No - you cannot make this calculation and use the result as a moral ‘out’. Even if more people would have been killed they’d be different people. For better or worse the vast majority of these people would not have been killed. Innocent people are dead at the hands of USA/UK.
Maybe it can be argued that it’s a price worth paying in terms of moral guilt both parties bear, maybe its a price they are willing to let others pay but the bottom line is, real innocent individuals, not faceless numbers in an equation are dead who would be alive today but for the actions of the allies. Maybe some are alive who wouldn’t be but IMO the blood of the innocents are on the hands of those who made the decision for war.
We/they may argue the price was worth it and are willing to accept the guilt but we just cannot morally weigh the numbers and absolve ourselves. The decison to trade off the certain death of innocents for the possible survival of other, unknown innocents cannot be made without a moral stain, even if it was necessary and no-one who made it and no-one who supports it should allow themselves to be comforted by a false moral equivalence.
The consequences of decisions have to be accepted and in this case such people have killed thousands of innocent people and no amount of numbers games can alter that fact. I don’t know the answer, it’s a tough real world choice leaders make but having made them they and their supporters should accept the moral fallout. If I was Bush and I genuinely believed my actions were necessary I would have to accept the guilt that comes with the deaths of thousands of innocents.
Both of these counters are crap. The one that has the highest estimate starts counting from Jan 2003. This is funny considering we hadn’t goe to war yet. The other one lists no-combatants at a little more than 1000 more than 9/11 and that is not valid because of the number of Iraqi troops who fought in civilian clothes.
For all you who truly believe that this was an unjust war, I would suggest you rally your people and remove the Bush admin out of office, because some of you are starting to get as bad as the rabid Bush defenders.
This pointless speculation is no more valid than postulating that there might have been a potential mass murderer killed on 9/11; who knows, maybe OBL did us a favor. I don’t know what might have happened, and neither do you. Let’s stick to reality here; we know who is responsible for killing more civilians.
How do they decide who is an innocent civillian? If civillians pick up guns and start fighting back are they counted as part of this when they die? Are foreigners present counted.
The faq doesn’t really discuss what criteria is used beyond the fact that they rely on media reports.
So… who has a higher civilian body count GWB or OBL?
GWB
What deaths can squarely be put on the shoulders of either?
Definitely 9/11 and Kenya belong on OBL’s shoulders. Iraq deaths on GWB’s.
3)Also, is this a relevant question to ask?
Yes.
Why or why not?"
Once you kill as many innocent civillians as the person(s), organization(s), or state(s), you lose the moral high ground argument which is what the US is purporting to have.
I’m sort of a moral relativist when it comes war. But this Iraq thing fell on its face not just because it was based on lies and many totally innocent people died because of those lies, but because it destabilized the region, increased terrorist enrollment and sympathy, took away resources for going after the real 9/11 bad guys, and hampered important international cooperation with other countries.
If the war is justified, then what is necessary to carry out the war is justified too. OBL has gone to great expense and trouble to maximize civilian casualties, while the US has gone to great expense and trouble to minimize civilian casualties. To say that these two stances are morally equivalent is obscene. You might as well argue that Churchill killed more people than Hitler because if England had capitulated instead of fighting than many of WW2’s casualties would not have happened.
I think an interesting question is “Did those who compare Bush to OBL lose their moral sense because of their hatred for Bush or did they never have one to begin with?”
Which goes straight to the crux of the debate. Because Bush relied on lies and deception to to sell it, this war was unjustified; therefore the civilian casualties were also unjustified.
Good point. But now consider how many civilian lives will be lost in civil insurrections (coming civil war?) brought on by Saddam’s deposement and GWs lack of postwar planning and you can see that the cause-and-effect argument can go ad infinitum.
Unless you can point to the “trip point” that we did agree justified, rather required, the war, then yes, it’s a fact that it wasn’t. Need we once again go over the long list of things that were presented to us as “trip points” that turned out to be simply lies?
Are you claiming that this war was defensive? We now know otherwise, and that the people selling it to us on that basis knew it wasn’t, either. Now: The “acceptability” of loss of life can only be judged in comparison to the goals of the war, right? If the goals are phantasms or lies, then there’s no justification. If the goals are along the lines of winning over the hearts and minds of the locals, or even to let them feel they’re in charge of their own destinies, then any of the innocents you kill, whether through malice or disregard or simple carelessness, counts against those very goals. Rumsfeld’s, and therefore the US government’s, casual attitude as reflected in El Kabong’s cite (and widely reported elsewhere if you don’t like that one), has more effect than any number, wouldn’t you say?
I was not in favor of the war. But just because I wasn’t, doesn’t mean that every reason for not going to war is unjustified. And the one offered in the OP is too subjective.
The US caused more German and Japanese civilian deaths than either of the countries caused the US. Does that mean WWII was not justified?
It’s a non sequitur argument. That’s all.
Think of it this way. Suppose the dictator of MiddleEastistan is rounding up 10,000 random citizens every day and executing them. Would the US be justified in invading if we expected that the invasion would cause 50,000 civilian deaths? What if the dictator was rounding up 1,000 citizens instead? How about 100? How about 1?
Where’s your trip point in that situatoin? How do you objectively determine your trip point as opposed to what mine would be? I couldn’t do it.
Whether the war was justifiable is a matter of opinion and certainly open to debate, but my reading of the OP is that the debate here is whether there is any kind of moral equivalence in the actions of GWB vs OBL. We seem to agree that there is not.
This is an interpretation of the OP that I must remark on. It’s an unexpected reading as the OP makes no mention of moral comparisons bewteen the two.
Rather it seems to be concerned merely with what deaths can be attributed to GWB and UbL, and whether its relevant to ask what deaths can be attributed to each.
It’s not a reason not to go to war per se. It’s a realistic evaluation of responsibility. Whether or not it is important is a question asked by the OP.
As much as WWII get’s brought up, I have yet to see what it has to do with Iraq. Why don’t you use Viet Nam?
The fact remains that innocents are dead as result of US policy decisions. Saying that the “trip point” is subjective and throwing up your hands, is just ducking the argument.
Suppose an alternate hypothetical in which 8,000 must be killed to save two. Is that still a purely subjective evaluation?
As long as we are considering hypotheticals, let us consider if the terrorists were persistently and pervasively operating inside the US. Would you find 3800 US civilians killed by the administration in the “war on terror” a cause of concern? Wouldn’t you ask: " Are we saving lives or taking them?" Would you be concerned that maybe the military operation could have been carried out a little more carefully?
Not so fast, friend. We’re talking about a specific war with specific rationalizations and goals here, not some airy platitudes.
It’s hard to reply to a position so muddled as that. Self-defense is always justified. The Iraq war wasn’t self-defense, even though it was (and still is) portrayed as such.
Mine is lost somewhere under a huge pile of straw you just dumped on it. If your point is that the Iraq war’s remaining “justification” is the defense of its people’s human rights, then you do have to accept that being allowed to live is the ultimate and basic one (as I think SimonX is heading toward). What’s the problem with judging that first by body count? Why wouldn’t reasonably-expected future body counts, such as in a civil war you may have touched off, not matter in that calculation too?
Any net death you didn’t need to cause, in a goal you’re not really working toward, is unjustifiable, ain’t it? But you don’t have to worry about that in a war to simply conquer a nation and its people - are you suggesting an equivalence, or identicality, with actual US goals in this one?
Nonsense: ObL did not by any means “maximize” civilian casualties, nor, I suspect, was that even his plan. He was, as I recall, just as surprised as everyone else that the Twin Towers collapsed, after all, and felt that was just an added bonus.
Rather, his plan was to strike at symbolic targets,representing the economy (the WTC), the military (the Pentagon), and the government itself (the White House, if the rumors regarding the target for the fourth plane are to to be believed). If he had wanted to maximize civilian casualties, all he had to do was dive a single plane into the stadium on Super Bowl Sunday. Malls, sporting events, commuter trains and so on are where you target civilians, if such is your actual goal.
As such, I would argue that in both cases (the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq), the point was not to kill lots of people, but to take out specific targets. But, in so doing, lots of people do wind up dead.
So, let me get this straight. You are wanting to compare ObL to Bush based solely on body count appearently. And you think this means what, exactly? That because Bush’s body count is higher that means…?? Maybe you could make this clearer, ehe?
One could look comparitively at the results I suppose. Whats the result of ObL’s attack on the US? Well he killed a lot of folks and destroyed a lot of property and basically kicked the US in the crotch and caused it to lash out where otherwise it would have been mired in its own problems as usual…fat, dumb and unhappy as it were. And on the good side there is…well, I can’t think of anything positive that came out of the attacks, can you? It was simply murdering people en mass for no real good reason and destroying a lot of property, and riling up one of the worlds superpower…maybe THE superpower. Did ObL, after his attack, attempt to rebuild anything? Not that I’m aware of.
Now we have the war in Iraq. The US stupidly attacked into Iraq for no over-riding reason, true enough. We killed a realitively low amount of civilians (considering the magnitude of the war), but more than were killed for 9/11 (though why this is important at all is a mystery to me). We destroyed a lot of property, though probably not as much in terms of shear money as was destroyed during 9/11 (is this important? god knows). The nation the US attacked and the ruler and his administration are widely considered to be vile of course, so that factors in (i.e. it would be a bit different if the US had of unilaterally attacked, say, Belgum than it is that they attacked Iraq for no appearent reason). On the good side the Iraqi’s actually have a chance now (albiet maybe not a very good chance) to come out of this ahead in terms of a new government and freedom from a guy who was pretty vile. The US IS spending a great deal (also) to rebuild what it destroyed and to try and help those who have suffered.
However, if you are just looking for a straight body count comparison between Bush and ObL, far_born, whats the debate here? You could have put this in GQ and had your answer (though the figures on the Iraqi side would vary as you’ve seen depending on who is counting).
If we are talking about justifications, I would say the US was more justified in going into Iraq than ObL was in what he did on 9/11. Why? Well, ObL basically just wanted to murder civilians and kick the US in the crotch…and probably set off a general war between the US and the ME if he could (he was partially successful…does this count for you on the positive side?). The US, while unjustified in going into Iraq because it was under threat (no WMD, no real way to threaten the US) didn’t go into Iraq with the sole intent to murder civilians, but to depose a vile regime. The US’s (USers?) motivations weren’t exactly alturistic, to say the least, but they were better on a sliding scale than AQ and ObL, no? Is that what you are looking for?
Two wrongs don’t make a right (to be trite), but if you are insisting on a one to one comparison of ‘justification’ I’d say its pretty hard to favorably make the arguement that Bush beats out ObL…if thats what you are getting at with all this.