Just tired of this War.

cozumel

I'm comparing pre-invasion Iraq to todays situation. Your comparison is not a reasonable one.

Even if it were your figures average 116 Iraqi (and Iranian) deaths per week in your worst case scenario. In the current week 270 Iraqi citizens died - a 130% increase and I'm not including any foreign combatants/insurgents. But like I already said - this is not a fair comparison due to the number of years to which you have made the comparison. It would far fairer to compare the four years prior to the US-led invasion and the time since.

Increasing death, injury, the destruction of schools and hospitals does not make a better life for the population of Iraq. Nor does the total break down of law & order

Dowaco

I am not sure how you arrived at those weekly numbers.
Anyway, comparing numbers of deaths does not seem the best way to define bad versus worse. My original figures for US deaths in the Civil War was meant to illustrate that civil wars can be bloody. Far bloodier than what we are seeing now. The figure for smoking related deaths was meant to illustrate that more people die from car accidents and natural causes in a normal peaceful week than in a war torn country.

With Saddam gone and a new government forming, the power struggle has created a civil war between factions in Iraq. This struggle will go on with the US there or not there. My impression is that more will die if we leave than if we stay since order will completely break down.

I cannot believe that you are saying that if we pull out of Iraq, everyone there will be happy and stop killing each other. What do you think will happen if the US leaves? My guess is total anarchy, more killing, and a breeding ground for more terrorists.

You can debate the reasons for the war, but once we removed the brutal regime that was in place how can we leave the mess that is left without helping to fix the situation?
Invading a country, killing its corrupt leader then leaving the place in ruins is a bad job.
If we were going to do that we should have nuked Baghdad 4 years ago and be done with it.

cozumel

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the effects on allied (mostly US) personel.

Approximately 10.5% of US troops return home after 1 years tour suffer from PTSD. In numbers that means 10,500 personel out of every 100,000 that do a tour come home psychologically damaged.

Apart from the many that have commited suicide, others go on to suffer repeated nightmares and flashbacks. They are unable to leave the field of combat in their minds. Every night when they shut their eyes they return and witness thier friends dying and being terribly injured. They can smell the blood and the death in each dream. Sometimes they wake screaming.

One particular soldier at a checkpoint saw a car approaching slowly and due to his poor mental health and total fear opened fire without following all the correct procedures and protocols. When he went to check the vehicle he realised he had wiped out a whole Iraqi family including a pregnant mother who were simply trying to flee. That soldier has not and probably will not ever be able to return to active duty and almost three years have passed. The guilt, horror, self-loathing and the image of the dead family have left a life-long scar.

PTSD can turn ordinary young men into alcoholics, drug addicts and violent individuals. Families are destroyed. Wives divorce their husbands. Brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers are unable to cope with the changes in their loved ones who can become isolated and withdraw from mainstream society.

Every week I meet young men who are suffering like this (and I only touched the surface of their full symptoms). They are literally crying, sobbing when I take them back and ask them to tell me about their dreams. To tell me about the event or events that case them to feel the way they do. And to explain the repressed emotions they felt at the time of the incident. I too have cried after the appointment and when my client has left.

Is the war worth it? I think not.

Lelisevis

Yep nothing gets you a nice medical pension like a bit of difficult to prove PTSD. As for turning young men into alcoholics, drug addicts and violent individuals how can that be attributed to PTSD? That figure sounds about right if not slightly low for society as a whole at some point. It's nice to be able to point the finger of blame. Don't forget these people joined the ARMED forces not a boyscout group. My grandparents and there generation lived through two world wars with death and destruction on a far greater scale, they didnt all turn into drug addled, alcoholic psychopaths.
While I do agree to a point that it can affect some people what about the poor buggers who don't get to come home from a tour, what about the people who live it every single day.

calidan

You sound like someone that thinks all religions are bad. It's like this. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. There is always going to be extremists. Banning things won't stop the problem. Educating people is the key to stopping extremism.

calidan

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...G3ROR95I45.DTL

Iraq is not our toilet? I would like to know what makes Africa any better? We've pour more money into Africa then any other place and people still think we don't do enough. We can only do so much. It seems like if we do too much then we are considered the evil empire or if we don't do enough then we're still considered evil.

Matth

Get our troops out of Iraq, and get 'em into Iran - with their hostage taking and coerced statements, Iran has proved that they deserve to be next in the firing line.

The_Neon_Cowboy

IMO:
I don't think anyones tired of this war, everyone just tired of the people whining about it.

Sandok

Yeah I'm sure the troops are just loving the war

Maddogg6

almost as much as their loved ones... their children I bet completely understand why their 'good soldier' is over there when were not at war.

/ damn sarcasm mode is stuck on... wtf.