Your math is wrong because if you’re not looking at overall civilian casualty rate then you need to remove the allied combatants from the denominator.
I am looking at the overall civilian casualty rate for deaths by violence.
The Iraq Body Count project puts Coalition forces as responsible for ~40% of civilian deaths during the invasion and the immediate aftermath, when Coalition civilian casualties were highest. After '03, by the Iraqi Body Count Project’s own estimates, Coalition-inflicted civilian casualties drop sharply both as an absolute number and as a proportion.
All of this is a fucking insane detour from what started this - that America is more interested in preventing civilian casualties than Israel is, which is pretty fucking apparent from the outset and the attempt to dispute it with claims of 77% Coalition-inflicted casualties in Iraq is fucking nonsense.
I am looking at the overall civilian casualty rate for deaths by violence.
Then it’s the original numbers you’ve been falling all over yourself to deny. You’re trying to pick apart these statistics to divide blame, but that’s an entirely different statistic, and that one very much cares who is dying. We don’t get an extra buffer on civilian deaths because one of our allies died as well.
When deciding to start a war, the overall CCR rate is the appropriate statistic. It doesn’t matter to the civilians which side kills them, just that they’re dead because we started a war. And Israel being extremely bad doesn’t make war by less bad actors no big deal. You’ve been minimizing the cost of war throughout this, picking at a percentage here or there based on some unsupported faith in the restraint of the US war machine.
This all started from you claiming “Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel’s currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).” CCRs are general measures for combats as a whole, but if you wanted to calculate a civilians killed divided by enemy killed, the US ratio in Iraq was right at that 50-50 ratio you thought was far beyond what the US would ever do.
When deciding to start a war, the overall CCR rate is the appropriate statistic. It doesn’t matter to the civilians which side kills them, just that they’re dead because we started a war.
So when I explicitly noted that I was making that distinction and that the broader moral issue of being responsible for deaths as part of starting the war was a different discussion, you ignored it. Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic.
" Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic."
Nah it was just you spinning in circles trying to justify and rationalize your morally bankrupt bullshit. And I for own appreciate the other person taking the time to debunk it for us readers.
Is that what you call noting that US military operations are more careful than the current bullshit undertaken by Israel?
I explicitly noted I wasn’t addressing the overall morality of the Iraq War or the responsibility for the deaths caused by the war as a whole - only that in military operations, the US is more careful about civilian casualties than israel’s current farce. Would you care to elaborate on how that’s “morally bankrupt bullshit”?
My point isn’t “Iraq was better or worse”, I explicitly noted that the moral dimension of the overall casualties from the Iraq War were seperate from the point I talking about, which the other commenter ignored. My only point was that the US is more careful about civilian casualties in military operations than Israel.
I wasn’t the one who brought up the Iraq War, and my only intention here was to refute the absurd claim that US military operations inflicted a 77% civilian casualty ratio, when in reality it was closer to 33%, including the proportionally civilian casualty heavy initial invasion. This is not some vaunted number of pure humanitarianism, but it is better than the claimed 50%/actually 80%+ of Israel’s current genocide, and shows a basic awareness that avoiding civilian casualties is desirable.
That’s the issue with lies and misleading claims, though. They take much longer and much more effort to refute than they do to make, especially if the other party explicitly ignores a core piece of your argument that you explicitly state and only acknowledges that half a dozen comments in. What could have been a quick
If you want to argue that as a matter of moral responsibility, fine, but the point raised above is quite clearly about military efforts to distinguish civilians from combatants in operations.
I’m talking about overall moral responsibility. The US is responsible for those 77% of overall deaths and military action is only part of that.
No argument there. Just saying our military actions are more careful.
Becomes a drawn out argument because some commenter wanted to piss away time and effort by intentionally setting up a fight where both sides are arguing against positions their opposition isn’t actually holding (Me trying to refute claimed proportions of civilian casualties as part of military operations, which they ceased to dispute; and them trying to argue that the death ratio is horrific and moral responsibility for the deaths is still held by the aggressor, and that military operations are only part of that, which I never disputed).
The only way to participate in these conversations is to not. You make your point, they start going off, and you move on. Engaging validates the terms of their argument, even if it doesn’t validate their specific argument.
I am looking at the overall civilian casualty rate for deaths by violence.
The Iraq Body Count project puts Coalition forces as responsible for ~40% of civilian deaths during the invasion and the immediate aftermath, when Coalition civilian casualties were highest. After '03, by the Iraqi Body Count Project’s own estimates, Coalition-inflicted civilian casualties drop sharply both as an absolute number and as a proportion.
All of this is a fucking insane detour from what started this - that America is more interested in preventing civilian casualties than Israel is, which is pretty fucking apparent from the outset and the attempt to dispute it with claims of 77% Coalition-inflicted casualties in Iraq is fucking nonsense.
Then it’s the original numbers you’ve been falling all over yourself to deny. You’re trying to pick apart these statistics to divide blame, but that’s an entirely different statistic, and that one very much cares who is dying. We don’t get an extra buffer on civilian deaths because one of our allies died as well.
When deciding to start a war, the overall CCR rate is the appropriate statistic. It doesn’t matter to the civilians which side kills them, just that they’re dead because we started a war. And Israel being extremely bad doesn’t make war by less bad actors no big deal. You’ve been minimizing the cost of war throughout this, picking at a percentage here or there based on some unsupported faith in the restraint of the US war machine.
This all started from you claiming “Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel’s currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).” CCRs are general measures for combats as a whole, but if you wanted to calculate a civilians killed divided by enemy killed, the US ratio in Iraq was right at that 50-50 ratio you thought was far beyond what the US would ever do.
So when I explicitly noted that I was making that distinction and that the broader moral issue of being responsible for deaths as part of starting the war was a different discussion, you ignored it. Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic.
" Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic."
Nah it was just you spinning in circles trying to justify and rationalize your morally bankrupt bullshit. And I for own appreciate the other person taking the time to debunk it for us readers.
“Morally bankrupt bullshit”
Is that what you call noting that US military operations are more careful than the current bullshit undertaken by Israel?
I explicitly noted I wasn’t addressing the overall morality of the Iraq War or the responsibility for the deaths caused by the war as a whole - only that in military operations, the US is more careful about civilian casualties than israel’s current farce. Would you care to elaborate on how that’s “morally bankrupt bullshit”?
Y’all are both trying to quantify which mass casualty events are worse than others when we are talking hundreds of thousands/millions dead.
This was a gross exercise to begin with.
My point isn’t “Iraq was better or worse”, I explicitly noted that the moral dimension of the overall casualties from the Iraq War were seperate from the point I talking about, which the other commenter ignored. My only point was that the US is more careful about civilian casualties in military operations than Israel.
I wasn’t the one who brought up the Iraq War, and my only intention here was to refute the absurd claim that US military operations inflicted a 77% civilian casualty ratio, when in reality it was closer to 33%, including the proportionally civilian casualty heavy initial invasion. This is not some vaunted number of pure humanitarianism, but it is better than the claimed 50%/actually 80%+ of Israel’s current genocide, and shows a basic awareness that avoiding civilian casualties is desirable.
The issue is you got bogged down in it anyway. I largely agree with your comments but this particular chain was kind of wild to watch. Just my 2 cents
That’s the issue with lies and misleading claims, though. They take much longer and much more effort to refute than they do to make, especially if the other party explicitly ignores a core piece of your argument that you explicitly state and only acknowledges that half a dozen comments in. What could have been a quick
Becomes a drawn out argument because some commenter wanted to piss away time and effort by intentionally setting up a fight where both sides are arguing against positions their opposition isn’t actually holding (Me trying to refute claimed proportions of civilian casualties as part of military operations, which they ceased to dispute; and them trying to argue that the death ratio is horrific and moral responsibility for the deaths is still held by the aggressor, and that military operations are only part of that, which I never disputed).
The only way to participate in these conversations is to not. You make your point, they start going off, and you move on. Engaging validates the terms of their argument, even if it doesn’t validate their specific argument.