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Lancet reports Iraq war claims over 650,000 lives
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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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and regardless of the level of "pissed offness with the U.S" which has changed posted 911,its much much worse -which is the basis for me saying the before and after you refer to arent like and like.bonkey wrote:None of the above. It presupposes nothing.
Before 911 : Attacks on US soil virtually non-existant, regardless of the level of international terrorism or any other factors.
Post 911 : Attacks on US soil virtually non-existant, regardless of the level of international terrorism or any other factors.
Why? On that basis ie that none of us can form a usefull opinion,we may stop doing everything unless we can prove something dangerous pertinent to what we are doing will or will not happen.Weren't you criticising me a moment ago for making suppositions?
I'm arguing that until a factor is shown to be significant it cannot be considered so.
Thats where a call is generally better.Otherwise I'd be walking into town with 4 or 5 people to protect me from possible harm.
But you've already drawn a conclusion based on a before and after that arent comparable.You've even mentioned a 50 year timeframe when we are talking here about Islamic terrorists hatrid of the U.S.For Most of that timeframe,the level of hatrid was incomparable to what it has been in the period post 911.No idea. Just like I've no idea why they attacked a US warship with speedboats. And until I have an idea, it would be wrong of me to second-guess their motives and draw conclusions from my own guesswork.
It would also suggest if it were the case that new measures taken post 911 were working in the new more angry,more determined Islamic terrorist scenario.Yes it could.
Lets assume it was.
What would that prove except that crime prevention that we hear about is an effective anti-terrorism measure that doesn't involve going to a foreign country and having their inhabitants massacred in Darfur-esque numbers in the name of protecting your own countrymen.
I'd agreeFair enough. And this good coping, independant of rising Islamic terrorism, can only show that its not necessary to put Iraqis in the firing line to keep Americans out of it.
I did have my Rumsfeld moment in the middle of that you know...where I said given our known knownFair enough.
So going into Iraq has riled them up more, and global terrorism is on the rise, and yet even throughout all of this the US has managed to keep its people safe.
So if it hadn't gone into Iraq, and hadn't riled them up, but had done all the other stuff, then the threat would be less, the Americans would be even safer, and an estimated 635,000 Iraqis wouldn't have died.
The point I was making is that there is no established pattern of high-frequency, so arguing that we haven't witnessed a high-frequency pattern is meaningless.
Yes but theres an established pattern of high Alqueda activity since 911 with the major show ground and gifted to them showground of Iraq.If anything, there's an established pattern of low frequency, so arguing that we haven't seen a high-frequency occurrence is counter-intuitive.
What I was suggesting is given that ,theres no reason not to expect the same (or worse if it was conveniently spilled into pakistan by AlQueda and "Afghani insurgents") if all the effort was concentrated on Afghanistan alone.
With respect bonkey,I think we'd be better sticking with the mathemathical methaphors because simply the only thing you can do with the weather is take measures to shield yourself from it,you cant twart natures planning of it.OK...you've subsequently made the case that you believe (regarding terrorism) that there is reason to believe the pattern has shifted, but its still just speculation.
Sticking with the hurricane metaphor, its a bit like saying that because weather patterns over the Eurasia landmass have changed, hurricans are more likely to hit America, but this hasn't happened so someone has done something right in the anti-hurricane department.
I was describing it as a reasonable expectation rather than a direct correlation.Its assuming a correlation, despite the fact that such a correlation has never been shown to exist in the past. Its also assuming that the correlation should yield a certain result, despite that result never having been witnessed in the past. And then because the assumed result doesn't show up, we decide that it must be something to do with the measures we took to stop it.
I'd agree that it wasn't.And I'm suggesting that this would have led to less loss of life overall had it been chosen as an option. I'm also suggesting its not the only option, just as the invasion of Afghanistan wasn't the only option at the time.
But as in the micro you also have to deal with anger in the macro and if you kill 3000 people (and back then it seemed like more) its unrealistic to expect a calm reasoned response,it might be the right thing but it's not reasonable.
Look at it on the micro level.If a group of people attacked someone on the street, what would you expect the reaction to be in most cases?
Well thats a fair enough position to take,I'd obviously believe the opposite.I've no doubt they would. I'm questioning the notion that it would lead to a comparable amount of deaths.
Well we'll never get to the root of that,really as it depends on people en masse to impliment that plan and they havent been too sucessfull in stopping wars and inhumanity to date.I'm also questioning that if it would lead to such fatalities, why invading anywhere is a good idea if the death-toll is what matters and we conclude that not invading would have resulted in the lowest death-toll overall.
You mean Bush as in they.I'd be a Clinton fan on that one.
Whereas I disagreed with it from day 1 on the grounds that I did not believe the chances of success were high enough and that the US and co wouldn't "stay the course" to put things right.
Then they shagged off to Iraq, leaving Afghanistan to fall apart again, they reneged on their promises of massive investment and rebuilding the country and so forth.
IN other words, they caused havoc, killed many, then put in a bit of improvement and walked away to let it all fall apart again. 20 years from now, if they continue on the current path of neglect, I would be utterly amazed if Afghanistan was reckoned to have benefited from the US invasion.
Afghanistan is already falling back under the control of the Taliban and the warlords. Are you including that anarchy and death-toll into your picture of today? Are you comparing "ruined Afghanistan and ruined Iraq" against "ruined Afghanistan", or just "ruined Iraq" against it?
It's well known that AlQueda and the Taliban dont stop at the pakistan border so yes I am suggesting that it wouldnt stay within the confines of Afghanistan.You mean like it has spread from Iraq?
Oh...wait....
where on Earth is that coming from? I'm not defending the Iraq war at all,I'm just proferring that ,the action could just as easily be happening on another field.You seem to be positing that because I agree that going after the Taliban and Alqueda in Iraq was the right course of action that I'd agree with an escalation by other lunatics.I can tell you that is far from my position but it wont stop me accepting that there are lunatics who wouldnt like their base being compromised.We started this because you asked why the Iraqi deaths should be more important than others. It seems you're now arguing it was jsutifiable because the order of importance really runs like this:
1. - Americans
2. - Afghanistanis
3. - Iraqis
Thats entirely different to what you are saying I'm saying where ever it is that you are getting that from.
Yes I am saying that it could have escalated in Afghanistan just as it has in Iraq-but what do you think would happen if, the insurgency there, the civil war there and Alqueda stopped all at once, it would be pretty quiet wouldnt it ? We agree I assume that none of that would be going on if Iraq was let alone.Where we dont agree is that the agitators of anarchy would concentrate their efforts on the Afghanistan stage were the campaign to have remained there.
I'd firmly put the blame for the coalition going after the Taliban with the Taliban and the blame for the coalition wasting its time in Iraq on the coalition and primarally on bush.And that if people are going to die, better those towards the bottom of the list than the top. I'm not sure where you put us or the rest of the world in there, but I'm guessing its either with the Americans, or just above/below them.0 -
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