• BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • PugJesus@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        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

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          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).

          • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            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.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Yeah. Just thought they were making a good faith disputation, and now I’m pissed that I wasted effort trying to refute someone who just wanted to dance their time away.