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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Nadaka]

DWC... you are completely deluded about the role the US armed forces have played in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[SalmonGod]

You are quite clearly speaking on the basis of preconceived notions, based on stereotypes and how you believe things should be working.

Go take a look at some statistics and testimony from real people who have actually been there.  Go watch Collateral Murder and the Winter Soldier testimonies.

[DWC]

You are quite clearly speaking on the basis of preconceived notions, based on stereotypes and how you believe things should be working.

Go take a look at some statistics and testimony from real people who have actually been there.  Go watch Collateral Murder and the Winter Soldier testimonies.

No offense man but these are obviously bullshit political propaganda films. If it's not from some kind of trusted or unbiased source I'm not interested. Some bunk from an unknown person telling a story contradicting just about everybody else is just straight up Kool Aid.

The ACLU link about the Patriot Act is accurate bur misleading.

http://www.factcheck.org/aclu_ad_on_sneak-and-peek_searches_overblown.html

[Nadaka]

You are quite clearly speaking on the basis of preconceived notions, based on stereotypes and how you believe things should be working.

Go take a look at some statistics and testimony from real people who have actually been there.  Go watch Collateral Murder and the Winter Soldier testimonies.

No offense man but these are obviously bullshit political propaganda films. If it's not from some kind of trusted or unbiased source I'm not interested. Some bunk from an unknown person telling a story contradicting just about everybody else is just straight up Kool Aid.

You think the first hand testimony and actual video evidence for which a man is now being tortured to death in Guantanamo is drinking the Kool Aid? I am pretty sure you are the one drowning in the Kool aid when you claim "Both are civil wars with the foreigners in the middle, it's not some one-sided occupation."

[DWC]

You are quite clearly speaking on the basis of preconceived notions, based on stereotypes and how you believe things should be working.

Go take a look at some statistics and testimony from real people who have actually been there.  Go watch Collateral Murder and the Winter Soldier testimonies.

No offense man but these are obviously bullshit political propaganda films. If it's not from some kind of trusted or unbiased source I'm not interested. Some bunk from an unknown person telling a story contradicting just about everybody else is just straight up Kool Aid.

You think the first hand testimony and actual video evidence for which a man is now being tortured to death in Guantanamo is drinking the Kool Aid? I am pretty sure you are the one drowning in the Kool aid when you claim "Both are civil wars with the foreigners in the middle, it's not some one-sided occupation."

Bro, they are civil wars. They were fighting in Afghanistan before the US showed up and the Iraqis immediately kicked a civil war the moment Saddam's government was toppled and are still fighting today and they'll be fighting in Afghanistan when foreigners leave as well.

Also, first hand testimony from who? A guy giving some sob story? How do you know it's true?

[SalmonGod]

Try first hand testimony from the military's own documentation.  There's plenty of it available that contradicts your view of the war, thanks to Wikileaks.  If that's not unbiased to you, then I'm convinced the only source you'll consider unbiased is that which tells you what you want to hear.

[Scoops Novel]

I'm not a proponent of the "good guys" idea, and wikileaks from what i know does hold up, but nevertheless you'd need to give me the indicators of validity, if it's not already present.

[Nadaka]

I'm not a proponent of the "good guys" idea, and wikileaks from what i know does hold up, but nevertheless you'd need to give me the indicators of validity, if it's not already present.

How about that Bradley Manning is being tortured and threatened with death as we speak for daring to release it? Collateral murder is plain audio-visual evidence of a warcrime and because there were no convictions, the coverup that followed. What more could you possibly need?

[Scoops Novel]

Was Bradley Manning the same guy who released an vast amount of information? I'm more concerned about the filtering then the source, if true. Bear in mind i haven't researched these yet.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So to give this thread some actual news, the Boy Scouts of America have voted to allow gay members, at 61% approval. Comes into effect January 1st, 2014, gay leaders still banned, atheists still totally banned.

[SalmonGod]

How about the fact that the military denied for several years the keeping of any casualty records.  When Manning finally exposed that lie, it turned out that out of all casualties resulting from violent engagements, over 60% were civilians.  For every enemy combatant killed, three times as many civilians were also killed.   That's also according to the military's own incredibly loose definitions of enemy combatant, and the legal definitions I'm referring to can be looked up as well.  This is by their own records.

Current research puts the actual number at more like 80%.

[DWC]

How about the fact that the military denied for several years the keeping of any casualty records.  When Manning finally exposed that lie, it turned out that out of all casualties resulting from violent engagements, over 60% were civilians.  For every enemy combatant killed, three times as many civilians were also killed.   That's also according to the military's own incredibly loose definitions of enemy combatant, and the legal definitions I'm referring to can be looked up as well.  This is by their own records.

Current research puts the actual number at more like 80%.

That link is listing statistics of fatalities, they are not statistics of people killed by the military. It's a civil war, remember?

You seem to be implying that the multinational forces were responsible for all the deaths.

[SalmonGod]

They're responsible for a very large chunk of them, and many of them inexcusable war crimes.  Looking into it now (sporadically, since I'm at work, which is why this post is taking a while) the first two years of the war in Iraq were the deadliest for civilians, and coalition troops were directly responsible for the largest portion.

The IBC project released a report detailing the deaths it recorded between March 2003 and March 2005[88] in which it recorded 24,865 civilian deaths. The report says the U.S. and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) of the 24,865 deaths.

The second largest portion (36%) was crime, which is presumably a result of de-stabilization caused by the war.

Civilian deaths as a direct result of coalition violence fell off after that, but still remains a very large chunk.  According to one of the more recent long-term analysis by the IBC project.

14,925 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition.

And when compared to the body count of those officially classified as enemies, 24,000 who also weren't all killed by coalition forces, that's still a pretty miserable number.

Keep in mind that the IBC project's methodology is complete reliance on data compiled from western media reports and the military's own leaked records, which has been heavily criticized as providing the lowest possible estimates.  Testimonies from soldiers especially indicate that there was a lot of killing of civilians that was undocumented or framed as insurgent violence (such as the regular use of "drop weapons").

But more importantly that even if U.S. forces didn't directly carry out all of the killing of civilians, that doesn't change how what they did do reflects on them, or the fact that all of it was the result of their unprovoked initiation of war.  At this point, I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish.  If you're trying to say that the U.S. hasn't been responsible for a long list of egregious war crimes, or if it's ok just because not everything bad can be pinned on them.

[DWC]

But more importantly that even if U.S. forces didn't directly carry out all of the killing of civilians, that doesn't change how what they did do reflects on them, or the fact that all of it was the result of their unprovoked initiation of war.  At this point, I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish.  If you're trying to say that the U.S. hasn't been responsible for a long list of egregious war crimes, or if it's ok just because not everything bad can be pinned on them.

Well I had written out a lengthy and thoughtful response and then closed tabs in incognito mode so I'm gonna kinda be brief.

No doubt the US is indirectly responsible for these deaths by invading in the first place and I'm not going to defend the invasion, it was basically the dumbest possible thing they could have done, ever. That said, once they had invaded they seriously destablized the country and were pretty much obligated to stay and attempt to fix what they broke. Iraq would have spiraled into a blood bath even worst then it has been already if they had crashed in, toppled the government and all these statues and then went "oops, no dubbya-em-dees here, our bad" and left the country without rule of law. I don't think that would have been the better option given the situation that developed.

Yes, all the statistics are inaccurate. In Iraq there were times where whole cities were basically under the control of militas or jihadists and there was no governments or NGOs or media agencies counting bodies. Nor were the militants keeping good records of all the people they beheaded and stuffed into drainage pipes.

 I'm sure coalition forces killed plenty of civilians and some of these instances could be warcrimes, especially during the first couple years as you say, when things were extremely chaotic. The point of contention I have is you seem to be painting a broad brush here and accusing the US military of having bad intentions and soldiers committing warcrimes everywhere just because and overlooking the fact that the militants they were struggling to remove were doing much worse things on a much greater scale.

[SalmonGod]

I'm sure coalition forces killed plenty of civilians and some of these instances could be warcrimes, especially during the first couple years as you say, when things were extremely chaotic. The point of contention I have is you seem to be painting a broad brush here and accusing the US military of having bad intentions and soldiers committing warcrimes everywhere just because and overlooking the fact that the militants they were struggling to remove were doing much worse things on a much greater scale.

Intentions are highly debatable.  Things that are clear to me:  Many of the politicians responsible for how things played out had very immoral intentions (personal relationships with oil/defense companies that profited).  Military commanders have pushed policies and protocol directly responsible for horrible tragedies.  And many soldiers are themselves perfectly well-meaning, while others are complete psychopaths.

The original point of the discussion was just how much the U.S. is or isn't responsible for the terrorism they're fighting today, and whether or not the U.S. can actually claim any moral high ground, in either method or motivation, as compared to the terrorists it's fighting.