Milestone Approach Alert!

[BBond]

For those who complain about milestones, here's an early warning.

2397

How would you like to be one of those on your third or fourth tour?


2,400

 

[jrenz]

Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

 

[dahunan]

^^ really? Hmm.. I wonder what choice they have?

 

[Theb]

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

Are you in the military?

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

Are you in the military?

Whether or not someone is in the military, I doubt very much that you or anyone else can speak for every soldier and their desire to be or not to be in Iraq at this particular point in time, and thanks to the outright lies of george w. bush.

 

[Theb]

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

Are you in the military?

No. Does that effect the equation?

 

[Tab]

If it hits 3,000 it'll hit the headlines...

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Tab
When it hits 3,000 it'll hit the headlines...

I hope you don't mind, I fixed that for you.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: BBond

Originally posted by: Tab
When it hits 3,000 it'll hit the headlines...

I hope you don't mind, I fixed that for you.

I am just a bit more optomistic, and I don't let my bias get in the way...

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Tab

Originally posted by: BBond

Originally posted by: Tab
When it hits 3,000 it'll hit the headlines...

I hope you don't mind, I fixed that for you.

I am just a bit more optomistic, and I don't let my bias get in the way...

I'm optimistic on most points. However, I know that the mess george w. bush created in Iraq, along with the myriad mistakes his administration made and continues to make, will keep our troops there for years. And there is no way the killing will stop as long as we're there.

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: BBond

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

Are you in the military?

Whether or not someone is in the military, I doubt very much that you or anyone else can speak for every soldier and their desire to be or not to be in Iraq at this particular point in time, and thanks to the outright lies of george w. bush.

That's why qualified my statement with "Most, if not all". And that is the truth. Soldiers don't care about the politics of why we are there. They care about other soldiers.

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: Theb

Originally posted by: jrenz
Most, if not all of the people on their third or forth tour are there because they want to be.

Supposition + 0 = 0

Are you in the military?

No. Does that effect the equation?

Don't make pointless statements if you have no knowledge of something.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: jrenz
That's why qualified my statement with "Most, if not all". And that is the truth. Soldiers don't care about the politics of why we are there. They care about other soldiers.

I wonder if they care about their lives or if they are ever going home to raise their kids?

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: jrenz
That's why qualified my statement with "Most, if not all". And that is the truth. Soldiers don't care about the politics of why we are there. They care about other soldiers.

I wonder if they care about their lives or if they are ever going home to raise their kids?

No, they only care about other soldiers. I know because Jrenz told me so.

 

[BBond]

Another side of the casualties of bush's lies...

Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 28 April 2006

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has refused to provide any specific overall figure for the war's cost. But the Senate is set to approve another emergency spending bill in May, meaning that Iraq will have consumed $101bn in fiscal 2006 alone, almost double the $51bn of 2003, the year of the invasion itself - and all at a time when the federal budget deficit is running at near record levels.

But these figures pale beside what lies in store, the CRS says in its analysis. The Bush administration is desperate to announce a reduction in the 130,000-strong US force before November's mid-term elections, where public disillusion with the war threatens disaster for the Republicans.

However, even if everything goes relatively smoothly, costs until a phase-out is complete could top $370bn. This would make the Iraq conflict, now into its fourth year, more expensive financially than the Vietnam War, which lasted eight years. Vietnam claimed 58,000 American lives, far more than the almost 2,400 lost in Iraq thus far. But in today's dollars it cost "only" $549bn, much less than the $690bn for Iraq, and a projected combined $811bn bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a far cry from the weeks before the war, when a White House official was rapped on the knuckles for suggesting the cost might be between $100bn and $200bn, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, was touting "a number that's somewhere under $50bn".

Paul Wolfowitz, now president of the World Bank but then Mr Rumsfeld's deputy at the Pentagon, even theorised before Congress that the post-invasion period might pay for itself as Iraq's oil revenues soared.

The financial analysis by the Congressional Research Service lists various "key war cost questions" and "major unknowns", such as future troop levels, but its financial conclusions are restrained compared with other non-official figures.

Scott Wallsten of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, has estimated an overall cost of $500bn thus far, with as much again possible. Most, he says, will be paid for by the US (unlike the 1990-91 Gulf War, which the US fought almost for free, thanks to contributions from Saudi Arabia, Japan and other allies).

In January, a study by Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University economist and former Nobel Prize winner, and the Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes reckoned the conflict could ultimately cost $2 trillion, if all factors are taken into account. These include the long-term healthcare costs for the 16,000 US soldiers already wounded in the conflict, and other indirect or hidden costs such as the rise in the price of oil, the need to finance larger budget deficits, higher recruiting costs and losses to the economy caused by the wounded.

The Pentagon has treated such outside estimates with disdain. But it resolutely refused to give a detailed picture of its own. Some experts suggest, however, that the Pentagon may have deliberately inflated its financial needs now, fearing that as the war becomes ever more unpopular, Congress will grow less willing to provide funds in the future.

When are the American people going to demand accountability for the greatest crime ever committed by an American president?

 

[BBond]

2,400 American soldiers killed, and all for a lie.

All thanks to george "bring 'em on" bush.

Not to mention the tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, the hundreds of thousands injured, the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, America's reputation destroyed, our enemies strengthened, Osama bin Laden still free to plot his next terrorist attack, while george w. bush and his family, through the Carlyle Group, along with Halliburton's dick "I had other priorities" cheney, make a fortune from war profiteering off of those lies.

I'll keep you posted when we reach the next milestone.

 

[Harvey]

2,400 American soldiers killed, and all for a lie.

All thanks to george "bring 'em on" bush.

Correction. It wasn't a lie. It was lie after lie after lie. When one lie was shot down, they just made up another one. Take your choice. I'm sure they'll have more, and they're all as bogus as Bush, himself. :|

 

[Stunt]

It's as if you are celebrating these "milestones"

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Stunt
It's as if you are celebrating these "milestones"

In the sense of honoring those who gave their lives, mourning is a celebration of their lives, but not a happy one. By definition, war brings sacrafice, and sometimes it's both right an necessary. When it's based on lies, it's tragic and wrong.

And those who commit a nation to a war of lies are worst of criminals. :|

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Stunt
It's as if you are celebrating these "milestones"

It's as if the rest of you are ignoring these milestones.

The soldiers who are coming home in coffins, left in warehouses, handled like common cargo, can't ignore these milestones. Their families can't ignore these milestones. Only people like you and the filthy war profiteering liars like bush and cheney can ignore these milestones as they count their profits.

 

[BBond]

Thankfully, there are people who refuse to ignore the consequences of bush's lies.

A few hundred thousand of them marched in New York City today.

Thousands of anti-war protesters march in NYC

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month?s death toll reached 70.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

?End this war, bring the troops home,? read one sign lifted by marchers on the sunny afternoon, three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

One group marched under the banner ?Veterans for Peace.?

The demonstrators stretched for about 10 blocks as they headed down Broadway. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate. There were no reports of arrests.

?We are here today because the war is illegal, immoral and unethical,? said the Rev. Al Sharpton. ?We must bring the troops home.?

Organizers said the march was also meant to oppose any military action against Iran, which is facing international criticism over its nuclear program. The event was organized by the group United for Peace and Justice.

?We?ve been lied to, and they?re going to lie to us again to bring us a war in Iran,? said Marjori Ramos, 43, of New York. ?I?m here because I had a lot of anger, and I had to do something.?

Steve Rand, an English teacher from Waterbury, Vt., held a poster announcing, ?Vermont Says No to War.?

?I?d like to see our troops come home,? he said.

The march stepped off shortly after noon from Union Square, with the demonstrators heading for a rally between a U.S. courthouse and a federal office building in lower Manhattan.

The death toll in Iraq for April was the highest for a single month in 2006. At least 2,399 U.S. military members have died since the war began. An Army soldier was the latest victim, killed Saturday in a roadside explosion in Baghdad.

That figure is well below some of the bloodiest months of the Iraq conflict, but is a sharp increase over March, when 31 were killed. January?s death toll was 62 and February?s 55. In December, 68 Americans died.

 

[maluckey]

Once again BBond dances with glee over U.S. deaths.

I am one of those soldiers going back (Voluntarily). If many with BBonds bad attitude had a half a scrotum, they would join us and show that they can put yjeir money where their mouth is. The more soldiers supporting the effort, the less work we all have, and the better chance of not having extra tours of duty. If you really care, then help us or shut up.

In the Cav we have a saying...Lead, Follow or get the hell out of the way!!

It means if you will do nothing, then you are worthless. Complaining on a techno-geek forum about soldiering and war is doing nothing.

 

[Aisengard]

Originally posted by: maluckey
Once again BBond dances with glee over U.S. deaths.

I am one of those soldiers going back (Voluntarily). If many with BBonds bad attitude had a half a scrotum, they would join us and show that they can put yjeir money where their mouth is. The more soldiers supporting the effort, the less work we all have, and the better chance of not having extra tours of duty. If you really care, then help us or shut up.

In the Cav we have a saying...Lead, Follow or get the hell out of the way!!

It means if you will do nothing, then you are worthless. Complaining on a techno-geek forum about soldiering and war is doing nothing.

While it's very honorable that you are a soldier, and are going BACK into Iraq, what is not honorable is your high horse. Get off of it. And realize that there are multiple ways of ending this war, one of which includes what you are doing. But another one involves getting you and people like you back home. Demonstrations like this help by sending a message to the politicians that Americans are tired of having their loved ones killed.

'Complaining' on a 'techno-geek' forum is one thing. Complaining on the same techno-geek forum about the 'complaining' people are doing is also doing nothing.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: maluckey
Once again BBond dances with glee over U.S. deaths.

I am one of those soldiers going back (Voluntarily). If many with BBonds bad attitude had a half a scrotum, they would join us and show that they can put yjeir money where their mouth is. The more soldiers supporting the effort, the less work we all have, and the better chance of not having extra tours of duty. If you really care, then help us or shut up.

In the Cav we have a saying...Lead, Follow or get the hell out of the way!!

It means if you will do nothing, then you are worthless. Complaining on a techno-geek forum about soldiering and war is doing nothing.

The only people dancing with glee over U.S. deaths are al Qaeda (remind me again why they' are still in operation) and the bush/cheney war profiteering machine.

I post these milestones for the same reason Iraq Coalition Casualty Count posts them. So Americans, who seem to have forgotten we're still in Iraq THREE YEARS after that imbecile bush declared major military operations are over, are reminded that we are indeed still there.

PS In case you hadn't noticed, you're on a techno-geek forum too.


PPS I'm retired. If you're sufficiently brainwashed to carry out orders based on bush's lies then by all means, head on back over to Iraq. Just remember, as long as the illegal U.S. occupation continues nothing is going to change. Nothing but the casualty figures, that is.