with that money.

[Mopar151]

27. There's our smart grid and high-speed rail n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. It's not just the dead from direct action, it's those who die from disease and lack of order...

...people who used the chaos to kill a neighbor they didn't like because there were no cops to stop them.

For that matter, the rapes and suicides.

Then there's the mass migrations away from the fighting. People ALWAYS die during those.

Hell, think of those that die here from heart attacks from an earthquake. Imagine sonic booms slamming your house from jets.

[classof56]

21. And Rmoney would have us go to war with Iran alongside Israelis

if Sheldon Adelson has his way.

I've been sick about Iraq since before the invasion, stood on street corners in protest, argued and tried to reason with those who supported it, all to no avail. I'm still sick and it may get worse.

[Firebrand Gary]

23. He totally would. Republicans have dreamed of war with Iran for years now.

And they will allow any excuse to do so.

[Brainstormy]

22. And Republicans cry foul?

about Dems bringing up the Bush legacy after "all this time." The Bush legacy was, indeed, a foul chapter in American history. I don't know how our own history books of the future will describe it, but the history of the Middle East will be clear. How long will it take for the the grandparents, parents, spouses, brothers, sisters, cousins of 100,000 people to complete their grieving and give up their resentment? Foul indeed. Stinks to high heaven. Our own grandchildren won't outlive the stench.

[Hissyspit]

25. 1 million orphans.

If I'm remembering correctly.

[quaker bill]

29. When we kick it off by dropping 800

2,000 pound high explosive bombs on a city of 4 million people in the middle of the night, I would say 95,000 is a pretty low estimate. That is correct, 1.6 million pounds of high explosives on a city of 4 million people in an evening, with video provided for your viewing pleasure. My nausea was then. We did carnage in Iraq in WWII style with far more effective weapons with the other side barely able to even shoot back until we got in close quarters with them.

Ever seen the photos of the "highway of death" from Desert Storm? The second go round, we just did it all over the place.

Do you recall that during the height of the insurgency, the US Marines had to make an emergency order for more bullets, because they were running out? The whole f***ing US Marine Corps was running out of bullets... They had alot of bullets going in and I think we train them to be pretty good shots. Alot of people had to die to run the US Marine Corps out of bullets.

[gtar100]

30. Any number given to us by the government of the number of people we killed in Iraq

Last edited Fri Aug 31, 2012, 12:22 AM - Edit history (1)

is only what they will admit to. They have a highly vested interest in keeping that number low.

Still, to think that even 100,000 people were killed because of lies told by the Bush administration is just sickening. How anyone can "support" war is beyond my comprehension. It's either out of ignorance or psychological issues. Humanity has spent *at least* the last 4,000 living years through war after war after war. And we have not slowed down, despite the unusual climate of human rights that has grown over the last couple hundred years. We only need to look at republicans to know that any tendencies towards justice are still very fragile.

[xtraxritical]

42. What is the "last 4,000"?

[gtar100]

44. "years"

[riverwalker]

31. It's why some of us hate the GOP so much

anyone says they vote republican and (to me) they are automatically drenched in blood, they wear the gore and remnants of human beings as I see it. They are AS guilty as as if they pulled the trigger, tortured a detainee to death themselves. None of this crap "my brother-in-law is a republican, but a good person".
BULLSHIT.

[TomClash]

32. Do you know why you only feel sick about this now?

The American media and government condition you to block it out. And you do. We all do.

Here's another fact: before the Iraq War, 500,000 Iraqi children died as a direct or indirect result of the UN sanctions, according to UNICEF.

"Every life is precious." Bullshit. It's money, power and glory that are "precious."

[Lifelong Protester]

33. I hear ya, and now they have that war-mongering Condoleeza Rice

speaking. I yelled at my husband to TURN OFF THAT DAMN TV. (Sorry, but I can't stand any of those war-mongerers.)

[Firebrand Gary]

39. I just turned off Paul Ryan.

I cannot wait for Paul Ryan to carry the full load of his congressional votes this election.

[GEOpix]

34. Just listened to John McCain

Not only did he sound like a shill for the defense industry, but he was one of the loudest voices protesting the cost of our air support of the rebels in Libya at the time. His comments regarding the supposed timidity of our president were especially grating, since Obama, Biden and Clinton have gone the extra mile to renew our positive foreign policy image after Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld et al shamelessly trashed it.

[xtraxritical]

43. Arizona is apparently full of wrinkled dehydrated brain damaged people like McCain and Brewer.

[Whisp]

35. war criminal Rice is speaking now

don't watch. according to her none of that matters.

well, we knew that

[Firebrand Gary]

38. What a bloddy reminder of the atrocities committed by the Bush administration, Condi Rice.

[zentrum]

36. That's how the pro-life

...party rolls.