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12,000 DEAD
The Lancet deathwish community might find this estimate a little on the low side:
Violence in the course of the 18-month-long insurgency has claimed the lives of 12,000 Iraqis, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday, giving the first official count for the largest category of victims of bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks.
Sad to say, but some folks will actually be upset that this number isn’t massively higher.
Aging Gamer, lefties tend to invent their own mathematical methods when more traditional ones don’t give them the answers they like (eg, cost-benefit analysis gives you the wrong answer? Convert everything into “Banana dollars” and assign extra Bananas to the benefits side until you get something more in tune with your beliefs.)
So, you can imagine them arguing that while 12,000 people have died, they would look at the triple bottom line figure (eg, taking into acount the Iraqis dying from depleted uranium, the greenhouse gases expended by the B52s, the methane given off by the troops), where the real casualties are closer to 200,000.
Either that, or they’ll shamelessly keep quoting the Lancet figure.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 06 03 at 03:11 AM • permalinkAs much as I’d like the number killed to be as low as possible- the article describes only the number killed by insurgents and doesn’t include those killed by Iraqi and allied forces or factors secondary to the war (disease etc.). Consequently there is no point compareing it to either the Lancet study or the UN study.
Posted by Just passing by on 2005 06 03 at 03:39 AM • permalinkI have the greatest respect for Tim B’s relentless tormenting of Cultural Progressives throughout Wet World. But it should be understood that ideological sadistics are good profane fun, whilst intellectual statistics are a sacred matter.
The figure of 12,000 civilian deaths that he quuotes is probably consistent with the Lancet estimate of 100,000 excess deaths all told. This is because the Lancet survey also included an estimate of the number of Iraqi military personnel and insurgents who have been killed in battle - a figure which is surely a multiple of the number of Iraqi civilians killed. (Remember the US military has been targetting Iraqi regular and irregular soldiers these past two years. Uncle Sam has a fair bit of fire power at his disposal.) These people are just as dead as civilians and deserve to be in the count.
Finally, for the umpteenth time, the Lancet estimate also covers the increase in (non-battle) excess deaths that occurred due to social dislocation, malnutrition and disease brought on by the US invasion. This demographic attrition has affected the rate of infant mortality which has skyrocketed since the UN Oil-For-Food program ceased and the US took over the administration of providing basic civil necessities. These people would probably not have died under Hussein.
The US military is expert at regime-changing but is not designed for nation-building. Hussein was certainly a bad person and his government had many crimes to its name. But sometimes the revolutionary cure can be worse than the despotic disease.
the Lancet estimate also covers the increase in (non-battle) excess deaths that occurred due to social dislocation, malnutrition and disease brought on by the US invasion.
I was under the impression that the Lancet study was only deaths caused by Allied military action, in particular bombing, not the items you listed above. If I am right then, as I have demonstrated before, it is (the Lancet figure) patent nonsense.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 2005 06 03 at 04:06 AM • permalinkIt’s ok Dean0, Jack Stroppi isnt the sharpest tool in the box. He can write lots of words though, and y’know, that’s all that really matters in the leftist blowhard wanker stakes isnt it?
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 06 03 at 04:33 AM • permalinkJack, you putz:
(Remember the US military has been targetting Iraqi regular and irregular soldiers these past two years. Uncle Sam has a fair bit of fire power at his disposal.) These people are just as dead as civilians and deserve to be in the count.
The US military was only targetting Iraqi regular soliders for a couple of weeks. After that, there was no regular Iraqi army.
The “irregular soldiers” you speak of are terrorists, Jack, brutal murdering thugs. Every one of them who dies is a blessing for all humanity. They don’t deserve to be in the count with the civilians they killed; they deserve to have a special count all their own. With flashing lights and fireworks every thousand or so.
Remember the US military has been targetting Iraqi regular and irregular soldiers these past two years.
Odd, that so many of those “Iraqi irregulars” carry Saudi, Syrian, Egyptian, and French passports.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 06 03 at 07:14 AM • permalinkYou lot love statistics. There are some more statistics here. It’s a lefty site, and the article is lifted from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
We can debate the number of deaths as often as you like - especially since the military doesn’t even bother to count them - but there are some things that cannot be contested. Those who believed the story that the liberation/invasion was for the sake of the Iraqi people should think about this:
“Lack of dependable electricity and shortages of potable water throughout the country compound the deterioration of the population’s health, along with outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever, particularly in southern Iraq. The collapse of the water and sewage systems has also been the probable cause of an outbreak of hepatitis, particularly lethal to pregnant women.
According to one estimate, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. In the hardest hit regions, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack potable water. (According to World Bank statistics, 25 percent of primary school-age children in Iraq do not go to school. Ministry of Education statistics state that 80 percent of the schools need repair and 9 percent are in need of demolition)...
Adults play their perverse war games, and children suffer. This is a severe indictment of any war - and of those who orchestrate war without assessing its potential consequences on the most vulnerable of civilian populations.”
I know - it was worse before, you have to break a few eggs, the terrorists are to blame, that’s not as many deaths as the Lancet said, the lack of electricity and water is a myth, etc etc. Oh, and some profanities and arrogance.
PS Pixy Misa, have you read Time Magazine’s article about the “irregulars” that the Australian SAS killed in Afghanistan in May 2002? They were not terrorists, nor soldiers. They turned out to be civilians. Most of them were men who left behind 50 fatherless children - none of whom have yet received either an apology nor promised compensation.
You are a fool if you believe the rhetoric of a military machine that will not even count the number of people it kills, and which is happy to lay land mines in Iraq despite the devastation that mines have caused throughout the last five decades.
Which are the “hardest hit areas,” nwab? Is that where the subalterns and their starving families live?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 03 at 08:56 AM • permalinkYou are a fool if you believe the rhetoric of a military machine that will not even count the number of people it kills,
Do you know WHY the US military doesn’t publish body counts? Do you know the history of that policy?
Do you care? Or are you just (yet again) spouting a talking point you picked up somewhere?
and which is happy to lay land mines in Iraq
Proof, please. The US policy—as I understand it—is to use mines sparingly as defenses to fixed positions, and to ALWAYS clearly mark minefields.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 06 03 at 09:25 AM • permalinkJack:
“This demographic attrition has affected the rate of infant mortality which has skyrocketed since the UN Oil-For-Food program ceased and the US took over the administration of providing basic civil necessities. These people would probably not have died under Hussein.”
So wait, you’re the only literate person on the planet who has not read of the Oil-for-Food UN scandals? Then you’re too stupid to have an opinion.
“Hussein was certainly a bad person and his government had many crimes to its name. But…”
As I just said.
Rob Crawford: IIRC, various groups are trying to count cluster munitions as mines. Gosh, why do I think nwab would try that line as “proof” of the icky US military machines evil?
nwab wrote:
“I know - it was worse before, you have to break a few eggs, the terrorists are to blame, that’s not as many deaths as the Lancet said, the lack of electricity and water is a myth, etc etc. Oh, and some profanities and arrogance.”The former, maybe. You’ve depleted the supply of the latter.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 06 03 at 01:36 PM • permalinknwab, you are starting to sound like Strocchi, making up facts and all.
First of all, I’d really like to see a link to confirmed reports of Coalition forces laying mines in Iraq. Because that would be the first time I’ve heard anything about mine laying in Iraq by Coalition forces. Now, the terrorists are laying IEDs, mines, and booby traps like crazy. That I know for a fact. You would too, if you read the news.
Next:
According to one estimate, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. In the hardest hit regions, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack potable water. (According to World Bank statistics, 25 percent of primary school-age children in Iraq do not go to school. Ministry of Education statistics state that 80 percent of the schools need repair and 9 percent are in need of demolition)...
I have some professional knowledge of this (hint: what am I doing in Kuwait?). So I am going to point out that you are quoting statistics without any baseline.
The pre-invasion Iraq infrastructure (except for major urban areas like Baghdad, and not not entirely so even there) was at the 19th century level. For example, large cities (e.g., Fallujah and Mosul) only had open sewers; these drained directly into local rivers, or into local swamps. Drinking water was limited to what came out the wells or water. There was no garbage collection system.
The power infrastructure was pathetic—40 year old multi-megawatt generators had had no maintenance for years. There were no spare parts. Transmission lines failed at the slightest problem (if some local Ba’athist official didn’t shut the power off to punish some city, or extort money from them). Urban residents directly tapped local transmission lines to power their homes.
The only infrastructure that was maintained to any degree of decency supported the military and the Ba’athist regime. Roads, airfields, some bases, personal residences (you ought to see The Water Palace near Baghdad), and official buildings are in excellent condition.
So there was a MAJOR problem with Iraq, all brought on by the corruption of Hussein and his henchmen.
Post-invasion, the Coalition has been sinking a shitload of money into the Iraq infrastructure. Yeah, some of it has been squandered or embezzled. But there’s an attempt to recover it, hmmmm? What would Saddam do, nwab? Or do you care about that?
And the money is being spent on schools; hospitals; roads; bridges (blown up by terrorists, by the way); power plants; power transmission lines; court houses; jails; waste water treatment plants/sewage lines (including al Sadr City in Baghdad and Fallujah); drinking water treatment plants/distribution systems (including Fallujah); Iraqi police stations; Iraqi military bases; and so on.
I’m on R&R now, so I lack direct access to the unclassified reports. But it’s safe to say that several billion non-oil dollars has been pumped into the Iraqi infrastructure. By non-oil, I mean funding directly from the United States and other coalition foreces.
So no one is denying that there’s a problem with Iraq. Hell, we are working on it! But jerks like you demand instant gratification, and point to the failures instead of the successes.
Do you really expect us to snap our fingers to solve the problems that have accumulated over a couple generations? All so that we can go home, and stop irritating short sighted nitwits like you?
Get real! And I do mean “real”, ‘cuz your expectations are incredibly unattainable. If you have any expectations, I mean. I suspect that your real complaint is that we aren’t heeding your sage advice, as your posts have gotten more and more moonbat, as your frustration with us dim witted RWDBs grows.
Well, I have news for you (and Strocchi as well): we ain’t stupid or ignorant just because we don’t agree with you. Contrawise, you are not stupid simply because you disagree with us.
However, when you ignore reality, ignore evidence that supports the proof of the reality, and persist with your worldview in spite of this evidence, you are stupid. Especially when you make statements that are patently false. Jack has been doing this since forever, and you just started down that road.
Congratulations, nwab. You just went from “naive” to “stupid”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 06 03 at 01:42 PM • permalinkJeffS wrote to nwab:
Do you really expect us to snap our fingers to solve the problems that have accumulated over a couple generations? All so that we can go home, and stop irritating short sighted nitwits like you?
Perhaps one of those head shakes that genie on that old TV show did?
Nah, I think nwab wants you to give up, go home, watch it all fall apart so it becomes “another Vietnam” that shakes our confidence and keeps us from doing things nwab doesn’t like. Of course, that leads me to believe that nwab was projecting a bit with the line about broken eggs.
(I forget: is nwab a he or a she or some hermaphrodite from Zeta Reticuli?)
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 06 03 at 02:01 PM • permalinkPerhaps one of those head shakes that genie on that old TV show did?
I’m already shaking my head, but that won’t help poor nwab.
(I forget: is nwab a he or a she or some hermaphrodite from Zeta Reticuli?)
In any case, I’d take Barbara Eden (she played Genie) over nwab any day.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 06 03 at 02:05 PM • permalinkIIRC, various groups are trying to count cluster munitions as mines. Gosh, why do I think nwab would try that line as “proof” of the icky US military machines evil?
I had a feeling it was something like that. Of course, we’ll never know until nwab provides a citation.
I don’t think he will, though. The_Real_JeffS spanked him hard enough I suspect he’ll not comment in this thread again.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 06 03 at 02:10 PM • permalink“The US has not used such mines(anti-personnel)since the 1991 Gulf War, has not exported them since 1992, and has not produced them since 1997.”
Where did I get this statement from NWAB?
Well I got it from your home team. It appears on the current Human Rights Watch website. Just Google landmines in Iraq.
Seems we’re set to deploy the Matrix system for force protection around bases. It will be detonated by computer should the need arise.
Perhaps NWAB was talking about the Matrix system and if not well, as usual.I think one of problems is that we were told several things about the war that weren’t true.
1. “This country will be able to finance it’s own reconstruction and soon.” Paul Wolfowitz
2. “We will be greeted as liberators.” Dick Cheney.
I never believed the first one. The country has been under sanctions for over decade. The oil industry in Iraq was bearly operational and pretty fragile. I also know the the second would only be true for a short while. Quite simply the longer we stay visible in Iraq, the more difficult our job is going to be. We really need Iraq forces to step up to the plate.
Civilian casualities are a function of war. It’s going to happen. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can try to minimize it as our current army’s rules of engagement are geared to do. Quite frankly many of the news reports I have read about this 12,000 figure seems to indicate that no one knows where it comes from. It seems largely pulled from the air. Given the current state in Iraq though its’ a believable number.
The lancet sutdy is obviously wrong. Common sense tells us that 180 people dying every day would be noticed. In fact as bad as this last month has been in terms of attacks on civilians we would have to believe that more people died every week than we have heard of being killed in the last month if the fabled 100,000 were true.
But since when did common sense and the left have even a passing acquaintance. I think the figure out today is probably about right.
I don’t often listen to NPR but I heard a report once by some reporter who talked about going to an oil rig in Iraq and seeing equipment stamped from the 30’s. I heard an interview with a woman from Basrah that spoke of life with no clean water or sewage system or electricity for the years that Saddam was punishing them after the Shia uprising. And then of course there is the destruction to the ecosystem which has been on a huge scale.
The only person I really want to see dead right now is Zarqawi. I feel terrible for the tragedy the civilians have had to live through, not only now but for the years they were starved and tortured and killed and terrorized by that monster Saddam.
I hope that in time it will improve, but one thing is for sure, if it does it will be in spite of and not because of the not in my name crowd.
The Real JeffS, you and your cyber-mates may think that you have “spanked” me with your long-winded defence of authority. I can assure you I am not crying. I do not demand “instant gratification” in the rebuilding of Iraq - instead, I ask that the self-righteous ideologues that anonymously inhabit this blog take the time to reflect upon the problems as well as the so-called successes in Iraq. (And I give credit to those that do.) Blair continually lambasts those silly enough to point out the failings of the invasion (as if a war can ever be a good thing), and yet never mentions the other side of the story. And you lot - tired of feeling guilty about the daisy cutters and bombed Afghani homes and cluster bombs and the rest of the shit that litters the last fifty years of US adventures abroad - are grateful for anything that justifies your position. Hence, “it was worse under Saddam” - and all of the other rhetoric that you spout.
For those who still don’t understand the subaltern reference - wonn’t Google find Gramsci’s prison notebooks? - a subaltern is an indoctrinated tool of the prevailing socio-political order; an instrument that preserves the hegemony. While you choose to uncritically support the actions of the political, corporate, and military powers that dominate life on this planet, you are nothing more that a mouthpiece of the powerful - as if they need it. You are an unwitting defender of wealth and war and division. Blair’s rebellious streak is unfortunately nothing less than tacit and rigorous support for those who are in power and wish to stay there.
Yojimbo, yes I am referring to the matrix system, roundly condemned by land mine experts globally. Land mine technology is uncertain at best, and no amount of assurances about the “intelligence” of the US system has convinced those who work to disarm the fucking things that the Iraq deployment will be any safer than those laid in the past. Perhaps there’s a world beside Blair and Google, mate. Considered that? Maybe all your answers aren’t clean and conveniently condensed to a couple of paragraphs on a blog. (And why HRW is my “home team” I don’t know - just another effort to belittle and generalise about someone you disagree with, I suppose.)
Ushie, had I included the word “each” in the statement you quote then your grammatical criticism would be valid.
Rob Crawford, I did not intend to mislead by citing the IIRC (indirectly). Nonetheless, I suggest that you visit (as I have) areas of Laos and Cambodia that are effected by UXO. While mines are the main problem, the unexploded “bomblets” from cluster bombs also have a severe impact and are no less dangerous. These dangers are decades old. Surely you can see that the distinction between mines and cluster bombs - in terms of their intended purpose - is technical only. But I guess considering the real human impact (as TRJs suggests, “get real”) of the sweet-sounding political blunderbust of your leaders is not central in your thoughts. The only human concerns that the right is ever worried about are its own, as history has shown.
Now you can all get back to patting yourselves on the back and slinging anonymous mud from behind your computer screens. Brave men and women, all.
In other words, when you say “landmines”, you don’t acutally mean “landmines”. You mean, hey, whatever.
When you say 100,000 people were killed, you don’t mean 100,000 people were killed, you mean, hey, some people might have died who might not have died if this alternative hypothetical situation might have been true. Maybe.
Look, you miserable fuck, we are still finding more mass graves from Saddam’s regime. We are still there fighting against the remnants of the Ba’athists and the new Islamofascist terrorist, and they are the ones killing the Iraqi people, not us. We are pouring billions of dollars into rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the terrorists are doing all they can to prevent it.
You want to bitch? Bitch about the terrorists blowing up police stations and oil pipelines and power lines and assassinating Iraqi officials.
The reason you don’t recognise how soundly you have been spanked is that you ignore any facts that are inconvenient to your worldview, and you twist words however you please to make up new “facts”. You ignore intent when it incovenient and assign it blindly to make a point.
You know what I feel guilty about? We walked away from Vietnam, and let the communists turn it into a shithole. I feel guilty that we didn’t intervene in Cambodia before Pol Pot butchered two million people. That is what I feel guilty about.
You on the other hand seem to find that sort of thing rather to your liking.
I doubt very much that Nwab supported Pol Pot or even supports regimes like that. As far as Vietnam goes, we didn’t walk away. We lost. We killed close to 2 million NVA regulars and we still lost the war. In Clausewitzian terms their will to war was greater than ours. Furthermore our approach to the insurgency in Vietnam was entirely ineffective. I don’t want to go into Vietnam but let’s avoid the ad hominem attacks.
Actually, nwab, I was christening you as a useful idiot. Spanking you implies a far too personal contact by me. But Karl Marx would be pleased indeed with your level of stupidity.
Let’s look at your use of “subaltern”. It’s a borrowed term, nwab. No, I didn’t Google it when you asked. I concluded that you were pulling the typical socialist stunt of redefining terms to your own needs, in an effort to lend credibility to your doctrine. I can always point to a rock and call it a tree, but it is still a rock. Just because some half-wit leftie academic writes a book doesn’t mean some new natural law is hatched. The same is true of moronic right wing politicians, by the way. Your use of “subaltern” was a pathetic attempt to prove your “education”. Try again, but use real words.
Also, please note that Google provided exactly one link to your socialist hero…..and 6 or so to the real definition of subaltern. The power of the INTERNET wins again.
...rest of the shit that litters the last fifty years of US adventures abroad…
As opposed to almost 100 years of blood and pollution from socialist experiments around the world, ranging from the collapsed Soviet Union to North Koreans starving while Their Leader produces nuclear weapons. At least we try to clean our shit up, nwab. Lefties like you close your eyes to the damages caused by your heros, and moan about the evils of capitalism.
In short, fuck you and the socialist horse you rode in on.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 06 03 at 10:20 PM • permalink...your long-winded defence of authority…
...as if a war can ever be a good thing…
...the last fifty years of US adventures abroad…
...uncritically support the actions of the political, corporate, and military powers that dominate life on this planet…
...you are nothing more that a mouthpiece of the powerful…
...an unwitting defender of wealth and war and division…
Houston, we have a moonbat. Seriously, how old are you, nwab…15? Authority baaaaaaddddd! Rebellion goooooddddd!
At least we can finally dispense with the fiction that you’re actually a semi-reasonable person.
As far as Vietnam goes, we didn’t walk away. We lost. We killed close to 2 million NVA regulars and we still lost the war. In Clausewitzian terms their will to war was greater than ours.
Nope.
We won the war with the Tet Offensive. The NVA’s last gasp, and they lost.
Then the American media (thanks a bunch, Uncle Walter) snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Sound familiar?
Well G’day nwab. Pardon me for looking into the Matrix system in lieu of blindly trusting your hysterical global experts. You may be fighting the last war.
This is not a general depoyment of a wapons system. It is limited inn both scope and duration of time.
The system is designed to protect fixed security sites at forward operating bases only. They are not being spread all over the darn country. In other words, the are going to be deployed around forward bases under constant threat of attack not around schools lacking potable water.
The system does not engage with blips on a radar screen asyour people fear. “The soldier must visually identify the target before use. This is a must.”
Obviously, these are not pressure sensitive devices but rather devices that can only detonate by remote control.
Finally, I believe in the technological capability of the people deploying this system. Sue me. If people with limited knowledge and capability can deploy IED’s that are killing Americans then the people who have the technological capability to dress-out an AEGIS Cruiser can come up with a weapons system that can protect bases without putting innocent civilians in harms way. Now you can believe that or not I don’t care.
You’re other remarks did not reach the level of civility required for response.
Sorry for the spelling problems in the first part. This was actually my second response. The first one didn’t take and I pumped this one through without reading it.
Nwab, the major problem is that your experts have never met a system that they liked. This does mitigate their credibility somewhat. There is not a single person on this site that wants to see an innocent person killed. These systems are only going to be used for a limited time for a very limited response. The US is not going to happily drop landmines all over the general landscape of Iraq, as was done in times past.
Nwab wrote: “Patrick Chester - why is my gender of interest to you?”
Because writing “he or she” when referring to your rantings is tiresome, and I thought referring to you as an “it” would be rude.
Judging from your latest self-righteous prattlings, I needn’t bother. “It” will suffice for you. Oh, btw: complaining about anonymous people and being long-winded is a bit… amusing to hear from you.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 06 04 at 03:15 AM • permalinkAs far as Vietnam goes, we didn’t walk away. We lost. We killed close to 2 million NVA regulars and we still lost the war. In Clausewitzian terms their will to war was greater than ours.
Pixy you beat me to it. Of all the lefty memes this one will be the hardest to kill off. The contrary evidence and analysis has been available for over a decade now so I can only conclude that people like BdeSpain are wilfully ignorant or dishonest.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 2005 06 04 at 05:33 AM • permalinkRereading nwab’s rant, I’m even more struck now by one particular statement:
Blair continually lambasts those silly enough to point out the failings of the invasion (as if a war can ever be a good thing)...
Given that any war is apparently an unmitigated disaster and thus wrong per se, “the failings of the invasion” according to nwab must be that it happened at all, and anything else is just window-dressing. Of course, that implies that nwab really does prefer a Hussein-run Iraq over a democratic one, a position s/he strenuously denied whenever the charge was levelled before.
And I don’t think the usual anti-Iraq War peacenik defense that somebody opposed the war because of the fear that things would become worse in the aftermath holds any water once you’ve claimed a spot in the “war is absolutely never good” camp.
and yet never mentions the other side of the story.
Because we know that part already, we hear it everyday, the reason people go to blogs like Chrenkoff’s and this one is to get the rest of the story. Unlike most lefties, we don’t need our hands held by “visionaries” to form our knowledge base.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 06 04 at 09:45 AM • permalinkThe 12,000 number covers 2004 and 2005. If you recall, “shock and awe,” and the invasion took place in 2003.
Posted by The Liberal Avenger on 2005 06 04 at 11:33 AM • permalink
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I reckon Bob Brown should go to Iraq and count the bodies himself. His is the only word we can trust.