On the totality of civil war in Iraq

Great Debates
1

Many oppose immediate withdrawl of American troops from Iraq on the grounds that it will lead, or might lead, to a total civil war in the country. I say it’s too late. Iraq is already experiencing total civil war.

Iraq had a population of about 26,000,000 at the time of the American invasion. The war has been going on for almost 4 years, and the best estimate puts the resulting deaths in the violence since then as 650,000. All told, in a given year, an average Iraqi has probability of .00625 of dying in the war.

We’d all presumably agree that the United States had a total civil war from April of 1861 to April of 1865, a period of four years. The USA started with a population of about 33,000,000 and experienced about 620,000 war deaths. In a given year during the war, an average American had probability .00470 of dying. That’s about 25% lower than the probability for an Iraqi at the present time.

Spain is another country that once had a total civil war, lasting three years from 1936 to 1939. With population of 22,000,000 and the death toll roughly estimated at 500,000, a Spanish person had probablity .00758 of getting killed each year during that period. Thus, a typical Spaniard was in about 20% more danger then than a typical Iraqi now.

If our troops are staying in Iraq to prevent a total civil war from starting, that presupposes that no total civil war is happening right now. But we’ve seen that the death toll for Iraq currently is quite similar to two historical examples of total civil wars. Thus, there’s no basis for claiming that Iraq isn’t having a war, or that Iraq’s civil war falls short of totality.

To conclude, anyone who wants to avoid a total civil war in Iraq should have thought of that back when Bush decided to start one in 2003. Now it’s too late.

2

I question the 650,000 figure. It’s clearly an outlyer.

Earlier this year, Iraqis estimated upwards of 50,000 civilians had been killed. Cite. A UN figure put the number of Iraqi deaths in the first half of this year at 20,000. Cite.

It could be that such a huge number of Iraqis have been killed, but to say the least, it’s really odd how virtually all other figures not done by surveys report only like one-tenth of the fatalities.

What’s more, there appears to be universal agreement that the violence is getting worse this year. When you say that Iraq is already experiencing “total civil war,” you seem to ignore the obvious fact that it is sliding into “double dog super duper total civil war.”

I have always maintained that invading Iraq would be a horrible mistake, but a reasonable person has to acknowledge the reality of the situation and proceed as best possible, acknowledging the consequences, rather than wishing there existed a time machine to go back and change everything.

3

Amen!!

Is the OP’s contention that things can’t get any worse in Iraq? Throwing around terms like “total civil war” as if that answers all the questions is about as useful and informative as saying “stay the course”.

4

I say that the Lancet study is the most thorough because it took the broadest approach, used the best statistical techniques, and has been reviewed favorably by many independent experts. Here’s an explanation, and here’s an in-depth response to criticisms. Earlier body counts were all based on official figures from either the press or agencies like the morgue. But logically, given the breakdown of order in Iraq, those methods have to be incomplete. When folks can’t safely leave their own houses, how are they going to get bodies to the morgue? People generally won’t risk becoming a statistic themselves just to make sure that statistics are collected correctly. The Lancet study did a general survey to tackle these difficulties. By speaking directly to a random sample of Iraqi people, they’ll avoid error from that sort of undercount. OF course there will always be a large error in trying to get a count in such a chaotic region, but the Lancet study is the best thing we’ve got thus far.

Competing body counts are naturally prone to error. For instance, the report from the UN lists 6,600 civilian deaths in Iraq in July and August of this year and so presumably about 3,300 in July. But then it says that there were 2,884 civilian deaths in Baghdad. If we accept those figures, then there were almost no deaths outside of Baghdad. But that doesn’t make sense, giving that heavy fighting occured all summer long in many areas of the country. More likely is that the Baghdad officials had more resources to get an accurate count, while other areas, particularly rural regions, had no agency capable of doing a good job on the corpse-counting business.

5

Sometimes the ‘error’ is intentional and systematic, as described on pages 94 and 95 of the ISG report:

1100/93 = 11.8.

6

Viewed purely as a semantic distinction, the argument is rather silly. But its use, and its avoidance, is telling. Its avoidance was a matter of manipulation, of spin, of putting the best face forward. The Bushiviks preferred the more genteel “sectarian strife”, trying to imply a simmering pot of shit, but not actually exploding. A deteriorating situation, in their eyes, only underlines the importance of a firm and unyeilding insistance on victory.

And, of course, we have this…

And in a moment of sublime understatement…

The Bushiviks try to manipulate public perception because it matters, duh. Therefore, seemingly pointless arguments about what constitutes a civil war are about something important.

The Bushiviks would have us believe that Iraq is somewhat similar to Northern Ireland during the Troubles and its aftermath: a place of simmering “sectarian strife”, constant tension and occassional outbursts of violence and mayhem. Yet a semblance of normal life continues, shops open, trains run, payrolls are met. And with firm guidance and a patient, resolute committment of force, a peaceable solution may ultimately be found.

And in comparison with what they determine to be the “facts on the ground”, the above is a comparatively rosy scenario, not manageable but not hopeless. But Belfast at its worse was never as bad as Baghdad on a good day. And if such were “sectarian strife”, and if “civil war” is the next status closer to Hell, then it is either “civil war” or “total civil war”.

7

As I said, it could be that the number is right, but according to the wiki articles you linked to, there’s a lot of smart people who defend the study and a good number who criticize it. Personally, I just find it hard to believe that one in every ten deaths would go unnoticed in Iraq save for a team of intrepid statisicians. Be that as it may, my last experience with a statistics course was more than a decade ago, and I did manage to get an ‘A’ in that, but I really have no ability to make an informed judgment about a debate that is apparently occuring between experts in this field.

The main point of my post, however, was that you seemed to be using this study to build a case that things cannot get worse in Iraq. Seeing as how things have continually gotten worse this year, I just fail to see how a gross body count makes that case. Again, just because we’re at “total civil war” now does not mean that “torrents of blood flowing in the streets civil war” is not around the corner.

In my view, this is the horns of the dilemma. I believe people of the world, including Americans, have a moral obligation to do their best to stop senseless slaughter that primarily targets innocent civilians, whether it is in Bosnia, Sudan, or even Iraq. This was part of the reason I opposed the war in the beginning, because I suspected the civilian death toll would be far worse than any help we could bring to Iraq (among many other reasons). Now, it seems pretty well acknowledged that if the US quickly pulls out, the violence will get even worse.

Now, I agree that the US occupation has been the reason for so much violence, but looking at the current situation, it could very well be that we are keeping the lid on a much worse conflict. So, in my view, the question is, do we keep US troops there and continue to have thousands of Iraqis killed every month for god knows how long, or do we pull our troops out and have tens of thousands of Iraqis killed each month until one side liquidates another?

If anyone has an easy answer to that, I suggest they may not be taking the question very seriously.

8

Just as a matter of curiosity, are you figuring in non-combat deaths (disease, hunger) into the US and Spanish numbers? Because that could make a very significant difference.
Also, I’m not sure that the other two civil wars had a significant communal component, with civilians being targeted based on their religion/ethnicity. This seems to be a large factor in Iraq. In which case you might be better off drawing your risk of dying as a spread, with .00625 as the lower bound and the corresponding factor for Rwanda as the upper bound.

Just because Shrub has created one of the worst catastrophes the world has seen in the last half-century or so, there’s no reason to assume it can’t be made much much worse. If it can, I’m confident he’ll be able to demonstrate.

9

Others have addressed most of the points I would make. The only thing I’ll comment on is the obvious apples to oranges comparison here:

The problem with this comparison is that the 620k US deaths were almost all counted from battlefield or other military deaths (IIRC…that seems the figure I recall as being the total death for the Union/Confederate MILITARY)…I don’t think it takes into account the vast majority of civilian casualities, let alone going into the casualties as defined by the OP’s cite for Iraqi dead. Were a study done in the US post Civil war using the same exact criteria as that cited by the OP the death toll would be a lot higher. Millions would have been counted as war dead in the US using that criteria. One has but to look at how Lancet came to that 650,000 figure and extrapolate it to how things were in both the North and South post war…especially for the women and children left behind while daddy went off to war.

-XT

10

I missed that you asked the same question. I had started to post earlier but then got called away from my desk and hadn’t checked. I had the same though (or similar).

According to Wiki about the US Civil War, the Union casualties were 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded, while on the Confederate side it was 258,000 total dead
137,000+ wounded. These of course are MILITARY casualties only, not counting civilian dead through direct military action, hunger, disease, loss of lively hood (i.e. daddy doesn’t come back to the farm) or the myriad other criteria used by Lancet to arrive at its huge Iraqi dead figure. Also, gods know how many of those listed at ‘wounded’ on both sides actually lived post-war…or even survived to the conclusion of the war.
Instead of trying to make this comparison fly, maybe we should just debate either the Lancet report (again) or simply talk about Iraq, total civila war vs the current insurgency and civilian casualties in both situations? We’ve done THAT debae before too, but I think it will go further than this comparison one, especially since we are comparing apples to oranges…not just on how casualties were calculated in the 1860’s, 1930’s and today (and of course the wide discrepency between the cite the OP used and most other casualty cites I’ve seen), but in how conflicts were in those times in those places compared to Iraq today. Bit of a difference there I’d have to say…

:stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

11

With “security” like this – this seems like the umpteenth of such reports – you’d do well to pack your boys and your gear:

Iraqis say US raid killed 32, including 6 children

Thanks Og for collateral damage. They probably all feel safer already. The one’s left alive that is.

12

Makes you wonder what the casualties would be if those civilians were being DELIBERATELY targetted…like in, oh, say an all out civil war? Instead of 32 people killed, maybe it would be something like 320…or 3200. Ever heard of what happens in RELIGIOUS civil wars? Oh, thats right…you are from Spain. Well, you should know, ehe Red?

-XT

13

What, 650,000 still too shabby for you?

Congrats. You have a mind like a steel trap…

14

Since that figure is debatable I’ll let that slide. The 20k-50k figure is too much IMHO. However, the debate is what would the figure be if there was an all out civil war. Want to address that issue?

Congrats! You managed to slip in what you obviously thought was a sly insult into GD without getting tagged for it! You da man Red!

-XT

15

No thanks. Been there done that. To death.

And sure, in (your) reality there have have only been a couple of Iraqi deaths…oops! “collateral damage” I should say.

16

In your ‘reality’ 20 to 50 THOUSAND deaths are a ‘couple’?? :smack: Thats right…you are Spanish! Its not a real death toll until it gets in the millions from your perspective. Sorry for the disconnect there…I tend to forget that about you.

-XT

17

Incoherence suits you.

18

OK, you two, don’t make me come back there… Red, stop being so Spanish! XT stop…that. That thing. You were doing.

19

:stuck_out_tongue:

I will if he will! :stuck_out_tongue: I promise not to be so incoherant if he promise not to say such stupid things.

-XT

20

The New! Improved! Civil War Lite!