<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:31 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Not quite. Samantha claimed we would suffer 100,000 casualties in Iraq</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(or 100,000 civilian casualties, or something along those lines), which</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">we are still nowhere near reaching 27 months later. The invasion itself</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">cost 150 civilian lives, and as we were calculating the other day, the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">total civilian lives lost (20k according to the UN) is still markedly</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">less than the number of people who were being killed directly or</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">indirectly by Saddam and his regime prior to the war (~80k-100k per</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">year).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>You are confused. I claimed around 100,000 or more Iraqi dead. And this is hardly the point.</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It is unfortunate that Bush was wrong about the WMD wrt Iraq (or,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">rather, that he has failed to be proven right, which is a different</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">standard, given the evidence of secret Iraqi shipments to Syria in the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">days before the invasion).<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Bush never believed the WMD claim. The real intelligence did not back it up and he was in position to have the real intelligence. The evidence is that he used bogus intel long after he knew it was bogus to whip up enthusiasm for this adventure. In short he defrauded Congress and the people. He was not innocently mistaken. </DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> However, as I said before, if the result is</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a domino effect of democratization and individual liberty in the middle</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">east, I don't care whether Saddam had WMD or not: he knew how to make</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">them, had the expertise and will to do so, and the moment the world</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">chose to end sanctions with him still in power, he'd be back making</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">them en masse, and anyone who thinks differently is naively foolish.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>That is a foolish statement when we barely respect individual liberty at home much less in occupied Iraq. That various nations are attempting to color themselves democratic to escape being next on our "axis of evil" list is hardly the same as real democracy, much less real freedom. Anyone who takes your hypothetical as somehow providing support for your stance would be foolish. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">International law isn't suggestion, it is contract. If parties to a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">contract refuse to enforce its provisions (i.e. the UN enforcing a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">cease fire agreement with Saddam, the UN enforcing its charter against</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the US, etc) then it really carries very little weight, and less weight</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">over time the less it is enforced. Considering the first gulf war is</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the first time the UN (and the only time, really) has functioned as it</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">was designed, it really is a joke and lacking in moral authority.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Our abrogation of treaties we signed gives us more moral authority simply because we have more arms and will use them? </DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV> <BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Of course some brute are kinder than others, and I must say as brutes</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">go America must be in the top 5 percentile.</DIV> <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">A very good point that some people either don't believe or don't want</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">to believe.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>I thought we prided ourselves on standing for and acting on principals beyond might makes right. Dead is dead regardless of whether the US is or is not a kinder, gentler occupying power. I do not consider a lesser degree of flouting human rights including stooping to torture to be any less heinous - especially for America. It would be better not to be on the list of countries that act as brutes at all. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></BODY></HTML>