Let's Do the "Innocent Lives Lost" Math

[boxcar]

This old, tired, worn out whine about all the "innocent lives" Bush is guilty of taking due to the war in Iraq goes beyond Stuck on Stupid. Mr. Light provides us with this latest gem from the Bush in Latin America thread:

Bush lies and people die.That's why Bush is hated and protested around the world,not only in South America.Conspiracy theories regarding protests in other countries are as paranoid and self deluding as the protests in this country against the Vietnam war that were thought to originate from subversives. Big government cannot understand that there is something in us that will not stand for corruption at the expense of innocent lives and requires no external influences to be put into play.And BTW,thats how our country was born.

The truth of the matter is that by us invading Iraq and removing from power one of the most sadistic, cruel, heartless tyrants and murders who has ever darkened our planet, we have, in all probability, saved many more innocent lives than this war has taken.

http://www.logictimes.com/antiwar.htm

Light, I hate to tell you this, but you're sitting in darkness without the first clue on how to find and turn on a light to make way for your escape from your own willful ignorance.

Boxcar

[PaceAdvantage]

Careful Boxcar, you're going to get them to post that old picture again of Rummy shaking hands and smiling with Saddam....my servers can't handle all this repetitive bandwidth!!! LOL

As if only John Kerry has the ability to change his mind about things...these guys don't give Rummy the same benefit of the doubt....

[toetoe]

My problem with both sides here is that both are overreaching. It seems Light is saying "we" as if he meant people all over the world. Boxcar sees inequity in Iraq and supports the effort to rectify the situation. However, every country on earth could be invaded using that rationale. If it's in our immediate interest, let's bomb, pillage, whatever we must, and get out. The democracy argument just doesn't wash. That's okay if you think so, I just think we're wasting our time, lives, etc. As to Light, "we" has to mean Americans first. To identify with the f^*kwads that show up at summits to vandalize property and burn dumpsters is SO weak. We can do so much better. Think of the desperately poor black Americans living in slums, however many they number. The very worst of them have never gone so wild as the kind-of-French thugs in the news now. I think it's because they're not barbaric enough, but if we are to believe they are, then it becomes a matter of support and organization. Do any of us really believe the poor of the world have some collective unconscious that allows them to magically mobilize when they get fed up? No, the key is to find out who is behind it. If they have their way, there will be no world left to protect from summits, George Bush, blue meanies, et al.

[boxcar]

My problem with both sides here is that both are overreaching. It seems Light is saying "we" as if he meant people all over the world. Boxcar sees inequity in Iraq and supports the effort to rectify the situation. However, every country on earth could be invaded using that rationale. If it's in our immediate interest, let's bomb, pillage, whatever we must, and get out.

The drive-in, drive-out fast food mentality sounds great in theory, but it would never work. Nature abhors a vacuum, as would thugs, anarchists and terrorists, if we were to create that vacuum with a hit n' run strategy.

Boxcar

[toetoe]

I don't really disagree, but can't we say that about the other two options?

Long-term invasion will never work.
Doing nothing will never work.

Any decision is heartbreakingly crucial, including the decision to do nothing, a.k.a. the lack of a decision.

[boxcar]

Toetoe:

Just because the U.S. doesn't have the resources to do good for the whole world doesn't mean we shouldn't do some good where we can. Saddam deserved to be ousted, and the Iraqis deserved to be liberated from this oppressive, theiving, murderous dictator in order to have a shot at freedom under a democracy. The point to this thread is that the "innocent lives lost" due to our invasion notwithstanding, the count pales in comparison to what lives would have, in all probability, been lost if we had done nothing and Saddam was still the head honcho over there.

The second point to this thread, is that libs only squeal and whine and complain and cry in their beer whenever those lives were taken as a result of U.S. action (directly or indirectly) You never heard a peep out of the Left when Saddam was killing far more than we ever will over there. No. No. No. In fact, the libs believe it would have been far better to allow Saddam to remain in power so he could continue murdering. Such is the moral bankruptcy of the Left.

Boxcar

[toetoe]

No argument to the charge that some prefer to give the advice ex post facto, a.k.a. "I told you so." I'm just not sure WHAT to do. What I WON'T do is try to pit one priority against another. If invasion is right, let's do it. I just wonder what's really going on when wars are waged, and not just this one. I don't give a hoot about Iraqis especially, women and children excepted, but I can't stand many of my countrymen, either. Hell, I even hate myself. My final point is that the rhetoric of "a people determined to be free," whether applied to Iraqis, murderous North Vietnamese, criminally insane North Koreans, or anyone else, is bulls%*t worthy of John Piesen himself. If it's in OUR interest to have Iraq a certain way, let's make it happen. The democracy stuff is a pipe dream we can't indulge. In some ways, the best defense is a good attack, and we sure don't have to worry about Muslims getting madder at us, do we?