Find the cost of Freedom
Buried in the Ground......
(with apologies to CSN).
Saddam murdered approximately 300,000 of his own people.
Saddam was an Arab Hitler, with aspirations of leading a larger Arab state....
Iraq is now a democracy.
Give it a break.
I'll see JLM's initial 2,000 Mugabe casualty ante and Colpy's raise of 300,000 Hussein casualties. I raise another 301,027 Bush violent deaths:
Lancet survey 601,027 violent deaths out of
654,965 excess deaths March 2003 to June 2006
I can go as high as 1,033,000.
Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict March 2003 to August 2007
Actually Colpy If we were betting Hussein's dead iraqis against Bush's, I'd have to concede. A case can be made for Bush killing a million Iraqis, but Hussein still trumps Bush if you take into account the 1,000,000 or so deaths as a result of Hussein's decision to invade and occupy Iran: (total - both sides). Hussein's unprovoked war crime. BTW, did you also support Hussein's war of aggression too?
I suspect the reason you low balled Hussein was that you only counted the dead Iraqis from the failed 1991 Iraqi revolt. But I don't think Hussein can take full credit for that slaughter. At the time, the US told the locals that they'd support their revolt but when crunch time came the US did nothing. The US sat on the sidelines as Hussein crushed Basra's popular revolt with helicopters and tanks. (That incident alone was about 150,000 dead in about 4 weeks )
1991 uprisings in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some blood would have been on George Bush Sr's hands too.
I'll have to concede that Hussein is probably responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Bush... But to Bush's credit, he slaughtered all his Iraqis in just 8 years. Hussein killed Iraqis for over 20 years. Maybe if Bush had as much time to kill Iraqis as Hussein, he might have beat his record.
I've observed that blood thirsty killer's like Hussein tend to slack off as they get older. there are exceptions, but Hussein's murderous rampages were mostly back in the 80's when he was tight with the US. That was back in the day when the US tried to blame Hussein's gas attacks against civilians on the Iranians even thought the US military knew otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war#Support
The US and Iraq were so tight during these years that when the rest of the world wanted to isolate Iraq because of Hussein's CW attacks against civilians, Ronnie Raygun picked up the slack with increased arms sales. American arms corporations made a killing... literally.
By 2003 Hussein was way past his paranoid psychotic prime. During his last 5 years of rule (1998-2003), Hussein may have killed 5000 Iraqis max. Most of those were during a 1998 prison purge. During the last year or so, few people saw Hussein and he pretty much didn't kill anyone. That's why our BS propaganda machines had to invent ongoing Hussein atrocities:
Saddam Hussein's alleged shredder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The fact is, far more Iraqis died during this late period of Hussein's rule from easily treated diseases and malnutrition as a result of the economic embargo imposed Iraq until Iraq gave up their WMD stockpiles. Oh yeah, the last WMD destroyed in Iraq was a anthrax lab at a university in 1995. I guess those 8 years of US imposed disease and malnutrition (1995-2003) was all for nothing. I know the UNSC tried to lift the Iraq embrago several times, but the US refused to budge and maintained their veto. The US claimed they'd lift the embargo.... after Iraq proved the non-existence of WMD stockpiles. ( Good luck proving the non-existence of anything...)
This interview conveys the US attitude towards Iraqis at the time:
--
60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
At least Albright put a value on Iraqi lives. I don't think Bush Jr ever did.
IMO, it must suck to be an Iraqi since 1979-present. I'm sure there's more to suffering to come. We won't stop screwing with these people until the oil companies have sucked their country dry.
How kilometers per Iraqi does your car get?
