Comments on A Dossier of Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003–2005

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But most of the civilian deaths occurred...

...after the invasion had toppled Saddam. American aggression killed, then, about 10,000. The rest was either direct killing of innocents by insurgents or killing by Americans in response to insurgent attacks. The insurgents, with vastly inferior weaponry, managed to kill nine percent, and it's clear that they target innocent people with a desire to kill them as well as themselves.

I can only imagine how many civilians they would have killed had they possessed our kind of weapons. This is the problem that Sam Harris points out, oddly enough in a book defending atheism, with the moral comparisons between the U.S. and its enemies: the only valid moral comparison is when you make all factors, except for intent to kill innocents, equal. You can only test one factor at a time, just as in a science experiment.

So the moral test has to involve the following scenario: imagine that the insurgents and the U.S. were fighting and had equally destructive weapons -- that would mean the insurgents had sophisticated bombs and planes from which to drop them, which they don't. In this scenario, who would kill more civilians? It's clear to me that the insurgents/anti-occupation forces would, because they go into these attacks with the desire to kill civilians, as evidenced by their choice of targets: medics, children and women, aid workers, etc.

I will add the usual caveat, of course: this does not in any way excuse the U.S. for its failure to adequately protect civilians. I'm arguing that far more would die if the insurgents achieved their aims (control of the apparatus of state, and all that would follow from that).

posted by Dylan24 on July 20, 2005 at 4:40 AM | link to this | reply

We've Thought...

...that all along, really, with the possible exception of the first week or two, where it was all victory and statues coming down. And how phoney does that seem now??

Now, this simply proves our suspicions.

I wish we'd been wrong.

D

posted by DamonLeigh on July 19, 2005 at 7:55 AM | link to this | reply

DL, I still think at times

the US presence in Iraq is doing more harm then good at this time. And what I mean by that is this. Our troops are doing the best they can but because the US is hated so much that the insurgents, who are trying to kill the troops, are also killing innocent people.

posted by scoop on July 19, 2005 at 7:51 AM | link to this | reply

Everybody....

...and I mean everybody, needs to read this post.

D

posted by DamonLeigh on July 19, 2005 at 7:17 AM | link to this | reply