They asked for death certificates for at least two reported deaths for each cluster because they didn't want people to think they didn't trust them. They didn't ask for death certificates until after the interview either, so they saw if people would have lied.
It's a nice attitude about the people you have too. You think the Iraqi people all are in some conspiracy against America?
It is more likely that deaths were underreported, as several of these places are pro-invasion.

The research has held up to peer review. Your trying to attack it seems to be a ridiculous act of desperation.

Erm.. We're fighting a dug-in enemy. We delivered the most accurate bombing in the history of warfare, at great expense. We coulda just Dresden'd the entire country, but we have instead spent billions upon billions of dollars on the most accurate weapon systems ever developed and then followed it up by sending in soldiers to fight street to street at a great cost of American life - Now, I know the reactionaries are gonna scream at me, "What?? American lives are more valuable?!?!" - No, of course not. But Bush believes so, and despite that belief, he has sacrificed a lot of American lives to ensure a minimum of Iraqi civilian casualties.

I'm not saying a lot of civilians haven't died, but take one goddamn second to check the civilian death toll in any war in the past century and you'll see that yes, the Bush administration has done a ridiculous amount to avoid civilian deaths.

I'm not even arguing right/wrong here, just basic common sense for christ's sake. There is absolutely no way of comparing Bin Laden and Bush's strategies. Maybe they're both evil in their own special way, I'll leave that up to the peanut gallery to decide, but good lord people, just stop for one second and think before you vomit language all over the place.

Come back when the word 'firestorm' gets put on the news, then maybe I'll listen to you.

uh..what? You missed the point entirely, which was that it's ridiculous to question if a man who has devoted his life to ending yours is not 'such a bad guy'.



... I like how you claim people denied losing family because they supported the invasion and accuse me of ascribing a massive conspiracy to the Iraqi people in the same paragraph.

And you still haven't explained why a blatantly pro-Arab, pro-Muslim news organization such as al Jazeera, as well as many other independent groups like [url]www.iraqbodycount.net[/url] report the death toll as being nearly 80,000 less than this one survey.

Also, please, heed Slug's timeless advice

We couldn't have simply bombed the whole country. Aren't we trying to get the world to like us again?



If you think that's what his goal really is... or maybe thats just one mans rhetoric to get re-elected.

Michael Savage was talking about this today on the radio, and how the rhetoric coming out of Moore's mouth is similar to bin Ladens. OBL is a psychopath, and to even think that he isnt such a bad guy, and that America brought 9/11 on itself, is just absurd.

What is all this about?

No, see, we could have. We had the capability. The fact that it would have looked bad is why we didn't, but it didn't hinder our capability of doing it.

FOr gods sake man pull your head out your ***.

Bin Laden DOES hate americans. Bin Laden DOES want them all to die. (See sine nomens post)

If Bin Laden were in your house right now I'm sure he'd take pleasure in sawing off your head...

He is THAT BAD of a guy. You can't blame everything on Bush like a whackjob conspiracy theorist.

You can if you have been properly brainwashed by Moore.

No we are not! We don't give a flip if "the world" likes us.



Perfect.

I take back every single time I blamed Bush for September 11th (never) and purposely killing Iraqi citizens (never).



Oh right, I forgot. The war on terrorism literally tries to kill all terrorists rather than dealing with issues that cause people to want to resort to blowing themself up. Oh, sorry I guess you caught me on that one.

We had no choice. More violence in the middle east creates more turmoil at home.



Out of curiousity (I don't doubt its validity) I'd like to see from what source you found this quote.

So does every other self-respecting politician. How the hell do you think every other president (besides Washington) got into office? It sure as hell wasn't by standing up for their beliefs.

Mere dislike of America or its policies is not what causes terrorism. And if you want to read the entire thing, do a google search for 'bin laden fatwa'. You should get 30,000 or so hits.

Obviously not, but if we went to Iraq and bombed the crap out of it then not only would be fail to bring democracy, but it would create unrest among other countries. It isn't "mere dislike for America". That would be America, not just policing the world, but outright obliterating nations of people.

Yeah, carpet bombing has never ever in the history of the world ever managed to bring about democracy ever. You can't have a war with carpet bombing end in democracy! Ever! It has never worked and will never work! Ever! Don't even *think* about nuclear warheads! That only leads to the country utterly despising America and hating us forever! And never producing amusing videogames for my consumption!

Perfect.

Erm.. bombing in civilian heavy areas and using cluster bombs is not doing a ridiculous amount to avoid civilian death.


I never made such a claim, I just said it's more likely.


Maybe because they didn't do as in-depth of a study.

You might try reading a book on America's actions in the middle east during the last 60 years. Not saying we deserved it, but I'm certainly not surprised it happened.

From what I gather we don't use cluster bombs, we don't reduce cities to rubble. How can you even be that ignorant? The military today uses precision guided smart bombs that can nail a target and leave anything around it untouched. Mistakes happen, but only very rarely.

As for the possibility of a study that wasn't as "in-depth". You have no proof either, so you're just siding with the "facts" that suit your wishes.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

*breathe*

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

*breathe*
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

But he did it by accident so it's ok.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0320/p06s01-woiq.html

That's an older article of some of the stuff. Despite your sarcastic response and obvious lack of intelligence it is true that the military is able and in fact does nail specific targets in order to accomplish the same goal with less civilian casualties.

Despite your obvious lack of language intelligence "leave anything around it untouched" and "less civilian casualties" don't mean the same thing.

Let's just bring on WWIII and not worry about anything anymore. Honestly, I hate this time of year. I think I'm going to take a trip to Canada every 4 years so I can avoid these damn elections. They seem to bring out the bigot, moron, ***hole and jack-*** in everyone. (and I'm not talking about anyone in the thread, in case you get offended)

So is Bush but they call it friendly fire.

Unfortunatly, it is very probable that people will lower themselves to such levels, and the retorts will be worse, and we'll ahve falmes al over until a lock. Hopefully, that won't happen, and we can get a good honest discution about this, but such a sensitive topic has a high chance of such an ending.

(P.S. i'm not going to say anthing about the topic, sorry, i've got a really bad head for politics)

My morals tell me that's not a good enough reason, and certainly shouldn't be the only reason we didn't do it. Blah.

Anyway, Osama Bin Laden is a stinkpot.

This defies response. If some new report comes along and claims the number is just one higher, I'm sure you'll cling to it as the absolute truth and disregard this one as lacking depth.

First you call me ignorant, then you spout crap about how we have bombs that magically only hurt the bad guys?
I'm not even going to bother proving it to you.
If anybody here besides Lonleydagger, Obi_Kwiet, and Finity5 would like to see some info about cluster bombing, I'll post a cite.


I know that that's supposed to be a slam against "my side", but I still thought it was really funny.


That's some nice psychic-type powers you have. Since you are so certain of my future actions, can you tell me how many numbers I'll have behind my back tomorrow at 12:53 PM?

OK what is the argument here anymore?

Bin Laden is/isn't such a bad guy?

Bush is/isn't also a terrorist?

The death toll is catastrophic? You MUST contact me? You MUST bow to their wishes?

Just WHAT?

Here are the answers...

Bin Laden IS a bad guy.

Bush is not a terrorist, he's an elected leader conducting a war. 9/11 was an attack from a terrorist group, not a country.

The "correct" death toll has not been reported, or if it has then you cant prove it, because there are other sources of the same credibility that say different.

..... We didn't use cluster bombs in heavily populated areas, and I can't even begin to fathom what would make you claim that. I'm not just making this up as I go along - The bombing was the single most accurate campaign in the history of modern warfare - Does that mean it was 100% perfect? Of course not. Plenty of civilians were killed. But to claim that civilians were intentionally targeted or that no regard was given to their safety is ****ing ludicrous. If Saddam's regime didn't have the lovely habit of surrounding military targets with civilians, we could have attacked all the necessary targets with a much lower cost of civilian life.

Regardless, the most aggressive number I've seen posted for civilian deaths due to cluster bombs is under 400. That means conventional bombs were responsible for the other alleged 29,600 deaths - Bombs which have failed to provoke the outrage that the use of cluster bombs did.

What exactly do you define as 'taking precautions to safeguard civilians' in an offensive campaign? What, other than not attacking Iraq in the first place (Another argument for another time) would you have liked them to do? Filled their bombs with delicious candy? If you've got a military target that needs bombing, and the *******s staffing it have decided to plop it down in the middle of a civilian area specifically to make it a politically distasteful target, what do you do? What more *can* you do than use smart bombs which will at least minimize collateral damage?

Closest thing to that is the neutron bomb.

your attitude right there is extremely mature. i <3 you

the military is able and in fact does nail specific targets in order to accomplish the same goal with less civilian casualties.

Mistakes happen, but only very rarely.

Way to read my quote, then totally distort it to make it look like you had any idea what you were talking about.

[Can the insults or you'll be banned]

Things like This:



Not bomb the place if you know there's going to be civilians killed.

Mort-Hog, that's pretty good, but it's not funny because that's exactly what goes on.


I want to make one thing clear to everyone: I reported this yesterday morning and apparently the admins here don't care if people use personal attacks.
Apparently, everything is fair game now.

... As if terrorists didn't already exploit our efforts to not kill civilians, yes, let's tell them outright that if they surround themselves with civilians they'll be safe from attack. Nevermind if they'll just go on to purposefully kill civilians without our help. Brilliant thinking, you four-star armchair general!

And jesus christ, did you even consider that for some reason your report didn't go through? I can only guess why instead you chose to run your mouth and make wild accusations.

No abuse reports were submitted within the past 3 days. Next time you report a post, and no action is taken, please consult an Admin first before you make wild accusations.

I'm not saying it didn't happen but this AI article isn't saying it did. They're concerned which they should be as that is their job.

The thing that gets me about all this talk that we're over there cluster bombing civilians is that our men and women in uniform are just like most of us. Most surely would not willingly participate in barbaric actions against innocents.