600,000 killed by Bush's war in Iraq

[Chemical Ollie]

Another question arises when I think of this study. How reliable are the casualty statistics from WW2? What about the 20 million Russians or 6 million Jews we all heard of? How where those studies done? The Germans were well-known for their thorough documentation, even of the bad things they did, so I suppose the 6 million jews is a quite reliable number, but what about the 20 million dead Russians? Was it 16 or 24 million dead? How did they come up with that number?

And does the actual number make *******s like Hitler and Stalin better or worse? Does the actual number of dead in the Iraq war make Bush or Saddam look worse or better? Is Bush a better president if he only ordered the death of 50.000 innocent civilians, compared to the death of 600.000 innocent civilians?

Was it worth the effort of killing a minimum of 50.000 innocent Iraqis to achieve [whatever the goal was, you tell me]...

[debeest]

Someone asked why there are error bars. It's because it's a sample, not a measurement of every member of the population. Inherently, there's statistical uncertainty (i.e., error bars), just like in political polling.

The sample size is very large, even if you consider it only as 1849 families (probably correctly), rather than 12,801 individuals. As noted above, the statistical uncertainty should be less than 3%. Looking only at sample size, this is a very powerful study, not a "small sample."

The real question is, was there bias in selection of the families surveyed, or in the responses they gave, or from some other source? They went both urban and rural, eliminating that bias present in earlier studies. And let's say a certain number of people lied (for some reason) and said that their family members had died. How many would that be? Enough to explain a 2.42-fold increase in the death rate? I think not.

And let's just imagine that these 1849 families lied so outrageously that it did explain a 2.42-fold increase in deaths (I just love the 2.42 thing!). That would still mean that, having thrown the murderous tyrant out of power, we've only replaced him with a system that's every bit as deadly as he was. Now that we know the WMD claim was lies, and we know the Al-Qaida connection was lies, what's our last rationalization for the invasion? To free the people from the brutal murderous tyrant. Mission accomplished? I don't think so.

And, finally, you may have noticed that the rate of deaths by violence is continuing to rise, not fall or even hold steady.

Give it up, war supporters.

[Kuciwalker]

It's still possible that there was a bias (such as somehow selecting for those who had had relatives die), though I wouldn't count on it.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Straybow
Here in America we get exit polls that differ from the actual voting results by enough to know that poll respondants will lie.

Actually, in America, exit polls tend to be so accurate that if there's a difference, it's a strong indication that there may be election fraud. Unfortunately, if the data shows election fraud, the polling companies will rework their data to make it follow the election results. AFAIK, the actual polling data from the 2004 Ohio election still hasn't been released.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
My point was simply that there are many, many deaths for which you can't necessarily hold us responsible - or absolve us. These range from the neutral Iraqi civilian killed because there were insurgents in his home to a sick child who doesn't have access to adequate medical care to the man killed in a dark alley for his wallet because there weren't enough police on the streets.

Well, the point should be argued that if you create a situation where bad things can happen when they could not happen before, then you bear some resonsibility. Iraq has had a crime convulsion, not even counting politically motived crime, since we removed the Ba'athist government. It couldn't happen as long as the dictatorship was there. We removed the dictatorship, and didn't replace it with anything. We created the conditions for rime to flurish. While we certainly don't bear as much responsibility as the criminals themselves, we do hold some of it.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, the point should be argued that if you create a situation where bad things can happen when they could not happen before, then you bear some resonsibility. Iraq has had a crime convulsion, not even counting politically motived crime, since we removed the Ba'athist government. It couldn't happen as long as the dictatorship was there. We removed the dictatorship, and didn't replace it with anything. We created the conditions for rime to flurish. While we certainly don't bear as much responsibility as the criminals themselves, we do hold some of it.

Yes, but how much? And how do we know that person wouldn't have died anyway? Statistically we can arrive at an approximation, with error bars, it's true. But then, if you have a police state with an almost zero murder rate, and then a freer state with more murders, is it worth it? Is it worth some people dying to stop oppression.

Not that I suffer the delusion we have brought any sort of glorious freedom to the Iraqis, but "number of deaths" isn't the metric we should be using for success.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Well, the point should be argued that if you create a situation where bad things can happen when they could not happen before, then you bear some resonsibility. Iraq has had a crime convulsion, not even counting politically motived crime, since we removed the Ba'athist government. It couldn't happen as long as the dictatorship was there. We removed the dictatorship, and didn't replace it with anything. We created the conditions for rime to flurish. While we certainly don't bear as much responsibility as the criminals themselves, we do hold some of it.

Yes, but how much? And how do we know that person wouldn't have died anyway? Statistically we can arrive at an approximation, with error bars, it's true. But then, if you have a police state with an almost zero murder rate, and then a freer state with more murders, is it worth it? Is it worth some people dying to stop oppression.

Not that I suffer the delusion we have brought any sort of glorious freedom to the Iraqis, but "number of deaths" isn't the metric we should be using for success.

Which on the other hand leads to the question:
How much freedom was brought to the ordinary iraqi?

How much difference is there in the life of "normal" iraquis (which weren´t suspected of conspiring against Saddam) between pre invasion and post invasion?

And may there be some areas where the invasion led to lesser degrees of freedom? (for example perhaps concerning women in iraq, as the religious right might be gaining ground in the country)

[Straybow]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Actually, in America, exit polls tend to be so accurate that if there's a difference, it's a strong indication that there may be election fraud. Unfortunately, if the data shows election fraud, the polling companies will rework their data to make it follow the election results. AFAIK, the actual polling data from the 2004 Ohio election still hasn't been released.

Yeah, that must be it. Both parties cheated, so each is afraid the spotlight will reveal their evil deeds.

On an election day the early results almost never match the final results. All you need is a few large precincts reporting late to throw off predictions made during the day. If the race is reasonably close it can make the difference for the winner.

This has happened enough that networks have wisely stopped making projections for close races until populous precincts have reported.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Which on the other hand leads to the question:
How much freedom was brought to the ordinary iraqi?

No it doesn't, because I'm not even going into that can of worms. How do you measure freedom?

How much difference is there in the life of "normal" iraquis (which weren´t suspected of conspiring against Saddam) between pre invasion and post invasion?

No more state police. On the other hand, you have to worry about the militias...

[Ramo]

You mean, police state.

So they have a lot of organized political violence from a bunch of different sources instead of much less from one. Freedom

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Straybow
Yeah, that must be it. Both parties cheated, so each is afraid the spotlight will reveal their evil deeds.

On an election day the early results almost never match the final results. All you need is a few large precincts reporting late to throw off predictions made during the day. If the race is reasonably close it can make the difference for the winner.

This has happened enough that networks have wisely stopped making projections for close races until populous precincts have reported.

Are you talking about exit polls or predictions based on early counts? These are two very different things.

Exit polls tend to be accurate within the margin of error, which in very close races means that the winner cannot be predicted.

But either way, this does not undermine the validity of a study about people dying.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Straybow
Now the study purports that every US soldier over there is directly responsible for two deaths? I've known too many who spent their 18-24 mo and never fired a weapon except at a shooting range.

Come on, you must be able to recognize the fallacy in your thinking. Just because some clerks you know never fired a gun in anger, you cannot then conclude the Americans are not killing Iraqis.

The United States is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, either directly or by creating the chaos where these people have died.

Death rate before the invasion: 5.5/1,000
Death rate after the invasion: 13/1,000

Edit: While there might be merit in arguing that the death toll was worth whatever benefits have been created, denying the death toll is just ludicrous

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


No it doesn't, because I'm not even going into that can of worms. How do you measure freedom?

How much difference is there in the life of "normal" iraquis (which weren´t suspected of conspiring against Saddam) between pre invasion and post invasion?

No more state police. On the other hand, you have to worry about the militias...

But somehow you have to measure the benefits.

The drawbacks of the invasion (for the ordinary iraqi) are a much higher probability of getting killed and for women perhaps, that they loose freedoms because of the rising influence of islamistic movements.

So there have to be enough benefits to balance these drawbacks out, so that the ordinary iraqi can say:
"Well I might live more dangerous now, but nevertheless my living conditions have considerably improved,, therefore I have no problem to pay the price for freedom"

Let´s take for example the former DDR (German democratic republic):
They also had a secret service which observed everyone, imprisoned and killed people believed to be regime critics and had lots of informants among the common people, so that you had to think twice who you could trust.
And the DDR also had a shortage in many kinds of goods (if, for example, you wanted to buy a car, you had to wait years untils you got it).
But everyone within the DDR had a job.

Nowadays the Regime isn´t anymore, but in some regions of the former DDR there are villages where 60-80% of the people are jobless and live from welfare, because during times of the DDR there was only one factory which gave jobs for almost everyone within these villages and, as the factory was closed after the reunification with germany, all oft these people lost their jobs.

I cannot really blame these people for wishing the DDR back, even though they are "much freer" now

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


It's not that small for a country that size. Statisticians are saying this is a well done study.

The size of the country is irrelevant really. Once you get a sample size of about 1,000, as long as that sample does not have any selection biases, it's good enough.

I'm not going to get into a semantic argument with you. My point was simply that there are many, many deaths for which you can't necessarily hold us responsible - or absolve us. These range from the neutral Iraqi civilian killed because there were insurgents in his home to a sick child who doesn't have access to adequate medical care to the man killed in a dark alley for his wallet because there weren't enough police on the streets.

But if the invasion had not happened, those people would be alive today!

Not that I suffer the delusion we have brought any sort of glorious freedom to the Iraqis, but "number of deaths" isn't the metric we should be using for success.

Though it makes a fine metric for failure.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
But if the invasion had not happened, those people would be alive today!

Kuci's valid point is that that we cannot know that they would be alive today. We can speculate that most of them probably would, however.