Deaths in Iraq

the slippery word here is surely the definite article “_the_ enthusiasts for the war”. I honestly think that there are some for whom no amount of civilian casualties could be too large, providing they are are “islamofascists”, “arab-muslims” and so on. Most, obviously, are not like that.

Some must be. If you take on board the LGF worldview — “we are at war. They are trying to kill all of us”, then it is clearly better to kill too many of them than too few. The British felt like this about bombing Germany in the war.

The real suckers are those high-minded liberal imperialists, like me, who made the argument that a quick war might be better than prolonged sanctions, because sanctions (or a siege) kill women, children, and the old, while in wars young men die on battlefields. Well, ha bloody ha ha. I hadn’t realised that in a modern war you kill civilians from the air so as not to endanger your troops on the ground.

Here we are in a world where every primary school has a copy of “Guernica” on the wall somewhere — and just as the dislocated imagery no longer seems extraordinary, so, too, the dislocated morality which allowed the bombardment of defenceless town from the air now seems entirely normal.

How exactly do you propose the sanctions should have been changed? Remember that the sanctions, in themselves, did not cause those deaths; they were caused because Saddam diverted the supplies and money Iraq was alowed to get (which included food and medicine) to his own use rather than the population’s.

Many proponents of the war have already recanted. Those who are still holding out mostly seem to reason that the worse it gets, the stronger the presumption that Saddam’s Iraq would have been worse. Christopher Hitchins, for example, modified his picture of Saddam’s regime, from one of iron tyranny to one of a failing state where places like Fallujah were turning into Islamofascist hell-holes outside his control. The utilitarian spreadsheet can always be tweaked to give the desired answer.

I suppose if I had supported the war I might still be trying to convince myself it was right, but this study certainly would make it harder.

Remember that the sanctions, in themselves, did not cause those deaths; they were caused because Saddam diverted the supplies and money Iraq was alowed to get (which included food and medicine) to his own use rather than the population’s.

Come to think of it, isn’t this Kerry’s defense of his vote to give Bush the authority to wage war?

And if anyone but Bush had been running our state for all these years then we wouldn’t have had all these problems.

But surely all sanctions must work like this?

No, sanctions don’t work like this. ‘Sanctions’ is a tool with stick and carrot. It’s a tool that gives the government being sanctioned a strong incentive to modify its behavior.

The Iraqi sanctions had no carrot whatsoever – sanctions combined with ‘regime change’ policy make no sense. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, ‘sanctions’, it was punishment, slow-motion death sentence without any possibility of redemption.

Let’s forget the bygone sanctions and the massacred conscripts and people living in the wrong neighborhoods then. Think about the persisting privation and attacks on people living in the wrong neighborhoods now.

While we Americans are proud of bequeathing democracy to Iraq, we continue to regard them as the enemy.

Tonight, American competence is on display. We’re officially killing Iraqis faster than the previous regime.

We’re not only deadlier, we’re less efficient. Worse water, less electricity.

Well, lot’s more interesting criticism of official policy (sanctions, war,…) towards Iraq here. Nothing suggesting what should have been policy there.

Is the best we in the west can do when human rights are being grossly violated in some part of the world is pass a UN resolution and introduce an arms embargo? Was western reaction to Rwanda basically right?

That, sadly, is the conclusion I’m coming to. Cheer me up somone. Suggest something better.

If American and British leadership had been led by historical wisdom instead of political intuition, the war would have never taken place and the Iraqi people would have continued to evolve in a mildly secular—and prosperous—direction. Saddam Hussein was actually the kind of brutal secular leader that Western ideologists have always seen as helpful to the geopolitical interests of Western nations. Hussein would have been more than happy to crack down hard on Islamofascists since they hated him as much as they hated British and American imperialism.

I would suggest that—in hindsight—England, the US, and the Iraqi people would all have been better off if Clinton and Blair had recognized that a “humbled” Saddam Hussein restored to quasi-legitimacy would have better served Western interests than continuing with their pointed efforts to insulate themselves from domestic political criticism by sustaining the unending demonization of Saddam Hussein. If they could have found a way to declare that S.H. had been taught a lesson and that he would be given another chance to lead his country in a “forward” direction, there is little doubt in my mind that Hussein would have been happy to lead the efforts of secularists in the region in opposing Islamic fundamentalism. Local potentates like Hussein want more than anything else to simply continue in their positions as undisputed leaders in their countries (see N. Korea’s Kim). That is the leverage you have to work with.

George Bush’s naiveté in thinking that he could “bring democracy” to the Iraqi people rivals that of another historical figure: Karl Marx. Marx saw history as a morality play. There are the good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys, the “focus of evil in the world” (to borrow a phrase from Ronald Reagan) were the capitalists who exploited the working class for their own selfish interests. Marx believed that if the working class were to rise up and remove the bad guys from power, everyone would live happily ever after. Because they were victimized, the exploited were “inherently good” (in comparison) and this inherent goodness would guide them in making all the right decisions. Of course, the reality was far more complicated than that. Bush, of course, suffers from the same simplistic delusions re: democracy. Viz., remove the Bad Dictators and the people will joyfully rise up and embrace the blessings of democracy. As Britain well knows from its own history, democracy is something that evolves slowly over time, along with advanced economic development.

Such stupidity is a great danger to the entire world when it is guiding one of the most powerful nations on the planet.

http://www.taxwisdom.org

A bit off-topic, but this notion that 19th century wars were ones where mostly military types died must be based on a limited selection. I doubt it was true of China’s civil war in the mid-1800’s, when 20 million died. It wasn’t true when the French military retook Paris from the Commune. It probably wasn’t true of the Indian wars in the US, though I haven’t looked at the statistics closely. Leopold’s rule in the Congo involved a lot of shooting, and amounted to one prolonged slave raid, which would have seemed like a war against the populace if you were at the receiving end. The American war against the Philippines killed at least 200,000, of which maybe 20,000 were soldiers. It’s true that most of the dead in the American Civil War were soldiers and in the Franco-Prussian War as well. I’m not sure who did most of the dying in that Guiness Book of World Records war in Paraguay, where most of the men and many of the women died. Maybe all the men were in the army.

Others have already made the correct point about the sanctions, which is that both Saddam and the US were responsible for the deaths.

On intervention, I see that others have also beaten me to it–it’s a case-by-case thing, with no hard and fast rules, except one–George Bush can be counted on to screw it up.

We have no way of knowing how many civilians actually died-but the figure cited in the article (100,000) is almost certainly absurd.

From the article itself.

“”I can remember how, on a single day (August 12), US warplanes bombed the southern Shiite city of Kut, killing 84 persons, mainly civilians, in an attempt to get at Mahdi Army militiamen. These deaths were not widely reported in the US press, especially television.””
Note that this is reported as a significant event.
But for the math to work out, it would have to be the opposite of a significant event-it would have had to be the report of an easy day!

100,000 divided by 500 (roughly 1 1/2 years of days) equals 200. There would have to have been an average of 200 civilian deaths per day for the math to work out. Since there have been vast stretches of time in which no aerial bombardment occurred, the days in which aerial attacks occurred would have had to have yielded thousands of civilian deaths-I’m sure the western press would not have ignored those.

Disappointing-the above is not higher math-its pretty basic stuff. Am I really the only one to think of it?

Steve

It’s an uncommon relief to read a thread that really puts this issue into perspective. It’s great to see so many posters intelligently rebut the canard that Saddam, rather than the sanctions themselves, generated the deaths under the sanctions.

There has been an unbelievable amount of silly cant in the US media since the invasion about how Saddam “shockingly neglected” the electrical grid / public water supply / hospitals. How stupid can we be and live? We’ll find out on November 2.

Unfortunately the major liberal blogs such as DailyKos, Political Animal and Atrios haven’t yet found this news worth mentioning.

The reality-based community is in general agreement by now that the war was a bad idea. Those outside of that community will be swayed by casualty figures around the same time fossil evidence convinces Pat Robertson of evolution.

Well, war being waged by nintendo warriors makes it more impersonal. Going back to short swords where you can actually look at the person you are killing, or being killed by makes it a more personal activity. That might make some sort of buffer to this penchant for solving problems militarily. Plus we should have an agreement that the White House gets complimentary copies of every daily, monthly, and periodical published. While I wouldn’t expect anyone to read them all, it might just make it possible that the occupant would catch a headline or two and get curious. Unlike the knothead we are stuck with for a few more days, weeks.

Civilians have always borne the brunt of the violence of warfare. Then after the act they usually are either enslaved or coerced to do the bidding of the victors. Solving problems without violence should be the first, second, third option, then and only then should the military card be played. We are all on this one ball of dirt, and no matter what the only way off of it is by dying. People need three things to survive, clean water, food, shelter, well maybe clothes depending on the climate. But those basic necessities should be available to all. The ones that forment war are usually the rich, elites, they don’t fight them, they use the poor, the disenfranchised to do their dying for them. Remember the great conquerors? They usually led the armies, then they died either on the battlefield or in their dotage. THe point being that wars will be with us as long as we are manipulated, conned by the “leaders” that usually don’t lead into battle. Time for a change, time for a new paradigm, time for some peace on this planet, and a break from killing and suffering.

Is the best we in the west can do when human rights are being grossly violated in some part of the world is pass a UN resolution and introduce an arms embargo? Was western reaction to Rwanda basically right?

I’m afraid so. An interesting data point in this regard is that the conventional picture of Western inaction in Rwanda is not correct. There was a very extensive intervention — by the French — on behalf of the genocidaires.

Far more people die of preventable diseases each year than from the combined efforts of all the world’s tyrannies combined. When malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and dysentery are eliminated, it will be time to entertain the notion of humanitarian interventions. Until then, liberals who support them are just providing cover for actors with other motives, as we saw so clearly in Iraw.

Wow, first time in ages I read some sane analysis of the sanctions. From the great Monde Diplomatique of course.
Let’s not forget that if the peaceful options to deal with Iraq were failing, it’s because the state actors intent on regime change were putting some pressure in the right places. A google search for “Jose Bustani” would be very instructive.

Oh and nice balanced post, Chris. In those times of war and civilian deaths, it’s truly important not to offend the crank warmongers of the internet.

Note to Steve–Yes, the rest of us are capable of doing basic arithmetic and had already done that calculation and wondered what it meant. One possibility is that the study is flawed in some way–perhaps memories of the survey respondents were wrong or they lied. Though of course this estimate seems at least as firm as any estimate of the number of enemy atrocities. You don’t see too many stories questioning how we know the death toll under Saddam. I’d like to know what those statistics are based on–for some odd reason you only hear the methodological details when an accusation is made against the US.

You know, it’s also possible that the reason this 100,000 figure comes as a shock is that the media simply doesn’t do an adequate job reporting the bombing our forces do on urban areas. Is any reporter badgering the Pentagon for statistics on the bomb tonnage dropped on Iraqi urban areas? If there is, I haven’t seen evidence of it. Another point, made by Juan Cole, is that the Iraq Body Count statistic of 16000 maximum is, if anything, a bare minimum because it’s only based on Western reporting and we simply don’t know how many deaths never make it into the papers. That falls into the category of “Duh”, but this simple point manages to elude some people.

Speaking of simple points eluding people, I should have paid more attention to that little note at the bottom about how to avoid double-posting.

I’ll grant you there may be a loophole they’ve been flying those B-52’s through all these years, catfish.

All I’ve got really is this:

Most of those killed by Coalition forces were women and children. However, the researchers stressed that they found no evidence of improper conduct by the Coalition soldiers.

Eighty-four percent of the deaths were reported to be caused by the actions of Coalition forces and 95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery.

Which sentence doesn’t belong?

It’s silly to say that flawed estimates caused a lack of interest in Afghan civilian casualties. There’s just not that much interest in the US in how many people we or our proxies kill. We get embarrassed when it is done in an exceptionally disgraceful way that makes its way onto the front pages of the world’s press. Other than that, some lefties make a fuss over it, but mainstream America doesn’t care, except to the extent that it might increase recruitment for Al Qaeda.

Abb1, Oct. 29th:

Ray is correct – there weren’t any notably grievous human rights violations in Iraq before the invasion, so Iraq can not be the base for this conclusion.

Abb1, June 13th:

Just the fact that merits of torture are being seriously discussed indicates that the American society is plunging into barbarism.

Of course it could be two different posters, using the same pseudonym. Or perhaps “barbarism” is a far milder term, in this poster’s lexicon, than “notably grievous human rights violations.”

Or perhaps somebody’s sense of proportion is horribly skewed.

So if we exclude the Fallujah outlier, Sebastian doesn’t feel the need to address the report because there is a 2.5 percent chance that the death toll could be under 8000 and a 2.5 percent chance it could be over 200,000.
Gotta narrow that confidence interval before Sebastian would feel the need to discuss the use of military tactics that might be slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians. I admire the sense of priorities, the firm adherence to statistical rectitude, without any criticism, one might add, of the occupying power that refuses to issue even dishonest counts of civilian casualties. If there’s even a few percent chance that we’re only talking about a death toll 3 times higher than 9/11, he can’t be bothered.

Worse than its sample size in Sebastian’s eyes is the fact that it relies on interviews with surviving family members. Horrors. What a novel and unprecedented approach. Who ever would have thought we’d sink so low as to talk to people who claim to have lost loved ones to American military action. When talking about enemy atrocities, sure, no evidentiary standards necessary in that case. No need for a detailed explanation of methodology. That’s different.

Sarcasm aside, not that Sebastian’s post deserves better, it’d be nice if people responded to this article like human beings and wondered, whatever your stance on the war, what it might say about the tactics being used. Maybe bombs and helicopter gunships aren’t the best way to fight terrorists in an urban environment?

“…like human beings and wondered, whatever your stance on the war, what it might say about the tactics being used.”
Tactics are a symptom, the numbers are a symptom, the body count is the result of a disease no one seems to be able to name.
I’m convinced that the present state of Iraq, the economic ruin, the infrastructure fragmentation, the essentially non-existent military, was the purpose all along.
Mission Accomplished.
Bin Ladin surfaces today and says flatly 9/11 was caused by US injustices. Interestingly, hardly anyone with a strong opinion of the rightness or wrongness of the current “war on terror” could name those injustices, whether real or not.
Those sincerely intent on “fighting terrorism” would do well to look to its cause.

8,000 to 200,000 deaths and you settle on 100,000 and say “see, we were right, Bush is worse than Saddam for Iraqis.”

And then you have the gall to point at exaggeration and hypocracy on the right.

What a bunch of unserious clowns.