yes considering the estimate for Iraqi civilian deaths is substantially lower than that in every estimation except the Lancet studies because that included more than direct cause deaths and contain a multitude of factors that could not possibly have been accounted for accurately. But to be fair I also left out the deaths from the Iran/Iraq war which most people added to the above statistics.

The Anfal trial begins on 21 August. Saddam refuses to enter a plea to the charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court again enters a plea of not guilty on his behalf.

The prosecution alleges that about 182,000 people were killed during the Anfal campaign and that chemical weapons were used in an operation that amounted to an attempt to "wipe out the Kurdish civilian population."

Among the evidence the prosecution presents are memos from Saddam's office, some reported to bear the former dictator's signature, that approve chemical attacks against Kurdish villages.

The defence challenges the legitimacy of the court and claims that the alleged crimes were lawful actions against Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian troops during a time of war.

On 11 September Saddam tells the court that the Iraqi people "should not suffer from guilt that they killed Kurds."

According to Saddam, his government did not discriminate against Kurds and only the insurgents among them were persecuted. "In any country in the world where there is rebellion the authorities ask the army to defeat it," Saddam tells the court.

However, Saddam will not live to see the end of the Anfal trial.

On 5 November he is found guilty of murder in the Dujayl case and sentenced to be "hanged until he is dead for crimes against humanity." The sentence is upheld by an appeals court on 26 December. Under Iraqi law the sentence must be carried out within 30 days of the appeal court's ruling."

I feel like this has been a giant derail from the intention of this thread.
So I'll repeat want I said earlier and be done.

There is no doubt in my mind that he was a mass murderer however i stand by my assertion that it is deeply controversial to state that he was conclusively responsible for a number of civillian deaths which far exceeds the number of civillian deaths which resulted from the invasion.

Whatever their motivations are, our soldiers put their lives on the line to protect us on some level.

Respect them and shake their hands when you meet them. Even pick up their bar tab once in a while. They'll appreciate it and make our world just a little safer... and make it little easier for us to recruit more soldiers in the future.

Protect us from...?

Does it matter?

Hey, I'm a troop!

I'm barely two weeks into a long deployment. I can't give many details because what I'm doing is for-realsies classified, but I can say that I'm contributing to the war in Afghanistan.

I don't support that war. But it's my job to fight the war, so I do. I don't absolve myself of the fact that my actions help to perpetrate this war. On this deployment, every day I encounter specific indications of people being killed in Afghanistan (again, sorry for being so vague). And I help make it all happen, and that eats at me constantly. The ethical contortions I have to do to reconcile my antiwar beliefs with my military duties are pretty intense, and I spend a lot of time on it. I've made my peace with it, mostly, but I can't help feeling like I'm just a hypocrite.

The tag "mercenary" is pretty much fair for most of us. It's got negative connotations, but it's definitely the case that most of us are here because the pay's decent, the work's steady, etc.

It always feels weird when people thank me for "my service." It feels nice, but I always feel like I'm just doing my job, same as the engineer or consultant or plumber or whoever is thanking me. I mean it's nice to have people automatically think you're the tits, but it has never made sense to me. No one tells coal miners that, and they have a more dangerous job than I do. :shrug:

Short answer: You should feel however the **** you want about us. There's 2,000,000+ troops, and we're all different and doing this **** for different reasons.

Thanks you for your service to this thread Mayo. I enjoyed reading your perspective.

I do not think people should blindly "support the troops", as in buy whatever the Commander-in-Chief we have at the current time. But I respect the hell out of troops for doing what they do.

I kind of find it disheartening that some people feel the need to call them pawns. And act like people did after troops returned home from Vietnam.

If I'm morally and financially obligated to support a cause, I'd like to know what the benefits are.

For starters, we don't start our day with "Heil Fuhrer"

I don't think today's troops contributed to the fall of Hitler.

We don't start our day out yelling Allahu Ackbar

Most Arabs have no intention of setting foot in the U.S., let alone sending planes into buildings.

y delete post Mayo?