Rousing, emotional start for war protest

[Guest yod]

War is ugly, plain and simple. It should always be avoided until there are no other options.

Yes war is ugly.....and a result of the human condition

Yet war is also a biblical concept. Romans 13 tells us that the rulers of the nations are given the sword by God to wield it and we are to be submitted to them as if it were God Himself giving the orders. Short of idolotry, there are many examples of righteous men/women submitting to wicked rulers as unto God (Daniel, Joseph, Esther, Nehemiah, etc)

Even the wildest leftist propoganda couldn't make George Bush comparable to the Caesar's. Well, ok, maybe they could because they are so irrational but Rome was always much more wicked than America has become in our moral decay. So if Paul (and Yeshua) says this about submitting to God by submitting to Caesar then it seems like sin to promote the notion that we in modern America can choose to ignore this passage by the kind of "christian" relativism this thread exhibits.

[JustinM]

quote balance: "If we pulled out, the Iraqi insurgents won't "follow us to America" because the only reason they are fighting is because we are in their land."

Do you really think the terrorists in Iraq are 100% Iraqi? So, the terrorists have flooded to Iraq to pick a fight with the US. So, most of the terrorists in Iraq are not Iraqi and therefore we are not in their land. If they followed us into Iraq, what makes you think they won't continue the fight elsewhere, or wherever they can kill Americans?

[Burning_Ember]

Before I start, after reading ted's post, I simply can't understand where that anarcho-communist stereotype about the Iraq War being for Oil comes from.

we are keeping peace for the civilians. sometimes that means being anything BUT peaceful with the terrorists and insurgents.

this really isn't hard to figure out. look at it on a personal level. if a psychopath was stalking your family, routinely terrorizing them and causing bodily harm, would you not arm yourself to defend your family? would you hesitate to use deadly force if necessary to protect your loved ones?

hey burning ember. first off, please show me where you got your stats that 20 times more iraqi civilians have died than americans who died in 9/11.... and please take the time to indicate how many of that number were killed accidentally by american troops and how many were killed by terrorist/insurgent acts. remember, numbers mean very little without proper context... and context is everything.

second thing for you burning.... murder is intentional. i bet you can't put a number on how many innocents have been intentionally murdered by american troops, can ya? accidental casualties of war are not 'murder'.

Whether death is accidental or not doesn't make them any less dead. But onto the statistics.

According to Wikipedia, just under 3,000 people died in 9/11.

Now as for Iraq, about 59,326-65,160 have been killed due to military intervention. That is to say, it was generally either American tropps attacking insurgents and killing civilians accidentally, or insurgents attacking troops and killing civilians accidentally. Either way, niether of those would be happening if there was no war. Those are only confirmed reports in the media.

Another study group estimated around 100,000 civilian deaths. Well, that was 2 1/2 years ago. They did another one in October that said it was more like 655,000 or so, using cross-sectional cluster sampling. 31% Estimated to be by coalition forces directly. Granted, this study is "excess deaths." I'll detail in the next paragraph.

So really while it is at least 20 times higher than 9/11, according to The Lancet (you need to register for free to look at that,) it could be 10 times the 20x number. Of those 655,000 or so, about 601,000 was due to violence. Of course, thats the average estimate, the max death toll of excess deaths really could be as many as 942,000 or so. Additionally, whereas the death rate was 5.5/1000 Before the invasion under Saddam, its about 13.5/1000 now. So talking about the volume of people killed, going by The Lancet study, people were killed at a slower rate under Saddam.

To put that max figure into perpective, most of Calgary (the city I live in) would have to be completely annihilated by some form of nuclear explosion to get that kind of results. Its a city of around a million people. And remembering the displacement figures, two cities the size of Calgary had to flee where they were to go somewhere else inside the country, where another two cities worth had to flee the country entirely.

I said it before and I'll say it again, those deaths would not have happened if there was no invasion.

[Guest yod]

I said it before and I'll say it again, those deaths would not have happened if there was no invasion.

and had no one opposed Hitler, only the jews would have been annihilated

is that acceptable for you?

[Burning_Ember]

I said it before and I'll say it again, those deaths would not have happened if there was no invasion.

and had no one opposed Hitler, only the jews would have been annihilated

is that acceptable for you?

No, but the Iraq war is barely, if at all comparable to WWII, if only for the fact that both were wars. Invoking the Nazis as a comparison is possible the last, and weakest refuge for any debate. (This seems to be the case, as you can't seem to refute anything else in my post.)

I believe that there should have been intervention sooner in WWII. I don't believe that there was sufficient justification for a war in Iraq.

More people are dying faster as a result of military intervention in Iraq. About 2-3 times faster than under Saddam, on average. Is that acceptable for you?

[Burning_Ember]

Burning Ember said

For the people that say that the war itself isn't murder, what about the civilian deaths? How about the fact that at the very least, around 20 times more civilians have been killed in Iraq than were killed in 9/11? (Although thats a extremely conservative estimate, according to other figures it could be far, far higher.) How about the 2 million civilians that were displaced and forced to leave their homes to somewhere else within Iraq? How about the other 2 million or so that are refugees now, who've left the country?

You really aren't that naive, are you? The innocent iraqis are at the mercy of al-qaeda, hezbollah and what ever terror group is mixed up among these sickos, in the same manner that innocent people all over the world are being murdered on a daily basis by these terror groups. All they have to do is stop killing innocent people, and the body count would be zero in Iraq, and innocent people would not have to flee iraq. These innocent people murdered by muslims are not given the choice to live or die or to stay in iraq. They're slaughtering their own people now, but the real fire works doesn't start until our troops leave Iraq and civil war breaks out.

Iraqi civilians killed last year by ISLAMIC Terrorists

16,791

Iraqi civilians killed collaterally in incidents involving Americans

(and Islamic Terrorists)

225*

*Source: IraqBodyCount.net (includes civilians caught in crossfire who may have been killed by the terrorists, and terrorists who may have been counted as civilians)

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Ir...dyCount2006.htm

When the Bush haters, your peace activists, your commies, your radical left liberals, and the MSNM tell a lie long enough, the masses start to believe their hate propaganda.

****Any story sounds true until someone tells the other side and sets the record straight****

That does nothing to refute the 655,000 figure done by professional epidemologists. (Y'know, scientists that estimate the toll massive death causing things like famine cause.) Nor the fact none of the 59-65K people Verified by Iraq Body would have happened without the war in Iraq. Y'know, there wouldn't be an insurgency if there wasn't a war. Or if you looked through other articles, theres more estimates yet, some higher than Iraq body count. Do you have an accurate estimate of how many civilians are dead in Iraq?

If this is all you have for an argument I feel sorry debating you.

[ted]

Before I start, after reading ted's post, I simply can't understand where that anarcho-communist stereotype about the Iraq War being for Oil comes from.

Touche!

Nice try, though. Just because we decided to save their oil revenues, it doesn't mean that the war was about oil.

t.

[Burning_Ember]

Before I start, after reading ted's post, I simply can't understand where that anarcho-communist stereotype about the Iraq War being for Oil comes from.

Touche!

Nice try, though. Just because we decided to save their oil revenues, it doesn't mean that the war was about oil.

t.

No worries, I agree. I think it MAY have been a PARTIAL factor AFTER the war started and people were like "Hey, rebuilding contracts!" but really I wouldn't know.

[Guest yod]

No, but the Iraq war is barely, if at all comparable to WWII, if only for the fact that both were wars. Invoking the Nazis as a comparison is possible the last, and weakest refuge for any debate. (This seems to be the case, as you can't seem to refute anything else in my post.)

It is the same root. Hatred of the jews is a spirit of murder.

The mufti of Jerusalem and the Arab world were partners with the Nazis and have never renounced or rejected that racist & murderous ideology. Hitler found enthusiastic volunteers in the fathers of the same people we are fighting today. Are you so naive that didn't know that?

I believe that there should have been intervention sooner in WWII. I don't believe that there was sufficient justification for a war in Iraq.

and your information came from where?

CBS? CNN? Al Jazeera?

Congress voted to do what the last 3 Presidential administrations had decided was the only course of action. Regime change.

More people are dying faster as a result of military intervention in Iraq. About 2-3 times faster than under Saddam, on average. Is that acceptable for you?

And it would be 50 times that if we leave.

Is that acceptable to you?

[ted]

Before I start, after reading ted's post, I simply can't understand where that anarcho-communist stereotype about the Iraq War being for Oil comes from.

Touche!

Nice try, though. Just because we decided to save their oil revenues, it doesn't mean that the war was about oil.

t.

No worries, I agree. I think it MAY have been a PARTIAL factor AFTER the war started and people were like "Hey, rebuilding contracts!" but really I wouldn't know.

Mmmmm.....

Actually, I think it had a place in the considerations, I just don't think that it was the main reason to go.

More than an afterthought, but less than a reason, if that makes any sense...

As stated before, we certainly put some planning and effort into protecting the wells, but I don't think it was to steal it, but more to protect it for them until later on so it would be there for them to make use of it.

No matter, though. In 50 years, oil will be so passe. All of the wars will be fought in the interests of Big Corn.

t.