Compare and Contrast: Part II

You can read part I by clicking the link or scrolling down ....

Now that we've established that "Winds of Change" wants to denigrate and ignore all US combat deaths in Iraq as unimportant and inconsequential, let's find out how the "conservative" readers of sda responded to this position:

"dmorris" warms to the topic:

"'Grim milestone' is right up there with my favorite, the 'senseless killing'.There is one of these reported at least every week, so when do we get to hear about the killing s that make sense?Maybe when our justice system completely fails, and lynch mobs become fashionable?"

Posted by: dmorris"

This is pretty unremarkable "me-too!" stuff. "dmorris" reveals that he obviously thinks that the whole idea of solemnly marking progressive numbers of dead US soldiers is a waste of emotions. I'll ignore his blathering about the phrase "senseless killing"

"Me No Dhimmi" adds that he can't comprehend the meaning of the phrase "untimely death":


"I always get a kick out of the phrase 'his untimely death'. Keep trying to imagine a news story which would contain 'timely death'."

Posted by: Me No Dhimmi"

Let me try to explain it to you "Me No Dhimmi: When someone with a life expectancy of 70 years dies at the age of 18, it's called "untimely." When a person dies at 35 or 45, with young children now missing a parent, it's called "untimely." "Me No Dhimmi," this is a discussion about combat deaths. You're claiming you find terms like "grim milestone" and "untimely death" to be a waste of time in a discussion about combat deaths?

A "Mark Collins" chimes in to provide us with "perspective":

"913 Canadians died at Dieppe in 1942. http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/dieppe/dieppe2/d_casualties Canada then had an estimated population of 11,654,000. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/98-187-XIE/pop.htm Put another way, roughly: Over almost four years the US has in total suffered in Iraq one fatality per 100,000 population. In around one day in 1942 Canada suffered one fatality per 10,000 population.Ten times the fatality rate for a country in one day as opposed to four years. Not to diminish any death but to supply some perspective. The war in Iraq may have in the end been carried out ineffectually, but by any reasonable standard it has not been very costly in human lives for the US. And it is the Iraqis who seem determined to cause intentionally great civilian loss of life to each other. MarkOttawa

Posted by: Mark Collins"

"Not to diminish any death" he says! Well, actually Mr. Collins, that's exactly what you're doing. From the comfort of your computer you are dismissing the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq because the numbers aren't as appalling as were combat deaths in World War II. You continue: "but by any reasonable standard it has not been very costly in human lives for the US." Mr. Collins, you should try that argument out on the families of the dead.

If I could add a little "perspective," let me say that when we once again remember that since all of the justifications for this war were fraudulent, and that the occupation of Iraq has been a miserable, bloody failure on its own account, these soldiers have died for nothing. NOTHING. How many soldiers will die before you decide that maybe it's just a teensy bit too costly for your liking?

Next we hear from BillyHW:

"If they had the same childish journalists that we do, then the WWII generation would have lost the war.

Posted by: BillyHW"

Yet another right-wing "support the troops" type who is essentially saying: "Yawn! Wake me when we get to 10,000 deaths!"

A little more "perspective" if I may, "BillyHW"; Germany under Hitler was poised for the conquest of all of Eastern Europe. A Germany under Naziism, possessed of all of the resources (including petroleum, coal, iron ore, etc., ) of Rumania, the USSR, would have been a truly frightening prospect. At the very least, Germany attacked Poland when it had been given an ultimatum not to.

What were the causes for our invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq? Oh my goodness gracious, Afghanistan had been harbouring Osama bin Laden (a fact which had been known by the US for years, and which had brought no condemnation from the US in spite of the fact that bin Laden had already been linked to bombings of US property in Africa and elsewhere) who is suspected of involvement with (and who has made claims to having been involved in) the 9-11 attacks. And oh my stars and garters, Afghanistan had offered to turn bin Laden over to a neutral third country should the US present evidence of bin Laden's actual involvement in 9-11.

Instead of providing this evidence, the US and NATO attacked Afghanistan, killing thousands directly through bombings, and condemning tens of thousands more to death from cold and starvation.

Now, we are staying in Afghanistan because the Taliban government had treated the women of Afghanistan abominably. We are helping to rebuild and develop the country. This would all be very touching were it not for the fact that the norther warlords who are helping to prop-up the Karzai government are themselves vicious misogynists, rapists and murderers. Whereas the Taliban condemned women to a living hell as a result of their fanatical puritanism, the present warlord government condemns women to a living hell as a result of their murderous, frenzied, dehumanizing cruelty.

As for our rebuilding and developing the country, that's a sad joke. See here, here, and here.

I've already been pointing out the "problematic" nature of the bush II cause for invading Iraq, and that the occupation itself has been a bloody failure by any reckoning.

While it might not yet be registering with the troop-lovin' folks quoted above (since not enough US or Canadian soldiers have died yet to make it interesting for them) one reason the peace movement and the mainstream media point to the casualties is because there's good cause to believe that these soldiers are dying for nothing. Even if the casualties are small by WORLD WAR TWO standards for god's sake, their still too large to be dying for such reasons!

Finally, one "Jema54" provides some comic-relief by providing some "perspective" of his/her own:

"The msm are afraid of what will happen when these soldiers come home and refuse to be shoved around by the PC. Imagine telling a WWII vet that he/she could not light a cigarette in the legion!

Posted by: Jema54"

Yeah, well whatever. For "Jema54" and the rest of the knuckle-draggers at SDA, if the troops continue to die in such tiny (relative to WWII) numbers, that's no big deal. But if the survivors can't smoke at the legion hall, that's something to get indignant about.

Now then, ... HERE's the "Compare and Contrast" part of my essay. A mere couple of days after this right-wing discussion about how sacrifices for stupid causes are insignificant until they reach World War II levels, ... about how the numbers of deaths of US soldiers in Iraq and Canadians in Afghanistan are really no big deal, KKKate has the unmitigated gall to jump up on her "Support the Troops" soap-box ....

You Support The Troops - Support the mission. You cannot have it both ways. To withhold support for their mission is to advocate their - and our - defeat.

Okay. Let this sink in for a minute. They just got finished saying that the casualities of US troops in Iraq and US and Canadian troops in Afghanistan are piddly, no big deal. Okay? They've told us not to get excited about the "small" number of our dead troops. And then they tell us that Canadians and Americans who don't support the assignment that these troops have been sent on are the ones who don't support the troops!!!

The inspiration for this totalitarian mindwarp was a story about Democratic supporters responding to a FOXNews poll about whether or not they want bush II's "surge" to succeed. But a connection is made between US anti-war sentiment and Canadian anti-war sentiment, with KKKate saying:

"I shudder to think what the percentage would be if such a poll were taken here."

Happily enough, even for the average SDA fans, KKKate's imbecilic conflation of dissent with hatred of Canadian and American servicement, was too much. If you link to the comments section, the majority of voices (including war supporters) continue to believe that it's possible to question the wisdom of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan without wishing grim death on "the troops." (Remember though, that for KKKate and the shit-heads quoted above, any grim deaths among our troops won't be any big deal unless they start getting slaughtered in the hundreds every day.)

I'll share with you though, some of the real gems from out of this stew:

"'I support the troops, but not the mission' is the cowards way out. Some flower children are so bloody frightened at the mere thought of confrontation or violence, they automatically reject anything military, because those nasty soldiers might actually have to do something. Soldiers represent everything bad in the world. Their (lack of) knowledge of history helps their position. Likewise, when confronted on home turf by aggressive activists of any cause or religion, they are quick to capitulate, though they call it 'negotiation'. Some bloggers call these folks 'sheeple'. I don't, but won't argue the point.

Posted by: dmorris"

"dmorris" is our friend who could not understand the term "senseless killing." (Ask him whether the hanging of Saddam Hussein was a "senseless killing" and he might clue-in to how helpful "adjectives" are for conveying specific concepts.) Here we see that "dmorris" is a tough guy. Unlike the bloody frightened flower children, "dmorris" knows that propping-up corrupt puppet-governments isn't pretty. And sometimes, our soldiers have to die in the service of these cynical foreign policies. But he's down with that. He's cool.

"I'll tell you what Canadian's should support...we should be supporting a victory for our troop's mission in Afghanistan. We need to remind the timorous anong us that Canada wnt into the Afghan theater after the US had laegely cleared insugent forces back to the Pakistani border. Canada was essentially peace keeping and facilitaing the new duely elected democratic government in its job of rebuilding public institutions and regaining order and working infrastructires. Canada's peace keeping forces were attacked by insurgents who hole up in Pakistan and run every new offensive from that stronghold. This Taliban insugency has no legitimate claim of being "freedom fighters" as the people's choice of governing regime therefore it is a foreign regime forcing its governnace on Afghanis with geurrila warfare and terroism. Our troops are all that stand between unarmed Afghanis and this terror force. Our troops have done a masterful job in controlling and repelling these insurgent attacks and baiting and capturing terror cells but there are political road blocks that preclude a fully successful mission in the Afghan theater.1) The opium trade/poppy crop are being protected by the CIA ( who are in field command of the Afghan theater) Canadian command has repeatedly stated the poppy harvest and production of opium nust be destroyed because they continue to extend the war with the Taliban using heroin poppy crops to fund its war against the elected Afghan government. Canada's field commander has repeatedly asked for political help in iradicating the poppy crop to end the war sooner.2) Pakistan is not politically motivated to actively root out and destroy Taliban military camps in the Pakistani mountains where Taliban forces retreat after each loss to Canadian forces to regroup, rearm, recruit, retrain and relaunch insugency. Canadian Command has also stated that unless these strongholds can be attacked the war will continue.We need to pressure the government to resolve these roadblocks to Canadian mission success in Afghanistan. Every RCR member I have talked to who has done service in Afghanistan has stated they have won the war there...3 separate times.Support a victory if you want to honor our troops.If you do not support a victory you do not have any empathy with our troops as this is why they are there and why they fight.IF our politicians cannot clear the political road blocks for this victory, then they dishonor our troops and prolong the conflict with their inaction.

Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux"

"WL Mackenzie Redux" is, as we can see, a complete imbecile. Here's a BBC article about the necessity (as well as the costs) of the poppy crop for Afghan farmers. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs has recently heard almost unanimous evidence recommending the end of our poppy eradication efforts, at least until such a time as we have a program in place that actually gives Afghan farmers alternatives to starvation.

"I think the bottom line for people who don't support the mission in Afghanistan (schooling for girls, for instance)is that despite all their flowery rhetoric about human rights, peace and understanding, they couldn't care less what happens to the Afghan people if we pull out.

Posted by: tower"

Well, "tower," it must be nice. Let's keep talking past each other.

I'm getting bored with this. As any of my readers must be by now. I don't intend to use this blog as an exercise in negativity. And I certainly don't want to spend my time keeping a constant eye on the idiotic commentary of the right-wing warmongering hypocrites.

But I've been moved to blog this here because of the mind-numbing hypocrisy of downplaying the deaths of US and Canadian troops while simultaneously accusing anyone of questioning Canadian foreign policy of not respecting those same troops.

I think this reveals both the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this submerged 30% of the population that calls itself "conservative." It is possible to raise the abilities of these idiots though. For a number of reasons, the Canadian right-wing is forced to use greater sophistication in rationalizing its policy plans, it is prevented from celebrating its true baseness and depravity in the way that the American right (lgf, "free republic," Sean Hannity, etc.,) is able to. If the environment is improved, the submerged 30% is forced to reach higher in its attempts to join the debate.

Greeting the asshat arguments of these fools with the proper degree of venom and contempt, and causing them to feel shame and embarrassment when exposed, is a necessary corrective, a necessary goad, to help them achieve all that they possibly can.

I can't be bothered to proofread this. You've all been very, very, patient.