Originally posted by Azrael
i think we can easily be manipulated with all those numbers because noone of us was there counting and noone of us is into this topic deep enough to know what was realy going on.

Every single humanitarian group I know of reported Iraqi civillian deaths under UN sanctions in the thousands per month. The lowest number I've seen was 500,000 for the first decade of sanctions.

also i dont see some pro-US users here reply to the fact that the US has hardly ever done anything for the sake of humanity exclusively - they always used it as a cover for other goals

Name one nation that gives more foreign aid than the United States of America.

however - i thought that in the eye of law someone is inocent untill proven guilty, and not guilty untill proven innocent. but what you just said, rask, is the complete oposite. basically what the US did was accusing the Iraq of certain things WITHOUT having a reasonable proof,

It's already been prooven that he had those things, he's been put on probation, the standard of proof is lower. But no matter how you look at it, UN inspections would have taken at least another two years to wrap up. That would have cost several tens of thousands (at the very least) of Iraqi civillians their lives.

tellin the US population that Saddam is the Devil

::cough::
1.5 - 2 million innocents dead at his own hands, and you don't think he needs to go?

and is even threatening the whole world blah blah etc etc, and then doing what they ca ndo best - destroy.

The US dropped more tonnage of bombs on Iraq than has ever been droped on a nation before and only around 5,000 Civillians died in the process. Why? Because almost all of that tonnage landed on military targets. Much more accurately than ANY nation in the world today could do. Yes, the US can destroy, but we have the ability to destroy legitamate military targets - the same people who gassed the Kurds and raped Kuwaiti women as well as oppressed their own people - facts which NOBODY denies, with a minimum of collateral damage. You're as guilty of skewing facts as any Bush administration press release when you say the word "destroy" so indescriminantly.

i´m not saying saddam is good nore am i defending him.

No, you're making excuses for him. I have to ask, where was your voice of opposition when Iraqis were only starving to death by the tens of thousands every year? Were you standing in protests then?
NO.


Did you ever get into the streets to protest Saddam's torture of prisoners or assassinations of political rivals?
NO.

But a war that saved more lives than it took... Well, now there's something that's gotta be stopped! Let's protest!

what i say is, that the attitude of the US is as filthy as the attitude of nations like Iraq. and it is absolutely SHOCKING to see how government brainwashing works. it works so well that peeps will fight for things they dont fully comprehend nore haven been fully informed about and even give their lives for it.
if this is where the developement of our civilisation goes, than i´m ashamed of beeing a human

First off, as has been said before, I've held my opinion on Saddam Hussein and Iraq much longer than President Bush has been in power. Second, the US government is as much in control of the US media as I am of my mother's cat. I can tell it anything I want, but the little bastard ain't listening. If you actually bother to pay attention to it, it will be immediately obvious. The US media cares about one thing: Ratings. It will do anything it can to get them, which basicly means it forcuses in on hot topic (currently Kobe Bryant), and doesn't let go until a new "crisis" pops up. Annoying? Yes. Uninformative? Yes. Under goverment control? Not hardly.

But hey, I think a war that has been proven to cost less lives than it saved is good, so I must be brainwashed, right? Somewhere (I think in this thread) I once figured the statistics (fairly accurately) and it came out to something like 20:1 in favor of a war in Iraq compared to the long term deaths directly associated to UN sanctions. That's equating a violent death with a starvation death. Obviously you feel that one person dying because of an errant bomb is worse than 20 starving slowly under sanctions.

Sarcasm aside, I'm ashmed that you're willing to say "well, people are dying by the hundreds of thousands, it sucks, but the guy responsible isn't after me, so I can't do anything about it."

But that's me.