Slashdot Mirror
100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq
asldihf writes "New Scientist is reporting that 100,000 civilians in Iraq are now dead due to America's war in Iraq. Make sure you vote next week."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
How many of his own people Saddam killed. And how many of those deaths are due to terrorists trying to recapture his legacy.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Different sites have different stats, but one civilian death is one too many.
(Sponsored by cheeseSource for President 2012)
I was going to make a +5 Funny post about how George W. Bush is keeping us safe, but the subject is just too horrible.
The war on terror is not meant to be won, it's meant to be an excuse for any atrocity.
How can anyone think this is justified? It's sick.
From The Age (Google cache to skip registration): We have records of 600,000 executions and we estimate that 180,000 died in the uprising including the Marsh Arabs. The bombing of Halabja left 5000 dead," Mr al-Huoseyni said.
Like the posting said, make sure you vote--just like the people in Iraq finally had a chance to.
The overall risk of death was 1.5 times more after the invasion than before.
That also includes the invasion itself. At this rate, eventually it may go down.
Latewire
Uh- Kerry always said he would have gone to war too, that's why I voted for Kucinich in the primary. The difference is he would have gone with more troops- even if it meant a draft- and more planning- even if it meant giving the inspectors a few more weeks- and better intelligence- even if it meant confirming every detail- and probably would have actually *bothered* to guard or destroy munitions depots as we went. Plus, as a Democrat, he wouldn't have given in to the Iraqi NRA- he would have disarmed civilians as we invaded as well (how stupid do you have to be to invade a country, destroy it's entire civil government, and NOT disarm the people?). I think all of that would have ended up with fewer battle casualties- and more friendly fire incidents.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
For this report, the sample numbers were EXTREMELY EXTREMELY low: 988 housholds. The potential for error here is astounding. So they had confirmation of 6%. That's silly. The death count is constantly overreported. Every article about military firefights ends with a quote from some official saying how the Americans attacked mostly women, children, and the elderly. It's the standard line and it gets old and less believable each time. I would really like to see statistics on who was killed and how the deaths occurred. Firefights with US troops? Bombings? Deaths during reconstruction? Who is called a "civilian?"
Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths
And there are some troblesome excerpts:
Just so we're clear, this is what that guy who think's he's a reporter(drudge) has on his site:
NBCNEWS Brokaw interviewed John Kerry Thursday evening.
Brokaw: "If you had been President, Saddam Hussein would be in power."
Kerry: "Not necessarily."
Brokaw: "You said you wouldn't go to war against him."
Kerry: "That's not true. Because under the inspection process, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy those kinds of materials and weapons."
Brokaw: "But he wasn't destroying them."
Kerry: "That's what you have inspectors for. That's why I voted for the threat of force, because he only does things when you have a legitimate threat of force. It's irresponsible to suggest that if I were President, he wouldn't be gone. He might be gone, because if he hadn't complied, we might have had to go to war, but if we did, we would have gone with allies, so the American people weren't carrying the entire burden. And the entire world would understand why we did it."
Hmmm...Where did Kerry say he would have gone to war to? He was responding to the statement that Saddam would still be in power and he said "not necessarily". Then he stated about how we "may" have gone to war with all our allies if Saddam hadn't backed down and stopped farting around with the weapons inspectors.
But to take what he said and just thrown out flippantly "would probably have been the same" is kind of not true.
I'm calling BS on this article. They conducted a sampling survey to generate these numbers? Come on now. I'm more inclined to believe iraqbodycount.org and the media always gets it wrong (and never corrects themselves.) And to blame most of the deaths on the US bombing? Total horse $hit. Have innocent people died in Iraq? Hell yes. Have many of them been our fault? Yes. Have any of them been deliberate? No. Half of the innocent lives lost over here, by estimation and observation for the past eight months I've been in Baghdad (being a little involved in intelligence reports), come from the insurgents/terrorists. Their road-side bombs and car bombs as often target civilians and Iraqi security forces (the ones who take huge personal risk upon themselves and their families to try to make a difference in the future of their country) as they target Coalition Forces. This article is BS BS BS BS!
> I could swear the president's right hand man said that they would minimize civilian casualties?
Here's another good one:
The neocons are trying to sell imperialism by portraying it as cheap and painless. Reality hasn't conformed to the plan yet.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think I could have done this study with three chimps, a dart board and some peanut butter and still come up with more believable data.
Someone hates these cans.
...is what would the cost in lives have been if the U.S. had done nothing? In the short term I'm guessing more lives have been lost because of the war, but in the long term, will it have been worth it?
My guess is that history will prove that the war was worth it, not only for Iraqis but for the world as a whole.
I'm interested in seeing the new movie "Voices of Iraq" that just came out. From the reviews I've read, including one on NPR last night, it sounds like it provides evidence that the average ordinary Iraqi is grateful for what the U.S. has done (even though they want us to leave as soon as possible).
- They weren't children at that point.
- It wasn't "we", the decision was that of the parents.
- The term "innocent" means nothing except that it exposes the hypocrisy
of the "sanctity of life" that's espoused by pro-lifers only goes so far:
if they are judged guilty of something, kill 'em.
It's easy to defend cute little babies and puppies and kittens
but the real test of faith is when you have to love thy enemy.
The abortion fight is all bullshit, and none of your business.
How many of those 100,000 civilians were involved in attempts to attack American troops? How about the hundreds of thousands of people who are now free from tyranny in Iraq under Sadam's regime?
Interesting...so we were there to help.
Ah, so if another country...say China for instance...were to send troops to America to "help" us we would just lay down our arms, and welcome them with open arms? I mean, they're just trying to help right?
And if by "free from tyranny" you mean "all out civil war" then yeah, that's really something!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Can I mod the article as -1:Troll? "Make sure you vote next week?" Let's skip all the rigamaroll...just post at the end of every politics article "And remember...we don't like Bush, we like Kerry!".
I'm pissed when I get modded down for any of my pro-Bush comments, but this is just blatant bias in the text of an article. A little more objectivity wouldn't hurt here.
--trb
Hu? No hippies want us to kill our babies, didn't you know that??? :)
Terrorists are considered Civilians according to international reports. Insurgents are considered Civilians according to most international reports.
So what % of those civilians are terrorists and insurgents?
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
None of your quotations are attacking any actual part of the method used in the study, they're just generalisations.
There is no official figure for the number of
Iraqis killed since the conflict began
Well of course there's no fucking official figure. Who could possibly give an "official" figure? God?
some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000.
As time goes on, more people are killed, and it is possible to establish that more people have been killed.
concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision,"
As opposed to most studies which are of infinite precision?
quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study
Well yes.
report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way.
And why not? Isn't this the most vital time that people hear this information?
possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq
However, this information could be biased in either direction. Some areas of Iraq were excluded because they were too dangerous for the investigators; weren't they likely to have suffered more deaths?
more household clusters would have improved the precision of the report
Well obviously. This is true for any study or poll ever published.
I do not understand how the articles that are considered for posting are being filtered. I would like to know the number of "pro-Bush" versus "pro-Kerry" submissions are actually accepted. Not a single "pro-Bush" subject even shows up on the list yet I know that they are being submitted. Like this one GOP beats Dems on tech-friendliness.
Given that Slashdot is such a techie heavy site you would think that something combining tech and politics would be appropriate yet articles like these never seem to be accepted.
oh well...I'm done ranting now and am willing to accept the Offtopicness of this posting.
So that there can be a policy change and instead of trying to fix Iraq (the right way... by actually allowing the people to govern themselves) just pull out and leave them at the mercy of the "freedom" fighters.... who, once in power, will probably be Saddam V2.0 .... like it or not, your government fucked things up in Iraq (don't get me wrong; they were incredibly fucked up to begin with...) but you went in with the promise of helping to fix things. The Afghanis hate you because you went in with the same promise (albeit slightly different in that you were requesting their help vs the Russians...) but left before you could fulfill your end of the bargain... and left the country at the mercy of the "freedom" fighters... who fucked up the country more than the Russians likely would have.
I know I'll get modded into oblivion for this, but please, hear me out. We all know that Bush led everyone into that country under false pretenses, and now all those who backed out, including my country are basically saying "told you so." ... and for the record I am pissed that we did not go in with you; Don Cherry said it best: "If you go into a bar, and your buddy gets into a fight, it doesn't matter who started the fight, or who was right and who was wrong, you back your buddy up." none of this changes the fact, however, that Iraq is getting more and more fucked up as time goes on. Unless it gets fixed, it will come back to bite all of us in the ass.
I'm not saying that you should vote for or against Bush (though personally I don't like him, or his policies.) What I am saying is that regardless of which person gets voted into office they need to know that you support efforts in Iraq.... just not the current style of efforts that are being deployed. I wish I had the link to the blog of one of Americas sons who is/was over there and laid it on the line (it was on /. not too long ago) .... tell your government to sit up and take fucking notice. It's too late to cry over whether or not the war was right, but not too late to tell your government that they need to clean up the mess, and that the current efforts are B/S....
anyway... commence flaming/modding to oblivion...
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
In planning the war, it was estimated that the civilian casualties would be only about 10,000 if the US invaded Iraq. This estimate went into the decision of whether or not we should go forward with the invasion.
It misses the point to say, "Well Sadaam killed 6x the number of people so this course of action was the lesser of two evils."
I think a lot of Americans think it's impossible for an Iraqi to look on us as occupiers rather liberators, unless that Iraqi was somehow closely associated with the regime. Well, I think this number explains a lot. Remember, you can't use gross numbers -- it's always misleading. When you take apart the numbers, some interesting insights occur. Probably a disproporitionate number of people that Sadaam killed were Kurds, whereas a disproportionate number of Iraqis killed by our aerial campaign were non-Kurd. It wouldn't be surprising then to find that Kurds are relatively more likely to support the US occupation than the average Iraqi.
Another way to disaggregate the numbers is by politics. Sadaam probably focused his murderous activities on political enemies and their families. Death by being in the wrong place, on the other hand, is indiscriminate. So if you are a Sunni man in the street, there was nothing you could do short of going out into the hills and hiding to reduce your exposure.
Furthermore, in the attempt to attack the Baathist leadership, I wouldn't be surprised if the impact fell disproportionately in Sunni areas. It's also interesting to note the difference in attitude towards the the occupation among Shii from Baghdad and those in cities like Kerbala.
In any case, the situation we have encountered in Iraq should make us chary of a strategy of leadership assassination by precision munition. Not only did this strategy have very little success, it's civilian cost was greatly underestimated (or at least underrepresented). A clearer understanding of this, along with calculating its impact on post-invasion strategy, might well have lead to different decisions during the major combat phase of the war.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Fuck Soddam, fuck Bush, fuck Kerry, fuck Osama.
Why do these people have the power to start war?
Joe American doesn't want a war.
He wants to screw his girlfriend, work his job, and drink a few beers.
We're all human; why the hell do we let these people make us kill each other?
As TFA notes: this is 100,000 deaths above the death rate for a previous pre-war period, and; the most common cause of these deaths was airstrikes.
So unless you're suggesting that their countrymen have an extensive air force that they'd been planning on using regardless of the US's invasion, no, it's pretty accurate to characterize these deaths as being the result of American acts.
When both Presidential nominees, Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich, support the war what the hell is "make sure you vote next week" supposed to mean? If you're really against the war you'll be voting Nadar or Badnarik, but I'd be off my rocker to think that's what michael was implying by letting the article through.
Article points:
+100,000 flamebait (for every dead Iraqi by US)
+1,000,000 overrated (for every dead Iraqi by Saddam)
+5 insightful (for accidentally pointing out that the 3rd parties are the only ones against it all)
Direct away from face when opening.
Or at least he led us to believe he was.
Um, what?? How many troops are you talking here? 2 million? Do you have any idea of the cost? You think that GWB didn't disarm the populace because of his feelings on gun control ???
If McArthur could disarm Japan- GWB's generals could certainly have done an equal or better job disarming Iraq. But the politicians didn't even give them the chance- because they did not think of it.
It would be next to impossible to do, and wouldn't leave the iraqis with much of a warm feeling for their "liberators". Street fighting is where Americans die fastest, and they were right to stay mostly out of town.
There was NO chance that the Iraqis would have any "warm feelings" for their "liberators"- because we aren't liberators, we're an invading army. High time we started acting like one.
Besides, the *whole* strategy of the invasion was to get into Bagdad is quickly as possible, much like the wildly-successful island hopping campaign of the Pacific during WWII. And again, the invasion was wildly succesfull. The problem comes in at post-war planning, and the much touted "exit-strategy". Did GWB screw the pooch on that on? Yep. Would've Kerry or any other Dem done differently? I don't think so. It's just talk.
During the island hopping campaign, we made DAMNED sure we didn't leave behind insurgents to attack us, either with carpet bombing or with massive invasion forces overwhelming each and every island. Our failures were few- there were a few, and some of them didn't come out of hiding until the 1960s- but we certainly didn't leave behind millions of people to attack us either.
You say this as a good thing. A draft? Are you serious?
Actually, I personally thought it should have been done within a week of 9-11 when patriotic fever was still high. We could have had a mobilization that would have ended the economic recession, given us more than enough troops to conduct the War on Terror on several fronts, and also given us the troop strength to (gasp) protect the Homeland better than the Bush Administration is doing now (say, by adding a million or so uniformed MPs to the shipyards to help search the 1.2 million shipping containers crossing our border each day, or actually securing the Arizona border so that the Mexican Army can't run drugs and terrorists into Tuscon anymore).
Are you a cloaked republican?
No, just a disillusioned one who re-registered as a Democrat briefly, and then after finding out that the Democrats were just as corrupt, re-registered Technocrat. I voted for Kerry because I'm in a swing state that uses mail in voting only, and my wife was going to the library anyway and I didn't want to waste a stamp.
You must be dreaming if you think kucinich would've considered a draft.
I said that KERRY would have considered the draft, not Kucinich- Kucinich would have followed Augustine's City of God and never bothered to involve a third country in the War on Terror to begin with (or even a second one).
Give me a break. I lot of Democrats voted *for* the war after seeing the same intellegence as the president. You can't confirm every detail. You are living in a dream world if you think that any of this would've happened. I'm not a Republican, I'm not voting for Bush, but you're scenario is utterly inconcievable and pure conjecture.
As is any scenario the Bushites come up with saying that Kerry would pull out a week after taking office, so what?
+4 insighful?!? You want more friendly fire incidents??? Troll.
That bit is just realistic- even Kerry's currently scaled back version of adding 40,000 more troops to Iraq (which can be accomplished without a draft) WILL result in more friendly fire incidents- whether we like it or not, adding more people will increade the number of accidents involving those people alone.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Too bad we can't moderate stories as trolls or flamebait.
It was a war people! The purpose of war is to KILL PEOPLE.
It's funny how attitudes have changed. 200 years ago, we would have cited "empire-building" as the reason for invading Iraq, and the world would have been fine with it, just as they were with the English, Dutch, Spanish, French, Danish, Portuguese, Italians, Russians, and Germans.
How many native americans died during Cortez's conquest of Latin/South America? How many Gauls died during Julius Caesar's conquest of Western Europe? How many Persians died at the hands of Alexander's army?
Heck, it wasn't even until last century that the Ottoman and British Empires were laid to rest!
I'm not saying that invading Iraq was the right thing to do - I went on record then saying that I didn't think we had enough cause to invade. But it is an interesting thing to observe, I think, how much different the worlds' attitude toward empires is now.
So where were we going to get those 740,000 troops?
Within the first two weeks after 9-11, when everybody was comparing the attack on the WTC to Pearl Harbor, we had the opportunity to increase our Armed Forces and to mobilize our nation in EXACTLY the same way that FDR did during WWII- with all production retooled to war material, and all excess labor soaked up to either production of stuff necessary for the national defense or the army. Bush WASTED that opportunity- and did the second of many actions that have since disillusioned me on the entire American Political System.
I know damn well how many of our people have been killed by small arms fire. And it'll be a lot better when the civilians, of which there are a lot, take charge of more of their own safety and security.
And when will that be, do you imagine? The Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites have been fighting for control of Iraq off and on for about 5,000 years now. What makes you think that they'll stop now?
All the people here have their own self-interests, but MOST of them are not fighting.
Most of them are still looking for the electricity and water we promised them a year ago. But given their history, I'm sure they'll get back to fighting soon enough- they always have in the past.
The process has been started and we will finish it. Iraq as a free, democratic, self-elected, modern Arab nation will be a reality in the long-term and far more valuable as a foothold against the cancer of RADICAL Islam that plagues our world than for whatever political cost or gain in the short term.
And which one of the three radical Islamic Groups do you suppose will be elected to power? My guess is the Taliban, the politcal arm of the Shi'ites, as they have the most votes.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Would it be okay with you if parents could have their kids euthanized because one parent had lost his/her job and they could no longer afford children? They aren't really people yet.. they're barely five, totally uneducated, provide no meaningful contribution to society and are in fact a drain on our resources and they can't vote, work or own land... not really people yet... it's the parents decision right? What difference would it make to society if they had their kids euthanized? We haven't really invested anything into their futures as yet so what do we care?
Don't try to argue, it is a perfectly valid comparison and you know it.
We only put labels such as fetus, newborn, baby, toddler, child on a young person for convenience in conversation.
How about this labeling comparison
- start with 2 hours after conception - that new person is 2 hours old
- fetus - that new person is 4 months and 2 hours old
- 3rd trimester fetus - that person is 8 months and 2 hours old
- birth - that person is 9 months 22 days and 2 hours old
- first birthday - that person is 1 year, 9 months, 22 days and 2 hours old
- thirtieth birthday - that person is 30 years, 9 months, 22 days and 2 hours old
Do you see that the counting of life begins at conception, not at birth.. you don't lose 9 months + of your life the day you are born... that person is the same person whether 2 hours old or 30 years old. At 30 years old that person has a whole lot more mass but is the same as when that person was 10 years and 1 year and 1 month... they've simply grown a lot in the 30 + years they've been alive.
Killing a 1 hour old person is the same as killing a 30 year old person, except the 30 year old person had a chance to experience life and contribute.. the 1 hour old was deprived of this chance altogether.
I will address the issue of whether a violent criminal should be put to death or not. It's not relevant in that the person being put to death had a choice about how they would live their life. That person chose to commit a violent crime. Death or life imprisonment or rehabilitation or hospitalization... the goal is not to punish the violent criminal but to protect society from said individuals chosen way of life.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Firstly it started off as WMDs, which are now proved to be complete crap
Then it turned into Osama and Iraq were working together which has not only not been proved, but I believe it was made official this week that there was no link
Then it turned suddenly to regieme change, yeah that's a good one lets throw out one dictator.. and put in one that's several thousand miles away
The problem with the regieme change is there are loads of other countries that are far far worse than Iraq but we like to keep those quiet.
It basically all comes down to the fact that whichever of the many reasons you choose to believe, this was an immoral and illegal war in the opinion of most people, and the US and UK governments think we're all so stupid that we'll just swallow whatever they say. And the sad thing is, a lot of us will.
What's worrying is this: I've watched part of the debates, and I watched some of question time last night. People were heckling and jeering opinions that didn't match their own. No one in the USA (and this is the viewpoint of a fair few UK people) seems to ever listen. Everyone believes whatever they choose to beleive, usually on one-sided evidence and refuses to listen to the other side. Unfortunately, those people are then allowed to vote.
I just hope that whatever does happen, someone keeps their brain in gear, because only when all the world leaders come up from their bunkers and see there is no one and nothing left to rule over, will they realise that nobody wins a war. Nobody.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
But it is an interesting thing to observe, I think, how much different the worlds' attitude toward empires is now.
We also frown upon tying people to crosses and lighting them on fire. Funny how times change.
Just this past week there were 49 members of the nascent Iraqi Guard were murdered. You mean to tell me that murdering men who were trying to protect your country is something a concerned citizen should do?
In the last World War, France was invaded by Germany. Although the Germans didn't put Marshal Pétain in power, they decided to make business with him. When resistance movements started to appear, Pétain's Government set up the Militia, a paramilitary force, to eradicate them, and declared all resistants criminals. Obviously, the resistance wasn't very happy. Hence, they decided to label the Militia, the Government and everyone doing business with, or on behalf of the Germans as "collaborators". They would usually kill all "collabos" they could get their hands on. By joining the Iraqi National Guard, a military force reporting to the American-backed Iyad Allawi, those guys knew they would be branded as collaborators by the Iraqi resistance movements. Resistants obviously do not see Allawi's Government as legitimate, no more than French resistants found any legitimacy in Pétain's Government. They're thus trying to topple him, and this surely implies hampering his military capabilities. I cannot condone attacks on journalists or NGO operatives, but attacks on *soldiers* ? Puh-lease ! Also, your vision of resistance groups as "barbians [sic] whose goal is to kill anyone who will not submit to their vision of worldwide islamic theocracy." is way too restrictive. Al-Zarqawi is certainly not leading the *only* resistance group. We've seen Shi'a groups (like Al-Sadr's one), Sunni groups in the famous triangle, Iraqi nationalists and disgruntled military people... But I suppose it's always more reassuring to lump them all under the "islamo-fascist" banner. This way, you don't have to envision the implications of a grassroots insurgency phenomenon for the future of the quagmire... huh, I mean, the glorious advent of democracy in Iraq. Well, what can I say ? Good luck ; you'll need it, for sure.
Those people are founding their opinion on religious beliefs that not everyone shares. I respect your beliefs, but don't legislate them on me.
Opposition to abortion does not have to be founded on a religious belief. There are many people who oppose abortion who do so out of a completely secular worldview.
On the other hand, why do you think that an opinion that is based on a religious belief is not permissible? Here's an example. I believe that incest is wrong because the practice clearly is a sinful one. Because I think it's wrong based on my religious views, you're going to say that I'm not allowed to try to promote legislation banning incest?
Furthermore, do you realize how many of our laws today are based on religious "opinions"? Who do you think it was that pushed for the abolition of slavery, for instance? If you've never read about the great abolitionist William Wilberforce, it might open your eyes a bit.
How about this biblical reference: Let he without sin cast the first stone. Wakeup call: It is not yours or anybody else's right, privelege, calling, or job to judge other human beings.
You're right that according to Jesus, we are not to judge one another, however, that's not the whole story. According to Romans 13:1, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." And in Romans 13:4 we read, "For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."
So if you are going to quote the Bible to back up your arguments, you're also going to have to confront the fact that governments were established by God to establish order and peace, by force if necessary.
Comment removed based on user account deletion