The "surge" is a success?

[Kuciwalker]

This is utterly stupid. At the least, the absolute number gives you an ability to guage whether the security situation is good or bad.

Not in the absence of many other numbers (the most basic being population of the area of the operation). The situation of course becomes far more complex when you start looking at methodologies, past history of violence in the society, etc.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Not in the absence of many other numbers (the most basic being population of the area of the operation). The situation of course becomes far more complex when you start looking at methodologies, past history of violence in the society, etc.

Sorry to tell you, but thousands of people being killed a month in political violence is a bad situation. Period. be it a country of 27 million or 300 million.

Those death counts do not cover simple crime or increased mortality due to a decrease in service.

[Berzerker]

Yes but without the numbers from other months you don't know what the trend is. Duh.

We dont have those numbers?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by GePap
Actually, you asserted initially that the number of Iraqi civilian deaths was meaningless.

Wrong. Again.

Not the logic continued on post #353.

I am not the one saying that large numbers of dead Iraqi civilians is not a meaningful way of measuring the success of a "security operation."

Of course it isn't.

Maybe you would be better served by writing post with more fleshed out arguments(if that is something you are capable of doing....)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Berzerker
We dont have those numbers?

Not in the post I initially responded to.

[Kuciwalker]

Long posts are redundant and pointless when explaining elementary logic, like "when measuring the effect of something we need to know how the dependent variable changed, not its absolute value."

[Aeson]

Such a number does have meaning even in isolation. What that meaning is may not be apparent though, outside it's meaning in regards to the extent of the count it is refering to. "Completely meaningless" is not the proper way to convey that concept.

(My post is meaningful. I'm not sure in what context though. Probably in regards to, "What will I do to take my mind off my splitting headache for a while?" or something like that. This thread is funny though. In the very sad sort of way that realizing we went from dancing in the streets, to this **** years later, and that it was pretty obvious (at least to many) that that was going to be the case before we ever invaded, given what the "plan" was.)

[Arrian]

Wow, Kuci. This is impressive stuff, even for you.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

[Shrapnel12]

Does anyone know how many Iraqi's died under Sadam? I don't believe there was no sectarian violence under him. It may have been one sided against the ****es, but it still had to be there.

[Arrian]

There are estimates, but imagine there is a fairly wide range of possibilities. Even leaving aside uncertain casualties from deliberate massacres (Shiites, Kurds) we know happened, it also depends on how much "credit" Saddam gets for deaths during the sanctions regime, and whether you put the blame for casualties suffered in the Iran-Iraq war and Gulf War I on him, in whole or in part (arguable).

But what are you driving at? That USA>Saddam? That's aiming high, eh?

-Arrian

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
Does anyone know how many Iraqi's died under Sadam? I don't believe there was no sectarian violence under him. It may have been one sided against the ****es, but it still had to be there.

Saddam was a saint. He never killed anyone. How dare you oppose our communist dogma!

[Arrian]

Much better than mine, I admit.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Lorizael


Saddam was a saint. He never killed anyone. How dare you oppose our communist dogma!

Michael Moore?

[Lorizael]

*shudder*