Aceshardware

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.
[...]
a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered)

http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 139

Freedom is on the march!

cornelius785 · Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 74

maybe i'm blind and missed it, but why don't they tell who killed who?

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

for the deaths that the victims families knew for sure who the perpetrator was, U.S. forces (or their "Coalition of the Willing" allies) were responsible for 56%. That is, we can be very confident that the Coalition had killed at least 180,000 Iraqis by the middle of 2006. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that the U.S. is responsible for its pro rata share (or more) of the unattributed deaths. That means that the U.S. and its allies may well have killed upwards of 330,000 Iraqis by the middle of 2006.

http://www.alternet.org/story/56124/

this is on the Lancet study, which estimated the death toll at 650.000 by 2006, not the follow up linked above putting the number over 1 million now.

Its plausible the ratio's have changed now, but that doesn't somehow undo coalition troops from their tremendous responsibility. Nor can you simply excuse the US for the deaths caused by Iraqi's (or other foreign fighters), since this war of militia is a direct result from an unnecessary and illegal war as well as a total failure to stabilize Iraq after the invasion. It was utterly predictable (and predicted).

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

Some more loosely related figures:

_Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents.

_About 61 percent approved of the attacks [against coalition forces] _ up from 47 percent in January. A solid majority of Shiite and Sunni Arabs approved of the attacks, according to the poll. The increase came mostly among Shiite Iraqis.

_An overwhelmingly negative opinion of terror chief bin Laden and more than half, 57 percent, disapproving of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

These numbers are about a year old, so before the surge. Would be interesting to see how they have changed since.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092800408.html

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

Very interesting (short) clip on The Real News:

Is White House policy fueling civil war? (part 1)

Is White House policy fueling civil war? (part 2)

Especially part 2 is extremely interesting, although its just a few minutes long. I love The Real News, they are really putting out good stuff.

cornelius785 · Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 74

my point was, how many of those deaths were:

-US killing terrorists (or 'enemy combatants')
-terrorists kill civilians
-civilans killing civilians
-US killing civilians

i'm sure you've heard of lying with statistics and implying assumptions.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

cornelius785 wrote:

my point was, how many of those deaths were:

-US killing terrorists (or 'enemy combatants')
-terrorists kill civilians
-civilans killing civilians
-US killing civilians

There where basically no terrorists in Iraq prior to the invasion, now nearly 2 out of 3 Iraqi's support attacks against occupying forces. Either nearly all Iraq's have somehow turned into terrorists, or like in WW2, resistance would be a more appropriate term to describe most of them.

As for "civilians killing civilians", I assume you mean militia wars, rather than traffic accidents. When the US uses these militia as proxies, funds, arms, and trains them (both sides occasionally) it becomes crystal clear that the vast majority of deaths is directly or indirectly caused by US occupation, regardless of who pulls the trigger, or how you name them.

BTW, in 2004, 46% of the casualties where children younger than 15.

Quote:

i'm sure you've heard of lying with statistics and implying assumptions.

Sure, the Lancet is just a gossip magazine and they obtained the numbers by tossing darts. This is what Sir Roy Anderson, UK Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said (internally): ""The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to 'best practice' in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2043417,00.html

Pjotr · Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 159

cornelius785 wrote:

my point was, how many of those deaths were:

-US killing terrorists (or 'enemy combatants')
-terrorists kill civilians
-civilans killing civilians
-US killing civilians

i'm sure you've heard of lying with statistics and implying assumptions.

"Terrorist" defined how and by who? Recently USA changed the definition of one of the militias in Iraq from "Terrorist organization" to "USA allied" or something alike. I doubt the people changed and I coubt their ativities changed much either.

iiB · Joined: 20 Aug 2007 Posts: 66

P4man wrote:

There where basically no terrorists in Iraq prior to the invasion, now nearly 2 out of 3 Iraqi's support attacks against occupying forces.

Regardless of anything you we're saying in previous posts. I just wanted to point out that its esstimated that there we're between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power.

Mostly in opperations against Kurdish Iraqis (Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis), civilian executions, and civilians killed in the iran iraq war...

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

Actually, AFAIK the excess death rate was calculated compared to the years previous to the invasion, so under Saddam's rule. So from what I understand, these numbers would be on top of any massacres Saddam committed.

JoeP · Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 65

P4man wrote:

Actually, AFAIK the excess death rate was calculated compared to the years previous to the invasion, so under Saddam's rule. So from what I understand, these numbers would be on top of any massacres Saddam committed.

By a ton.

That's why I've always been against removing Saddam.

No nation deserves a democracy unless they fight for it themselves.

DevilsAdvocate · Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 38

iiB wrote:

Regardless of anything you we're saying in previous posts. I just wanted to point out that its esstimated that there we're between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power.

Mostly in opperations against Kurdish Iraqis (Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis), civilian executions, and civilians killed in the iran iraq war...

So Saddam killed ~40.000 Iraqi's per year, most of which long before the first gulf war in a time when he was our friend, and now US troops are responsible for >250.000 deaths per year. That is progress ?

Or is it progress that Iraq went from being a prosperous, secular state with millions of middle class, a country with some of the best education and health care in the entire middle east, to a Muslim radicalizing third world country, with not even water or electricity for most, 2 million internal refugees, 1 out of 4 living below the poverty line?

Saddam was bad. Really bad, but the current situation is simply disastrous and for most Iraqi's the Saddam period must have been paradise compared to now. They must be delighted we "liberated" them.

DUCK of DEATH · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 104

LOL!!!! Yeah a million have been killed.

Some people are stupid enough to believe anything.

If they said a Billion people had been killed in Iraq, I'll bet the penny still wouldn't have dropped for you lot.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 540

DUCK of DEATH wrote:

LOL!!!! Yeah a million have been killed.

Some people are stupid enough to believe anything.

If they said a Billion people had been killed in Iraq, I'll bet the penny still wouldn't have dropped for you lot.

Care to explain to us on why think you are clever to ridicule the conclusions of the only (to my knowledge) scientific attempt, by one of the most respectable scientific journals, to determine the number of excess deaths?

Did you laugh just as hard when the same methodology was used to determine the number of causalities in Congo, Darfur or after the tsunami in South Asia ? In fact, care to share with us what reasons you have -other than an unwillingness to face a harsh reality- to believe the number would be substantially lower ?