Hundreds of thousands includes hundreds and hundreds of thousands (which includes millions) as far as I'm concerned. Plus, it was originally written not that long after the beginning of the war responses meaning the full tally was not yet even acknowledged.

@WilliamCharles So the numbers no longer match. There's a reason the word million was invented, tried out, and remains part of the language. No need to twist yourself about to make the quote fit.

@1of5

No twisting needed. If one says days and days, or many weeks, or many months... that does not exclude years.

I'm leaving it in the original form (though I could always add a parenthetical notation).

@WilliamCharles it's an increadably clumsy way to express oneself, and clouds meaning.

@1of5

I've noticed that usually when you pop up in a thread, it involves some pedantic BS. I guess my quote is just not powerful enough referencing "only" hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths.

That's why you're both welcome and free to craft your own unique verbiage on this, or any subject under the sun.

Knock yourself out.

@WilliamCharles thanks for noticing, I won't bother insulting you with what I've noticed about your posts.

@1of5

IIRC correctly, on your profile you describe yourself as a bit of a smartass. I also recall you seemed to go out of your way to try to rattle my cage on occasion. If I have a counterpoint, I offer it, and not worry about your feelings as you seem to value frankness yourself. Comment on whatever you choose. I tend to respond in kind. Your points are technically valid, but inconsequential for the point I was making. Others have made the same observation. I chose "hundreds of thousands" because it hammered home the progression from the original thousands. That's the nature of choosing one's own words.

@WilliamCharles man, I thought I wad the king of not letting things die! So in order to get my crown back, I submit the following:

Your quote was accurate when written. It no longer is - in fact the situation is worse - that's what I was trying to point out. We could, and do, agree on the point that several hundred tens of thousands (or whatever it is. Met my best bud for after work margaritas so he could complain about life and I could agree with him, so I'm going with a million + for halfdrunkin simplicitys sake) have needlessly died. So let's just put the fucking pedantirly accurate or needlessly poetic description of the numbers (I still maintain you needlessly contorted yourself to make the point relavent even though it already was relevant, although +100 points for style) aside. The actual numbers are, on the whole, irrelevant. So sue me for holding contradicting opinions on a subject.

@1of5

Stop digging 5. Like I said. You could put all that effort into crafting something original on your own. You don't. The quote gets a lot of positive feedback. I'll just have to live with the disappointment of not garnering your approval. Not sure just how I'll carry on from this point... but I'll try.

One day at a time I suppose.

This helped put what we did in and to Afghanistan in perspective for me.

[circlesoflight.com]

There was absolutely no posibility of attack or sanctions against Saudi Arabia and I am not sure why the US along with poodle Blair invaded Iraq. Obviously oil was involved anf Dubya just wanted to have a little war for himself

9/11 is the litmus test.

So many of the things that reverberate to today are based on the unwillingness to demand full, open and transparent investigations of the attack, the crime scene forensics, and the apparent response failures. Anyone not in lockstep with the coming “payback” was a traitor, and anyone questioning the official narrative was a nutter. That the people so readily dismissing the skeptics, did not heed to call themselves to demand what the commission itself determined; that a proper investigation was needed to uncover the truth.

Remember, the alternate explanation to deride conspiracy, was the supposedly comforting notion that incompetence, an unrelated type of criminality (the destruction of evidence), the desire to cover your butt, and a string of bad luck and/or remarkable coincidence, explained the seeming contradictions and that the right enemy had been targeted anyway, so no time to navel gaze as we needed to get our bloodbath up and running.

My recollection is somewhat shorter as to what I saw and what we lost. I live in So Cal and commute to downtown LA, and have for over 20+ years. For exactly a day and a half (the same amount of time the air stays smog free after a good rain), the normally selfish and inattentive motorists drove in manner virtually unseen before or since. Over that two day period, they actually showed noticeable consideration and no longer drove oblivious to those around them, not caring who they cut off or didn’t let in or honked at for going too slow, or not getting out of the way fast enough…they treated the other drivers as fellow Americans that were also possibly traumatized or numb and that the default position might be that they would appreciate a random act of kindness from a stranger who might just cut another person a break for no other reason than they thought the anonymous person could use one.

And then, as if it never happened in the first place, it was over. That was how long it took to revert back to type, and embrace dysfunction as normalcy.

And that’s how we got to where we are today.

There are some things in life that we can’t turn back the clock on, but tragically that is true even on those things we could turn back the clock on. We’re just not that smart or that caring, and I don’t think it’s overly pessimistic to say that we never will be.

[Also "LanceThruster" - my onlime nom de plume]

@Winkiedink54 Because it not easy for me to imagine that the U.S. Government would kill its own people en-masse.