Deaths In Iraq

I have a question for you. Does your state or country name the soldiers killed each day in Iraq? Minnesota, where I live, does not. We only are given the names if they have a connection to MN. We are hearing all about the news people killed over the weekend, and I do NOT mean to take anything away from their tragic death, but isn't each and every person killed over there important?
I don't want this to get heated, but it does make me angry that more attention is given to news reporters than our soldiers.

Just wondering about other states or countries reporting all the deaths.

 

Well when 2 news reporters die it gets the medias whole attentions, yet our soldiers, risking their lifes everyday, are only counted as "casualties" and "statistics". I ve seen sometimes where they name soldiers from a particularstate, but its mostly "3 soldiers dead in deadly car bomb" kinda stuff. It does bother me a bit, but no matter, they will be remembered as Americas Finest

 

It'd make for pretty grim news I guess,its seems every time one of our soldiers gets killed its on the news,I think the American death toll is at two per day much higher than ours due to numbers,our death toll is easier to stomach I think

What about the innocent civilians killed by Allied fire? They're pushing 30000 now,thats like a full working week at auschwits during the middle of WW2,if we did have a free press surely some of these 30000 deaths would have been reported,they say its because they dont have time to investigate them IMHO they need more investigators were being given a watered down version of what war is,we should get the full picture and be allowed to decide ourselves if its worth it,even if it goes against government policy

I think if everyone saw the full horror of war selling it to the public would be much more difficult which is the way it should be IMO

 

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (public broadcasting TV) has pics and names (of US soldiers killed) shown in silence, at the end of the program. It's once a week I think.

 

Memorial Day this year was very emotional due to the fact that our little town of 1800 people lost a Soldier in Iraq on May 13, 2006. He left behind a Wife and nine month old Son and a loving Family.
The Man in the front of the photo is my Dad, a Korean War Veteran, this picture is from our local Cemetery on Monday morning.

 

ABC's "Nightline" used to run them nightly, as names were released as well. Not sure if they still do, as it's been a while since I watched it. The government learned back in Vietnam that the media uses pictures and numbers to drum up anti-war sentiment. Worked in the Vietnam era, still works to some extent today, which is why the government limits pictures and minimizes the deaths as much as possible. It's not out of disrespect, it's out of self-defense against a media that hates anything that Republican administrations do. There wasn't much hue and cry when Clinton was bombing the crap out of Kosovo, destroying historic bridges, bombing the Ugo car factory, etc. etc., and high altitude bombing is MUCH more conducive to "collateral damage" than actually sending the grunts in to try ferreting out the bad guys and dealing with them directly. If we didn't CARE about civilian deaths, we'd still be bombing from high altitude and keeping our foot soldiers safe.

Keeping track of body counts, both civilian and "insurgent", as the polite term goes, is difficult. Since the bad guys don't wear uniforms or carry identification proclaiming them combatants, they pretty much ALL look like dead civilians. And that "30000" figure was started by a group that makes no distinction between true civilians and "insurgents" that are trying to kill both OUR guys and Iraqi police and military. Nor does it distinguish between those we kill and those the "insurgents" kill.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/casualties.html

Comparing this to Auschwitz is massively unjust and offensive. We don't intentionally target innocent men, women and children. Ever.

 

You can't be serious.

When the war, or should I say invasion, first started, the media were very much biased towards the Republican administration, and the worst culprit was FOX.

The administration also used "embedded journalists" as propaganda.



Funny how when the tables turn, all the right-wing mob cry foul, but when it was the other way around, they never mention the topic.

No, instead they use cluster bombs and cruise missiles that kill thousands of innocent civilians.

Intentional or not, the by product is tens of thousands of innocent people killed.

Then we have Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and sending prisoners to countries that practise torture.

Don't blame the world or the media for this attitude, instead blame what your government is doing.

The US government went from having almost all the worlds support after 9/11, to now almost none.



Anyway, I can see this turning into a heated subject, so this is where I jump ship. Bon voyage.

 

I don't think it's so much that the soldiers who die aren't as important as news personalities as it is that most people will have heard of the news personalities. We only get mention on local news if it's someone from Michigan who was killed.

And now there's an uproar by some group who says our Governor is violating federal flag statutes by having all flags in Michigan lowered to half-staff in honour of fallen soldiers.

 

Yes, I'm serious. Fox was pretty gung ho, other TV networks less so. Print media was pretty divided from the first. And at first, public opinion was so much in favor that the media companies that disagreed were pretty cautious about bucking the trend, but they led the shift in opinion, they didn't follow it.

True, although long-term it has been more liability than asset. Many of the embedded reporters have grumbled that their companies do NOT print positive stories they cover. And not all embedded reporters are in favor; some of them are looking for embarrassment to publish. Mixed bag.

Not totally true. There was some debate here about sending ground troops in, and effectiveness, and damage, of JUST bombing. But conservatives generally don't march and picket, raise hell, and get positive coverage in the general news.

In the early days, when we were fighting an army, yes. Later, when we were fighting "insurgents", much less, and only on very specific targets. And killing "thousands of innocen civilians"... neither you nor I know the facts, but I doubt "thousands" How many civilians have been killed by the IEDs used by the terrorists?

Again, insufficient data. That's rhetoric, not fact.

Embarrassment and humiliation, not torture. And not condoned, and has been punished. Get over it.

A prison, not a torture camp. Get over it.

True on that one. We shouldn't.

Sympathy, some. Support, no. We never did have "almost all". Almost none of the Arab world, pretty apathetic from Russia and China, and sympathy from most of Europe... until we decided to do something about it. Actual support has been pretty limited from the start.

Bon voyage.

 

I'm with the aussie on this one.

Jack

 

Agreed I take back the auschwitz comment I was tryna find an example from history that sums up how I feel about the civilians killed as they never get a mention a bad example really I apologise

Not intentionally targeting innocent people is one thing but using the kind weapons our military has used in populated areas is completely un forgivable,if an insurgent was evading capture and ran into someones home or a mosque the entire area including the building is levelled by bombs and then straffed with HE rounds with no concern for the civilians,this tactic is used so soldiers dont have to go in and save they're lives and its working at the price of huge numbers of civilian casualties,this isnt the place to be using airpower so indescriminantly,they should be using only CQB but this would cost more soldiers lives and look bad for our governments

The reason we dont know how many civilians have been killed is because like I said we dont want to know there arnt enough people investigating

This is the most accurate and widely quoted paper on the subject,I havnt read the entire paper yet,the summation is pretty good on the main page

http://reports.iraqbodycount.org/a_dossier_of_civilian_casualties_2003-2005.pdf

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/books/iraqbodycount.htm

The actual number back in 2005 from the start of the invasionkilled by coalition force weapons is around 10000 around a year ago which has increased greatly since but I dont have any respected sources or cant be bothered looking for the updated figures

I dont know which group you mean,this report is ther most conservative estimate I have seen regarding civilians deaths I have used it as an unbiased disscussion point,my personal view is the number of civilian deaths is much higher and the number will increase proportionally with the scale of the investigation,the harder you look the more you'll find

 

From the CBC link I posted, which mentioned it. (Canadian Broadcasting Company):

One point of that article is that nobody has a clear handle on the number of deaths, and Iraq Body Count's methods, while sincere, are far from perfect.

 

I think that we need to step back a moment and consider why these brave men and women are dying. Is it to protect the citizen of Iraq, polls I have see from Iraq, and people I talked to well in Iraq emphatically say NO. Is it to safe guard U.S.A. from terrorist’s attacks, again the answer from numerous sources say NO.

Is it because President Bush needed a rallying point, to win the election? Is it to secure a steady supply of OIL for the U.S.A.? Was it to rid Iraq of their dictator, one bullet from a trained sniper would have done that?

So please tell me why in the name of humanity are these men and women dying, these same men and women do not know why either?

Please do not mention Guantanamo Bay, this place is a travesty to human justice, and should be an embarrassment to ALL freedom loving Americans. The detainment and treatment of the peoples held there will be a black mark in American History, and it amazes me, that Americans who value FREEDOM as much as they do can allow their government to do this.

 

I will admit

war did, at one point serve a purpose

Memorial Day was to honor the dead from the civil war
now all wars, it has become

the civil war had a purpose


I am not going to go over every war in the world or even the rest of the wars where the us was involved

you know where I am going with it

 

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.

 

True, but all through history, if good men had not been willing to fight, only the evil would have been left, and left in charge. Wars have been started for trivial reasons, for pragmatic reasons, for emotional reasons, for greed and lust for power, for personal ego and religious zealotry, all kinds of bad reasons. And some for good reasons. But those that think war solves nothing have ignored most all of history. The rise from savagery has been bloody, and we're not altogether done with it yet. That doesn't mean all wars are worth fighting, or are worth US fighting, but war has been a necessary evil all through history.