You quite clearly did not see this discussion: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1266977&postcount=149 How much of a weirdo must I look like now. Never mind; blame it on all that heroin I have been getting from Afghanistan recently.
Yeah, that was all in the past. Silly me; I thought the Muslims were supplying all the heroin to the world. Then, I became enlightened to the situation... The Taliban in Afghanistan was destroying the heroin crop. Heroin output was actually falling. Then the US then "liberated" Afghanistan. Go figure.
I actually see a shift from illegal drugs to addidictive prescribition drugs...that would probably be a lot better for some people.
Very well said. And now Iraq is the most violent country in the world but, only after the invasion by Western forces.
muslims? If we didn't have muslim on muslim crime, terrorists killing Iraqis, there wouldn't be a problem, right? For whatever reason (I think we all know why), a poor terrorist in Iraq can't get no credit these days.
How many people were killed in suicide bombings each year before we invaded Iraq? Zero? 5/year? How many PER DAY since we invaded? 50? 100? I'm getting a little worried about you gtech, are you sure you're ok?
tens of thousands. some overall estimates of close to a million. depends on if you are giving your bud's credit to the US or not.
Yeah, they were just starving. Only nearly 2 million (mostly children). But bombs are worse, aren't they?
That's a good question...I'm not quite sure. I've heard they aren't as much, because the sanctions no-longer exist, and there some economic growth...but it's really hard to access . I would assume it's not as much. I'll look into it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update: The UN says manultrition has doubled since the war happened. Although they have no raw data on how many people are dying from starvation (atleast that I can notice). I'd remember the source, as they highly wanted to continue the Oil-for-Food program...and they wouldn't want to embarass themselves with actual numbers if it was otherwise. Muchless they couldn't even get Saddam to allocate food properly, nor stop him from skimming oil revenues. So it's a wee-bit hard to trust the UN perspective...there's dirt everywhere on them and they haven't done anything to make-up for it. The General Accounting Office (search), the U.S. Congress' investigative arm, estimated in March that the Iraqi government pocketed $5.7 billion by smuggling oil to its neighbors and $4.4 billion by extracting kickbacks on otherwise legitimate contracts. I'll still look more into it....
Rick, I thought saddam got around sanctions with the oil vouchers. That sanctions were never effective because he got around them, yet still intentionally held back on taking care of the people of Iraq while squandering money on palaces for himself, his sons and paying off family and friends. Is that what you've heard as well?
I updated my post... So yeah, Saddam did get around the sanctions (in ways), and he did intentionally hold back on taking care of his people. Although the sanction did hurt the people. The only people that were benefactors of this, were those whom led the Oil for food programs. The UN won't release where the money was put, but it's widely thought that France had the bulk of it. No one really knows what Saddam did with all the money he got...palaces, sure...even giving 25k to 'matyrs' families in Palestine for have their children blow-up...but it's still a bit of a mystery what he did with all those billions. Like I've always suggested, he did put some of that money in heavily friendly Al-Queda banks...and the thought of that actually leaves me with some descent feeling of the Iraq war.
I've heard the same thing about France which suggests why they were so adamantly opposed to the war. They had the most to lose with the oil-for-food program. I used to have a link that showed France stood the most to lose and compared other countries. I believe Germany was second.