Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?
Les Roberts, AlterNet | 26.02.2006 22:36 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | World
When I presented these results to about thirty Pentagon employees last fall, one came up to me afterwards and said, "We have dropped about 50,000 bombs, mostly on insurgents hiding behind civilians. What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen?" Our survey team's 100,000 death estimate for the first 18 months after the U.S. led-invasion equates to about 101 coalition-attributed violent deaths per day."
The Scale of Civilian Casualties
The Scale of Civilian Casualties
"The deaths of civilians in Iraq may indeed add up to violations of the Geneva Conventions, especially Article IV. This became apparent to me last year, when I headed a multinational team of medical and public health researchers to investigate the scale of fatalities associated with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent violence.
The resulting report, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, estimated around 100,000 and possibly far more civilians have died because of the invasion. Our study was based on 988 household interviews in 33 randomly picked neighborhoods from across the entire country, and covered the period between on the beginning of the war (March 2003) and September 2004.
Most disturbing and certain about the results, is that over 80 percent of violent deaths were caused by U.S. forces and that most of the people they killed were women and children. None of the deaths we recorded involved intentional wrongdoing on the part of individual soldiers, instead being mostly from artillery and aerial weaponry. When I presented these results to about thirty Pentagon employees last fall, one came up to me afterwards and said, "We have dropped about 50,000 bombs, mostly on insurgents hiding behind civilians. What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen?" Our survey team's 100,000 death estimate for the first 18 months after the U.S. led-invasion equates to about 101 coalition-attributed violent deaths per day."
For full article please see:
http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/
"The deaths of civilians in Iraq may indeed add up to violations of the Geneva Conventions, especially Article IV. This became apparent to me last year, when I headed a multinational team of medical and public health researchers to investigate the scale of fatalities associated with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent violence.
The resulting report, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, estimated around 100,000 and possibly far more civilians have died because of the invasion. Our study was based on 988 household interviews in 33 randomly picked neighborhoods from across the entire country, and covered the period between on the beginning of the war (March 2003) and September 2004.
Most disturbing and certain about the results, is that over 80 percent of violent deaths were caused by U.S. forces and that most of the people they killed were women and children. None of the deaths we recorded involved intentional wrongdoing on the part of individual soldiers, instead being mostly from artillery and aerial weaponry. When I presented these results to about thirty Pentagon employees last fall, one came up to me afterwards and said, "We have dropped about 50,000 bombs, mostly on insurgents hiding behind civilians. What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen?" Our survey team's 100,000 death estimate for the first 18 months after the U.S. led-invasion equates to about 101 coalition-attributed violent deaths per day."
For full article please see:
http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/
Les Roberts, AlterNet
Homepage:
http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/
Comments
Hide the following 12 comments
It depends on who is killing the Iraqi civilians, it seems
27.02.2006 04:50
If they result from, say, Sunni militias blowing up a Mosque, beheading female aid workers, shoving workers into mass graves, machine gunning children, bombing schools and aid stations, or attacking crowds of voters on polling day, then no they don't matter at all.
If they start becoming too difficult to ignore, however, some lying lickspittle can always be counted on to drag up the phoney Lancet study in a deliberate attempt to divert attention from what's actually happening in Iraq today.
Here's some information on how the phoney Lancet study was concocted.
If the Lancet study fails to impress, then the usual lackeys at IndyMedia.lies.gov.cuba will insist that Shiite and Kurdish civilian casualties were "really" inflicted by Coalition special forces "disguised" as Iraqi resistance fighters.
How the Coalition could ever possibly benefit from doing something like that, which clearly plays into the hands of the Iranians and their proxies in Iraq, is anyone's guess.
But logic is not exactly on a premium here at Ranting Central.
Lying is important to the Left - because the "peace movement" has to go on explaining why its supports the Iraqi "resistance" (fascist Sunni militias actually).
And why their chief ally in all of this is someone like Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
Well, I think it's because they're so bored with their relentless track-record of political failure that they'll side with anyone so long as it looks like the Left still has a role to play in history.
Other than standing around outside inner city pubs trying to give away copies of Green Left Weekly, that is.
Leon S
No it doesn't.
27.02.2006 09:17
And are you seriously suggesting that anyone opposed to your war therefore supports the Islamist insurgents?
The war party has made a fucking mess in that country, and now they're casting around for someone to blame for their colossal fuckup. "It's the terrorists in Iraq! It's Al Qaeda! It's the leftists here in the west! It's anyone but us who invaded in the first place!"
Now watch as the former war enthusiasts scramble over each other, to leap off the sinking ship:
Even Bush himself agreed months ago that the civilian body count was "30,000, more or less":
It's creeping up to 32,000 civilians now, with no sign of slowing down:
But hey, most of them were probably killed by the terrorists.
J
IM to blame for Iraq invasion ?
27.02.2006 12:51
I can't believe you are accidentally misrepresenting the arguments to justify war, but I guess that's your job. If you have a real argument that discredits either the left or the Lancet report then post it here - why should I trust a downloaded word document from a war-monger ?
"If they start becoming too difficult to ignore, however, some lying lickspittle can always be counted on to drag up the phoney Lancet study in a deliberate attempt to divert attention from what's actually happening in Iraq today."
Yes, here are two quotes from some lying lickspittle newspapers of the far-left.
“While doubts have been cast over some of the report's findings... If anything, researchers appear to have erred on the side of caution, opting to omit all data from Fallujah, where the mortality rates were significantly higher.” ( The Times, November 23, 2004)
“This survey technique has been criticised as flawed, but the sampling method has been used by the same team in Darfur in Sudan and in the eastern Congo and produced credible results. An official at the World Health Organisation said the Iraq study ‘is very much in the league that the other studies are in ... You can't rubbish (the team) by saying they are incompetent‘". ( Financial Times, November 19, 2004)
Leon tries to blame Indymedia for the war dead killed in a war that he still applauds and Indymedia opposed - and he demands logic ?
What a joke post, its like ironic self-parody of a war-mongering hypocrite.
Danny
IM to blame for Iraq invasion ?
27.02.2006 13:22
I can't believe you are accidentally misrepresenting the arguments to justify war, but I guess that's your job. If you have a real argument that discredits either the left or the Lancet report then post it here - why should I trust a downloaded word document from a war-monger ?
"If they start becoming too difficult to ignore, however, some lying lickspittle can always be counted on to drag up the phoney Lancet study in a deliberate attempt to divert attention from what's actually happening in Iraq today."
Yes, here are two quotes from some lying lickspittle newspapers of the far-left ( well, from your perspective from the far-right ).
“While doubts have been cast over some of the report's findings... If anything, researchers appear to have erred on the side of caution, opting to omit all data from Fallujah, where the mortality rates were significantly higher.” ( The Times, November 23, 2004)
“This survey technique has been criticised as flawed, but the sampling method has been used by the same team in Darfur in Sudan and in the eastern Congo and produced credible results. An official at the World Health Organisation said the Iraq study ‘is very much in the league that the other studies are in ... You can't rubbish (the team) by saying they are incompetent‘". ( Financial Times, November 19, 2004)
Leon tries to blame Indymedia for the war dead killed in a war that he still applauds and Indymedia opposed - and he demands logic ? What a joke post, it's like ironic self-parody of a war-mongering fool.
Danny
Bush advisor - Invasion of Iraq was done for Israel
27.02.2006 17:39
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.
”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow."
Zelikow is damn right it's not a popular sell in Europe - civilized people don't want to be seen supporting a racist colonial state like Israel, certainly not by sacrificing soldiers and civilians for it.
So we get sold the crap about "WMD" and anyone who suggests the war was for Israel is "anti-Semitic" or a "conspiracy theorist".
From Leon's comments I'd guess he's an Israel appeaser who wants to hide the true number of casualties and the real reasons for invading Iraq in the first place.
Expect lots of posts by the Israel appeasers in the weeks ahead as they try to whip up support for an attack on Iran.
Boycott Israeli Goods
Ethnic cleansing by the "resistance" - why we support them
27.02.2006 23:22
Up to their old tricks
spinifex
Who's Old Tricks?
28.02.2006 05:24
Their aim is to divide Iraq down sectarian lines.
www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/iraqoptions.pdf
What, they thought they could keep pulling the same old Colonial sh*t, and nobody would notice the clear pattern?
These efforts have thus far been frustrated by a people united to drive out the foreign aggressor, because the Iraqis have proven to be much smarter than the arrogant racists thought when they devised this plan.
The arrest of members of Britain's Special Forces, on their way to create a False Flag attack in Basra to this end, as well as consistent reports and evidence of Iraqis having had their cars wired with explosives while in US custody, prove that this evil plot is well underway.
Attacks like these are acts of desperation, intended to speed the process.
Old Colonial Trick
Same old lie Jordan.
28.02.2006 11:06
I invite you once more to offer a rebuttal of my trashing of this theory at:
Watch my face turn blue as per usual.
M
Divide & Rule
28.02.2006 20:00
Their aim is to divide Iraq down sectarian lines.
www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/iraqoptions.pdf
What, they thought they could keep pulling the same old Colonial sh*t, and nobody would notice the clear pattern?
These efforts have thus far been frustrated by a people united to drive out the foreign aggressor, because the Iraqis have proven to be much smarter than the arrogant racists thought when they devised this plan. This act of provocation is a sign of the desperation of the people losing this war.
Old Colonial Trick
Evasion: an old liar's trick
01.03.2006 10:38
Yawn!
By your won admission then you admit you really don't have the faculties to rebutt my stance that the unit in Basra was neither covert and wasn't involved in a "flase flag" (Jordan's favourite phrase after "ze terrorists" and "PNAC")- the photgraphs of them & their kit bears this out.
The total evidence of any of Jordan's asserted "flase flags" is one single souced Chinese news story, some unsubstantiated "eye witness" allegations. No physical evidence, no forensic evidence, no documentary evidence, no whistleblowers and moreover no attempt to investigate the varicty of the rumours.
You couldn't even get a case like that to a Magistrates' Court.
Disinfo.
M
Why are war supporters partly responsible for deaths in Iraq?
01.03.2006 10:45
Obviously that makes everyone who was happy to see Iraq under the reign of Saddam after the first Gulf War complicit in any murder, torture or other illegal activity he carried out.
I think prisons are good. Am I partly responsible for Harold Shipman's suicide?
Just because someone supported the war doesn't make them responsible in any way - they just thought removing Saddam would be a good idea. They almost certainly had no impact on strategy or how that was carried out.
Dom
Dom Minion
01.03.2006 17:12
>Gosh what an assertion: "And we hold Blair and Bush responsible for every death, although lying war-mongering propagandists like you certainly played your part."
Gosh ? What century are you living in ?
>Obviously that makes everyone who was happy to see Iraq under the reign of Saddam after the first Gulf War complicit in any murder, torture or other illegal activity he carried out.
Not as complicit as the western security agents that brought him to power, but yes I'd agree with that. Do you know anyone who supported Saddam at any point in his dictatorship or are you just ruled by them ?
>I think prisons are good. Am I partly responsible for Harold Shipman's suicide?
Yes you are getting my drift, you are partly responsible for every bad thing that happens in prisons.
>Just because someone supported the war doesn't make them responsible in any way - they just thought removing Saddam would be a good idea.
No, most of thought we were under imminent direct threat from Saddams mythical WMD. And yes, I blame them for being so gullible when the facts were widely available.
I think these ignorant war-mongers should be berated at every opportunity. I also think the MPs who voted for it show be assassinated in order to save lives.
>They almost certainly had no impact on strategy or how that was carried out.
Are you denying the role propaganda played in this war - in every war ? Maybe you are. Lord Haw Haw was hanged you know. Ha ha.
"Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. " - Hume
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:" - Thoreau
Danny