To have a war and believe you aren't going to have any civilian deaths is unreasonable.
I've never argued for 'no civilian deaths' because it's an impossibility. What bothers me is that our military is trained to save itself at the expense of civilians.
The recent bombing run that hopefully killed Saddam and his two sons is a great example. We could have attacked that site without bombs by flying in some troops and getting a confirmed kill on Saddam while not potentially blowing up a neighborhood.
Hopefully we got Hussein and no one else, but that's nearly impossible with 8000 pounds of even 'precision' bombs.
So the civilian death toll in regards to the population might look good, but it's not an accurate view of the true death toll. Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing. With that ratio our military looks disgusting. Civilians are obviously considered expendable and I don't think that's reasonable. No more reasonable than expecting zero civilian deaths.
Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing.
um, sorry but (suprise surprise ) i disagree completely with that.
the only way to look at deaths on either side of the issue is how many people are you killing in regards to how many people there are.
i posted this in another thread a few days ago, but it applies here as well.
Quote:
i believe (at least last time i checked) the total death toll in Iraq of US soldiers (FF and in combat deaths) was around 76.
that's 76 dead, total of 250,000+. at most that's 0.03% of our troops have died from anything. we're averaging approx. 5 deaths per day of the war. that's 0.002% per day.
as for civilian casualities? it's hovering around 0.004%
so we've lost 7.5 times (750%) more troops to civilians as a percentage of total population of each group.
how in the world can you compare the number of people who've died in a group of 250,000 to how many have died in a group of 22.4 million?
of course the flat numbers are going to be scewed on the civilian side, there are more of them by a factor of 100.
I've never argued for 'no civilian deaths' because it's an impossibility. What bothers me is that our military is trained to save itself at the expense of civilians.
The recent bombing run that hopefully killed Saddam and his two sons is a great example. We could have attacked that site without bombs by flying in some troops and getting a confirmed kill on Saddam while not potentially blowing up a neighborhood.
Hopefully we got Hussein and no one else, but that's nearly impossible with 8000 pounds of even 'precision' bombs.
So the civilian death toll in regards to the population might look good, but it's not an accurate view of the true death toll. Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing. With that ratio our military looks disgusting. Civilians are obviously considered expendable and I don't think that's reasonable. No more reasonable than expecting zero civilian deaths.
I think you argue against an imagined extreme without drawing a firm line in the sand as to what constitutes your own limits. It's kind of like saying you favor affirmative action until groups are racially proportionate but don't favor quotas.
Obviously we aren't using bunker busters everyday on everyone. The large majority of the fighting and even bombing has been done with either troops or precision weapons. They resorted to these for the one target that is known for building and hiding in bunkers. You've stated that you consider zero an impossibility but 1000 dead out of 22.5 million people is something "there's no way you could legitimately argue" about.
Pretty much sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. There have been troops killed accepting surrenders and from fighters dressed as civililans. This could not have happened if what you claimed is true. They would have slaughtered them and saved their own skin rather than worrying about them surrendering or whether they were hitting the army in uniform or in civilian clothes.
So you want to rally against it but give no definate numbers or percentages as to what is acceptable.
This is why I said New was just using this to bash. Because first he/she would quote the numbers saying they were just informational, but then in other non-number posts the arguments about Bush and anti-war arguments would come out. Please look at my right hand, pay no attention to what the left is doing.
You are doing something similar. You claim the army saves it's own butt at the expense of Iraqi civilians yet acknowledge that 0 is an impossibility. When shown a percentage of error that is pretty near impossible to beat, you still claim that they are in the wrong while not claiming what would be in the right.
BTW, I counted my decimal points wrong. That was supposed to be .00004%
so we've lost 7.5 times (750%) more troops to civilians as a percentage of total population of each group.
This number I would pose (well, the correct figure at any rate) is far more accurate and indicitave of the situation than the flat misleading '.000004%' of the entire population number.
The military should have a higher mortality rate than the civilians, that's the point. That's the only way to judge the effectiveness of our 'save the civilians' campaign. If the numbers are reversed, and we're letting civilians get killed rather than risk our own military, then we failed.
Our military is instigating the action and thus should be at a higher risk than Iraqi civilians. Even if we weren't instigating the fight, the military by definition should be at a greater risk than civilians. That's how we can compare mortality rates between the Iraqi civilians and the U.S. Military. If we're killing more of them (civilians) than we're losing military, then obviously we're putting the civilians at a greater risk than our own troops. That's unacceptable. Troops are meant to be put in harm's way to protect the civilians
When we bomb a restaurant it puts civilians at a greater risk than our military. Using 'precision' bombs in this case doesn't mean we're limiting civilian deaths. It means we're attempting to up our kill ratio while lowering our own military deaths. A beneficial side effect is that we kill less civilians than if we were to carpet bomb (but carpet bombing also wouldn't give the necessary military results as accurately or efficiently.) Were we truly attempting to limit civilian deaths we wouldn't bomb a residential area. We could send in ground troops.
I'm not avoiding numbers. I have said in the past that the number of civilian deaths should be less than the number of military deaths. That's a good start. Maybe this ratio you've listed (75 times) is the best way to do it. I just know that saying we've only killed x% of the total population is not an acceptable means of judging.
The military should have a higher mortality rate than the civilians, that's the point.
that's exactly what that shows though. that means that one of our soldiers is 75 times more likely to die in Iraq during this war than an Iraqi civilian is.
i'd say that's pretty damn high.
fact is though, very few people are dying on either side (civilian vs. US military).
That's why I said I'm happier with this figure than judging the overall percentage of a population that's killed. That doesn't tell us anything. These figures are certainly more promising.
But, the ratio still doesn't make sense to me. By definition troops are meant to be in harms way. By definition civilians aren't. So how do the raw numbers get skewed 10 to 1? The civilians aren't in harm's way 10 to 1 but they're dying at that rate.
The recent attack on the hotel is a great example. How many civilians did we threaten because of a potential spotter? We didn't attack those that the spotter was supposedly helping. We attacked the civilians. We put them in harm's way. Me over you. That's OK when we're talking about the Iraqi military versus the U.S., but not when comparing troops to civilians.
But, the ratio still doesn't make sense to me. By definition troops are meant to be in harms way. By definition civilians aren't. So how do the raw numbers get skewed 10 to 1? The civilians aren't in harm's way 10 to 1 but they're dying at that rate.
well, for example, you have 22.x million civilians. then you have 250,000 soldiers. that's (approx.) 100x as many civilians.
the US has lost 20-30 soldiers to accidents alone. now assume that every accident doesn't just affect US troops, but can affect anyone. (due to the fact that it's accidental, and relatively random)
if the accidents were just as likely to hit a civilian as they were to hit army personal, you'd have 2,000 to 3,000 dead civilians right there.
well, for example, you have 22.x million civilians. then you have 250,000 soldiers. that's (approx.) 100x as many civilians.
Sorry, it wasn't the math that I didn't understand, it's the belief in the numbers I'm not sure about. It's just that the civilian population will always be greater than the military population, but the civilian casualties should always be fewer than military casualties.
So, there is in my mind a direct correlation between our troop numbers and the Iraqi civilian numbers. The percentages aren't accurate (althought 75 times is much better than the opposite.)
i believe what's changed is that as weapons have gotten better, armor has gotten better, we have more air power etc, the actual interaction between our troops and the enemy troops has dropped drasiticly.
from that alone, we lose less troops.
with the better weapons and armor, when our troops do meet, they're much less likely to die than they were in the past.
we also have less troops stationed over there now than we did last time, so there's less people to get shot at and less people who could die total.
the only real constant is random errors. sure you can train to cut down on errors, but you can't eliminate them altogether.
i don't think more civilians are dying now than is normal in a war, in fact i think it's a lot less than normal. however, our army is good enough to have drasticly cut down on losses, so it just makes accidents and civilian casualties look a lot worse.
throw into the mix that soldiers are dressing up as civilians and attacking from civilian buildings and using civilian vehicles, and 1,000 people dead isn't much at all.
i believe what's changed is that as weapons have gotten better, armor has gotten better, we have more air power etc, the actual interaction between our troops and the enemy troops has dropped drasiticly.
from that alone, we lose less troops.
And I think that with the increase in efficiency, our concern for civilians has dropped. That's not to say it's gone, just we've set a lower standard since we're getting better.
So, with our new fangled weapons, we should do better. But in the interest of saving troops (for political reasons) and getting a quick victory (for political reasons) we'll take more civilian casualties than necessary.
It's 'easy' to do that, allow for more civilian casualties, simply because the raw numbers are lower now than before. So, armchair generals will see that only 1000 civilians are dead when 50 years about it probably would have been 10,000. But with our technology and expertise, it should still be better.
I think we all agree that a 'perfect' war would be zero military and civilian casualties, but that's impossible. So, as that graph moves along the civilian casualties go up slowly, but the military casualties are always higher. That's because the military is always at a greater risk and always ops to save civilians (it is in fact why we're fighting.)
I don't know how to mathematically describe that graph, but the curves move along. And in real life as our troop casualties drop towards zero, the civilians casualties should be even closer than we are.
i don't know the numbers from the last Gulf War, but i'm betting we've killed a lot less civilians now than we did then.
i'll look them up though and flesh this post out.
edit:
ok, last Gulf War.
3,500 innocent civilians were killed during the air campaign alone.
145 US soldiers died.
so we're talking 3.5 times as many civilian deaths to 2 times as many soldiers dying. we are getting better at it. less soldiers die, less civilians die.
everyone's happy, right? and the rate of civilian deaths is dropping faster than the rate of soldier deaths, which means we're putting more emphasis on saving civilians, right? not the mention that even with all the new equipment and weapons we're saving civilian lives faster than we're saving soldier's lives. sounds to me like we're doing everything right. at least moving in the right direction.
and the rate of civilian deaths is dropping faster than the rate of soldier deaths, which means we're putting more emphasis on saving civilians, right?
Well, we'd have to look at things historically. I think military deaths in the past 50 years have dropped faster than civilian.
The 3,500 civilian deaths in the air campaign, over how much time? And those numbers are confirmed I suppose. We won't be able to find any confirmed numbers for this war for a bit.
The point is, the troop deaths should be higher than civilian deaths in a war. If we could reverse the numbers we have, that is roughly 1000 troop deaths with roughly 100 civilian deaths (and with our technology we should be able to do something similar), that would make more sense. I'm in agreement that we're killing less civilians now than before, it's just the reasons why that are problematic.
The real problem with that is that the 1000 troop casualties create a bigger political problem back home. Our emphasis is on saving military lives, but when you push down on one end, the other end goes up. So, we dropped our military casualties to almost insanely low levels at the expense of lowering civillian casualties even faster.
And I think that with the increase in efficiency, our concern for civilians has dropped. That's not to say it's gone, just we've set a lower standard since we're getting better.
So, with our new fangled weapons, we should do better. But in the interest of saving troops (for political reasons) and getting a quick victory (for political reasons) we'll take more civilian casualties than necessary.
It's 'easy' to do that, allow for more civilian casualties, simply because the raw numbers are lower now than before. So, armchair generals will see that only 1000 civilians are dead when 50 years about it probably would have been 10,000. But with our technology and expertise, it should still be better.
I think we all agree that a 'perfect' war would be zero military and civilian casualties, but that's impossible. So, as that graph moves along the civilian casualties go up slowly, but the military casualties are always higher. That's because the military is always at a greater risk and always ops to save civilians (it is in fact why we're fighting.)
I don't know how to mathematically describe that graph, but the curves move along. And in real life as our troop casualties drop towards zero, the civilians casualties should be even closer than we are.
Bunge,
I'm sorry I just don't see what you are getting at. I respect your intellect and your concerns, however I don't see how insuring the soldiers are better protected, the bombs are more precise and how right behind all of these things we have truckloads of humanitarian aid = less concern for civilians.
The military has always weighed what it would take to get the enemy to surrender versus cost of life. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. For better or worse (depending on your point of view) the highlight of this thinking was dropping atomic bombs of two cities in Japan to bring about surrender.
In the last Gulf War we would have carpet bombed them for a couple weeks prior to insertion of ground troops. The bombs were indiscriminate and the amount of troops were so overwhelming that they were like less precise with regard to whom and how they attacked. This likely also caused not only more civilian deaths but more deaths among our own soldiers with regard to friendly-fire and equipment failure/accidents.
This situation from all perspectives is likely the most optimal. You have initial precision bombing taking out supply lines, communications and heavy weapons. You have platoons of tanks and hummers moving attacking and when they encounter stiff resistance, they call in precise bombing to rid them of this resistance. Afterwards they readily accept surrenders and willingly treat and care for these POW's and also any one else who might have been harmed. After the area is secure they bring in humanitarian aid consisting of medical care, food and water. They have even tried to avoid damaging infrastructure with regard to power and water.
And then again we have the ratio of troops to civilians killed when some of Iraq's "troops" simply take off their uniforms and come back fighting in civilian clothes.
I just don't see what could be done differently to be any more compassionate and humane while still conducting a war.
I'm sorry I just don't see what you are getting at.
Here's something I took from a WWII page I just googled up. I'm not bothering to put the link because the numbers aren't verified on the page, but it does describe what I'm getting at perhaps better than how I've worded it. I would love some opinions on it in reference to today's war:
"Of course, civilians inevitably get caught in the crossfire of big armies and are often driven into starvation by the destruction of the economy, but you can get a good feeling of the level of barbarism of the Second World War by taking a look at Italy. In this theater of operations, both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties. Now look at the Russian Front where 12 million soldiers were killed. A civilized war fought by the rules of the Italian campaign should have only killed some 3 million civilians (and yes, I am uncomfortable using terms like "civilized" and "only" in this context, but what can you do?). The fact that the total was considerably higher indicates that this was not a very civilized theater of war."
By this count, and what I've been saying, we should have roughly 100 troops dead and 35 civilians. So I've been throwing out a 10 to 1 ratio which I'll gladly recant in favor of this 3 to 1 ratio. In any case, I think this makes my point. Now it's up to us to decide if it's right or wrong.
In this theater of operations, both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties.
well yeah. we've been talking exclusively of US casualties.
toss in the Iraqi soldiers and you'll see that ratio skyrocket the other direction.
problem is you're only looking at military deaths on one side, and it's the side that's overwhelmingly winning, then comparing that to total civilian deaths. hell, we don't know how many of those 1,000 are from US soldiers.
if you want to look at this problem like they were in that ww2 quote, we'd have to look at total military deaths, not US deaths.
well yeah. we've been talking exclusively of US casualties...if you want to look at this problem like they were in that ww2 quote, we'd have to look at total military deaths, not US deaths.
Actually I don't think so. I think we just need to look at the numbers we're responsible for and work with those.
What I think it comes down to is that the U.S. military planners had two generic plans to choose from. One had 1000 civilian deaths + 100 troop deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over. The other had 500 troop deaths + 175 civilian deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over.
Both paths end with us winning the war. Both paths have far fewer civilian deaths than World War II. But one is legal and the other is not. The U.S. has choosen path number one that I think is morally repugnant.
Actually I don't think so. I think we just need to look at the numbers we're responsible for and work with those.
What I think it comes down to is that the U.S. military planners had two generic plans to choose from. One had 1000 civilian deaths + 100 troop deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over. The other had 500 troop deaths + 175 civilian deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over.
Both paths end with us winning the war. Both paths have far fewer civilian deaths than World War II. But one is legal and the other is not. The U.S. has choosen path number one that I think is morally repugnant.
And before that you add this....
Quote:
both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties
So we see Iraq not following the rules of civilized warfare, the ratio changes and somehow this the fault of U.S war planners.
On top of that you are complaining about the ratio when the sophistication of the U.S. approach has made the number of deaths so small a sample that the ratios no longer can be termed reliable.
Suppose the U.S. had one soldier killer and killed 25 civilians, would they be as morally repugnant?
How about if the U.S. lost 1000 men but killed 2000 civilians, would that be better in your eyes?
Honestly what give you the right to determine a ratio? You mentioned two sides following the rules. One side (Iraq) obviously isn't and in spite of this the number of civilians killed is about as close to zero as is possible for all practical purposes. Yet you still condemn, complain and of course offer no alternatives.
Your numbers are pulled out of your butt, just like your reasoning. You offer no proof nor even alternative scenarios by alternative news sources, former military sources, anything but the oh so triumphant reasoning of Bunge to justify your numbers. Alcimedes also showed that the ratio of civilians being killed to soldiers killed is dropping faster for civilians.
Here is another number to consider think about the number of troops there. 250,000. If every single one of them fired just one bullet what degree of precision would it be for them to only hit 1000 civilians?
Obviously not all of them shoot and of course the ones who do don't only use one bullet but it illustrates a point. We are talking about precision down to likely hundrend thousandths of a percent. If someone is doing something right 99.99997 that to me reveals their true intent. You call it morally repugnant which is just ridiculous.
Comments
Originally posted by trumptman
To have a war and believe you aren't going to have any civilian deaths is unreasonable.
I've never argued for 'no civilian deaths' because it's an impossibility. What bothers me is that our military is trained to save itself at the expense of civilians.
The recent bombing run that hopefully killed Saddam and his two sons is a great example. We could have attacked that site without bombs by flying in some troops and getting a confirmed kill on Saddam while not potentially blowing up a neighborhood.
Hopefully we got Hussein and no one else, but that's nearly impossible with 8000 pounds of even 'precision' bombs.
So the civilian death toll in regards to the population might look good, but it's not an accurate view of the true death toll. Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing. With that ratio our military looks disgusting. Civilians are obviously considered expendable and I don't think that's reasonable. No more reasonable than expecting zero civilian deaths.
Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing.
um, sorry but (suprise surprise
the only way to look at deaths on either side of the issue is how many people are you killing in regards to how many people there are.
i posted this in another thread a few days ago, but it applies here as well.
i believe (at least last time i checked) the total death toll in Iraq of US soldiers (FF and in combat deaths) was around 76.
that's 76 dead, total of 250,000+. at most that's 0.03% of our troops have died from anything. we're averaging approx. 5 deaths per day of the war. that's 0.002% per day.
as for civilian casualities? it's hovering around 0.004%
so we've lost 7.5 times (750%) more troops to civilians as a percentage of total population of each group.
how in the world can you compare the number of people who've died in a group of 250,000 to how many have died in a group of 22.4 million?
of course the flat numbers are going to be scewed on the civilian side, there are more of them by a factor of 100.
Originally posted by bunge
I've never argued for 'no civilian deaths' because it's an impossibility. What bothers me is that our military is trained to save itself at the expense of civilians.
The recent bombing run that hopefully killed Saddam and his two sons is a great example. We could have attacked that site without bombs by flying in some troops and getting a confirmed kill on Saddam while not potentially blowing up a neighborhood.
Hopefully we got Hussein and no one else, but that's nearly impossible with 8000 pounds of even 'precision' bombs.
So the civilian death toll in regards to the population might look good, but it's not an accurate view of the true death toll. Civilian to military deaths is the way to look at things, and with that we're losing. With that ratio our military looks disgusting. Civilians are obviously considered expendable and I don't think that's reasonable. No more reasonable than expecting zero civilian deaths.
I think you argue against an imagined extreme without drawing a firm line in the sand as to what constitutes your own limits. It's kind of like saying you favor affirmative action until groups are racially proportionate but don't favor quotas.
Obviously we aren't using bunker busters everyday on everyone. The large majority of the fighting and even bombing has been done with either troops or precision weapons. They resorted to these for the one target that is known for building and hiding in bunkers. You've stated that you consider zero an impossibility but 1000 dead out of 22.5 million people is something "there's no way you could legitimately argue" about.
Pretty much sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. There have been troops killed accepting surrenders and from fighters dressed as civililans. This could not have happened if what you claimed is true. They would have slaughtered them and saved their own skin rather than worrying about them surrendering or whether they were hitting the army in uniform or in civilian clothes.
So you want to rally against it but give no definate numbers or percentages as to what is acceptable.
This is why I said New was just using this to bash. Because first he/she would quote the numbers saying they were just informational, but then in other non-number posts the arguments about Bush and anti-war arguments would come out. Please look at my right hand, pay no attention to what the left is doing.
You are doing something similar. You claim the army saves it's own butt at the expense of Iraqi civilians yet acknowledge that 0 is an impossibility. When shown a percentage of error that is pretty near impossible to beat, you still claim that they are in the wrong while not claiming what would be in the right.
BTW, I counted my decimal points wrong. That was supposed to be .00004%
Nick
Originally posted by alcimedes
um, sorry but (suprise surprise
the only way to look at deaths on either side of the issue is how many people are you killing in regards to how many people there are.
i posted this in another thread a few days ago, but it applies here as well.
so we've lost 7.5 times (750%) more troops to civilians as a percentage of total population of each group.
how in the world can you compare the number of people who've died in a group of 250,000 to how many have died in a group of 22.4 million?
of course the flat numbers are going to be scewed on the civilian side, there are more of them by a factor of 100.
As I mentioned I goofed a decimal point. (Counted 4 instead of 5) so it is actually 75 times more soldiers killed proportionally than civilians.
Nick
Originally posted by alcimedes
so we've lost 7.5 times (750%) more troops to civilians as a percentage of total population of each group.
This number I would pose (well, the correct figure at any rate) is far more accurate and indicitave of the situation than the flat misleading '.000004%' of the entire population number.
The military should have a higher mortality rate than the civilians, that's the point. That's the only way to judge the effectiveness of our 'save the civilians' campaign. If the numbers are reversed, and we're letting civilians get killed rather than risk our own military, then we failed.
Our military is instigating the action and thus should be at a higher risk than Iraqi civilians. Even if we weren't instigating the fight, the military by definition should be at a greater risk than civilians. That's how we can compare mortality rates between the Iraqi civilians and the U.S. Military. If we're killing more of them (civilians) than we're losing military, then obviously we're putting the civilians at a greater risk than our own troops. That's unacceptable. Troops are meant to be put in harm's way to protect the civilians
When we bomb a restaurant it puts civilians at a greater risk than our military. Using 'precision' bombs in this case doesn't mean we're limiting civilian deaths. It means we're attempting to up our kill ratio while lowering our own military deaths. A beneficial side effect is that we kill less civilians than if we were to carpet bomb (but carpet bombing also wouldn't give the necessary military results as accurately or efficiently.) Were we truly attempting to limit civilian deaths we wouldn't bomb a residential area. We could send in ground troops.
I'm not avoiding numbers. I have said in the past that the number of civilian deaths should be less than the number of military deaths. That's a good start. Maybe this ratio you've listed (75 times) is the best way to do it. I just know that saying we've only killed x% of the total population is not an acceptable means of judging.
The military should have a higher mortality rate than the civilians, that's the point.
that's exactly what that shows though. that means that one of our soldiers is 75 times more likely to die in Iraq during this war than an Iraqi civilian is.
i'd say that's pretty damn high.
fact is though, very few people are dying on either side (civilian vs. US military).
Originally posted by alcimedes
that's exactly what that shows though.
That's why I said I'm happier with this figure than judging the overall percentage of a population that's killed. That doesn't tell us anything. These figures are certainly more promising.
But, the ratio still doesn't make sense to me. By definition troops are meant to be in harms way. By definition civilians aren't. So how do the raw numbers get skewed 10 to 1? The civilians aren't in harm's way 10 to 1 but they're dying at that rate.
The recent attack on the hotel is a great example. How many civilians did we threaten because of a potential spotter? We didn't attack those that the spotter was supposedly helping. We attacked the civilians. We put them in harm's way. Me over you. That's OK when we're talking about the Iraqi military versus the U.S., but not when comparing troops to civilians.
But, the ratio still doesn't make sense to me. By definition troops are meant to be in harms way. By definition civilians aren't. So how do the raw numbers get skewed 10 to 1? The civilians aren't in harm's way 10 to 1 but they're dying at that rate.
well, for example, you have 22.x million civilians. then you have 250,000 soldiers. that's (approx.) 100x as many civilians.
the US has lost 20-30 soldiers to accidents alone. now assume that every accident doesn't just affect US troops, but can affect anyone. (due to the fact that it's accidental, and relatively random)
if the accidents were just as likely to hit a civilian as they were to hit army personal, you'd have 2,000 to 3,000 dead civilians right there.
Originally posted by alcimedes
well, for example, you have 22.x million civilians. then you have 250,000 soldiers. that's (approx.) 100x as many civilians.
Sorry, it wasn't the math that I didn't understand, it's the belief in the numbers I'm not sure about. It's just that the civilian population will always be greater than the military population, but the civilian casualties should always be fewer than military casualties.
So, there is in my mind a direct correlation between our troop numbers and the Iraqi civilian numbers. The percentages aren't accurate (althought 75 times is much better than the opposite.)
i believe what's changed is that as weapons have gotten better, armor has gotten better, we have more air power etc, the actual interaction between our troops and the enemy troops has dropped drasiticly.
from that alone, we lose less troops.
with the better weapons and armor, when our troops do meet, they're much less likely to die than they were in the past.
we also have less troops stationed over there now than we did last time, so there's less people to get shot at and less people who could die total.
the only real constant is random errors. sure you can train to cut down on errors, but you can't eliminate them altogether.
i don't think more civilians are dying now than is normal in a war, in fact i think it's a lot less than normal. however, our army is good enough to have drasticly cut down on losses, so it just makes accidents and civilian casualties look a lot worse.
throw into the mix that soldiers are dressing up as civilians and attacking from civilian buildings and using civilian vehicles, and 1,000 people dead isn't much at all.
Originally posted by alcimedes
ok, i see what you're getting at.
i believe what's changed is that as weapons have gotten better, armor has gotten better, we have more air power etc, the actual interaction between our troops and the enemy troops has dropped drasiticly.
from that alone, we lose less troops.
And I think that with the increase in efficiency, our concern for civilians has dropped. That's not to say it's gone, just we've set a lower standard since we're getting better.
So, with our new fangled weapons, we should do better. But in the interest of saving troops (for political reasons) and getting a quick victory (for political reasons) we'll take more civilian casualties than necessary.
It's 'easy' to do that, allow for more civilian casualties, simply because the raw numbers are lower now than before. So, armchair generals will see that only 1000 civilians are dead when 50 years about it probably would have been 10,000. But with our technology and expertise, it should still be better.
I think we all agree that a 'perfect' war would be zero military and civilian casualties, but that's impossible. So, as that graph moves along the civilian casualties go up slowly, but the military casualties are always higher. That's because the military is always at a greater risk and always ops to save civilians (it is in fact why we're fighting.)
I don't know how to mathematically describe that graph, but the curves move along. And in real life as our troop casualties drop towards zero, the civilians casualties should be even closer than we are.
i don't know the numbers from the last Gulf War, but i'm betting we've killed a lot less civilians now than we did then.
i'll look them up though and flesh this post out.
edit:
ok, last Gulf War.
3,500 innocent civilians were killed during the air campaign alone.
145 US soldiers died.
so we're talking 3.5 times as many civilian deaths to 2 times as many soldiers dying. we are getting better at it. less soldiers die, less civilians die.
everyone's happy, right? and the rate of civilian deaths is dropping faster than the rate of soldier deaths, which means we're putting more emphasis on saving civilians, right? not the mention that even with all the new equipment and weapons we're saving civilian lives faster than we're saving soldier's lives. sounds to me like we're doing everything right. at least moving in the right direction.
Originally posted by alcimedes
and the rate of civilian deaths is dropping faster than the rate of soldier deaths, which means we're putting more emphasis on saving civilians, right?
Well, we'd have to look at things historically. I think military deaths in the past 50 years have dropped faster than civilian.
The 3,500 civilian deaths in the air campaign, over how much time? And those numbers are confirmed I suppose. We won't be able to find any confirmed numbers for this war for a bit.
The point is, the troop deaths should be higher than civilian deaths in a war. If we could reverse the numbers we have, that is roughly 1000 troop deaths with roughly 100 civilian deaths (and with our technology we should be able to do something similar), that would make more sense. I'm in agreement that we're killing less civilians now than before, it's just the reasons why that are problematic.
The real problem with that is that the 1000 troop casualties create a bigger political problem back home. Our emphasis is on saving military lives, but when you push down on one end, the other end goes up. So, we dropped our military casualties to almost insanely low levels at the expense of lowering civillian casualties even faster.
Originally posted by bunge
And I think that with the increase in efficiency, our concern for civilians has dropped. That's not to say it's gone, just we've set a lower standard since we're getting better.
So, with our new fangled weapons, we should do better. But in the interest of saving troops (for political reasons) and getting a quick victory (for political reasons) we'll take more civilian casualties than necessary.
It's 'easy' to do that, allow for more civilian casualties, simply because the raw numbers are lower now than before. So, armchair generals will see that only 1000 civilians are dead when 50 years about it probably would have been 10,000. But with our technology and expertise, it should still be better.
I think we all agree that a 'perfect' war would be zero military and civilian casualties, but that's impossible. So, as that graph moves along the civilian casualties go up slowly, but the military casualties are always higher. That's because the military is always at a greater risk and always ops to save civilians (it is in fact why we're fighting.)
I don't know how to mathematically describe that graph, but the curves move along. And in real life as our troop casualties drop towards zero, the civilians casualties should be even closer than we are.
Bunge,
I'm sorry I just don't see what you are getting at. I respect your intellect and your concerns, however I don't see how insuring the soldiers are better protected, the bombs are more precise and how right behind all of these things we have truckloads of humanitarian aid = less concern for civilians.
The military has always weighed what it would take to get the enemy to surrender versus cost of life. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. For better or worse (depending on your point of view) the highlight of this thinking was dropping atomic bombs of two cities in Japan to bring about surrender.
In the last Gulf War we would have carpet bombed them for a couple weeks prior to insertion of ground troops. The bombs were indiscriminate and the amount of troops were so overwhelming that they were like less precise with regard to whom and how they attacked. This likely also caused not only more civilian deaths but more deaths among our own soldiers with regard to friendly-fire and equipment failure/accidents.
This situation from all perspectives is likely the most optimal. You have initial precision bombing taking out supply lines, communications and heavy weapons. You have platoons of tanks and hummers moving attacking and when they encounter stiff resistance, they call in precise bombing to rid them of this resistance. Afterwards they readily accept surrenders and willingly treat and care for these POW's and also any one else who might have been harmed. After the area is secure they bring in humanitarian aid consisting of medical care, food and water. They have even tried to avoid damaging infrastructure with regard to power and water.
And then again we have the ratio of troops to civilians killed when some of Iraq's "troops" simply take off their uniforms and come back fighting in civilian clothes.
I just don't see what could be done differently to be any more compassionate and humane while still conducting a war.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Bunge,
I'm sorry I just don't see what you are getting at.
Here's something I took from a WWII page I just googled up. I'm not bothering to put the link because the numbers aren't verified on the page, but it does describe what I'm getting at perhaps better than how I've worded it. I would love some opinions on it in reference to today's war:
"Of course, civilians inevitably get caught in the crossfire of big armies and are often driven into starvation by the destruction of the economy, but you can get a good feeling of the level of barbarism of the Second World War by taking a look at Italy. In this theater of operations, both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties. Now look at the Russian Front where 12 million soldiers were killed. A civilized war fought by the rules of the Italian campaign should have only killed some 3 million civilians (and yes, I am uncomfortable using terms like "civilized" and "only" in this context, but what can you do?). The fact that the total was considerably higher indicates that this was not a very civilized theater of war."
By this count, and what I've been saying, we should have roughly 100 troops dead and 35 civilians. So I've been throwing out a 10 to 1 ratio which I'll gladly recant in favor of this 3 to 1 ratio. In any case, I think this makes my point. Now it's up to us to decide if it's right or wrong.
In this theater of operations, both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties.
well yeah. we've been talking exclusively of US casualties.
toss in the Iraqi soldiers and you'll see that ratio skyrocket the other direction.
problem is you're only looking at military deaths on one side, and it's the side that's overwhelmingly winning, then comparing that to total civilian deaths. hell, we don't know how many of those 1,000 are from US soldiers.
if you want to look at this problem like they were in that ww2 quote, we'd have to look at total military deaths, not US deaths.
Originally posted by alcimedes
well yeah. we've been talking exclusively of US casualties...if you want to look at this problem like they were in that ww2 quote, we'd have to look at total military deaths, not US deaths.
Actually I don't think so. I think we just need to look at the numbers we're responsible for and work with those.
What I think it comes down to is that the U.S. military planners had two generic plans to choose from. One had 1000 civilian deaths + 100 troop deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over. The other had 500 troop deaths + 175 civilian deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over.
Both paths end with us winning the war. Both paths have far fewer civilian deaths than World War II. But one is legal and the other is not. The U.S. has choosen path number one that I think is morally repugnant.
Originally posted by bunge
Actually I don't think so. I think we just need to look at the numbers we're responsible for and work with those.
What I think it comes down to is that the U.S. military planners had two generic plans to choose from. One had 1000 civilian deaths + 100 troop deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over. The other had 500 troop deaths + 175 civilian deaths + 1 Saddam death = war over.
Both paths end with us winning the war. Both paths have far fewer civilian deaths than World War II. But one is legal and the other is not. The U.S. has choosen path number one that I think is morally repugnant.
And before that you add this....
both sides generally obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, and as a result, civilian casualties were only about a third of military casualties
So we see Iraq not following the rules of civilized warfare, the ratio changes and somehow this the fault of U.S war planners.
On top of that you are complaining about the ratio when the sophistication of the U.S. approach has made the number of deaths so small a sample that the ratios no longer can be termed reliable.
Suppose the U.S. had one soldier killer and killed 25 civilians, would they be as morally repugnant?
How about if the U.S. lost 1000 men but killed 2000 civilians, would that be better in your eyes?
Honestly what give you the right to determine a ratio? You mentioned two sides following the rules. One side (Iraq) obviously isn't and in spite of this the number of civilians killed is about as close to zero as is possible for all practical purposes. Yet you still condemn, complain and of course offer no alternatives.
Your numbers are pulled out of your butt, just like your reasoning. You offer no proof nor even alternative scenarios by alternative news sources, former military sources, anything but the oh so triumphant reasoning of Bunge to justify your numbers. Alcimedes also showed that the ratio of civilians being killed to soldiers killed is dropping faster for civilians.
Here is another number to consider think about the number of troops there. 250,000. If every single one of them fired just one bullet what degree of precision would it be for them to only hit 1000 civilians?
Obviously not all of them shoot and of course the ones who do don't only use one bullet but it illustrates a point. We are talking about precision down to likely hundrend thousandths of a percent. If someone is doing something right 99.99997 that to me reveals their true intent. You call it morally repugnant which is just ridiculous.
Nick