BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq
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BPSCG said:
Not to discount your point, but it seems as though you're evading the question.
Or rather, reframing it from one where numbers matter to one where you conjure the worlds worst mental image of the bad guy so that you can make an emotional appeal and beg yourself out of answering.
Orsino can just as easily counter with:
"Worth it? Ask the young American mother who's soldier husband just had his leg and penis blown up, and is now a mental vegetable that she has to care for for the rest of her life."... etc.
Such emotional appeals are not entirely out of the question, but you still must weigh it against the question.
It is still a valid question. Give us a number. YOUR number. Not the wife's number, or the mothers, or the one in Saddam's rape room or on the bad end of a broomhandle in an unnamed American prison camp.
Playing to emotion is fine, but you have to realize we're skeptics here. We can see the rhetorical gambit for what it is.
Re: Re:BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq
Now all that you know is what I consider it to be worth (and you're probably horrified at it, too). But what's the point of what I think is a good number? As Orsino points out, my ox isn't getting gored. When we decide whether to go to war with someone, are we supposed to calculate how evil he is and weigh it against how many lives it might cost? The latter is a fiendishly difficult undertaking, and the former is impossible (on a scale of a hundred, where do you rank Hitler? Stalin? Mao? How do you come up with that ranking?) And then, what, divide the projected number of dead innocents by the evil ranking to come up with some Cost of War Evaluation Ratio (COWER) to decide whether we go or not?
And how do you factor in things like the cost of property damage and its repair and weigh that against the benefit of having a free country in the middle east? When you factor in the cost of having the war, do you also factor out the cost of no longer having to maintain bases in Saudi Arabia and no longer having to have fighter jets patrolling the no-fly zone 24 x 7?
Now, since you seem to think it's a pertinent question (I don't, but what's sauce for the goose, etc.), I'll ask you: What do you think is the number of dead at which point the cost of overthrowing Saddam outweighs the benefit? Since I didn't justify my figure, I won't ask you to justify yours.
If you look back at my post, you'll see I did make that point.Silicon said:
Fine. Ten million. I'm not going to go into how I arrived at that figure, since it's highly speculative.
Now all that you know is what I consider it to be worth (and you're probably horrified at it, too). But what's the point of what I think is a good number? As Orsino points out, my ox isn't getting gored. When we decide whether to go to war with someone, are we supposed to calculate how evil he is and weigh it against how many lives it might cost? The latter is a fiendishly difficult undertaking, and the former is impossible (on a scale of a hundred, where do you rank Hitler? Stalin? Mao? How do you come up with that ranking?) And then, what, divide the projected number of dead innocents by the evil ranking to come up with some Cost of War Evaluation Ratio (COWER) to decide whether we go or not?
And how do you factor in things like the cost of property damage and its repair and weigh that against the benefit of having a free country in the middle east? When you factor in the cost of having the war, do you also factor out the cost of no longer having to maintain bases in Saudi Arabia and no longer having to have fighter jets patrolling the no-fly zone 24 x 7?
Now, since you seem to think it's a pertinent question (I don't, but what's sauce for the goose, etc.), I'll ask you: What do you think is the number of dead at which point the cost of overthrowing Saddam outweighs the benefit? Since I didn't justify my figure, I won't ask you to justify yours.
I actually didn't make that calculation for myself.
I don't think we've hit that number of soldiers yet for me.
But in terms of other costs, we have, and we spent those costs unwisely in my accounting.
In terms of the costs in American credibility for the claims we make, we've passed the cost. That alone is something we spent poorly. Powell giving information he later admitted to being, in his words:
"inaccurate, wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading." -Colin Powell on Meet the Press, May 16 2004
Right then is when a cost was exceeded for me, when the US Secretary of State admitted presenting deliberately misleading information to the world. I see the world as being full of very dangerous threats, and I don't like that we spent our political trust crying wolf over a paper tiger. A Paper tiger that Powell KNEW was paper, when he said a year before:
Taking the focus off of Osama bin Ladin, is also a cost that I feel exceeds what we should have been doing.
The death toll in Soldiers has a natural check on it, and that check is recruitment numbers. I'll let the soldiers of now and the future decide what the appropriate cost in American lives is. When they stop volunteering for the service, I'll say we've hit the natural limit of the cost in lives.
I don't think we've hit that number of soldiers yet for me.
But in terms of other costs, we have, and we spent those costs unwisely in my accounting.
In terms of the costs in American credibility for the claims we make, we've passed the cost. That alone is something we spent poorly. Powell giving information he later admitted to being, in his words:
"inaccurate, wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading." -Colin Powell on Meet the Press, May 16 2004
Right then is when a cost was exceeded for me, when the US Secretary of State admitted presenting deliberately misleading information to the world. I see the world as being full of very dangerous threats, and I don't like that we spent our political trust crying wolf over a paper tiger. A Paper tiger that Powell KNEW was paper, when he said a year before:
Taking the focus off of Osama bin Ladin, is also a cost that I feel exceeds what we should have been doing.
The death toll in Soldiers has a natural check on it, and that check is recruitment numbers. I'll let the soldiers of now and the future decide what the appropriate cost in American lives is. When they stop volunteering for the service, I'll say we've hit the natural limit of the cost in lives.
RussDill
Philosopher
Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq
Even then, saying "caused by the US military" is very misleading. Suicide bomb attacks such as the one early in the conflict that killed 150, would be in this total. Hostages excecuted would be included in this total. Iraqi policemen pulled out of their bus and shot in the back of the head, would be included in this total. Civilians being used as human shields would be included in this total.
Matabiri said:
Even then, saying "caused by the US military" is very misleading. Suicide bomb attacks such as the one early in the conflict that killed 150, would be in this total. Hostages excecuted would be included in this total. Iraqi policemen pulled out of their bus and shot in the back of the head, would be included in this total. Civilians being used as human shields would be included in this total.
Even though in your earlier post, you wrote:Silicon said:
Who's evading the question now?
So why don't you take a moment and make that calculation for yourself? You can take a while if you want; I have to go out for a few hours, but I'll look for it when I get back.
Matabiri
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Re: Re: Re: Re: BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq
All true. The estimate was originally intended to be deaths over and above what would have been expected at pre-invasion death rates, though, so the extrapolation that they would not have died had the invasion not occurred is valid, although the blame being apportioned purely to the US military might not be...
RussDill said:
All true. The estimate was originally intended to be deaths over and above what would have been expected at pre-invasion death rates, though, so the extrapolation that they would not have died had the invasion not occurred is valid, although the blame being apportioned purely to the US military might not be...
SezMe
post-pre-born
Re: Re: Re:BPSCG's Thread: Death Arithmetic in Iraq
Its a (maybe minor) side issue, but I don't think those savings exist. My reading indicates we are building between 11-14 major permanent military bases in Iraq. I suggest that our cost of a continuing military presence in the Mideast has increased substantially, not decreased.BPSCG said:
Meadmaker
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I don';t think it makes sense to do "death arithmetic" . It sounds corny, but I really think you can't compare a life lived freely and a life lived under tyranny. And we are all going to die, someday. Why not die doing something good, like liberating someone else?
In my opinion, if the end result is a democracy in Iraq, then we won't look back and count deaths. If the end result is a religious dictatorship, one death was one too many.
I don't know what the outcome will be. I'm pessimistic about the future in Iraq, although the holding of a successful election holds some promise.
In my opinion, if the end result is a democracy in Iraq, then we won't look back and count deaths. If the end result is a religious dictatorship, one death was one too many.
I don't know what the outcome will be. I'm pessimistic about the future in Iraq, although the holding of a successful election holds some promise.
If Iraq actually winds up peaceful free and stable, my limit won't matter.
If not, it's already been too many, just as Meadmaker said.
In terms of risk/reward, well the Coalition lost under 400 liberating Kuwait, a population of two million.
A similar calculation says the 20 million Iraqis liberated by US forces at a loss of 4000 would be a similar ratio.
Since I see the liberation of Kuwait a stunning success, I would be remis to set a number under 4000 for the liberation of Iraq, if that turns out to have a positive outcome.
I'll say 5k to 10k.
And yes, all of this seems a bit ghoulish. I want to state to everyone how much I DO absolutely appreciate and honor the sacrifice of our troops. Close family of mine participated in the liberation of Kuwait, and I don't forget the anguish I felt when my loved ones were in harm's way, nor will I forget the pride I felt in them when they came home having done their duty for peace in the world.
If not, it's already been too many, just as Meadmaker said.
In terms of risk/reward, well the Coalition lost under 400 liberating Kuwait, a population of two million.
A similar calculation says the 20 million Iraqis liberated by US forces at a loss of 4000 would be a similar ratio.
Since I see the liberation of Kuwait a stunning success, I would be remis to set a number under 4000 for the liberation of Iraq, if that turns out to have a positive outcome.
I'll say 5k to 10k.
And yes, all of this seems a bit ghoulish. I want to state to everyone how much I DO absolutely appreciate and honor the sacrifice of our troops. Close family of mine participated in the liberation of Kuwait, and I don't forget the anguish I felt when my loved ones were in harm's way, nor will I forget the pride I felt in them when they came home having done their duty for peace in the world.
Okay, thanks.Silicon said:
Now, if you are President of the United States Silicon, you've just told the Bad Guys how many of us they'd have to kill to get their way.
I guess John F. ("Pay Any Price, Bear Any Burden") Kennedy isn't one of your heroes.
fishbob
Seasonally Disaffected
BPSCG:
Real nice BS appeal to emotion there.
We heard a lot about these shredders before the invasion, before any of our guys had any first hand look at those parts of Iraq. I have heard diddly squat about them since. I am inclined to think the shredder stories were pre-war Chalabi propaganda.
Real nice BS appeal to emotion there.
BPSCG said:
I'll have you note that Kennedy wasn't willing to pay ANY price to rid the world of Communism, as he didn't invade the USSR. So a cost/benefit analysis was in his head too.
Oh, and if I were president, there'd be a lot of different things in the world.
Starting with, I wouldn't be posting on the internet.
fishbob:
"We heard a lot about these shredders before the invasion, before any of our guys had any first hand look at those parts of Iraq. I have heard diddly squat about them since. I am inclined to think the shredder stories were pre-war Chalabi propaganda."
Typical huns raping and killing nuns stuff. In the UK, we had it all from the useless Ann Clwyd "Special envoy on human rights in Iraq 2003 to the present" (who incidently, doesn`t like answering emails or addressing The Lancet Study), with not a shred of evidence.
quote:
Not a shred of evidence.
Forget the no-show of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. Even George Bush no longer believes that they are there. Ask instead what happened to Saddam’s ‘people shredder’, into which his son Qusay reportedly fed opponents of the Baathist regime. Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley and chair of Indict, a group that has been campaigning since 1996 for the creation of an international criminal tribunal to try the Baathists, wrote of the shredder in the Times on 18 March — the day of the Iraq debate in the House of Commons and three days before the start of the war. Clwyd described an Iraqi’s claims that male prisoners were dropped into a machine ‘designed for shredding plastic’, before their minced remains were ‘placed in plastic bags’ so they could later be used as ‘fish food’. Sometimes the victims were dropped in feet first, reported Clwyd, so they could briefly behold their own mutilation before death.........
http://www.spectator.co.uk/newdesig...4-02-21&id=4302
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Also, let`s not forget Blair`s claims about mass graves found in Iraq which have so far turned out to be bogus...his claims have anyway. His press release on the capture of Saddam Hussein referred to:
"The remains of four hundred thousand human beings already found in mass graves."
(http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page4995.asp)
Downing Street admitted in July that the true figure for bodies found was about 5,000.
Unless someone has found 395,000 corpses in the meantime - which I'm sure we would have heard about - it's clear Bliar was lying again.
quote:
Unrecorded victims
Tony Blair and others claim 300,000 bodies have been found in Iraqi mass graves. In fact, there have been no official exhumations - or count
Brendan O'Neill
Wednesday July 21, 2004
The Guardian
We now know that the public was misled over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But have we also been misled over the even more emotive issue of Iraq's mass graves.
There are without doubt many mass graves in Iraq, into which the bodies of thousands of Iraqis killed by the Ba'ath regime were dumped over the past 25 years. Coalition officials have claimed that they contain the bodies of 300,000 Iraqis. In November last year, Sandra Hodgkinson, then head of the coalition's mass graves action plan, told the press that 260 grave sites had been located, which contained the bodies of "at least 300,000".
In comments and speeches, Labour ministers and MPs have repeated this figure time and again. Tony Blair told the Today programme in April: "We have found the mass graves of 300,000 people already in Iraq. It doesn't get a great deal of publicity, but it's true." At the end of last year, Stephen Ladyman, Labour MP for South Thanet, declared: "We are rebuilding a nation where we found 300,000 bodies in mass graves so far." According to Denis MacShane, minister for Europe: "We've now uncovered 300,000 bodies in mass graves, there because of [Saddam Hussein's] torture and tyranny.".........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Stor...1265742,00.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We heard a lot about these shredders before the invasion, before any of our guys had any first hand look at those parts of Iraq. I have heard diddly squat about them since. I am inclined to think the shredder stories were pre-war Chalabi propaganda."
Typical huns raping and killing nuns stuff. In the UK, we had it all from the useless Ann Clwyd "Special envoy on human rights in Iraq 2003 to the present" (who incidently, doesn`t like answering emails or addressing The Lancet Study), with not a shred of evidence.
quote:
Not a shred of evidence.
Forget the no-show of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. Even George Bush no longer believes that they are there. Ask instead what happened to Saddam’s ‘people shredder’, into which his son Qusay reportedly fed opponents of the Baathist regime. Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley and chair of Indict, a group that has been campaigning since 1996 for the creation of an international criminal tribunal to try the Baathists, wrote of the shredder in the Times on 18 March — the day of the Iraq debate in the House of Commons and three days before the start of the war. Clwyd described an Iraqi’s claims that male prisoners were dropped into a machine ‘designed for shredding plastic’, before their minced remains were ‘placed in plastic bags’ so they could later be used as ‘fish food’. Sometimes the victims were dropped in feet first, reported Clwyd, so they could briefly behold their own mutilation before death.........
http://www.spectator.co.uk/newdesig...4-02-21&id=4302
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, let`s not forget Blair`s claims about mass graves found in Iraq which have so far turned out to be bogus...his claims have anyway. His press release on the capture of Saddam Hussein referred to:
"The remains of four hundred thousand human beings already found in mass graves."
(http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page4995.asp)
Downing Street admitted in July that the true figure for bodies found was about 5,000.
Unless someone has found 395,000 corpses in the meantime - which I'm sure we would have heard about - it's clear Bliar was lying again.
quote:
Unrecorded victims
Tony Blair and others claim 300,000 bodies have been found in Iraqi mass graves. In fact, there have been no official exhumations - or count
Brendan O'Neill
Wednesday July 21, 2004
The Guardian
We now know that the public was misled over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But have we also been misled over the even more emotive issue of Iraq's mass graves.
There are without doubt many mass graves in Iraq, into which the bodies of thousands of Iraqis killed by the Ba'ath regime were dumped over the past 25 years. Coalition officials have claimed that they contain the bodies of 300,000 Iraqis. In November last year, Sandra Hodgkinson, then head of the coalition's mass graves action plan, told the press that 260 grave sites had been located, which contained the bodies of "at least 300,000".
In comments and speeches, Labour ministers and MPs have repeated this figure time and again. Tony Blair told the Today programme in April: "We have found the mass graves of 300,000 people already in Iraq. It doesn't get a great deal of publicity, but it's true." At the end of last year, Stephen Ladyman, Labour MP for South Thanet, declared: "We are rebuilding a nation where we found 300,000 bodies in mass graves so far." According to Denis MacShane, minister for Europe: "We've now uncovered 300,000 bodies in mass graves, there because of [Saddam Hussein's] torture and tyranny.".........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Stor...1265742,00.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
meadmaker:
"I don';t think it makes sense to do "death arithmetic" ."
And yet .... the deaths of three thousand Americans was seen as such an atrocity that it became the watershed from which America drew the outrage to unilaterally declare war on any nation it wished, inflicting any casualites it saw as fit for its endless wars.
Why did we even go to war if all terrorism is capable of at its very best is to be able to kill a few thousand of us? I mean, Bin Laden impressively kept the casualties in under ten thousand and he is on record as having said that the casuality magnitude was a mistake.
Why are we there if our enemies are way more impressive with their casualty figures than we are with ours? Your argument leads one to the conclusion that a few thousand casualites is really not a moral issue worth pursuing - so why are we pursuing it at all?
"I don';t think it makes sense to do "death arithmetic" ."
And yet .... the deaths of three thousand Americans was seen as such an atrocity that it became the watershed from which America drew the outrage to unilaterally declare war on any nation it wished, inflicting any casualites it saw as fit for its endless wars.
Why did we even go to war if all terrorism is capable of at its very best is to be able to kill a few thousand of us? I mean, Bin Laden impressively kept the casualties in under ten thousand and he is on record as having said that the casuality magnitude was a mistake.
Why are we there if our enemies are way more impressive with their casualty figures than we are with ours? Your argument leads one to the conclusion that a few thousand casualites is really not a moral issue worth pursuing - so why are we pursuing it at all?
The Independent on Sunday's comment "We must not just remember them. We must count them" (12 December 2004) says that the apathy of Iraq's conquerors with regard to civilian casualties "seriously weakens the moral case for war - especially the humanitarian argument". At the end, it asks: "How on earth is the coalition to persuade the Iraqi people that it has their interests at heart when it appears to care so little about them that it makes no attempt to find out how many of them have died, and obstructs those who try to do so?"
This seems a rather odd way of putting it. If the Chinese army had invaded an oil-rich Third World country, killed an estimated 100,000 civilians, flattened a major city and targeted hospitals and radio stations - all to the tune of some pious rhetoric about "liberation" - I doubt that the Independent on Sunday would be quite so forgiving. Certainly, given the invaders' actions, the moral case for the Chinese invasion, particularly the humanitarian argument, would be either ignored or derided. Questions about how the Chinese government might persuade its victims of their altruistic intentions would not, I suspect, be prominent.
Interestingly, the 1100-word the report by Andrew Buncombe, Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker ("Last week the US lost its 1,000th soldier killed in combat. Why did no one notice?"), despite a subheading mentioning civilian casualties, expends 75% of its length on casualties among the forces of the Coalition of the Illegal. The final three paragraphs note the coalition's lack of interest in Iraqi civilian casualties, and mentions that "it is hard to escape the conclusion that Washington and London simply do not want to know the figures, to avoid the political fallout they could create." Nowhere in the article is the Lancet survey mentioned. Why are casualties among British and American military professionals worth such prominent coverage, while the much more numerous casualties among the non-beweaponed Iraqis are worth no more than a mention at the tail end of the piece?
Why does the Independent on Sunday and so many other individuals I hear regard the moral case for invading Iraq to have been merely damaged, and not irrevocably shattered, by the conduct of the occupying forces? Why is the coalition's utter lack of interest in the welfare of its victims considered as little more than bad management in the business of winning hearts and minds, and not as a war crime?
This seems a rather odd way of putting it. If the Chinese army had invaded an oil-rich Third World country, killed an estimated 100,000 civilians, flattened a major city and targeted hospitals and radio stations - all to the tune of some pious rhetoric about "liberation" - I doubt that the Independent on Sunday would be quite so forgiving. Certainly, given the invaders' actions, the moral case for the Chinese invasion, particularly the humanitarian argument, would be either ignored or derided. Questions about how the Chinese government might persuade its victims of their altruistic intentions would not, I suspect, be prominent.
Interestingly, the 1100-word the report by Andrew Buncombe, Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker ("Last week the US lost its 1,000th soldier killed in combat. Why did no one notice?"), despite a subheading mentioning civilian casualties, expends 75% of its length on casualties among the forces of the Coalition of the Illegal. The final three paragraphs note the coalition's lack of interest in Iraqi civilian casualties, and mentions that "it is hard to escape the conclusion that Washington and London simply do not want to know the figures, to avoid the political fallout they could create." Nowhere in the article is the Lancet survey mentioned. Why are casualties among British and American military professionals worth such prominent coverage, while the much more numerous casualties among the non-beweaponed Iraqis are worth no more than a mention at the tail end of the piece?
Why does the Independent on Sunday and so many other individuals I hear regard the moral case for invading Iraq to have been merely damaged, and not irrevocably shattered, by the conduct of the occupying forces? Why is the coalition's utter lack of interest in the welfare of its victims considered as little more than bad management in the business of winning hearts and minds, and not as a war crime?
RandFan
Mormon Atheist
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I think that this is a fallacy. Just because someone does not want to risk their lives to be a fireman, police officer, soldier, etc. does not mean that one cannot support the efforts of those individuals who are fireman, police officer or soldier without being a hypocrite.
The final chapter has not been written. Watching the election I felt that this effort could be very historical. Considering Saddam and his two sons, the murders, the disfigurement, the false imprisonment, etc. I think this was a worthy effort. I concede that this is post hoc reasoning.
crimresearch
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fishbob said:
Yeah, its not like Saddam ever forced anyone to pose nude or wear panties on their heads...you know, *real* torture.
"Pictures of dead Iraqis, with their necks slashed, their eyes gouged out and their genitals blackened, fill a bookshelf. "
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-13-saddam-secrets-usat_x.htm
"The home movies of the family of Saddam Hussein, including grisly scenes of torture, are proving a best-seller on the streets of Baghdad.
Some of the images show the dictator in a paternal role, smiling fondly at his brood and dandling their offspring on his knee.
But the kitsch sequences are interspersed with dark recordings of torture sessions and executions. In one, Saddam's son Uday is seen lashing the soles of the feet of a soldier with a rubber pipe as his victim screams with pain and begs for mercy. Eventually he hands the whip to a senior officer to continue the punishment. There is little doubt of its authenticity."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...rt24.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/24/ixworld.html
"The document listed Saddam's favoured methods of torture.
They included eye-gouging, piercing of hands with an electric drill, suspension from a ceiling, electric shock, rape and other forms of sexual abuse, beating of the soles of feet, mock executions, extinguishing cigarettes on the body and acid baths."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/12/02/sproject.irq.dossier/
"The punishments include fingers being chopped or shot off, tips of tongues being cut off, wrists being broken by sharp blows from a wooden rod, lashes by whip or cane, a bound man being tossed off a building, a beheading involving a sword and a knife and a man being humiliated by riding a donkey backwards."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
"Hussein torture victims are shown being flogged and having fingers chopped off. One detainee is filmed as he is thrown from a roof, another beheaded by a sword-weilding member of Saddam's elite Fedayeen unit.
According to the Post, video of the beheading shows a man placing the severed head on the victim's prone body. Another scene shows a man's tongue being cut out.
As NewsMax.com reported on Sunday, other gruesome images from the embargoed video include scenes of Kurdish detainees being castrated and babies being gassed to death."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/21/100312.shtml
"Human rights monitors for the United Nations have amply documented the savagery of Saddam Hussein. His eldest son and a possible successor, Uday, reportedly grew up watching his father punish political opponents as a way to control a large, diverse country. Uday, now 38, has earned his own reputation for violent behavior. In an Amnesty International report, Uday reportedly ordered that the hand of an Olympic committee security guard, accused of stealing sports equipment, be cut off. The missing equipment was later found. Similar incidents tied to Uday later became part of a United Nations report on human rights in Iraq."
http://espn.go.com/oly/s/2002/1220/1480103.html
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But hey, don't be upset foplks, rest assured that none of those things could have actually happened, they must all be fabricated Bush 'appeals to emotion' like the 'dead' Kurds and the 'invasion' of Kuwait.
And promoted through right wing puppets of the administration, like ESPN...
