Study Reveals 4.5M Deaths From US Invasions Post 9/11

[Matata]

Originally Posted by chubeyr1

I dont have blood on my hands.

How so?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Feel free to create new threads if you wanna talk about Stalin, nazis or British colonialism. Just because someone made a thread to talk specifically about Afghanistan/Iraq and this doesn't minimize any other time period of human suffering.

Anyway,

The invasion of Iraq is 2003 was and is a crime. Unequivocally, it was the wrong decison and morally wrong. It was a humanitarian disaster and NATO and the United Nations did not back the mandate. The human suffering was staggering, but I actually question those numbers from OP. How can all those indirect deaths be attributed to the invasions? For instance, was the rise of ISIS a direct result of the invasion? Maybe, maybe not. The Syrian & Somali conflicts? Really hard to say.

The direct war deaths in Iraq are already too high and it was a tragedy, and the USA needs to wear this. Don't think we need to try to tag onto number though.It would never happen, but I wish Bush and others would have been held accountable at an international court. Likewise, because of politics Obama somehow won the Peace Prize while he was commander in chief of a military fighting two simultaneous wars. But I digress.

The interesting part with the USA is that even though sometimes they will act like a non-Western country should/would, their administrations change every 4 or 8 years and so you don't end up like Russia. Thankfully, the Bush era "only" lasted 8 years and not 20+ if they were a true authoritarian state.

Having said that, I sleep better at night knowing the might of their military and that we are good friends with them.

I think the discussion of deaths to do the erosion of quality of life is reasonable to put on the invading nation.

An extreme example would be after Hiroshima would you say all deaths and birth defects and cancer associated with that event should be counted in the total casualties of war? These were deaths that occurred far after the war ended. Why should the economic impacts of war be considered differently? Iraq was a fairly wealthy country with fairly good standard of living. It was run by a person that killed people. So if you are waging a war for freedom and democracy don’t you own the knock on affects?

I think when people compare it to the Ukraine the difference would be defensive operations at the request of a country versus invasion.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Feel free to create new threads if you wanna talk about Stalin, nazis or British colonialism. Just because someone made a thread to talk specifically about Afghanistan/Iraq and this doesn't minimize any other time period of human suffering.

Anyway,

The invasion of Iraq is 2003 was and is a crime. Unequivocally, it was the wrong decison and morally wrong. It was a humanitarian disaster and NATO and the United Nations did not back the mandate. The human suffering was staggering, but I actually question those numbers from OP. How can all those indirect deaths be attributed to the invasions? For instance, was the rise of ISIS a direct result of the invasion? Maybe, maybe not. The Syrian & Somali conflicts? Really hard to say.

The direct war deaths in Iraq are already too high and it was a tragedy, and the USA needs to wear this. Don't think we need to try to tag onto number though.It would never happen, but I wish Bush and others would have been held accountable at an international court. Likewise, because of politics Obama somehow won the Peace Prize while he was commander in chief of a military fighting two simultaneous wars. But I digress.

The interesting part with the USA is that even though sometimes they will act like a non-Western country should/would, their administrations change every 4 or 8 years and so you don't end up like Russia. Thankfully, the Bush era "only" lasted 8 years and not 20+ if they were a true authoritarian state.

Having said that, I sleep better at night knowing the might of their military and that we are good friends with them.

What does that even mean? How should/do non-Western countries act?

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

What does that even mean? How should/do non-Western countries act?

It means that Western nations value human rights, humanitarian causes and the rule of law. The United States sometimes acts opposite of this value system - like when they invaded Iraq in 2003. The good thing is that their administrations change with regularity so you don't have prolonged periods of them acting stupid.

At the same time, they donate more humanitarian aid than anyone else. Combined. https://www.statista.com/statistics/...aid-worldwide/

I think I mighta used a double negative in my post though, sorry for the confusion.

[JohnnyB]

It wasn't really the grammar that I was questioning. It was the notion that non-Western countries should/would act as the US did in Iraq, ie as dishonest and murderous invaders with no regard for the sovereignty of other countries.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

The US is more or less a bully that wears the freedom label as a facade, and to appeal to the average joe schmoe American that casts a ballot.

They themselves no longer know what freedom even stands for in the context of the modern world.

I think nowadays the word they're looking for is "control", which is precisely what they try to exercise over the western world as well as any country sitting on valuable resources.

And they're willing to cross any of the lines that they condemn other countries publicly for crossing in order to maintain said control behind closed doors, with no accountability. The only justification the country feels it needs is that it's America.

Toxic culture brewed over many generations that praises, maybe deifies patriotism, even when it transcends all reason or morals.

That's murica in a nutshell.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

I didn’t see anyone complaining when the USA jumped in to save the world from Nazi Germany.

This is revisionist history. Many Americans were staunchly opposed to any US involvement in what they saw as a "European war". A group calling itself the "America First Committee" (where have I heard that slogan before?) tried to keep the US out of the war and counted among its members such notable people as notorious antisemites Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Heck, many Americans were outright supportive of Nazi Germany. There was even a pro-Nazi rally attended by over 20,000 Americans at Madison Square Garden in 1939.

Image from the event:

Spoiler!

[SutterBrother]

There was a pro Nazi president a couple years ago too.

[Jacks]

What is going on?


Is there no sanity left?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Jacks

What is going on?


Is there no sanity left?

When has there been sanity?

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Jacks

What is going on?


Is there no sanity left?

Are you referring to something specific in this thread? Or the subject invasion in 2003? Because yes, that was insane.

What else is insane is I recently read through Uday Hussein's Wiki page. Holy ####ing hell that guy was a psycho.

[JohnnyB]

We could fill a long thread with news and history of US violations of international law and violations of human rights and international violence. Here's a report today reviewing new documents about the US in Cambodia and the killing of 150,000 civilians.

The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who will turn 100 on Saturday, bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported. An investigation by The Intercept provides evidence of previously unreported attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Cambodian civilians during Kissinger’s tenure in the White House.

Previously unpublished interviews with more than 75 Cambodian witnesses and survivors of U.S. military attacks reveal new details of the long-term trauma borne by survivors of the American war.

Experts say Kissinger bears significant responsibility for attacks in Cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians — six times more noncombatants than the United States has killed in airstrikes since 9/11.

The Army files and interviews with Cambodian survivors, American military personnel, Kissinger confidants, and experts demonstrate that impunity extended from the White House to American soldiers in the field. The records show that U.S. troops implicated in killing and maiming civilians received no meaningful punishments.

Together, the interviews and documents demonstrate a consistent disregard for Cambodian lives: failing to detect or protect civilians; to conduct post-strike assessments; to investigate civilian harm allegations; to prevent such damage from recurring; and to punish or otherwise hold U.S. personnel accountable for injuries and deaths. These policies not only obscured the true toll of the conflict in Cambodia but also set the stage for the civilian carnage of the U.S. war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria to Somalia, and beyond.

“You can trace a line from the bombing of Cambodia to the present,” said Greg Grandin, author of “Kissinger’s Shadow.” “The covert justifications for illegally bombing Cambodia became the framework for the justifications of drone strikes and forever war. It’s a perfect expression of American militarism’s unbroken circle.”

https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/...ing-survivors/

Rules for thee but not for me is just the way the "Rules-Based World Order" works in the eyes of the US.

[JohnnyB]

Also, regarding the view of the West as the great humanitarians giving more to aid and development than the rest of the world combined, it's worth putting that in the context of the West through colonialism having been the architects of a system of economic relationships that have worked to continually impoverish other parts of the world, one example of which was the case of India noted above, and here is other research on the system in action more recently.

Highlights
• Rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the global South.

•Drain from the South is worth over $10 trillion per year, in Northern prices.

•The South’s losses outstrip their aid receipts by a factor of 30.

•Unequal exchange is a major driver of underdevelopment and global inequality.

•The impact of excess resource consumption in the North is offshored to the South.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...5937802200005X

Also, worth noting that a lot of the aid money that moves via IOs like the Bank is money that goes into "capacity development" that basically amounts to paying consultants and specialists in DC or paying US employees overseas working at many multiples of the pay in the local contexts.

[CroFlames]

Oh I forgot. You're just one of those guys who #### all over the West any chance you get.

How bout them Uyghurs, amirite?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Oh I forgot. You're just one of those guys who #### all over the West any chance you get.

How bout them Uyghurs, amirite?

And you appear to hold bigoted views that the world outside the West is made up of people and places that act barbarically and without concern for humanitarian interests or for laws while the West is a bastion of humanitarian goodness and principles that just occasionally wavers in its moral compass.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Oh I forgot. You're just one of those guys who #### all over the West any chance you get.

It is difficult to take the West's condemnation of repression and human rights violations seriously when our governments indulge in both when it suits their purposes. Whether we enjoy more freedom than the average Chinese citizen is irrelevant to someone whose family was killed and house destroyed by Western bombs.

If we want to be seen as the good guys, we need to act, and not just talk, like the good guys.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

We could fill a long thread with news and history of US violations of international law and violations of human rights and international violence. Here's a report today reviewing new documents about the US in Cambodia and the killing of 150,000 civilians.

https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/...ing-survivors/

Rules for thee but not for me is just the way the "Rules-Based World Order" works in the eyes of the US.

Hard to believe that Kissinger is still kicking not only is he 100, but he is apparently going to be attending the Bilderberg meeting in Lisbon this year. He has been attending them since the 1950s.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Oh I forgot. You're just one of those guys who #### all over the West any chance you get.

How bout them Uyghurs, amirite?

Didn't take long for the whataboutisms to start flying!

[tjinaz]

So do you get to deduct all the Iraqi citizens Saddam was killing that lived because he was taken down? How about Rwanda? Do the 500k people that died because no one acted count as well? Lol.. US in Cambodia. US is clearly the villain the Khmer Rouge were "freedom fighters". Talk about rookie numbers 150k is literally a drop in the bucket compared to Pol Pot. I guess that is just western privilege. In the West we invade and fight on others land. In the rest of the world the governments just kill their own in the millions.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by tjinaz

So do you get to deduct all the Iraqi citizens Saddam was killing that lived because he was taken down? How about Rwanda? Do the 500k people that died because no one acted count as well? Lol.. US in Cambodia. US is clearly the villain the Khmer Rouge were "freedom fighters". Talk about rookie numbers 150k is literally a drop in the bucket compared to Pol Pot. I guess that is just western privilege. In the West we invade and fight on others land. In the rest of the world the governments just kill their own in the millions.

The US government was pretty friendly with Saddam Hussein as long as he was keeping the Soviet Union out of Iraq. The US supplied arms, chemicals and intelligence to him in his war against Iran (a neighbor that previously had an elected and popularly supported leader until the US and UK worked together to overthrow that leadership because of oil interests). The US then also provided military intelligence to Saddam in knowingly facilitating his chemical weapon attacks using nerve gas during that war.

The Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus was a horrific tragedy. Belgium also played a part in establishing the conditions for it during their colonial rule by formalizing divisions between the Hutus and the Tutsis along arbitrary lines such as their wealth and the length of their noses. The divisions they enforced created many of the conditions of economic tension that festered and contributed to the development towards genocide.

In Cambodia, those American bombings and the indiscriminate killing of 150,000 civilians also played an important part in helping the Khmer Rouge come to power because of the anger and frustration of the youth in the country that led to their radicalism (something that sounds somehow similar to the rise of ISIS in Iraq). The Khmer Rouge wasn't a popular movement before those bombings - bombings which took place across a country that wasn't even at war with the US. Those Cambodian bombings are also just like the bombings across Laos during that same period that killed around 200,000 civilians in a country of 2.1 million people, and another 90,000 civilians since then by unexploded cluster bombs that are left all over the country. Laos wasn't at war with the US either.

Pol Pot did monstrous things. So did Saddam Hussein. The Rwandan Genocide was horrific, and yes, it was ignored when it probably could have been nipped in the bud when Romeo Dallaire was pleading for more troops. Nobody would argue that it is only the US or Western governments that are responsible for monstrous acts, but the fact that other countries have had leaders and events like that doesn't absolve the US government or other Western governments for actions they have taken and their roles in horrific human suffering and tragedies.

The fact that these kinds of things have been ongoing with the US, such as the case with Iraq, certainly undermines American credibility as any kind of standard bearer of a rules based world order. The further fact that America is happy to use institutions like the ICC to label others as war criminals when not even signing onto the ICC themselves or recognizing its legitimacy to prosecute Americans who have been responsible for horrific war crimes clearly undermines legitimacy of international rule of law, as does the double standard approach the US employs with other areas of international law simply because they can. As I said before, it's a 'rules for thee, but nor for me' approach because they're strong enough that nobody can enforce the rules on them and they can do as they please, including committing war crimes while claiming moral superiority from the pulpit.

Also, it's probably worth adding that writing "In the West we invade and fight on others land. In the rest of the world the governments just kill their own in the millions" is idiotic. Remind me, where was it the Holocaust took place?