Subject:
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Re: Help me with the math
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:54:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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929 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Now that George W. Bush has killed his
1,000th US citizen in Iraq, does that make him approximately 33% as bad as
Osama bin Laden, who killed about 3,000 people in the WTC? Oh, wait--Bush
has killed thousands more than that, when you factor in all of the
Iraqis he’s killed for the
sake of their liberty.
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So what about the 1-2 hundred thousand Saddam was not able to kill as
political prisoners? (the longer we go the higher that number gets) It is
estimated he killed 1.5 million between the two Gulf wars.
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A couple of points:
To date, no huge mass graves have been found, so we’re left with the
uncomfortable problem of explaining where the 1.5 million bodies went.
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There haven’t? This was in all the papers, news, etc. shortly after major
combat was allegedly ‘ended’.
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And
I’m not looking for Pol Pot’s “show me the bodies, or else there was no
murder,” either. Granted, a number of smaller mass graves (containing a few
hundred bodies) have been unearthed, so obviously some form of largescale
killing was in practice, but at least one of these mass graves has been shown
to pre-date the first Gulf War. Tragic, yes, but these deaths must be
addressed separately from any that occurred post Gulf War I. That’s not to
dismiss any of the more recent deaths--they’re still monstrous and need to be
addressed, but it’s absolutely vital not to undermine the argument by
inadvertantly exaggerating the numbers.
No one is saying that Saddam was a great guy. The problem, as has been
stated several times before, is that Dubya justified his invasion based on
information that has turned out to be false and in some cases distorted.
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But at the same time even Bill Clinton when president stated that sooner or
later the U.S. would have to deal with Sadam and his WOMD. Even John Kerry
stated this shortly after the World Trade Center attacks. While I still think
it will take decades to dig up enough of Iraq to prove one way or the other this
was not just Dubya but everyone was ‘fooled’.
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If
Saddam’s brutality were sufficient reason to depose him, then that’s how an
honest case for war should have been made. The fact that deposing Saddam may
have been the right thing to do does not justify the deceitful methods that
Dubya used to get the US to invade Iraq.
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Of course I also believe a dictatorship is not a soveriegn nation.
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That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Do you suppose
it’s possible for a dictatorship to be a sovereign nation, even
hypothetically? I don’t know for certain, but I’m reluctant to declare
outright that dictatorships are automatically non-sovereign, because that
would justify all kinds of incursions into such a nation.
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Show me a benevolent dictatorship and I’ll show you a soveriegn nation. And for
the record I beleive true peace has never existed and will never exist untill
all the people of the world live in freedom.
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And does this have anything to do with why Bush all but refuses even to
mention bin Laden’s name in the past half-dozen or so months?
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Well as far as I am concerned the whole situation in the Middle East is a
result of stupid cold-war era descisions and is therefore our responsibilty
to correct. However it seems to me neither party has any interest in doing
that.
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I think it pre-dates the Cold War, but I agree that the Middle East quagmire
has resulted from many decades of bad Western policies.
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Ok, then.
-Mike Petrucelli
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Help me with the math
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| (...) Do you mean (URL) (...) Clinton still says this, but it still doesn't make a difference re: Dubya's choice to invade when he did and for the reasons that he gave. (...) Did Kerry make that statement? I don't deny it, though I haven't seen it. (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
| | | Re: Help me with the math
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| (...) True peace will never exist as long as some people have things that other people want and have no way to obtain. I doubt very much that our species will ever solve this problem. On the bright side, I expect we'll use technology to outgrow our (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Help me with the math
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| (...) A couple of points: To date, no huge mass graves have been found, so we're left with the uncomfortable problem of explaining where the 1.5 million bodies went. And I'm not looking for Pol Pot's "show me the bodies, or else there was no (...) (20 years ago, 10-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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