Reply #32: Really?

[blueclown]

Already affirming that you aren't going to reply to all of my points (I consider a concession a response), only to ones that you may have something you'd like to say -- and then base a conclusion off of these incomplete premises.

And is it just me who finds this statement facetious? "Some" of my points "one by one"? Suggesting that you're going to carefully explore points whose responses would only further your position (theoretically)?

Already starting off dishonest.

Good job starting off with namecalling. I think that really inforces the strength of your "argument", if you want to call it that. I do not have to reply to each and every letter in your post to formulate an effective response to your drivel.

1. Why is that that WikiLeaks, the organization whose primary goal for existing reports the civilians killed much lower than that of Lancet? Have you ever considered that this Lancet study has special interests as opposed to an institution which would love nothing more than to reveal that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were indeed killed (indeed, the staunchly anti-war George Soros funded half of the funding for the Lancet Report

Wikileaks' primary goal is to report the facts, from whatever source they may come from, whether they be classified leaks or not. And I reject your assertion that Wikileaks has ever published an official Iraq body count. Wikileaks is not in the business of determining a
true body count. They simply report (i.e leak) the documents that they have available to them. There is no single official government entity in Iraq or the U.S. that has ever measured the full extent of the Iraqi War body count. There have been various investigations by a number of entities, including limited Iraqi public records and extensive reporting and discovery by various NGOs. I find it extremely interesting how you mention right-wing boogeyman George Soros as a subtle way to discredit the findings of the Lancet survey. Even if the Lancet survey's numbers were at the high end, you fail to mention other Iraqi War body count estimates, such as from the IBC, which put the Iraqi war body count in the range of what I said (100,000+)

2. A large number of your points have nothing to do with the casualty figures, but about the nature of the casualties themselves. That's a different discussion, one that you yourself didn't initiate (in other words, it's irrelevant). Here's the claim you made which I responded to:

Sigh. The entire premise of my argument is based on what the true casaulty figure in Iraq is. YOU are the one who is attempting the diminish the Iraqi War death count by distinguishing between combatants and civilians. Not ME. I did initiate that conversation. You wanted to create a category that is entirely arbitrary and oblivous to context, that of "combatants", and sweep under the rug significant Iraqi War deaths that you placed in that convenient category.

So please, hold yourself to your own standards when we're discussing such an important topic.

I'd like to see you hold yourself to any standard. Especially since you are arguing with me about how whether we should count "combatants" as part of the Iraqi War death count while referencing an all-encompassing Wikileaks "count" that doesn't even exist.

4. We're not supposed to be debating whether or not what the interpretation of these casualty figures should be, like you so arduously argue, but why these casualty figures are. A difference in hundreds of thousands of lives isn't an issue to be glossed over. You also seem to muddle objective casualty figures with your own interpretations of the casualty figures. I'll give examples below.

"We're" not supposed to be debating whether or not this interepretation of casualty figures is effective, because then it would strike a glaring hole in your argument. I don't remember agreeing to a construct of a debate that was framed on only your terms. If you want to dismiss a figure that has been supported by multiple sources, then you will need to provide evidence that these sources are wrong. You have not done so.

My point was about the *number* of casualties. Your point is about how these casualties should be interpreted.

The first example of how you fail to meet your own standards.

Listen. I posted a TOTAL estimate that has been supported by multiple sources. Your point was never about the number of casualties. If it was, you would have simply agreed with my initial assertion, because the TOTAL number of casualties in the Iraq War has been reported in the range I stated, by both the IBC and the Lancet survey. You have yet to present a thorough study that contradicts these sources. In addition, YOU were the one who wanted to determine how these casualties should be interpeted. Not me.

Well, yes, the US represents good intentions, does it not? It's established a fledgling democracy in Iraq. It's removed Saddam Hussein (and his intentions to acquire a WMD program in addition to having Iran on his back). It's freed the Iraqi people from the totalitarian grip of Saddam Hussein. It's nationalized Iraq's oil (to which the US has no monopoly on, by the way).

Equating this with Islamic terrorists whose main purpose is to extirpate those believing in a different version of Islam than them?

Makes total sense.

There is so much wrong with this passage, I don't even know where to begin. And I won't start, because it effectively packages all of the main neoconservative talking points in the run-up to the war in a neat, tidy paragaph. I'm just curious, since you are a defender of the Iraqi War - does the fact that we found no WMDs (the entire rationale for going to war with Iraq) mean anything to you? Anything?

And your assertion that all "combatants" (you know, your favorite category) are all Islamic terrorists is certainly not backed up with facts of any kind. It's simply another blanket assertion in the long line of blanket assertions you have thrown out during this discussion.

I agree with your premise -- that Bremer (and the entire Bush Administration, for that matter) was staggeringly incompetent. However, again, to state that the "only other way" of life for them is to make a living blowing themselves up, killing other people, and terrorizing the public seems to be a bit of an apology on their behalf.

In a nation that was ravaged by an ongoing war, there are very few ways to make a living that don't involve participating in that war. In your U.S. centric world view, I'm sure you think that he could give out his resume and be hired by McDonalds the next day. But that just isn't the case away from your little world-bubble. Families need to be fed, hometowns need to be defended, etc.

Well, for those like the Jews, yes. The Nazis took meticulous notes on how many Jews were exterminated, etc.

I wouldn't have a problem were it not for *method* of extrapolation. The Lancet Study was conducted by doctors who went door to door and asked for how many of their family members died, were wounded, etc and extrapolated from this that there were 600,000+ civilians killed. Which is why I quoted Natalie Solent.

Somehow, I doubt this occurred in WWI and WWII.

By the way, nice of you to return to the topic.

First of all, your comparision with the Nazis is incredibly flawed. You are referring to the death counts within the controlled environment of a concentration camp where the methods of counting dead bodies were a result of specific procedures. A warzone is not nearly as controlled an environment as a concentration camp, and I can assure you that there is not an exact body count of the amount of Nazis that died during the battles of World War II.

Second of all, Welcome to the world of statistical sampling. Have you ever read an election poll? Also, do you have any proof that this didn't occur in WWI or WWII? I'm still waiting for one assertion that you have made to be backed by any sort of research, facts, etc.

Wait, so if subject A stabbed subject B's mother with a knife, making her unconscious, and subject B punched subject A and, by accident, knocked him unconscious, then subject B would be as morally culpable as subject A, who did the stabbing?

Disgusting principle you hold there.

The United States invaded a soverign country under false pretenses. That fact along renders your absurd argument moot. Again, you keep coming back to this dichotomy that everything the U.S. does is "good", while everything their enemy does is "evil". And it just doesn't fly under any critical analysis.

Now you're just yelling. You have a conclusion, but you don't demonstrate how you arrived there. How does "this narrative" frame the Iraq War as necessary? How does it assume these deaths aren't preventable?

Again, conclusions. No links, and no premises.

Furthermore, you should take what assuming these number dead and wounded imply. Taken from the anti-war, liberal Iraq Body Count: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/reality-ch... /

"The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy."

You are presenting the idea that the Iraqi war was unavoidable, and any deaths that the U.S. didn't directly cause are not its fault. That is the narrative you are trying to peddle. Why are you distancing yourself from your own analysis?

And it's quite interesting how you describe the Iraqi Body Count site as liberal and anti-war, and seek to discredit it solely based on that description, when a critical look at the facts would reveal that the IBC has no political agenda. In addition, you cite from the same group (the IBC) which provides an incredibly through study of a body count that is consistent with the range I described. You do realize that, don't you?

The icing on the cake. You've already talked past yourself -- not only have you displayed dishonesty through your selectivity, but you further claim here that you've disproved my refutation of the Lancet Study (with points about the interpretations of the study and casualties, not the actual numbers themselves -- shocking!).

Moreover, are you truly read to defend Democratic Underground as a whole? Conspiracy nuts, included? Think before you post, not the other way around.

I absolutely despise comparing body counts, but it's a must, unfortunately, to counter the dis-information and misinformation regurgitated by the sanctimonious, faux intellectuals in this day and age.

And with that, I'd love to hear what you think the US should have done instead of what it shouldn't do. That is, offer an alternative (or concede that you would be willing to live with the ramifications and implications of pre-war Iraq). "Don't participate in terrorism" isn't an answer, by the way.

I have exhibited no selectivity. In fact, the entire premise of YOUR argument is selectivity. You have presented no study that would place the Iraqi War death count in the vicinity of your range. Instead, you have referenced studies that affirm my point. The only way your assertion has any credibility is if you apply the criteria of selectivity, and establish a completely arbitrary category known as combatants, with no definition and no context.

I had a simple idea of what the U.S. should have done - not went to war with Iraq. We were sold a set of lies in the lead-up to the War in Iraq, and the criminals have still not been held responsible.