37 Troops Die on Deadliest Day in Iraq

[Gordon Gekko]

37 Troops Die on Deadliest Day in Iraq



BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. helicopter crashed in a desert sandstorm in the early morning darkness Wednesday, killing the 30 Marines and one Navy sailor aboard. Six other troops died in insurgent ambushes in the deadliest day for Americans since the Iraq war began nearly two years ago.



In Washington, President Bush called on Iraqis to defy terrorism and go to the polls despite relentless insurgent attacks. He said it was a "very discouraging" day when the U.S. death toll for the war rose above 1,400.



How many more soldiers have to die, Bush?



How much taxpayer money are you willing to spend in a war that will NEVER be won? A trillion?

[KJ Duke]

Originally posted by Gordon Gekko:

37 Troops Die on Deadliest Day in Iraq



BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. helicopter crashed in a desert sandstorm in the early morning darkness Wednesday, killing the 30 Marines and one Navy sailor aboard. Six other troops died in insurgent ambushes in the deadliest day for Americans since the Iraq war began nearly two years ago.



In Washington, President Bush called on Iraqis to defy terrorism and go to the polls despite relentless insurgent attacks. He said it was a "very discouraging" day when the U.S. death toll for the war rose above 1,400.



How many more soldiers have to die, Bush?



How much taxpayer money are you willing to spend in a war that will NEVER be won? A trillion? Unfortunately GG, the terrorism problem has been in the making for decades. Using Bush as a scapegoat is popular but not accurate. It had to be dealt with eventually, it is an insidious problem and I'm not sure there is any possible good way to deal with it. It will be costly and it will be ongoing. War or no war. Respsonse or no response, the cost and the conseqences will continue throughout our lifetime and beyond.



Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that there are smarter, more tactful and more qualified persons to lead the challenge. Unfortunately, no one with these qualities has been or is likely to be put forth by either of the major political parties as presidential candidates.



Perhaps at some point you'll want to change your moniker, since what you are witnessing are just a few of the major problems that "greed" causes in society. Greed can be "good" in places and at times, but it also leads to destruction. We get a bigger taste of it everyday.



[ January 28, 2005, 02:29 AM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

[Kevin D]

Well said KJ. Well said.

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

Unfortunately GG, the terrorism problem has been in the making for decades. Using Bush as a scapegoat is popular but not accurate. It had to be dealt with eventually, it is an insidious problem and I'm not sure there is any possible good way to deal with it. It will be costly and it will be ongoing. War or no war. Respsonse or no response, the cost and the conseqences will continue throughout our lifetime and beyond.

Well said? You said, "It had to be dealt with eventually"...



what is the "it" you refer to? the whole war claim Bush made was that Iraq had WMD AND they (or terrorists) wanted to use them. Well, two years later and Bush found ZERO WMD!



Now the war is about liberating the people of Iraq. Please. There are many more countries that could be liberated. Kinda reminds me of a German leader

[Kevin D]

It=Despotism.

[Walla Walla]

There are the Pat Tillman's of the world. Than there are the Gekko's. Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of it's forms: greed for life, for money, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind. Gekko you could donate that 100,000 you won to those families that lost love ones.

[Balticsquids]

Walla, Holy **** i actually agree with u twice in 1 day ........ Gordon, are u the same guy that plays in all these events, goes to ac to try to enter the wcop and god knows what else....But then comes on here and pretends to care ? use that 100,000 and get bush out of office or help a family of a slain officer , or come up with a better way to fight terror

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Kevin D:

It=Despotism. there are many other countries that fall under this. why don't we attack them?

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Balticsquids:

Gordon, are u the same guy that plays in all these events, goes to ac to try to enter the wcop and god knows what else....But then comes on here and pretends to care ? use that 100,000 and get bush out of office or help a family of a slain officer , or come up with a better way to fight terror that's funny, i've supported our troops before i won any $. in any event, it doesn't matter how much money you have. send care packages to our troops, write letters, etc... what have you done?

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Gekko you could donate that 100,000 you won to those families that lost love ones. you could also donate your whole life savings as well. you gonna step up to the plate?

[Walla Walla]

Gekko, I already have step up to the plate as you ask. I did my 20 years in the Navy. I was serving

when I lost my youngest son. I felt guilt about being away from home at the time. But I decided that my son would have understood that his Dad was trying to do something that mattered. So don't ever question the price I've paid! Gekko you think this a joke. When it comes to baseball it is. But when it comes to asking what price I've paid for your freedom you better back off!!!

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Gekko, I already have step up to the plate as you ask. I did my 20 years in the Navy. I was serving

when I lost my youngest son. I felt guilt about being away from home at the time. But I decided that my son would have understood that his Dad was trying to do something that mattered. I'm sorry to hear that.



Originally posted by Walla Walla:

So don't ever question the price I've paid!so it's okay for you to question me? ya, that's fair



Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Gekko you think this a joke. no, i don't think it's a joke. more and more people are voicing their displeasure over this war. i guess some people are getting fed up. i got fed up when the US lost the first soldier.



Originally posted by Walla Walla:

But when it comes to asking what price I've paid for your freedom you better back off!!! again, I'm sorry to hear about that. i don't fault the troops at all. they are only doing what they're told.

[Walla Walla]

Gekko, You made a good choice staying in N.Y. or Chicago this time.

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Gekko, You made a good choice staying in N.Y. or Chicago this time. not sure what you mean. can you explain in detail? thanks.

[Walla Walla]

Sure Gekko. Come to Las Vegas. I'll explain it all to you.

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Sure Gekko. Come to Las Vegas. I'll explain it all to you. that's what i thought

[JohnZ]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

Unfortunately GG, the terrorism problem has been in the making for decades. Using Bush as a scapegoat is popular but not accurate. It had to be dealt with eventually, it is an insidious problem and I'm not sure there is any possible good way to deal with it. It will be costly and it will be ongoing. War or no war. Respsonse or no response, the cost and the conseqences will continue throughout our lifetime and beyond.



Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that there are smarter, more tactful and more qualified persons to lead the challenge. Unfortunately, no one with these qualities has been or is likely to be put forth by either of the major political parties as presidential candidates.



Perhaps at some point you'll want to change your moniker, since what you are witnessing are just a few of the major problems that "greed" causes in society. Greed can be "good" in places and at times, but it also leads to destruction. We get a bigger taste of it everyday. [/quote]




We'll said also.



The cost would be a lot less than now had Clinton acted when ships and WTC were attacked during his terms.



I'll repeat. My B-in-law is a Marine Officer. He has told me the troops were on the ship off Pendleton waiting for the final go ahead and Clinton backed off.



That said, I don't put the blame on Clinton. This is decades of bad policy and I am grateful that Bush is standing up and fighting back.



Think 9/11 was bad? It would get worse and worse, as recent history has shown, until someone finally stood up and said enough.



GG, you seem so good at finding links. Why don't you list all the links to news articles that account for the atricoties that Sadaam commited against his own people? That sounds more like someone from Germany to me. Silly me.



Here's one for you:

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=200 ... 4010-1766r

Mass graves testify to Saddam's atrocities



By John Powers

Published 3/12/2004 7:49 PM



WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- Allied forces driving toward Berlin at the end of World War II discovered the **** death camps that contained the corpses and barely living remains of Jews and other enemies of national socialism. When the scale of brutality and murder carefully was laid bare, filmed and documented, a deeply shocked world promised, "Never again!"



But within only a few years the Chinese communists killed millions of "small landlords." In the 1970s, Pol Pot succeeded in killing two-thirds of the Cambodian population. Countless dead filled the countryside of the former Yugoslavia, and in 1994 militant Hutus killed as many as a million Tutsis and Hutu moderates within only three months, supposedly protected by the French government -- which, in fact, withdrew its troops -- and ignored by the United States and the United Nations.



Now another pandemic of mass killings is being documented, recorded and widely ignored. This time the perpetrator is Saddam Hussein, whose Baathist Party was said to be based on that of the Nazis, and accounts of its killing efficiency continue to flow to the Coalition Provisional Authority. The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that since Saddam was ousted, 270 sites of mass graves have been reported. These contain an unknown number of Iraqis, Iranian prisoners of war, Iraqi Kurds and Kuwaiti prisoners among the long list of those Saddam tortured and killed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far.





For those that have posted on this board recently that served for this country:

You have might highest respect. I am eternally grateful to you, and those that served before you and that serve today for the freedoms that we have earned, and continue to try and keep.



Because of men and women like you, I live, work, worship, and conduct business in a society, far from perfect, but one that lets me express all the above in the manner I choose.

[Walla Walla]

Meaning you can say the words but when it comes to facing someone you back down. Your scared to look me in the face and say the things you've said here? Don't worry gekko you may think you're that important but your not. But you have proved your a coward. 100,000 doesn't buy respect.

[JohnZ]

Originally posted by UFS:

The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that since Saddam was ousted, 270 sites of mass graves have been reported. These contain an unknown number of Iraqis, Iranian prisoners of war, Iraqi Kurds and Kuwaiti prisoners among the long list of those Saddam tortured and killed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far. One last thing, according to my b-in-law, the vast, vast majority of troops know exactly that this is why they are there. And they are honored to be fighting for the freedom of the Iraqui people.

[JohnZ]

From the same article that I posted a link to:



Some of Saddam's victims escaped to tell their tales on the day his statue was torn down in Baghdad. The USAID report contains three survivor accounts from mass executions outside Mahawil in the south of Iraq. The survivors all describe being taken into custody without a reason being given. They describe seeing women and children also in custody, all of them haphazardly blindfolded.



Once they were herded into holding areas they could see a pile of tires set on fire and were ordered to run past these. Some of the women, children and elderly men were tripped or fell near the fire and were unceremoniously beaten to death with pipes or thrown into the blazing tires to burn alive. All of the survivors who escaped their would-be executioners had been shot and partially buried, crawling away to their homes under cover of dark and living thereafter in hiding.



The experience can be overwhelming for both families of victims and investigators of these crimes, Samuels says. It is "almost impossible to move on until some of these things are processed," she says, and almost the whole of Iraq is being affected by the ongoing uncovering of Saddam's atrocities.





Do you get it now GG?

[JohnZ]

Originally posted by UFS:

From the same article that I posted a link to:



Some of Saddam's victims escaped to tell their tales on the day his statue was torn down in Baghdad. The USAID report contains three survivor accounts from mass executions outside Mahawil in the south of Iraq. The survivors all describe being taken into custody without a reason being given. They describe seeing women and children also in custody, all of them haphazardly blindfolded.



Once they were herded into holding areas they could see a pile of tires set on fire and were ordered to run past these. Some of the women, children and elderly men were tripped or fell near the fire and were unceremoniously beaten to death with pipes or thrown into the blazing tires to burn alive. All of the survivors who escaped their would-be executioners had been shot and partially buried, crawling away to their homes under cover of dark and living thereafter in hiding.



The experience can be overwhelming for both families of victims and investigators of these crimes, Samuels says. It is "almost impossible to move on until some of these things are processed," she says, and almost the whole of Iraq is being affected by the ongoing uncovering of Saddam's atrocities.





Do you get it now GG? and at the end of the article:

im Prince is president of the Democracy Council, which promotes democratic institutions in the developing world, and has worked in Iraq. He tells of his experiences at the mass graves of Iraq, describing the scenes of chaos and pain as families uncovered the dead. "It was horrible," Prince says. "Right after the uprising in northern Iraq a lot of relatives who heard about the mass graves ... would go (to the sites) and start digging with their hands and become a mess. You'd have bones and clothing everywhere and people screaming." Prince continued, "The first time I went it was very windy and we were getting people's hair in our mouths and eyes. In the open fields, they were just pawing at the earth to try and match up bones and pictures. ... It's not something that leaves you quickly."



Prince also visited the torture chambers with victims, and remembers: "To me it became intensely personal. I was looking at somebody that experienced this." He says it changed his mind about the war in Iraq. Prior to seeing Saddam's legacy of brutality firsthand, he thought a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis had been possible, but after seeing the evidence he had a change of heart. He describes why:



"You come away from these fields and torture chambers -- the senselessness of it -- having seen pure evil and knowing that to do nothing in the face of such evil is to perpetuate it. It's not a question of weapons of mass destruction, it's a question of evil, and if you let it continue, you have to take responsibility for what's happening. You can't just turn a blind eye."

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by UFS:

Do you get it now GG? get what exactly? i realize that iraq (and other countries) could be a brutal place to live.

couple questions for you...

1) do you believe the US should go to war with a country for human rights violations?

2) why did the US go to war with Iraq?

3) in your opinion, are there other countries in the world that are brutal places to live?



[ January 28, 2005, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: Gordon Gekko ]

[KJ Duke]

Originally posted by Gordon Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by UFS:

Do you get it now GG? get what exactly? i realize that iraq (and other countries) could be a brutal place to live.

couple questions for you...

1) do you believe the US should go to war with a country for human rights violations?

2) why did the US go to war with Iraq?

3) in your opinion, are there other countries in the world that are brutal places to live? [/QUOTE]GG, this is a very complex subject with many sides to it. The media and even sometimes the messengers (the Pres or his detractors) need to package things so they are marketable to the mass market. WMD was the marketing line he needed to go to war. It wasn't the only reason, and please don't say "oh, yeah, it was oil too". There were many reasons, for our benefit as a nation, and for our benefit as humanity.



You, of such skepticism when it comes to the media and the sheep that follow them in our recreational forum should certainly understand that this is even more true in the real world. I'm surprised that you've gotten yourself sucked into such simplistic media ideas as the WMD cliche.



The other thing that I find surprising, which I find true of other people that I respect (people that I know well who have good intentions and are highly intelligent), is how incredibly biased they are toward people that were fortunate enough to be born in this country at the expense of all others.



As John (UFS) pointed out so well, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed by Hussein.



You were outraged (I think this was the term you used) over the very first soldier to be killed in Iraq? Is one American soldier or even 1,000 really more important than 400,000 innocent foreign-born men, women and children? I am almost afraid to ask this question because of the response I may get. But let me give my answer. No. We are all lucky to be born here and enjoy the freedoms that we do. But that good furtune does not make us more important in the realm of humanity. It makes us lucky, and perhaps with that comes more responsibility to do things for the greater good that no one else is in position to do.



[ January 28, 2005, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

[Gordon Gekko]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

You, of such skepticism when it comes to the media and the sheep that follow them in our recreational forum should certainly understand that this is even more true in the real world. I'm surprised that you've gotten yourself sucked into such simplistic media ideas as the WMD cliche. i guess some people actually believe what the president says. sorry about that. i didn't know the WMD was a lie. he fooled me



Originally posted by KJ Duke:

You were outraged (I think this was the term you used) over the very first soldier to be killed in Iraq? Is one American soldier or even 1,000 really more important than 400,000 innocent foreign-born men, women and children? I am almost afraid to ask this question because of the response I may get. But let me give my answer. No. We are all lucky to be born here and enjoy the freedoms that we do. But that good furtune does not make us more important in the realm of humanity. It makes us lucky, and perhaps with that comes more responsibility to do things for the greater good that no one else is in position to do. i guess you are in favor of the US being the world policeman?

[KJ Duke]

Originally posted by Gordon Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by KJ Duke:

You, of such skepticism when it comes to the media and the sheep that follow them in our recreational forum should certainly understand that this is even more true in the real world. I'm surprised that you've gotten yourself sucked into such simplistic media ideas as the WMD cliche. i guess some people actually believe what the president says. sorry about that. i didn't know the WMD was a lie. he fooled me



Originally posted by KJ Duke:

You were outraged (I think this was the term you used) over the very first soldier to be killed in Iraq? Is one American soldier or even 1,000 really more important than 400,000 innocent foreign-born men, women and children? I am almost afraid to ask this question because of the response I may get. But let me give my answer. No. We are all lucky to be born here and enjoy the freedoms that we do. But that good furtune does not make us more important in the realm of humanity. It makes us lucky, and perhaps with that comes more responsibility to do things for the greater good that no one else is in position to do. i guess you are in favor of the US being the world policeman? [/QUOTE]1. GG --- Is an educated guess, or belief, that turns out to not be true a lie? If I told you last baseball season that I believed Marcus Giles would be the top 2B in the NL was I lying?

I think its fairly obvious that the administration thought there was some probability there were WMD in Iraq. Did they believe that probability was 95% or 5%? I don't know.



2. There were various reasons given for the war. WMD was the most sensational, most marketable. Consequently, it was the only one that matters in the eye of the media and those that were either against the war or Bush in general.



3. Policeman of the world? In certain circumstance we may have to be because no one else is capable or willing. Does this mean we can police every threat? no.



We can't attack every country, just like we can't put an LAPD on every corner of Compton around the clock even though we may know a crime is likely being committed. But it also doesn't mean that we don't police anything just because we can't police everything.



We elect people to make those decisions, and as much as anyone in that position will be hated by a large number of people for making difficult choices, we put them there, and I do think when it comes to national security (and maybe only national security) they deserve the benefit of the doubt that they are doing what they believe is right.