27-01-2003 07:46									#31
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Last I looked, the WHO was saying 500k casualties. But a million? It takes serious work to kill a million people. It took 5 years for 2 million French to die in WWI, and this isn't WWI.

And can we have a source, Patkis?

	27-01-2003 07:46									#32
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc But with Venezuela, we don't have to bother with the pretense of going to the UN. Being the sole power in the region means that we can go for a straight war of conquest and set up our own puppet government straight away.

You're right.

	27-01-2003 07:55									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Goingonit And can we have a source, Patkis?

He pulled it somewhere between his left and right cheek.

	27-01-2003 07:58									#34
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We get little oil from the mideast. Very little at all.
As Imran said, this is over Hussein.

	27-01-2003 07:59									#35
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I don't think it's about oil, but why it would be is that it's not the quantity that matters in the ME, it's the excess production capacity with which they can control the price. Saudi Arabia has more than half of the world's excess production capacity so, regardless of how much oil they actually sell to the US, they still have the world by the balls.

	27-01-2003 08:18									#36
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How many of you were around and aware during the Gulf War? This is exactly the sort of thing that was making the rounds in Europe and on the left here in the U.S. The air literally stank with fear where liberals gathered, and I could harldy stand to go to the public square for fear of running into yet another petrified anti-war weenie. Thank God our troops at the front were a lot steadier than the "I don't want o get drafted" weenies at home.

I gamed that war out in September of 90, and I couldn't see how the Iraqis weren't going to be flanked and defeated in detail, which is more or less what happened. What I didn't take into account was the U.S. Air Force's strategic bombing campaign, which was taken in lieu of just rolling into Baghdad and bringing Sadam's head out on a pike. Multilateralism was a great success as far as it's ubiquity during that war, but it is the reason why we are back again. We traded away our ability to be decisive before the first American even set foot in Saudi Arabia, and we are and have been paying that price ever since. I'm not all that excited about returning to the Gulf, but if we are going to be decisive then I am behind it. Let's finish that bastard and get it over with.

	27-01-2003 08:20									#37
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I hope nobody's saying 1 million American casualties. At least, not with a straight face. It took 40 or so last time, and that was against the "elite Republican guard".

	27-01-2003 08:22									#38
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Nobody's saying 1 million American casualties, at least not with "angry" smilies out.

	27-01-2003 08:31									#39
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Gulf War II is not about how evil Saddam is, though he is undoubtedly an evil man. The war will lead to only more oppression and tyranny through mismanagement of its conclusion; the Shia will not be given any power because of Iran, and the Kurds will be once more subject to Baghdad's authority because of Turkey.

It's not about oil, although controlling sources of oil to leverage other states has always been a policy objective.

Rather, it's almost entirely about maintaing the political clout of Shrub in the domestic stage and the US in the world stage.

	27-01-2003 08:50									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Goingonit I hope nobody's saying 1 million American casualties. At least, not with a straight face. It took 40 or so last time, and that was against the "elite Republican guard".

We had about 200 kia IIRC. I predicted about a thousand, but I didn't predict King George the 1st's bout of conscience at the end, where he let that last Republican Guard Division off the hook, and empowered Swarzkopf to make the armistace arrangements. That left Hussein just enough rope to hang the Kurds and Shiites and remain in power.

Enemy casualties were over-estimated by all sides both during and after the war IMO. Ditto the casualties which are supposed to have been caused by the oil embargo. I have heard claims as high as 2 million. This is bogus. Iraq has a population of 24 million, so a loss of 2 million people is 1/12 th of the population. Even Sadam would be hard pressed to rack up such a tally in full repression mode, which he was certainly in after the war, though with far fewer resources than before it.

Some of these losses can be attributed directly to Allied action (though an insignificant number statistically), and a good deal more to indirect results of allied (especially American) attacks on electrical and water and sewage systems. But these casualties have been overestimated and too easily blamed on allied activity, especially as time has marched on. The war ended 12 years ago, during which time the Iraqi regime has been in almost constant warfare with its own population. This leads to a few direct casualties, and many indirect casualties as civilian populations are forced to flee through rough terrrain in bad weather, or are purposefully being starved by the regime because of their support for the opposition. A lot of countries in the world get by with a fraction of the money per capita that Iraq receives from the oil for food program, and this doesn't even factor in Iraq's revenues from their own fairly advanced economy, or from the oil smuggling. Anyway, the number Paiktis states is fantastic unless nukes start flying.

	27-01-2003 08:56									#41
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OK, so I was under - according to CNN.com, there were 148 American battle deaths and 145 nonbattle deaths.

	27-01-2003 12:10									#42
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger The US is not in occupation mode. Witness Afghanistan.

That's why Afghanistan is not going anywhere. Taliban was bad, but at least they unified the country. Now the warlords are back and they aren't good by any stretch of the imagination.

quote: Originally posted by loinburger It is also not in "ground-fighting extraordinaire" mode, it's in "bomb the **** out of them" mode. Witness nearly every military action by the US in the past ten-odd years.

That's how the US will kill 1m people, by bombing the major cities. Suppose the Iraqi troops are withdrawn to the cities, the US either tries to force them to surrender by bombing the hell out of the cities, which will result in huge civilian casualties, or dig them out in ground actions, which will result in lots of body bags.

	27-01-2003 12:14									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Suppose the Iraqi troops are withdrawn to the cities, the US either tries to force them to surrender by bombing the hell out of the cities, which will result in huge civilian casualties, or dig them out in ground actions, which will result in lots of body bags.

We could always send in the TV crews for the Iraqi troops to surrender to.

I think Bagdhad will likely be the toughy, I don't think the other cities will be.

	27-01-2003 12:14									#44
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I'm sure we have a long target list filled with military targets. And Chinese embassies.

	27-01-2003 12:53									#45
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The last time I checked, there were still a good number of U.S. military personnel sitting in the Balkans — enlightened Europe's backyard, virtually — helping to rebuild the damn area from a frickin' war that enlightened Europe didn't seem to have the balls to do anything about, except complain to about American arrogance when we finally started throwing our weight around (something that U.S. conservatives, as I recall, didn't think we should be doing at the time ... gee, how times change w/the situation ... now the liberals are wailing and the conservatives are manning the guns ... and Europe is complaining [some things don't change]). So the stereotype of an America that comes in, blows the living hell out of its foes and then withdraws is just that, a stereotype that is hardly 100 percent true.

Same damn thing is going on in Afghanistan right now. I find it ludicrous that so many "enlightened" folks figured that Afghanistan would be well on the road to recovery and prosperity a little over a year since it was freed from the Taliban. That nation has been a damn wreck since the late 1970s, and you expect Humpty Dumpty to be put back together again in a year or two? Such hubris! I fully expect that it will take a minimum of five to 10 years of rebuilding to get Afghanistan back on its feet.

Furthermore, I'm starting to watch Colin Powell's pronouncements quite closely. This is a man who, I believe, isn't a war hawk. Yet even he's beginning to turn real negative on Iraq. That's telling me something more than Bush or Rumsfeld could ever do with their "we have proof, but we can't show it yet" drumbeat.

Gatekeeper

	27-01-2003 14:07									#46
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Gatekeepeer,

You meant Kosovo? The evidence of an ethnic cleansing is seriously lacking, or else the court in Hagues wouldn't have such as hard time dealing with Slobodan Milsoevic.

	27-01-2003 14:46									#47
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quote: Originally posted by DanS I'm sure we have a long target list filled with military targets. And Chinese embassies.

But not French embassies. Oh, no, never them.

	27-01-2003 15:02									#48
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc If we are going to fight an oil war as people here keep saying, why are US troops in the Middle East and not heading to Venezuela? But with Venezuela, we don't have to bother with the pretense of going to the UN. Being the sole power in the region means that we can go for a straight war of conquest and set up our own puppet government straight away.

You already tried and failed with that coup last year.

	27-01-2003 16:10									#49
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quote: That's how the US will kill 1m people, by bombing the major cities. Suppose the Iraqi troops are withdrawn to the cities, the US either tries to force them to surrender by bombing the hell out of the cities, which will result in huge civilian casualties, or dig them out in ground actions, which will result in lots of body bags.

Call me an optimist, but who seriously thinks that if the "Worst Possible Situation" tm happens and the war becomes bogged down in urban warfare, that we'll bomb the hell out of the cities? Carpet and firebombing of civilian populations went out in Vietnam. The worst that will happen will be the occasional precision munition or Apache strike. There is no way that the Administration will let the military takes the gloves off like this. They'll have a hard enough time spinning the war without the trouble of explaining why sections of Baghdad are rubble...

I'd love to hear how Patakis thinks 1 million Iraqis will dies....

	27-01-2003 16:28									#50
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I wonder where those hallucinating about insignificant US oil imports from the ME get their stats.

If this war is not about oil, about what then? Please explain.

And I'm not talking about the simplistic "US oil companies will sit on Iraq's oil wells" version (the funniest version of this does however not come from the left, but from that nutty wannabe-macchiavelli Safire). I'm talking about the US' strategic position in the ME.

	27-01-2003 19:59									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Big Crunch You already tried and failed with that coup last year.

Which is why it is time to take a more direct role in things. "If you want a job done right..." and all that rot.

	27-01-2003 22:34									#52
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*pukes*

	27-01-2003 22:44									#53
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Which is why it is time to take a more direct role in things. "If you want a job done right..." and all that rot.

Then why did you get all upset when bin Laden did the same thing to you?

	27-01-2003 22:44									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Goingonit And can we have a source, Patkis?

Don't be silly, the lying troll just made it up.

	27-01-2003 22:46									#55
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Edan:

The Israeli foreign Office has lists of all Israelis kiled by Terrorism in the last 50 years. Under 1,500 have been kiled by terrorism since 1950, the vast majority since 1987.
Estimated Palestinians killed in the March 1978 Isaeli offensive in Southern Lebanon were about 2000. So Sonic is completely correct about the number of Palestinians killed being MUCH higher than the number of Israelis killed.

Back on 'topic'
I could buy 1 million casualties: ie, 1 million people killed, injured, made homeless, so forth and so on, but only if the war does not go well. 1 million dead is so far beyond reality that I can't see anyone believing such a statistic. Under 30,000 killed (mostly Iraqi soldiers) if all goes well, perhaps even less. Worst possible war outcome, maybe 100,000. I can't see the US using nukes even if Saddam uses Chem. and bio against US forces: Cost of reconstruction would be too high, and if you are there to save Iraqis form Saddam, what good do you do them by vaporizing them for Saddam's actions?

	27-01-2003 22:52									#56
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The only way to effectively get Saddam out of there and stabilize the country would be a massive ground occupation. If the US does that, there will be high casualties. My theory is that the US will start its own, "Let's bomb the sh!t out of them" campaign; then a medium sized ground force will try and take Baghdad, stop at the gates and wait Saddam out. The whole operation taking maybe two months and it won't succeed just like the hunt for bin Laden. But Bush and co. will spin it to be a grand victory and he'll get voted out in 2004 because the economy sucks.

That's my theory.

	27-01-2003 22:57									#57
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If the economy still sucks come next election... even a REAL victory won't save Bush

	27-01-2003 22:58									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Then why did you get all upset when bin Laden did the same thing to you?

Because we can not let the minor powers get too uppity.

	27-01-2003 22:59									#59
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Estimated Palestinians killed in the March 1978 Isaeli offensive in Southern Lebanon were about 2000.

Except that 2000 is still way less than my estimate of 10,000.

	27-01-2003 23:00									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Ming If the economy still sucks come next election... even a REAL victory won't save Bush

Are you going to vote Democrat