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Lancet reports Iraq war claims over 650,000 lives
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11-10-2006 5:55pm#1
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gandalf wrote:And your opinion on this is what exactly?
It would be nice someday to be able to read some instruction from a moderator which doesnt have the smell of superiority about it. Gandalf, why couldn't you at least give the OP the benefit of the doubt and direct him nicely to the charter. Its comments and attitude like this that makes me turn off boards.
Anyway, in regards to the point in question, it doesnt matter who, what, where, when and how these people were killed, if these figures are correct, it is an incredible waste and loss and someone should be held accountable. After all, it is an illegal war.0 -
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Allow me to direct you nicely to the part of the charter that says "The moderators will not discuss their moderating in the Politics threads. Either PM the moderators, or take it to the [Feedback] forum."Mexicola wrote:It would be nice someday to be able to read some instruction from a moderator which doesnt have the smell of superiority about it. Gandalf, why couldn't you at least give the OP the benefit of the doubt and direct him nicely to the charter. Its comments and attitude like this that makes me turn off boards.0 -
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Tristrame wrote:Al Queda would have been somewhere given that they already had some sucess murdering 3000 people in New York.
That would mean the invasion of Afghanistan failed to meet its objective of seriously reducing the capability of Al Qaeda. But lets not get sidetracked here - one disastrous set of outcomes is enough for any thread.
The warhawks can crow about the success of Afghanistan somewhere else
Arguably.Wherever they might have concentrated their efforts,they'd still be murdering innocent people.
Of course, if the US or the Coalition of The Willing had gone after Al Qaeda rather than Iraq....who knows what might have happened.
Because that very logic was used to go into Iraq.So I'd put it to you what makes making an issue out of who they murder in Iraq more important that who they would murder elsewhere or who they are murdering elsewhere?
One of the justifications for the war was that "we are fighting them abroad so that we don't have to fight them at home".
How is this anything but a polite way of saying "We will create a situation where Iraqis die isntead of Americans."Is an Iraqi life more sacrifant than an American,British Australian Egyptian or australian?
Its less important, apparently. Iraqis die in greater numbers so Americans don't die in smaller numbers.
The numbers from the Lancet are roughly equivalent to the fallout a small nuclear detonation in a big city would result in....so unless we're suggesting that over half a million Iraqis is a fair trade against the (speculative) alternative of a nuclear attack, its pretty hard to argue that more American lives have been saved than Iraqi lives lost by this tradeoff.
If we look at it in a percentage of the national population, its equivalent to even more Americans. The article mentions 2.5% of the population, thats equivalent to around 7 million Americans.
The odds of either (percentage or straight-up body-count) being the cost to the US of not invading (note - not of doing nothing...of not invading. This isn't a binary option) are not something I can quantify, but just consider :
Bodycount is the equivalent of a 911-sized attack roughly every 10 days since 9/11/2001 up to today if we take the body-count.
Percentage=wise, it would be the equivalent of a 9/11-sized attack every single day since the towers were first attaked.And as for a lack of sectarianism under Sadam's regime,thats also a questionable point you've made.
Ask the marsh Arab's...
Fair point, although I do believe it would be accurate to say there was a relative lack under Saddam, or that there was less under Saddam. Or will someone try and argue that Iraq today is a safer, less sectarian place than under Hussein?0 -
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Tristrame wrote:Well I was directing my question at the poster and not Bush.
And I'm neither and still answered.
Shame on me
Why not ask the people who did the study published in the Lancet?I was asking the poster why the poster would make an issue out of Iraqi lives more so than those in any other country
They clearly felt there was some reason to look at the total human cost of an "elective"war.
And in fairness, you're not asking about why its an issue out of Iraqi lives over those in any other country. You'e asking why its an issue of Iraqi lives over those that might otherwise have been lost elsewhere.
Yes, they were.and I used the example of 911 as a pointer that AlQueda were already minded on killing people regardless.
But to match the headcoutcount of Iraq (which isn't all Al Qaeda, lets not forget), we'd need a 911-sized event every 9 or 10 days since 911 itself occurred until today. If we limit ourselves to when the US actually went into Iraq, we're looking more at one every 5-ish days.
So its not about the victims being Iraqi. ITs about there being so damned many of them as a result of an operation which was notionally about reducing the threat.
If these figures are in any way accurate, why is it anything other than utterly unacceptable that more people died as the result of this "protective" measure than would have been expected to had said measure not been taken?
After no WMDs were found, all of a asudden the real reason for the invasion was that Saddam was a monster, and that one could see that by the deathtoll his regime caused. The deathtoll is now apparently higher, but all of a sudden its a question of "why are Iraqi deaths important enough to worry about. Sure wouldn't other people have died anyway"?I dont think there could be any doubt that theres been no sucessfull attack on U.S soil since 911. Whether that is just co incidence/luck or a genuine result of the emphasis on Iraq-who knows ?
Who knows, indeed. Speculation doesn't mitigate the death-toll in Iraq. For all we know, had the US not gone into Iraq, but instead had focussed their 1-billion-a-day budget over the past several years at actually finding and targetting Al Qaeda, who knows what woul dhave happened either. Maybe both American and Iraqi lives would have been saved.
This is all the type of stuff my sig refers to. What would have happened doesn't matter because we simply don't know. What we do know is what was chosen to be done, and what occurred as a result. Thus, we know a cost of the chosen path. We do not know the costs of paths we didn't choose.
Thus, the cost in Iraqi lives cannot be rightly compared to what might have resulted had other paths been chosen. It certainly can't be justified on any "someone else would probably have died anyway, so why focus on the Iraqis" reasoning.I'd have to wonder if the lack of an attack in the U.S is really down to something domestically security wise that they are doing right to avoid that (in spite of what they are doing internationally to encourage it).
I'd suggest you look at the frequency of international terrorist attacks against the United States on its home soil for a time-period of 5-10 years before 9/11. I seriously doubt you will find that its worse than the post-9/11 world.
As a parallel, consider that the US hasn't had a major hurricane-based disaster since Katrina. Does this suggest that FEMA is doing a better job than before?I'd agree but with the caveat that,we never could know what would have happened internally there had Sadam remained and had their been no U.S led invasion.
We never could know. Agreed.
So all we can say is that we've traded an alleged 650,000 Iraqi deaths against, well, something.
So remind me again why you asked why the undefined something isn't as important as the Iraqi deaths.
Exactly. So we can't equate the cost of the invasion against the cost that we don't know would have been incurred by not invading.Thats a crystal ball we just dont have.
We can only compare what we know with what we know.
So we shouldn't consider other lvies that Al Qaeda might have taken had Iraq not been such a tempting target for them, because that doesn't meet your criteria for what is comparable.
Agreed?
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banaman wrote:"The warhawks can crow about the success of Afghanistan somewhere else"
Sorry Bonkey, I must have missed something,
You did. The I put after the sentence. 0 -
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I think the essense of this part of the discussion lies in attitudes to learning from mistakes.Clearly Iraq was and is a mistake,not solely on the grounds of the civil war its caused,the open invite to alqueda to use Iraq as a staging ground, and the damage its done to America's more favourable clinton years reputation.I'm not making a point against that.I simply made the point to "FYI"(and I'm fleshing it a bit more here) that following on from his point is the assumption that if there had been no invasion of Iraq, the war by Alqueda wouldnt just have stopped.bonkey wrote:Who knows, indeed. Speculation doesn't mitigate the death-toll in Iraq. For all we know, had the US not gone into Iraq, but instead had focussed their 1-billion-a-day budget over the past several years at actually finding and targetting Al Qaeda, who knows what woul dhave happened either. Maybe both American and Iraqi lives would have been saved.
This is all the type of stuff my sig refers to. What would have happened doesn't matter because we simply don't know. What we do know is what was chosen to be done, and what occurred as a result. Thus, we know a cost of the chosen path. We do not know the costs of paths we didn't choose.
Thus, the cost in Iraqi lives cannot be rightly compared to what might have resulted had other paths been chosen. It certainly can't be justified on any "someone else would probably have died anyway, so why focus on the Iraqis" reasoning.
It's a fair assumption that most of the foreign insurgents now in Iraq would be concentrating their anti U.S spree in Afghanistan and elsewhere with I think a legitimately arguable comparable death toll in non Iraqi lives,U.S lives or totally innocent by standers.
Alqueda certainly had the form for that.
Yes but I dont think there were any attacks in the UK or Spain at all in that period.My point being that AQ are onto the softer targets now.I'd suggest you look at the frequency of international terrorist attacks against the United States on its home soil for a time-period of 5-10 years before 9/11. I seriously doubt you will find that its worse than the post-9/11 world.
I dont think you can fairly compare the frequency of natural phenomena to man made terrorism.One is totally random whereas the other is totally elective.As a parallel, consider that the US hasn't had a major hurricane-based disaster since Katrina. Does this suggest that FEMA is doing a better job than before?
You can of course compare them on a purely statistical level in terms of the level of occurances but its like chalk and cheese.
If Hurricanes on the scale of Katrina were elective, then we could make a comparable judgement on Fema.
Fema's decisions and its masters are elective of course but their job depends on something random whereas security forces jobs don't.
We're still waiting on the random weather event to judge Fema.
I appreciate that you might be using that comparison to allude to comparing the known to the unknown though which in itself is a fair point.
Ok,I'll remind you in Italic from earlier in my post but I'll add a caveat again to the end of it: "I simply made the point to "FYI"(and I'm fleshing it a bit more here) that following on from his point is the assumption that if there had been no invasion of Iraq, the war by Alqueda wouldnt just have stopped.We never could know. Agreed.
So all we can say is that we've traded an alleged 650,000 Iraqi deaths against, well, something.
So remind me again why you asked why the undefined something isn't as important as the Iraqi deaths.
It's a fair assumption that most of the foreign insurgents now in Iraq would be concentrating their anti U.S spree in Afghanistan and elsewhere with I think a legitimately arguable comparable death toll in non Iraqi lives,non U.S lives and totally innocent lives "
In saying that,I'm not justifying it,I'm just pointing out the unreasonableness in my opinion of expecting anything other than a similar outcome but on a different stage and ergo I posed the question that I did to "FYI"
No doubt that stage would have plenty of detractors aswell but it was always the more logical stage for the war on terror to be waged.
I couldnt agree with that simply because,it assumes that we cannot expect less non Iraqi lives would be lost because we cant in fact say that the war if waged in Afghanistan would have been less intense.Exactly. So we can't equate the cost of the invasion against the cost that we don't know would have been incurred by not invading.
So we shouldn't consider other lvies that Al Qaeda might have taken had Iraq not been such a tempting target for them, because that doesn't meet your criteria for what is comparable.
Agreed?
In other words what I'm saying is,I think its unrealistic to suggest that if the coalition had concentrated their war where it was more logical for them to be concentrating it that there would be less than an equivalent number of lives lost.I'd have to expect the war there and its results to be more intense than it has been.
I know your position is,we cant compare the known to the unknown and thats the position I've stated aswell but I fall back on the caveat again.
We equally in my view shouldnt be making an expectation that the likes of AQ wouldnt be busying themselves on whatever stage the coalition was on especially in Taliban territory.It stands to reason that activists if not in Iraq would be where the action is/was.
All that said,I think I know your answer and probably FYI's answer despite our interesting discussion and fleshing out of opinions on it.
It's just our opinions on expectations seem to be different and consequently we end up with larger differences when we've done some adding and subtracting with them.
(sorry about the corny methaphors in my last sentence there,I just know you're a mathematician at heart and couldnt resist
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Tristrame wrote:Yes but I dont think there were any attacks in the UK or Spain at all in that period.
Not international terrorism, no, just the IRA, ETA and so on.
The point I ws criticising is the notion that the US security policy is attributable to the lack of attacks since 911, when the reality is that there has never been a pattern of attacks in the first place.
I disagree. England and Spain have had decades of dealing with terrorist attacks. The US doesn't.My point being that AQ are onto the softer targets now.
Only yesterday we saw just how proof buildings in New York are against planes, and I learned from watching the coverage that small planes can fly up and down the Hudson, below 1000 feet without being obligated to maintain radio or other contact with anyone.
The US ports are a security disaster. Always have been. That this hasn't been exploited (or isn't known to have been exploited isn't anything to do with it not being a soft target.
The simple truth is that large-scale terrorist attacks are few and far between anyway.
The point I'm making is that a lack of re-occurrence of something that hasn't been established as a frequent occurrence in the first place is meaningless.I dont think you can fairly compare the frequency of natural phenomena to man made terrorism.One is totally random whereas the other is totally elective.
If terrorist attacks worldwide had gone down, we could conclude that global terrorism was on the wane. If worlwide sales of arms slump, we can conclude that the war on guns (were there to be one) was working.
But looking at a nation which has had exactly one significant external attack since the end of ww2, and concluding that a lack of reoccurrence in 5 years for something that happened once in 50 years is somehow significant is a completely different ballgame.
No, its not.You can of course compare them on a purely statistical level in terms of the level of occurances but its like chalk and cheese.
From our perspective and the amount of information we have available to us, we can model absolutely nothnig about the reasons why mainland US would be chosen as a terrorist target.
From that perspective, any model of how often the US should get attacked would be even less certain than a model of how often the US should get hit by natural disaster.
And yet, you'll argue that the one we can put a statistical likelihood on is a random act of nature, and appear to be implying that the one we cannot put a statistical likelihod on is more predictable, as you seem to be arguing that the reasons for it not reoccurring can be somehow determined or assigned.
I've accepted that.Ok,I'll remind you in Italic from earlier in my post but I'll add a caveat again to the end of it: "I simply made the point to "FYI"(and I'm fleshing it a bit more here) that following on from his point is the assumption that if there had been no invasion of Iraq, the war by Alqueda wouldnt just have stopped.
Again, accepted.It's a fair assumption that most of the foreign insurgents now in Iraq would be concentrating their anti U.S spree in Afghanistan and elsewhere
Do you believe that the equivalent of a 911 disaster would have been the result every 10 days had the US not gone into Iraq? That the continuing war on Al Qaeda would have resulted in approximately 300 people a day, every day, being killed from then to now?with I think a legitimately arguable comparable death toll in non Iraqi lives,non U.S lives and totally innocent lives
If not, then its not a legitimatly arguably comparable death-toll.
I would suggest that a good way of estimating this would be to look at the average death tolls of:
1) Al Qaeda operations in the 5 years prior to 911
2) Al Qaeda operations subsequent to 911, and prior to the invasion of Iraq
3) Al Qaeda operations outside Iraq since the invasion.
Taking the Lancet fiugures, and adding them to the third of th eabove figures, do you expect we will see an increase or decrease from teh second and first figures?
I accept we're both guessing here, but I'm trying to say that I do not believe that there is any strong justification to suggest Al Qaeda could have managed that level of sustained desrruction especially considering that they are not considered to be the main faction in Iraq.
My guess is that you'd find that figures 1, 2 and 3 above are actually fairly close to each other. Indeed, figure 3 may indeed by the highest of the three and thats before we add in an almost-weekly 911 to the mix.
Ask yourself why teh Bush administration has a major problem with a number like the one published if they could seriously explain it away by showing that statistically things haven't really gotten a hell of a lot worse.I'm just pointing out the unreasonableness in my opinion of expecting anything other than a similar outcome but on a different stage
You can stop pointing out to me that you were asking someone else. Seriously...I get that. However, this isn't a one-on-one forum and I disagree with the reasoning underlying your question. Do I not have as equal a right to point that out and question you on it as you do to question FYI?and ergo I posed the question that I did to "FYI"
Which was? The invasion of another country? I would have argued that going to war with another nation was never the logical way to deal with terrorism, given that terrorism isn't a nation-on-nation problem.No doubt that stage would have plenty of detractors aswell but it was always the more logical stage for the war on terror to be waged.
I agree that any approach would have its detractors. That doesn't make tehm all equal though.
So if they had gone to war with terrorism without actaully invading any countries but instead putting the money into intellgience, security, international co-operation, and funding the costs of a changed international policy....you believe that 300 people a day every day would still have died?In other words what I'm saying is,I think its unrealistic to suggest that if the coalition had concentrated their war where it was more logical for them to be concentrating it that there would be less than an equivalent number of lives lost.
Bear in mind that the figure frmo the Lancet is extra mortality, not total mortality, so we can't just talk about how many people were dying under Saddam. Also bear in mind that this study also doesn't look at Afghanistan, so the death-count there isn't taken into account.
If you still believe it to be true, then you still believe it to be true. Its speculative and I certainly can't prove you wrong. What I can say is that I'm pretty sure that it would be seen as a last-gasp excuse for the US Administration to say "yeah, well, half a million isn't so bad cause Al Qaeda and ourselves would have done in that many between us in the same time-period no matter what we did".
You say its your position, but you also keep maknig these comparisons about what you believe would have happened had the US not gone into Iraq. How is that not comparing the known and the unknown?I know your position is,we cant compare the known to the unknown and thats the position I've stated aswell but I fall back on the caveat again.
The simple reality is that even if we accept that it mightn't have been any different, the US never claimed to be going into Iraq just to shift the nationality of the dead. They never claimed that as things have progressed, they've managed to tread water. No, they say they went in there to fix things, that they've done so without significant casualties, and that its getting better every day. This paper, if even reasonably accurate (if its no more than, say, quadruple the actual figures) puts an enormous shadow over such statements.
I believe I did state at the outset that the alterantive to not going to war was not to do nothing. I'm making no exception. I'm assuming that if the US hadn't spent a billion a day in Iraq, they could have spent up to a billion a day dealing with Al Qaeda differently - without going to war anywhere.We equally in my view shouldnt be making an expectation that the likes of AQ wouldnt be busying themselves on whatever stage the coalition was on especially in Taliban territory.It stands to reason that activists if not in Iraq would be where the action is/was.
My opinion is that the US need to explain either why a figure 13 times larger then their own estimates is not credible, or why its acceptable. I do not believe they can, and I believe that they would run a mile before trying a "well, you know. that many probably would have died somewhere else, so lets not get too concerned" line.It's just our opinions on expectations seem to be different and consequently we end up with larger differences when we've done some adding and subtracting with them.
It is undeniable that terrorism worlwide has gotten worse since the US went into Iraq. Every metric available backs this up. To suggest that it has been a successful limiting exercise seems untenable to me.(sorry about the corny methaphors in my last sentence there,I just know you're a mathematician at heart and couldnt resist)
Touche
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Doesnt that presuppose though Al Queda couldnt be bothered or arent trying now that they are suffeciently bothered abroad? Or is it that you think that it takes greater than 6 years planning to attack the U.S?bonkey wrote:The point I ws criticising is the notion that the US security policy is attributable to the lack of attacks since 911, when the reality is that there has never been a pattern of attacks in the first place.
I'm suggesting there must be a reason why the U.S is not as easy a target or not getting done more frequently.I mean why bother blow up trains and busses in London when doing so in New york would be a bigger more hitting home target?I disagree. England and Spain have had decades of dealing with terrorist attacks. The US doesn't.
But equally that could be down to crime prevention that we dont hear about.The every day work of police or security investigations arent made public usually.Only yesterday we saw just how proof buildings in New York are against planes, and I learned from watching the coverage that small planes can fly up and down the Hudson, below 1000 feet without being obligated to maintain radio or other contact with anyone.
The US ports are a security disaster. Always have been. That this hasn't been exploited (or isn't known to have been exploited isn't anything to do with it not being a soft target.
The simple truth is that large-scale terrorist attacks are few and far between anyway.
I dont think its meaningless at all.I just think the lack of activity is as likely to be symptomatic of a good coping with a rising problem of Islamic terrorism.I'd have to suggest that it has risen to a much more problematic level in the last 2 decades than in the total of the last 5.The point I'm making is that a lack of re-occurrence of something that hasn't been established as a frequent occurrence in the first place is meaningless.
But thats assuming all other things are equal and they are not.If you were to divide the total level of AlQueda "píssed off-ness" that there is today by those 50 years,you'd soon see that the period is very front end weighted.Ergo I'd contend that going back 50 years to look at the incidents of Islamic hatrid attacks on America is actually the meaningless thing to do.It seems logical that Alqueda are more fired up, angry, motivated and recruited now then ever compared to even the 5 years prior to 911.But looking at a nation which has had exactly one significant external attack since the end of ww2, and concluding that a lack of reoccurrence in 5 years for something that happened once in 50 years is somehow significant is a completely different ballgame.
So looking at the years prior to 911 when looking at the threat of terrorism would not be the same as the years after 911 when looking at the threat of terrorism in my view. I cannot fathom how they could be like and like.
Well to the best of my knowledge,however difficult it may be,it is possible to quell terrorism but its not possible to quell the force of the weather.No, its not.
From our perspective and the amount of information we have available to us, we can model absolutely nothnig about the reasons why mainland US would be chosen as a terrorist target.
From that perspective, any model of how often the US should get attacked would be even less certain than a model of how often the US should get hit by natural disaster.
And yet, you'll argue that the one we can put a statistical likelihood on is a random act of nature, and appear to be implying that the one we cannot put a statistical likelihod on is more predictable, as you seem to be arguing that the reasons for it not reoccurring can be somehow determined or assigned.
what I was talking about was comparing the consequenses and reactions to the unquellable with the quellable.
No,I think you've picked me up wrong.Do you believe that the equivalent of a 911 disaster would have been the result every 10 days had the US not gone into Iraq? That the continuing war on Al Qaeda would have resulted in approximately 300 people a day, every day, being killed from then to now?
If not, then its not a legitimatly arguably comparable death-toll.
I would suggest that a good way of estimating this would be to look at the average death tolls of:
1) Al Qaeda operations in the 5 years prior to 911
2) Al Qaeda operations subsequent to 911, and prior to the invasion of Iraq
3) Al Qaeda operations outside Iraq since the invasion.
I was saying that it would be logical to assume that the coalition could have thrown the effort it has in Iraq onto Afghanistan and that Alqueda would throw the same resources that they are using now at whoever in Iraq and elsewhere onto the coalition forces in Afghanistan and ultimately its surrounds.
In fairness now bonkey,I got the distinct impression that you had misunderstood the point that I was making and you did ask me to repeat it.You can stop pointing out to me that you were asking someone else. Seriously...I get that. However, this isn't a one-on-one forum and I disagree with the reasoning underlying your question. Do I not have as equal a right to point that out and question you on it as you do to question FYI?
The purpose of this discussion is discussion and at no point was I ever or would I ever say hey I'm not discussing it with you.I thought you would have seen that
That said,my only reason in repeating that I made the point to " FYI" ( apart from you asking me to repeat myself ) was to emphasise that it was a point independent of who was involved in the war.It was a statement by me of an opinion that this would be going on elsewhere simply because the main players were engaged.It's without doubt of the making of the U.S that the main stage is in Iraq of course.
Personally I'd have found it difficult to disagree with the logic of going after the Taliban as a major step in defeating AlQueda.Which was? The invasion of another country? I would have argued that going to war with another nation was never the logical way to deal with terrorism, given that terrorism isn't a nation-on-nation problem.
That question is not related at all to the position I was putting.The fact of the matter is that the coalition diverted their resources away from Afhanistan and into Iraq for their own reasons.Yes I do believe that if the same effort was put into the war there by both sides as the combined effort now in Iraq and Afghanistan,that the anarchy and death toll would be comparable.I've no reason to believe that the coalitions opponents efforts/numbers would be any less or that the war wouldnt regretably spread into neighbouring countries like pakistan.
So if they had gone to war with terrorism without actaully invading any countries but instead putting the money into intellgience, security, international co-operation, and funding the costs of a changed international policy....you believe that 300 people a day every day would still have died?
It's a realistic expectation given the known ( I'm starting to sound like you know who...bangs headYou say its your position, but you also keep maknig these comparisons about what you believe would have happened had the US not gone into Iraq. How is that not comparing the known and the unknown? ).
I think going after Al Queda in Afghanistan and dethroning the Taliban was justifiable,taking the eye off that ball to go into Iraq wasnt.I believe I did state at the outset that the alterantive to not going to war was not to do nothing. I'm making no exception. I'm assuming that if the US hadn't spent a billion a day in Iraq, they could have spent up to a billion a day dealing with Al Qaeda differently - without going to war anywhere.
Well I've set out my stall with the exception of the lets not get too concerned bit.Obviously Bush et al arent going to talk in the fashion or debate in the fashion that we are doing here.My opinion is that the US need to explain either why a figure 13 times larger then their own estimates is not credible, or why its acceptable. I do not believe they can, and I believe that they would run a mile before trying a "well, you know. that many probably would have died somewhere else, so lets not get too concerned" line.
Thats because they have a real life position that they have to plausibly defend and we dont.
We have the luxury of fleshing out the "what if's".They dont unless they want to openly declare themselves as fools.
I never did.It is undeniable that terrorism worlwide has gotten worse since the US went into Iraq. Every metric available backs this up. To suggest that it has been a successful limiting exercise seems untenable to me.0 -
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