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Iraq miscount
: Reader Jeffrey Schuster emails me shocked that Iraq Body Count is stacked. It counts every death, even at the hands of insurgents/rebels/terrorists/outsiders, as our fault because we should have stopped it. I’m shocked it’s bogus. Shocked.
Glenn Reynolds, meanwhile, sends us to the counter-counter that adds up lives that have been saved by getting rid of Saddam.
For anyone interested, here’s the paragraph that needs to be read very closely:
>In the current occupation phase this database includes all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva Conventions and Hague Regulations. This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm#db
If an Iraqi just happens to die from SARS, I imagine that the IBC will mark it down as another civilian death caused by the Coaltion forces. The reason given will be “inadequate health care,” ultimately the Coalition’s fault, in their eyes.
Well, as the site clearly notes in your excerpt, there is that pesky business about the Geneva Conventions and all.
I guess when you have “moral clarity,” the Geneva Conventions can be tossed in the garbage?
It counts every death, even at the hands of insurgents/rebels/terrorists/outsiders, as our fault because we should have stopped it.
If we’re just over there to protect our own forces, shouldn’t we have just kept our troops at home?
I’m not trying to make a pacifist argument. Convenient as it may be for pro-war bloggers to pretend otherwise, there was loud objections before the invasion that we weren’t going in with a big enough force to secure the country (in large part because we were going in with so few allies). Many, many liberals, myself included, opposed the war because we thought this would have negative repercussions on our ability to bring democracy to Iraq.
The people running this war made a conscious choice to go in with fewer than half the troops their own generals (e.g., Shinseki) told them were necessary, and to spurn any serious postwar planning. Yes, they’re responsible for the consequences of that decision. Sorry if it’s not politically correct to say so.
Swopa,
1. If people were dying from poor healthcare prior to invasion and less are dying now, then to count those deaths as the cause of the invasion is plain wrong, since the invasion will have improved conditions. You should be talking lives saved.
2. The moral responsibility for the terrorist attacks lies with the terrorists – no-one else. The coalition are doing their best to ensure the safety of civilians, it does not mean that they can prevent all attacks. Afterall, even in the US a truck bomb was not stopped In Oklahoma.
3. Regarding a lack of allies, the operation in Iraq had nearly 60% support in Europe and do you really think that having the Saudi and Syrian armies involved would have increased the chances of democracy in post-war Iraq?
The Iraq Body counter is a political tool being used in a partisan manner; it is not an evidence-based measure of the reality in Iraq. This war was not risk-free, no war is, but then people in the West have developed a completely bizarre set of values about risk aversion.
Jeffrey v; Iraq Body Count
Read the whole of Iraq Body Count, including the methodology, instead of just picking out peices of text that suit you. You will find that only deaths that are clearly related to war are counted. From your snippet i take it to mean you think war casualties only include deaths from bullets and bombs. A soldier could tell you otherwise.
>civilian deaths resulting from breakdown in law and order;
ie tanks, bombs, general havoc – looters and thugs taking advantage of the disruption. Even simply traffic deciding to make up its own rules. This is now one of the biggest problems, controlling the resultant lawlessness. these are all scenarios’s that intensify during times of military conflict, and these are scenarios that cause casualties.
>inadequate healthcare or sanitation
ie a water filtration plant is bombed, water supplies become contaminated, people get sick, some people die.
Are these the deaths you are alluding to as not “real”?
Iraq Body Count has made it very clear that they do not count deaths which are not war related. Read how they deal with varying estimates, and how they deal with deaths reported in newpapers. If anything, the count is UNderestimated.
All sources of death info are published on the site.
Take a proper look at the site Jeffrey, & Jeff .
Regarding (1) — I haven’t seen any reports saying that healthcare has improved compared to before the invasion; please enlighten me if you have evidence of this. Everything I’ve seen has indicated that conditions are worse due to looting and other ills stemming from a lack of security after Baghdad fell.
Regarding (2) — Duh, the moral responsibility is with the terrorists. But the practical responsibility for providing security — per the Geneva Conventions, etc. — lies with the occupying nation. And the practical effect of not providing security is a message to Iraqis that the U.S. doesn’t give a damn about their lives. That message, IMO, will have a backlash at some point.
Regarding (3) — The percentage of EU nations is meaningless; it would have been sufficient to go in with only one ally if that nation had provided 150,000-200,000 soldiers.
Please drop the straw-man arguments and engage in a little hard-headed realism, OK? The name of the game here isn’t who gets to stand on the moral pedestal and congratulate themselves; it’s how we prevent another Saddam from starting up the torture chambers in Iraq a couple years from now.
Going in with the 300,000-plus troops recommended by Gen. Shinseki — and cutting whatever pragmatic deals with other nations we had to in order to make that happen — would have meant better postwar security, more quickly improved water/electricity/health services … which would have been a dramatic message of America’s interest in Iraqis’ well-being, leading to a greater willingness to embrace our political message. Instead, we’ve given them anarchy and mile-long gasoline lines, which will make them more prone to either (1) fall for an authoritarian leader who promises security, or (2) vote for the most anti-American candidate they can when they’re given the chance, which could lead to a “one man, one vote, one time” scenario.
Like you (I presume), I want a tolerant, secular democracy in Iraq. But I fear the way we invaded, and the policies we’re following now, aren’t likely to establish one. And the “ostrich hawk” philosophy of sticking one’s head in the sand and pretending everything is going okay won’t make a successful democracy any more likely.
oops sorry, forgot name.
>I like the methodology used at Iraq Body Count. What I object to is that they have included any and all civilian deaths as due to the Coalition forces, even though terrorists carried out the act.
(Jeffrey at The Mesopotamian)
1. Lets focus on US rhetoric (no, not Jeffreys personally, his leaders).
Dubya Bush has gone to a lot of trouble to dub recent events “The War on Terrorism”. Unfortunately for Jeffrey he can’t have it both ways, if civilian deaths from terrorist attacks aren’t war deaths, then by inference this can’t be called a “War on Terrorism”.
2. Wriggling out of it by saying that terrorist attacks are unrelated to coalition presence doesn’t work, it is patently clear that terrorist attacks are a result of coalition presence/occupation.
Jeffrey would argue himself that terrorists are making use of public opinion and news coverage of civilian deaths to try and make the coalition forces look bad – these attacks are an attempt to drive out coalition forces. These attacks are result of coalition presence.
Jeffrey would argue himself that terrorists are making use of public opinion and news coverage of civilian deaths to try and make the coalition forces look bad – these attacks are an attempt to drive out coalition forces. These attacks are result of coalition presence.
So if we left right now, these terrorists would go away?
Yes, the U.S. has a responsibility to provide security. However, it is not responsible for Iraqi deaths from terrorists anymore than it is responsible for Sept. 11.