[LINK] OT: bin Laden is dead

[kim holburn]

OMG you are in high dudgeon mode.  There's a lot of differences in
people counting the people killed in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Pakistan.  Lots of name calling, lots of obfuscation.

I'm quite happy to be wrong.  I'm not an expert in US wars nor do I
want to be.  Just point it out.  You can leave out the tantie.

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Frank O'Connor
<francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com> wrote:
> At 1:13 PM +1000 on 10/5/11 you wrote:
>>
>>
>>  > 'where's the evidence' if you want to dispute my figures ... you made
>> the
>>>
>>>  initial claim, you prove that the US killed 35,000 Pakistanis by missile
>>>  attacks. (I doubt the US has the number of anti-personnel missiles in
>>> its
>>
>>  > magazines to do that.)
>>
>>
>> http://en.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#Pakistan_drone_attacks
>
> You're so full of it. That yields:
> "Sorry! We could not find en.wikimedia.org"
>
> Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
>
> Are you this inaccurate with all your citings?
>
> So, according to that article EVERY death in Pakistan over the last 10 years
> can be attributed to US missiles all supported by unimpeachable anecdotal
> evidence .. when Galani and other Pakistani officials admit they have their
> own insurgency running in the Pashtun Heartlands and border provinces, their
> own battle with the Pakistani Taliban and tribal conflicts that have caused
> the bulk of the casualties.
>
>
>>
>> In this article in 2009:
>> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23830.htm
>>
>> UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston said:
>>>
>>>  'My concern is that drones/Predators are being operated in a framework
>>>  which may well violate international humanitarian law and international
>>>  human rights law,' he said.
>>>
>>>  US strikes with remote-controlled aircraft against Al-Qaeda and Taliban
>>>  targets in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan have often resulted
>>>  in civilian deaths and drawn bitter criticism from local populations.
>>
>> ....
>>>
>>>  Since August 2008, around 70 strikes by unmanned aircraft have
>>>  killed close to 600 people in northwestern Pakistan.
>>
>> That's UN figures.  It's two years later now.  So I expect the total
>> is considerably larger.  The drones have improved and the tech has got
>> better.
>
>
> So, they apparently upped the missile launch scale by a factor of 30,000% in
> two years - or the missiles got that much more deadly. A more relaistic 70
> for 600 is asserted ... about 9 people for every missile. (So, if 35000 were
> killed between 2008 and 2011, they must've been as thick as mosquitos in the
> proverbial swamp).
>
> You were wrong, and your exaggeration does your argument a disservice. It's
> because of exaggerations like this that the US manages to obfuscate the
> damage it really is doing. Righteous indignation at fabricated figures
> drowns out the 550,000 killed in their stupid wars.
>
> Admit it and move on ...
>
>                                Regards,
>



-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request