<p>McGovern was simply viewed as too extreme by the American public hence his loss to Nixon. Plus, by 1972, the US forces in Vietnam had dwindled to only 24,200 thus taking McGovern’s platform right out from under him - the peaceniks had already won. </p>
<p>No one can say with a straight face that if it were not for the highly publicized war protests and the negative “we have lost the war” coverage by the media that Congress would not have continued funding the war to at least allow air power to be used to support the S. Vietnamese in warding off the invasion from the north - especially given that by then the US casualties were effectively zero.</p>
<p>So Islam is a modern forward-looking religion open to accepting diverse peoples? Not that I have seen lately. The reference to the 25 Million number was to challenge the accuracy of the death estimates. If they keep going they will soon be estimating 25 Million dead and if we still see lots of folks living in Iraq we will know the estimates were bogus.</p>
<p>C’mon now Mini, let’s not put words in UNICEF’s mouth…that’s not very nice. In fact, UNICEF resoundingly DOES NOT say that is the case.</p>
<p>"UNICEF was annoyed enough with the frequent misinterpretations to send out regular corrective press releases, saying things like: “The surveys were never intended to provide an absolute figure of how many children have died in Iraq as a result of sanctions.” Rather, they “show that if the substantial reductions in child mortality in Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s – in other words if there hadn’t been two wars, if sanctions hadn’t been introduced and if investment in social services had been maintained – there would have been 500,000 fewer deaths of children under five.”</p>
<p>Hmmn, ouch. So yes, sanctions undoutably contributed to children’s deaths, which is in no way a good thing. But they were in no way responsible for anywhere near 500,000 so to use that number is reprehensible. Second, what about the rest of the U.N.? While the U.S> led the charge the U.N continued to accecpt them, does not some of the fault then lie with the U.N.? Finally, it should be noted that in areas not under Saddam’s control (the Kurdish north) infant mortality rates went DOWN during the sanctions period, indicating that Saddam himself was responsible for the missapropriation of resources that contributed to infant mortality. So the question then remains: what else would you have had us do? Negotiate? Tell Saddam he could go sit in the corner on time-out for 15 min and think about it? C’mon.</p>
<p>Barrons, Islam has 1.2 billion adherents in the world. Some random thing that happend in Somalia or what ever doesn’t warrant blanket comments about a whole group. Don’t try to defend your corrupt arguments. </p>
<p>Moving Backward since 622… is what you said. As opposed to other religons, with have always move forward. Like Christianity in the Middle Ages or the Salem Witch Trials or the Inquisition.</p>
<p>The number that has endorsed the radical view is a large minority and they are far more outspoken. That means 100’s of millions of people and not just a randon few.</p>
<p>How many hundreds of years ago were the Salem trials ( an isolated incident for sure) and the Inquisition. Yes we have proudly moved forward from these darker times.</p>
<p>“How many hundreds of years ago were the Salem trials ( an isolated incident for sure) and the Inquisition. Yes we have proudly moved forward from these darker times.”</p>
<p>Be sure to count all the wars fought in the name of religion.</p>
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<p>I’m not very good at history. Are there other religions besides Christianity and Islam which have started wars based on religion? I know pretty much all cultures have had their share of wars for various reasons, but I don’t know much about any Hindus or Buddhists starting wars based on religion. I could be totally wrong, as I’m really not good with history.</p>
<p>In India, there are religious tensions between the Hindus and the Sikhs, also the Panjwanis. Also, there was problems with the Muslim community and the Hindu communities that led to the creation of Paksitan. And let’s not forget that Hinduism led to the caste system in India, and their untouchables were similar to our slaves.
In China, they have problems with this cult Falun Gong, but Buddhism isn’t a exclusive religion such as the Abrahamic or Hindu religion, so there has been less tension by default.</p>
<p>WHAT A WEAK Post. If you have the hubris to sit here and say that Islam is backward and that you wish that 25 million Iraqis die, such strong opinions you should be able to spend 5 minutes and give me at least 5 Islamic groups that have radical beliefs that have a significant amount of people following them.</p>