14. Do you think now of Coalition forces mostly as occupiers or mostly as liberators?
Total Baghdad Shi’ite areas Sunni areas Kurdish areas
Occupiers 71% 82 80 80 1
Liberators 19% 4 7 10 97
Both 8% 13 11 7 2
So, it appears that Iraqi, Sunni Arabs are, in fact more liikely to see us as 'liberators" than Iraqi, Shia Srabs.
Thats very true. You could attempt to extrapolate the possible projected civilian casualties from such things if there had been no war at all with some kind of sampling of possible deaths from 'lack of available health care 'or ‘poor drinking water’, ect…and in fact thats what Lancett did attempt to do. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, the pre-war civilian death rate varies wildly…and its difficult, to say the least, to determine deaths due to ‘poor drinking water’ or ‘available healthcare’ that are caused by the war in the middle of whats still a fairly hot war zone…and not by other factors. Part of the reason Lancett’s figures vary so wildly.
I find it easier to follow IBC’s methodology to get a rough idea of civilians directly killed myself, and I like the fact that they cross check death certificates and verify their findings reasonable well.
You are quite correct. I realized my mistake after I posted it (i.e. that the OP wanted ALL casualties, civilian and military), but as the thread didn’t really seem to be going anywhere I didn’t bother to correct. FWIW I’ve seen estimates running from between 10,000-40,000 direct military deaths…but these estimates are even more speculative than the civilan casualty ones (in fact, I suspect that there is a huge amount of cross over between the two figures…civilians counted as ‘military deaths’ and vice versa).
Certainly they did. Thats the widely used ‘100,000’ figure bandied about (actually I think it was something like 98,000). I was of course attempting to make a joke there. I don’t completely disreguard Lancett btw…I think its quite informative and even useful. Its the way its used I object too, as if it were proven fact…and used that way for political reasons of course to beat up on the pro-war types. To my mind the IBC numbers are bad enough, and they are cross checked for accuracy.
It’s like eating peanuts - hard to stop after the first fifteen thousand or so.
But I think we are comparing apples and oranges. Whatever proportion of innocent civilians who were killed by Allied troops - certainly a tragedy. But those who were killed by the insurgents are a different matter. Those who were killed fighting on behalf of the Saddam regime, or on behalf of Islamo-fascism - not a tragedy.
It’s like occupied France during WWII. Those killed by the Allies are sad and tragic. Those killed by the Nazis, almost equally so. Those who died for Vichy, or who cooperated with the Nazis - fuck 'em.
Well, he’s not. So you’ll just have to be satisfied with increasing the death rate through invasion and occupation. Sorry it’s not up to your standards, but hey: you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. So make do.
…point being…he was refuting Evil One’s point, made in this post:
…it appears that Evil One’s assertion that the majority of Shiites and Kurds see the US as “occupiers” and not “liberators” from PatriotX’s citations, are incorrect, do you not agree?
Nope. In the Kurds case, double no, the Shia? Meh, probably. But any thoughts of occupation are overidden by the fact we’ve rid them of Baa’thist oppression.
