Estimated casualties of a war on Iraq: 1 million people!

[Urban Ranger]

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.

[The Mad Monk]

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.

[Dauphin]

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.

[Timexwatch]

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 Suppose the Iraqi troops are withdrawn to the cities, the US either tries to force them to surrender by bombing the hell out of the cities, which will result in huge civilian casualties, or dig them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....

[HershOstropoler]

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.

[DinoDoc]

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.

[Bereta_Eder]

*pukes*

[Urban Ranger]

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?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Goingonit
And can we have a source, Patkis?

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

[GePap]

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?

[Sava]

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.

[Ming]

If the economy still sucks come next election... even a REAL victory won't save Bush

[DinoDoc]

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.

[Edan]

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.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

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