Originally Posted by willravel

While the source of the statistics is a bit suspect, is it really that hard to imagine that the stats are close to true? We know how bad it is over there; biased reporters or not. "Is there still a way for the US to "win" the [hearts] and minds of the iraqi people?" is the question to be answered here. Whether the specifics of what was said is true of not, we know many innocent Iraqi citizens are dying. There are acceptable losses, I suppose, but where is the limit of 'acceptable'? 3,487 is the number given. Let's say, for arguments sake, that number was exagerated by a factor of 2. Let's say there were 1,743 (rounding down of course) Iraqi deaths total since our attack. Is that really acceptable? Is it okay for us to liberate those people at the cost of 1,743 of their own innocent citizens lives? It is one thing for a country to decide in itself to overthow it's government, but it's quite another to go into a country and liberate it and then try to give them a government of our own choosing. This stinks of cold war thinking. This stinks of Vietnam and Korea. There's no arguing with those facts.