Iraq's Shocking Human Toll: About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans

1. Will the Bush Administration pay {be brought to "justice," as Bush would himself say of others, for their crimes?
2. Will Obama simply ignore this mass murder initiated by the U.S.?
3. Will more Americans be dumb enough or as some would say, "patriotic," to join the many glorious branches of our military?
4. Will Israel satisfy its bloodlust any time soon?
5. Will those Middle Eastern nations whom are fed up with the Saudi "Royal" family and the other antagonists like Egypt, finally stand against them?
6. Will Obama sanctify himself with the blood of thousands, millions as Bush and Cheney did?
7. Will the current financial fiasco extend long into Obama's tenure with more and more cash thrown to the Money Changers, and other parasites?

T

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While I deeply agree We have much to do making up for Bush, I think it unwise to forget where We, "The People" of the U.S. of A. are being herded! I speak of the "bill" being "discussed" about Emergency 'Camps'(a minimum of 6) being set up on Military Bases in the U.S. They have been likened to Nazi Consentration Camps as the true purpose. The Public doesn't even know if they are to be built or have already been built!

Everyone understands C.Y.A., don't they?!

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Even if Bush didn't know why they were thrown.

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The Iraqi children who are growing up in that nightmarish environment will have a very hard time. They probably will not turn out to be happy, secure, well-adjusted, productive adults. The human damage will last a very long time. As Americans, we should be ashamed.

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On IRAQ's SHOCKING HUMAN TOLL by John Tirman, just one very short question : Why is Mr.Tirman refering to this war as "BUSH's WAR ". My understanding is that the US Congress voted in favor of this war, and later, in 2004, the American People gave their majority support to Mr.Bush and " his " war.
No Sir, this was not just a Bush war, it was an American war and the SHOCKING HUMAN TOLL you mention brings enough shame to go all around

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I am going to remain patriotic and a "True American"!
Bush is my hero and as he stated, Iraq has made much progress over the years and we have achieved our goal as a nation of independence. Democracy now exists in Iraq. Iraq is now a liberated country because of us. I can't imagine still living in a world under Saddam Hussein. We as a world would continue to live under great threat if he was never removed! Thanks to Mr. Bush and our great the great hunter- Dick Cheney, our children can now reside in a safer and new world environment. I admire his determination to follow his deep visionary quest. We as Americans should be ashamed of ourselves for now turning our backs onto "GW." As our nation of independence was under attack during 911, he rose to tighten his belt and began smoking them out. He was a real man and confidently took ALL measures in keeping our god blessed America safe. My children, your children all remained safe under his watch. Besides, how come "we" as a nation didn't unite then to protest? I can clearly remember, "WE" were all patriotic to achieve world success against terror and liberate the world of weapons of mass destruction. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Bush disserves all of his incentives from his earned services to this great country. In fact, his new 3 million dollar home in Dallas and his set 1/2 million per year pension is nearly a fraction of what he really should earned. I think we owe him much more then that for his honorable service rendered. He is an example of service, which many "Americans" have quickly forgotten. We have all lived among the defragmenting changes together. Even if Mr. Bush has his own private community bunker embedded under his 3 million dollar mansion in Dallas, he too should be protected from other weapons of mass destruction. We as "Americans" believe and taken a stand with the sacrifice of our lives for "Freedom". G.W has clearly brought forward a nation of independence. I can only be ashamed for one act by our former president; he did make a Texas size joke about not finding weapons of mass destruction during one of his routine $10,000.00 per plate campaigning dinners. I nearly chocked in disbelieve, thinking many mothers and or fathers alike found hid humor very un-tasteful? Other wise, God bless you G.W. for representing and carrying out the will of our voted upon nation. Your brother will have big shoes to fill! You remain an American hero to all of us and God Bless you.

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They were better off under Saddam.. Some people just do not want freedom nor do they understand it. Should we pay them? I'm expecting them to pay us back!

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The numbers are way highe than that. Biblical proportions.

This WARCRIME is not as invisible in the rest of the world as it is in the USA. Iraq is soon about to take back it's rights and become a soverign power again.

That's why the group of WAR CRIMINALS WHO ARE RUNNING AFFAIRS FROM BEHIND THE STAGE are CONSPIRING AGAIN. AND THEY ARE PLOTTING ANOTHER 9-11 FALSE FLAG ATTACK. THEY ARE GOING TO ATTACK US. The same way they ATTACKED US ON 9-11!!

... and then they will use that NEW DEATH TOLL to futher destroy Iraq and possibly others.


God have mercy on the souls of the 9-11 victims. They cannot rest in peace after the WARCRIMINALS WHO DID IT have used them as reasons to KILL, MURDER, ROB, AND DESTROY MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF INNOCNET PEOPLE.

The 9-11 victims will never rest in peace until the WARCRIMINALS ARE brought to the surface and forced to pay.

IT IS UP TO US TO STOP THEM

WAR CRIMINALS NEVER STOP BY THEMSELVES

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There voting in Iraq. Great. The Americans are (they tell us) starting to "draw down". Nice. But as the title of this posting asks, "was it worth it"?

Iraq was a hell of a lot freer that Saudi Arabia when Saddam Hussein was in power. That is an undeniable fact that everyone seems toi be ignoring.

Was it worth it? It'll be decades probably before that question will be answered to any degree of certainty and by then "we'll all be dead".

I can not imagine this to have been worth it to the average Iraqi who has lost one or more or all of his or her family members. True thing do appear to be getting better but it is hardly the relatively blissful country it was six years ago - and I say the word "blissful without even the slightest hint of exaggeration or irony.

Regardless of how this turns out - and I am not a bit optimistic Invading Iraq is, and will remain, the stupidest military blunder in American history.

Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Bloviating Gas Bag and other observations

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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acrimony, angst and a inexhaustable supply of selfish and manipulating deceit, all very carefully dressed up w/the fraudulent and phony energy of a hollywood production.

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I will not take responsibility for a conflict I opposed from the outset. The Bush administration embarked on a HUGE media and legislative campaign in order to LIE to the public while al Qaeda and the Taliban sneaked off to retool and reorganize. Every claim the Bush administration made in 2002 was shown to be false - and the man in office NOW was one of the only ones in the legislative branch to see through it. Sorry, W was the quarterback - he had the power to say no to the Wolfowitzes and the Cheney's et.al. He didn't do it and now he has to answer for it. BUSH is responsible - oh yeah, that's right, Republicans REFUSE to take responsibility for any of the problems of the last 8 years - or 2 decades for that matter.

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Roughly 60 years ago, the US began to exercise its dehumanizing policies towards various peoples of the MidEast: the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Kurds, the Palestinians, the Libyans,... The current state of the world is the legacy of those policies.
Roughly 60 years from now, what will the legacy be of current US policy? Will my grandchildren, should I ever have any, be living in a world as cruel and brutal as unstable and insecure as the one that we inhabit?
Hopefully, the demonstrated sensitivity to history that Obama's speeches clearly articulate will afford him the intelligence to project the legacy half a century or more from now and preclude its birth.

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All those people destroyed, so much horror.
And Alternet poses it as if Alternet is disturbed by it all.
But Alternet could have done something to stop it long ago, and still could stop the insanity of wars and occupations based on the fear of terrorism.
How?
Expose 9/11 for the fraud and con job it was.
Seven years now since 9/11, and not a really indepth article about the blatant lies, contradictions, and impossibilities of the official story. The biggest story of all time, and Alternet avoids all mention of it, except one article in which every point made by a 9/11 Truther is countered by a very slick defender of the official story.
This is what we get in our "alternative press", the media sources that are supposed to give us the truth when the mainstream corporate media will not go there. This is our last resort. And Alternet and Democracy Now and antiwar.com and Counterpunch and the Nation mag, and Noam Chomsky/Zmag, and Common Dreams, and MotherJones.............all of them, they all ignore this story of truth. Why? They won't tell us.

We can blame all of those deaths on Bush. Or Cheyney. Or the Neocons. Or even the mainstream media, and a population of people who believe anything, like the WMD stories that the press brought to us as if we were zombies.

But I blame Alternet. They are responsible for the slaughter. Because Alternet is here specifically to bring us the news and facts that are forbidden. And it just decided to not do it. FOR SEVEN YEARS!!!!
A crime. It is treason.

9/11 happened and the facts and evidence have been covered up. That IS a fact in itself, and every journalist knows it. Do they investigate that? No.
And now, in the back rooms of small groups of dedicated scientists and researchers, the truth about 9/11 has been worked out. No, we don't know exactly how it was done, but these people have proven that the official story is completely bogus, and it is there for any journalist or media source to present it all. It needs to be done right now before Obama creates more dead bodies in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and even Iran. It is urgent.

Alternet says, screw 'em.

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~

OBAMA is "THE INNOCENT"
"The past is behind America"
"The stupid bumbling Bush is gone"

This is the theme in the propaganda that we are seeing in the setting of a new stage.
the group who are running affairs from behind the scenes are plotting for the NEXT 9-11 ATTACK.

THEY ARE PLANNING TO DO IT AGAIN.

THE STAGE WILL BE SET SOON

SO FAR THEY HAVE SEVERAL ASPECTS IN VIEW:

#1. THE CONSPIRERS HAVE WAY TOO MUCH INVESTED IN IRAQ TO CHANCE THAT THEY REGAIN A HOLD.
-THEY NEED FIRST TO BLAME IRAQ PERMANENTLY FOR EVERYTHING WE DID, AND WILL DO UNTO THEM.

#2 THERE IS ALSO NEED TO FURTHER DENY THAT THE PREVIOUS 9-11 WAS A PLOT. THE DUST FROM THIS ONE WILL ALSOHELP BURY THE PAST.

#3. THE NEED TO THWART THE GROWING OPPOSITION BY THE WHOLE WORLD, BY THROWING THEM ANOTHER CURVE BALL.

#4. THE POSITIONING TO FIRST APPEAR INNOCENT
( looking at the aspects of Obama: His color, heritage, middle name, party platform..is NO COINCIDENCE )

______________

THEY WILL FIRST ONLY NEED TO MAKE IRAQ SEEM AS AN ANGRY VILLIAN AGAIN..AND MAKE US SEEM MORE INNOCENT IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD. AND THEN MAKE IT AN EVEN MORE HORRIBLE ATTACK THAN 9-11.
... SO WHEN THIS ATTACK HAPPENS, the world will have no choice but to AGAIN give completely in to what ever course of action the "INNOCENT OBAMA AND HIS INNOCENT PEOPLE" want to take.
.
..AGAINNNNNNNN !

THIS ONE WILL BE WAYYYY WORSE!

WAR CRIMINALS NEVER STOP ON THEIR OWN.

THEY HAVE WAY TOO MUCH INVESTED IN IRAQ TO LET THEM REGAIN A HOLD.

IT IS UP TO US TO GET THEM AND STOP THEM!

~

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This is an excellent article that should be on page 1 of all major news papers and stories. The reason for the title is that I don't think most Americans care what happens outside of it's borders. The first war was to hide America's gifts of WMD to Iraq for the war with Iran (which it also supplied with weapons). This after giving the green light to take Kuwait. The no fly zone was to test our own new weaponry.

However, this last war was based on lies that flew directly in the face of Drs. Blix, Kay, and our own weapons inspectors which included our nuclear research facilities as well as the Plame outing for what Joe Wilson discovered were more Bush lies. I will not respect President Obama until the Bush Criminals are tried for war crimes. Until then, he is an accessory to this massive crime that is so well spelled out in the article.

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Adolf Hitler also committed wars of agression and invaded other countries to steal and murder. There was no legitimate reason to invade Iraq. It was only part of Cheney's energy plan. In Nazi-speak: petroleum lebensraum. Bush also had that daddy thing where he had to show his manhood was as good as his pop's. Bush and the rest of the war criminals are not patriots nor are the "good Germans" who supported them. Nor are they Christians: thou shall not steal, murder, covet, bear false witness and worship false gods. Unfortunately, you cannot reason with the clueless and those who have no ability to think.

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While counting the huge increase in their wealth constantly flowing from their investments in the elements of the military-industrial complex which is always looking for more countries to attack and invade, the plutocrats just pass it off as the inevitable collateral damage resulting from their devious mantra of the humane United States bringing freedom to the oppressed masses around the World clamoring for it (found mostly in oil-rich countries and others of strategic importance to the U.S.).

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The recent Iraq press releases from American news services have played up the fact that 4,000 women were running for office in the current elections. That was put forth as a positive sign of the new Iraq democracy. Instead so many women participating probably means there are so few men who are not dead or severely injured.
The United States has at least 20,000 soldiers with severe injuries. If the same proportion is true for Iraq, that would mean there would be about 5 million Iraqis with severe injuries.

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Most Americans either don't know what we did in Iraq, or they don't care. They buy the narrative that we brought freedom to Iraq. The dead are rarely shown on TV, even (or especially) American dead. Yet our TV and cable screens and video games remain submerged in and obsessed with violence.

In some ways, we truly are the new imperial Rome, reveling in our gladitorial games even as our armies march ...

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5 million orphans??????? Unless we want these numbers to increase and our soldiers to be unprotected (WITHOUT ARMOR... read story bellow), we need to get serious about facing the damage we've done.
our soldiers are without body armor

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Trust me I am one of the most devoted Humanirians out there. My comment completely underminds the Bush Inc.

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Yes - this is not only Bush's war egged on by Kissinger and Cheney and his neo-conservatives - it is a war voted for by the US Congress and the British Parliament. Only a minority of our US and UK elected representatives voted against. So the political elite in both countries is grievously to blame.

It is true they were grossly misled - but we elect our representatives to be savvy enough to get at the truth. Most didn't even try! We ourselves (JP Diplomatic Consultancy) were one of many professional Cassandras who in 2002 warned about the deception and collected from experts in different fields a list of (really perfectly obvious) powerful reasons not to invade Iraq (at least not then) [see our website www.dipconsult.eu ]

Many pundits in a number of US and UK "think tanks" and universities backed the war - but a closer view suggested that many of them did so because beholden financially to a pro-war government or other pro war institution.

The British and American media were also mostly craven in going along with our governments although they had even more access than we did to the true facts and the apalling worldwide risks Bush/Blair were taking. They did not give due attention to ex-British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's excellent Commons speech, nor to Senator Byrd's equally persuasive speech in the Senate.

As for our peoples - one US poll showed that a majority of Americans were against the Iraq war unless Britain joined in. And a big majority of the British were strongly against the war - this was notably demonstrated by
the unprecedented anti-war "million man" march through London. But too many Brits and Yanks were gung-ho pro war. Often nice people because Saddam was such a cruel beast. To do him justice even Blair seems to have put this humanitarian to the for along with his "must keep close to America" poodle-ism.

One problem now is that so many of these pro-war politicians, pundits, media and individuals are unable to admit their mistake over Iraq. And that makes it difficult for them to accept "change" and move forward into a new non-confrontational world, a new era of international cooperation absolutely essential in our global village in the shadow of the existential threatrs to the survival of mankind.

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Not to diminish the problem, if there are 1 million dead, presumably including women and children, where do the 1 to 2 million widows come from?

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You have to ask yourself what the real reason was for invading Iraq. America gained nothing from this slaughter. The individuals who supposedly carried out 911 were not from Iraq. We never got the man who supposedly did commit 911. We just invaded two countries, slaughtered a bunch of people for some unknown reason, and nearly bankrupted our country for doing so. Why did we do this? What is directing our foreign policy? Is it oil? We didn't get any oil from this war at this price. In "War for Muslim Minds" it states that Israel was terrified of Iraq. Did we invade Iraq for Israel? Someone needs to answer that question.

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Don't forget that there are more military contractors than there are troops and Obama hasn't uttered a word about withdrawing military contractors.

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yes, off to astan and pstan...iraq as a tactical pivot...the new embassy and compound aren't just built and walked away from are they? Obama says the troops are coming home within a year...wondering if they will come home through astan then pstan first. Is containment of iran the strategy? or is there more on the red horizon?

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And don't assume that Obama is going to be any more honest about it. That slime ball knows all of the tricks Dubya and his gang carried out and he's no doubt sharpening up on it. Oh, and don't forget Pakistan and Afghanistan. Never mind, I'm a "loser" for voting for Nader and peace and allowing the Middle East to heal itself. :.(

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Great article! Now I hope Obama isn't just another corporate pawn and does the bidding for the Military Industrial Complex, as did his predecessor.

I know this does not come as a surprise to those of you who know that when we went to war, ignoring Kofi Annan's warning that to go to war against Iraq breaks International Law, we all became War Criminals. Just as did the Germans after WWII.

To justify this War crime is the goal of the Corporate Media and Corporate America, the main tools of the Military Industrial Complex. Nevertheless, we are and will be War Criminals. We must take responsibility for our actions. This war will cost American lives for generations. I mean the hate we have generated by killing a million or more is enough motive for the 5 million orphans to use nukes on U.S.

Guilt isn't enough. Stop the wars of aggression and stupidity. Afghanistan is no different. All U.S. military activity should only occur under the U.N. flag. PERIOD!

We should be disarmed in terms of taking action without U.N. approval, like Germany and Japan after WWII. We are not to be trusted, not Obama not anyone in charge of or who works for our Military Industrial Complex led government or industries.

Why does the 1st Amendment call for the Separation of Church and State? Powerful, rich, and persuasive people, or groups, or institutions should not have any influence over our government. We need a clarification that declares the 1st Amendment to be modified to include Separation of Corporate and State. Corporate should be defined as any rich and powerful entity or group or individual who has unequal influence or sway over legislation, judgments in courts, print or broadcast media, or people in public office, down to the voter is illegal.

The war was and is for profit to the Military Industrial Complex as per PNAC dictation and manifesto and the authors in bush's cabinet.

This crime using bush as their puppet shows the pervasiveness and powerful infrastructure these special interests have in our government and "we the people" are guilty for knowing this and letting it continue. As a small but significant digression, 9-11 was an inside job is easy to believe when you know this. The way building WTC7 came down is the way the two WTC towers were brought down.

We must set an example with bush&co. and criminally prosecute them as a precedent and establish new law to prevent corporate influence and policy direction from happening again in the U.S. All the Iraqi loss of life and degradation of the quality of life for survivors is our responsibility. It is our duty to not only set a precedent, but honor the dead from 9-11 to Iraq, so it never happens again.

The next time it may well be nukes.

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Heil Bush, heil Cheney, heil Rummy, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith. Heil to the professional liars from Ari Fleischer to that bimbo from hell, Dana Perino. Heil to all the patriots and heroes in Washington DC who have conceived of and carried out this newest genocide. They learned a lot from the Nazis ....

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Truth is we never got any. It took some looking but everyone was 'too busy'. There were counts and statistics from day one. Most Americans didn't believe that Iraqis were dying in the thousands. It was easier to go shopping. They were happy to 'stay the course'. Turns out that at a point many Iraqis did believe that they were better off under Sadam Hussein. Their needs were met, education was important and they knew where they stood. Now 4-5 million of them are refugees in their own country. Almost all Iraqi families have lost someone. The numbers are accurate and the methodolgy used to count is recognized all over the world. We did them no favor. I believe the were about ready to oust Hussein on their own. He was weakend, tired and on the run. Our country has damaged its image beyond repair. No wonder Bush lived in fear of another attack. Those are shameful numbers. Thanks, ANNA

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Nixon actually ran on the "Peace in our time" slant. LBJ, and by association candidate Hubert Humphrey, were the war candidates. Then Nixon inherited the war and was told that he could not "lose". A week before the next election four weeks later, Nixon reported a peace breakthrough. Then Nixon signed almost a joke peace treaty in a year, he resigned rather than be impeached, and two years later Vietnam and Cambodia collapsed.

Hey President Obama, you have to keep bankrupting the country and killing off great volumes of people because otherwise the opposition will say you're weak. Not only that, but if you don't shoplift something your friends will call you a chicken.

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Too many see this kind of rhetoric and believe it is no satire. What scares me is I am sure there are millions who sincerely believe what you say. If bush is obviously a criminal and moron, how stupid are the people he fools into believing he was right?

The work plays to both sympathetic views and critical views, but it scared me. I thought you were serious. Too much of this bullshit went on for too many years and there is an even dumber dumb ass in the works: Sarah Palin.

May god bless the war criminals and all the death they cause... godz of hate and war, which is the god of the inquisition, crusades, or the great Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

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Will we all watch and make comments as our bloody war machine moves from the arena of Iraq and makes more orphans in Afghanistan? Or will we find a way to actually stop the repugnant, inhumane actions of the USA? When we get on the same page, we have that power. I hope that page comes along soon. But, wait. We were on the same page in the 60's, yet we self-destructed after clever infiltration leading to murderous attacks by our government. Been there, done that. Are we doomed to accept living in a cesspool?

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"Now that Bush is gone, perhaps the United States can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it."
- - - - -
And one of those responsibilities is to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., to the fullest extent of international law and imprison them for the rest of their lives (preferably in a place like Guantanamo.)

If we don't, America will remain hated and distrusted throughout the world and the wars will just keep-a-comin'.

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Far too many persons conveniently forget that the US was under attack by "terrorists" long before W took office. The USS Cole, the Marine barracks, the World Trade Center, 3 American embassies in Africa, etc. The warning Bush received was "Bin Laden determined to attack INSIDE THE US." Bush dropped the ball on 9/11, just as Admiral Husband E. Kimmel did on December 7, 1941 when he ignored warnings of potential attack on Pearl Harbor.


Incidentally, just as the taxpayers are now bailing out the big banks, Bush's first fortune came when he and his partners had the taxpayers pick up the tab for the Texas Rangers baseball team and their new stadium.

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Beginning in the mid-70s, and ending some 30 years later, the advertising agency Collett Dickinson Pearce ran literally hundreds of advertisements extolling the virtues of Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

These were all surrealistic works of art which appeared in posters and inside The Sunday Times magazines to name but a few locations. None of them carried no words, they were all simply pictures of bizarre scenes.

Two in particular are worth mentioning. One featured the pack of B&H cigarettes inside a bird’s egg which was inside an empty box of matches; thus the pack was tiny in comparison.

The other picture showed the B&H packet next to a pyramid thereby making it enormous and gigantic, and I suppose the purpose of the two ads was to confound the mind of your average smoker.

So it is with the prosecution of a war, and how to confound the mind of your average citizen with images that are sufficiently far removed from the reality of the war as to render any meaningful opposition or dissent null and void.

The propaganda of the day told us that Iraq had (i) potential to build weapons of mass destruction and (ii) they were complicit in 911. Thus, Saddam Hussein had to go.

It was rarely if ever mentioned that this meant that the Baath regime had to be dismantled, but only that Saddam needed to be got rid of.

If this was the case, then why on earth did it require a massive armed invasion requiring over 100,000 troops?

After all, it only took 1 deranged lunatic in the shape of Lee Harvery Oswald to shoot John F Kennedy, so why not a small force to wipe out Saddam Hussein?

And if anyone needed to get rid of that tyrant Gordon Brown, I am sure it wouldn’t require a full scale army to achieve that end.

I don’t know if anyone has imagined what 100,000 troops look like when they’re marching towards a city, but if I was to imagine a full Wembley stadium or Meadowlands marching in a line with all the vehicles and other equipment, I imagine the line was stretch for miles and miles and miles.

So it must have been with invasion of Baghdad.

What we saw on TV was but a miniscule part of that invasion force. What we also saw on TV was the considerable number of explosions from airplanes and ships that pounded the city just prior to the troops marching in.

Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s threat of ‘Shock And Awe’ which was not televised. They daren’t televise it actually, because that might have brought home to viewers what was really taking place – which was the total and utter devastation of a whole city.

Now think about the mindset of those troops who did actually march in. It’s a safe bet to assume that many of them probably had friends and relatives in the support services who got killed in 911, so they would have been obsessed with hatred and loathing for the Iraqi citizens, all of whom would have been quite innocent of any wrongdoing.

So try and imagine what they would have done to whoever they captured and interrogated.

Bear in mind, any Iraqi complicity in 911 was a complete lie, but none of the troops entering Baghdad would have known that; quite the opposite in fact.

Thus, when Abu Grab came to light, that would have only been the tip of the iceberg of atrocities that would have been meted out.

And then there are the bizarre news reports of Saddam Hussein being discovered in a hole in the ground.

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It seems to be the case that prior to the actual ground war that everyone made such a fuss of, it does appear that the great majority of the Iraqi generals were all bribed to abandon their posts, and I understand that these soldiers were able to make their escape via Baghdad airport. Therefore, the possibility of a protracted ground war was eliminated.

The Sun newspaper even reported that Iraq’s foreign minister Uncle Tariq Ali was even a guest of Prince Charles, but whether or not this is true is open to conjecture. Even so, the mere reporting has to be seen as more bizarre reporting piled on top of even more bizarre revelations.

One would have thought that, once Saddam himself had been captured, the mission of the US military would now be at an end, but of course this was only the beginning.

It soon came to light that it wasn’t only Baghdad that was the arena of operations; the whole of Iraq was under attack. Imagine a similar situation in which, having killed John F Kennedy, a huge foreign army is suddenly invading every state in the USA.

Obviously, the real motivation for the US military occupying the whole of Iraq has been very different to the stories that we have been fed with.

What the US deliberately set out to achieve was the elimination of any real opposition to a full scale invasion, which in real terms has meant destroying as much infrastructure as possible, killing as many people as possible, forcing as many people as possible to flee the country, and ensuring that those who do remain are beset with no sanitation, no fresh drinking water, and an abundance of disease.

The plans for all this were all carefully drawn up well before 911 happened. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to dumb down the mindset of the US population ahead of time, so that no one would ask any awkward questions.

In those days, to even suggest that oil might be a driving force was ridiculed. Now that all the damage has been done, people are free to make any suggestions they wish to make. What we know for sure is that the Bush Administration, with the assistance of Tony Blair et al, took the US and UK population hook, line and sinker.

The question is, could it happen again? Remember that in Iraq pre-2003, they had free health care, free education, women had equal rights, they were a civilised country, it was a secular government not dominated by religion; in other words, most of the population were leading relatively normal lives.

But the western propaganda machine used all the tools at its disposal to demonise the population; in particular there were websites that portrayed Iraqi women as hairy sluts, just to add insult to injury.

The US military were totally brainwashed and indoctrinated to regard all Iraqis as conspirators in a crime they had absolutely nothing to do with, but the US have always been very good at racist hatred.

If the truth behind 911 and the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars ever gets known, it will go down in history as perhaps the most shameful and ignominious period that has ever engulfed the human race.

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I don't mean a little, I mean really really sucking bad.

When was the last time you heard a politician take responsibility?

Or do the right thing even though it hurt?

Did you know that the SEC received a report in 2005 that listed 29 red flags with Bernie Madoff and they never investigated? It was the largest hedge fund at the time, and the person who wrote the report also wrote instructions on exactly who to call and what to ask for.

The only function of the SEC is to fight financial crimes and here is a person stuffing a report down their throats and they refused to investigate.

We have it all coming to us, but it still pisses me off that Bin Laden is going to claim that he was victorious. Fucking Bush was worth 20 Bin Ladens, but nobody who can do anything about it has the balls to admit it.

You just watch how much money the banks get between now and the end of June. Goldman Sachs has their boy in place over at the treasury, and you will not believe the fleecing we are in for.

Fucking money changers.

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Very few Americans care if black Africans die. Very few care if "sand negros" die. Half the Republicans think we will have to kill them sooner or later, Democrats??

Half the "True Bible Believing Christians" think they are going to Hell, anyway. The Dispensationalist Christians think that there must be a horrendous world war and natural disasters after they "get raptured." The Zionists will not lose sleep over it.

The ZPG people should be happy. The conspiracy people think that our owners intend to reduce the world population to 500 million.

The cost in tax dollars? Half of it is probably in Swiss Banks. The intent is to reduce the middle class to poverty like the world is supposed to be except for the people who own us, whoever they are.

I give up caring. It isn't worth the energy.

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US-IRAQ: Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision

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Is there really such a things as 'victory' in war? Yes, I know these numbers are staggering, and it is nice to show Americans that we weren't the only ones suffering from loses during these last few years, but in any conflict, there are casualties on both sides. If less Iraqis had died, would we call it a 'victory'? If less Americans had died, would have been a 'victory'? How many deaths are acceptable casualties to war? There is no such number. It is silly to try to determine a winner in Iraq, especially using these statistics. As far as I can tell, we are both losers.

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I'm having a problem with these numbers. If there are one to two million widows from this war, then the one million dead must be all male, some of whom had more than one wife. It follows that if all the one million dead are male, no women were killed in the war. What am I missing?

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On the one hand there was the 'under Saddam'
- in the 80's a long war under Saddam, costing the lives of over a million people, mostly in Iran.
- in the 90's a horrible siege costing the lives of another million people. Because Saddam was stubborn.
- and now a million people, because of the terrorists and the civil war. All Saddam's fault.

On the other hand there was
- in the 80's a long war that was strongly supported by the west, and judiciously kept going by the west. But Saddam still achieved a high level of prosperity, health and education. Combined with a murderous rule of terror of course to keep it all together.
- in the 90's a siege bringing down the country down to one of the worst third world levels.
- and then rather than swapping Saddam by somebody more suitable with the risk of the new guy accumulating too much power again, an approach that looks like a change of tack, this time a deliberate incitement to civil war in order to achieve the ethnic separation and partitioning of the country.

Putting all the blame on Saddam is so convenient. It's not necessary to switch all the way to the other side but the west, with the US first, carry a huge responsibility for millions of dead and a completely destroyed country.

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Trust in one big fact . What the US is doing around the world, it is getting ready to do its citizens.

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The numbers of deaths and refugees are at least two years old, as the article says. I've yet to see new numbers. And, as stated in the article, these numbers come from independent surveys. The US Military never did any body counts (officially).

Note: Not doing counts is a war crime, see the Geneva Convention.

This too, is just a reminder.

General Tommy Franks: "We don't do body counts." March 2002.

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Maybe the number is seven or eigth million the
people killed for America in Iraq, and nobody
said nothing, and also are thinking to kill same
in Afganistan.
This is a christian nation or criminal nation.

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Thank you for making a change.

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Your tax dollars at work!

This is what Bush was elected to do: inflict death and misery upon the world.

These are the core values of the Republican Party. This is why I could never, ever vote for a Republican. All they ever do is mass murder.

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Obama has been in office since January 21. We're already seeing the criticism mounting from the far right. Some of this criticism, even on these blogs which are generally supportive, has some traction. Pretty soon Obama will be labeled as "soft on crime" and "not supportive of defense."

What does this have to do with that (the article)?

We elected GW. These days everyone I talk with didn't vote for him, but someone must have. In my precinct about 40% of my neighbors are registered to vote, but standing outside a neighborhood store soliciting for people to register to vote one night prior to the election I found virtually everyone coming into the store was registered. What are the odds?

When we talk about "a million dead," or "the tragedy that is Darfur," or any of the other world tragedies our great Christian nation allows as we sit lamenting and sipping our lattes at our favorite coffee venue let us not forget that we elect these guys, we listen to the criticism, we're the part of "We the people" we forget when it comes to accepting responsibility and blame.

And know as well that GW more or less called out the terrorists before he left office essentially saying "bring it on." He did this to try to salvage some legacy. And when another mad man attacks and the country is up in arms and pontificators are pontificating about all the things Obama "failed to do" and we're all screaming for something to be done and Patriot Act II passes (Bush/Cheney drafted it and it's way scary) and we no longer have what limited freedoms we have...this too will be our responsibility and our fault.

Know, too, that I didn't vote for GW and can't find anyone who did (and some remarkably twice), but someone is surely responsible--maybe the bankers.

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Everything bush &co. has ever said or done, absolutely everything, is outrageous lies---Including 911. 911 is a lie! 911 is a conspiracy of lies!! If you can't see that you're seriosly flawed in your thinking, so frightened by their fear-mongering that you can't accept the truth, or you work for them (the fascists who hate humanity--American Government and American peasent 'patriotic' racists).

Everything from CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYtimes and Washington Post...to Blackwater (gov. sponsoored terrorist armise controled by private interests)movies and prime-time televison ('24'especially) is obviosly, blatently pure propaganda and parochial--absoulutely ridiculous--nonsense and lies! Most of it is pysops and military recruitment advertizing. If they spend that kind of money financing propaganda--using absolutely false reasoning, stereotypes, emotional pysops and extreem fear-mongering they must have have a reason--the connection is obvious.

The reason is not Hannibal. The terrorists are trained to kill (haplessly) by American governemt--on taxpayer payroll. Its a trick as old as civilization, as old as empire. Hannibal is at the gates! Ba afraid, be very afraid. We will protect you--let us have absolute power. We are your beinign king, your friend, like a father, like a god. Give us complete control over your lives. Sheep. Livestock. Livestock get branded.

You are livestock. for government use only. the war on terror is almost the biggest lie in the history of the world. The BIble and Jesus Christ is the other (all religion).

If people will so easily believe in a fascist dictator God ( a cruel one...oh, but so benign and kind and friendly and loving IF you obey his petty megalomaniacal fetishes)--AND who lives in the sky--than people will believe a fourtth grade farce like 911.

At one time people believed germs were demons--and if you told them otherwise, you were a cRAZy nut. Some people were burned alive on stakes because they challenged sheepish mainstream foolishness--burned as witches. Murdered, murdered by 'benign' gov. and 'good Christian mobs'. Why do you think 911 is any different? 911 IS A LIE! Witch burner!

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The article discusses only the destruction done to Iraq by Bush Jr. Does anyone know the extent of the destruction done to Israel under Bush Sr when he lured Kuwait - Hussain into Kuwait in 1991(search on "april glaspie" who spun the deceit to Iraq's president Hussain that America would "allow" Iraq to take over Kuwait to reward him for his war against Iran that had humiliated America by taking hostages)?

I remember the death toll then to be 2,400,000 by UN count, mostly the result of targeting sewage and water facilities but also the result of the embargo which included medicine and most notably infant milk formula.

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That is the statistic of USA killings in Iraq.
Wait the Israelis blitzkrig will also come to Iraq to really finish the job. Arab shooting century is now, with American doomsday machines.

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No power on this earth will be able to punish President Bush for his warmongering. Only GOD will be able to do that. More than the war in Iraq he is also indirectly responsible for the Global Financial crisis. 51 million people , which means 50 million families , will be out of a job worldwide by the middle of this year.Add that to human cost of the Iraq war and you will understand what I mean. May the LORD bless his soul.

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somine

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The Obama will raise the dead from this war. He is magic after all.

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Great piece. The murderous stupidity and arrogance of the Bush administration in launching the needless Iraq War, and encouraging Israel's murderous rampages in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09, are closely related. All three catastrophes have as their purpose the enabling of Israel to continue to oppress the Palestinians and persist with the insane vision of a Greater Israel. Israel is a threat to the peace of the region and the world, backed by Jewish fanatics in the US and a compliant US media.

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I often refrain from commenting on articles such as this. I find it easier to deal with political philosophy and logic. Articles like this which lay bare the sheer volume of our own crimes as a nation have the effect of making me ashamed of who I am, where I was born, and what my society has become. I usually find myself at a loss for words. It makes me hyper-aware of the hypocrisy, lies, and outright corruption of the system we have allowed to incubate before our very eyes. It makes me even more aware of my impotence to do anything about it, or protect my own children from it. You can be sure that Empire will point those weapons at internal dissent just as surely as it points them at other nations.

If my society is as morally bankrupt, as surely evil as the Third Reich (unless you wish to quibble about how many millions have to die to qualify for such a thing), then it deserves to crumble.

If every Iraqi or Afghan child declared a holy war against the United States of America they would be morally justified, whether by the standards used by our own government, or by those of the Jesus people in the U.S. After what we have done to Iraq's children, between this invasion and the previous ten year blockade, we deserve what follows and more if we don't put an end to this craziness. A single terrible act - and very ambiguous as to who perpetrated it - served to justify atrocities across the globe by dictatorships and would-be empires. Our reaction to this act was to do evil across the board, waving flags and crosses.

To hell with this.

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TO PROSECUTE BUSH AND THE GANG, DO WE HAVE TO :
I) HAVE ONE MILLION SIGNATURES OR
II) REQUEST OR WAKEUP UN TO REALISE ITS DUTY
IN CRIME OF THIS SCALE OR
III) SETUP FUND FOR PUBLIC DONATION TO PAY THE
BEST LAWYER IN TOWN OR
IV) WAIT FOR SINCERE PROPOSAL

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Jim Swanson, Los Altos, CA
“The Bush League of Nations”
www.bushleagueofnations.com [for FREE download of entire $25.95 book]

Being an MIT graduate, I was especially interested in reading this article by John Tirman, who is Executive Director of MIT’s Center for International Studies.

Mr. Tirman refers to figures from a Lancet survey, which estimated, through July 2006 (a period of 40 months), that 655,000 Iraqis had died as a consequence of the Iraq war. The estimate range was 943,000 at the high end and 393,000 at the low end.

Let’s try to put this horrific human toll in context by comparing it with the slaughter on 9/11, as well as the Virginia Tech massacre:

1. The 655,000 Iraqi deaths is an average of 16,375 deaths per month during the 40-month post-invasion study period (March 2003 to July 2006).

2. This means that Iraq suffered about 218 9/11 equivalents during the first 40 months of war—an average of more than five 9/11 equivalents each month.

3. On a per capita basis, Iraq suffered, on average, the equivalent of 65 9/11s per month—or one 9/11 every 11 hours, around the clock, 24 hours a day. (Iraq’s population is about 1/12th that of the United States.)

4. Iraq suffered, on average, the equivalent of 496 Virginia Tech massacres per month—or one Virginia Tech massacre every 90 minutes.

5. On a per capita basis, Iraq suffered, on average, the equivalent of 5,952 Virginia Tech massacres per month—or one Virginia Tech massacre every 7 minutes and 30 seconds, around the clock, 24 hours a day.

And some people wondered why Bush had shoes thrown at him.

The peer-reviewed survey, which was conducted by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and published in the Lancet medical journal in October 2006, concluded that 91% of the 655,000 deaths “were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.”

Surveyed family members produced death certificates in more than 90% of the cases.

The foregoing is excerpted from my book, "The Bush League of Nations: The Coalition of the Unwilling, the Bullied and the Bribed – the GOP’s War on Iraq and America," by James A. Swanson (2008, published by CreateSpace Publishing, 448 pages). www.bushleagueofnations.com.

See in particular Chapter 4, “The Unjust War in Iraq—Christianity is Bombing in Iraq.”

You can now download the entire $25.95 book for FREE at www.bushleagueofnations.com. If you are so inclined, please spread the good news.

I ask for nothing in return, except that you consider using my book as a resource to help restore and build America.

Jim Swanson, Los Altos, CA
“The Bush League of Nations”
www.bushleagueofnations.com [for FREE download of entire $25.95 book]

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The figures posted doesn't make sense neither could be believed.
US army entered Baghdad in April 9th 2003 and the violence subsided in June 2008.
This makes the days of violence equals to 1850 days.
If 1 million civilians had dead in the violence, this will make a daily average of 550 persons per day.
550 dead body everyday, day in day out....
This is veeeeeery far from the truth of course I think the more reasonable number currently sand around 100,000 as published in Iraqi body count website..

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