Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

[drunkenshoe]

This is pretty old news. And why isn't/wasn't there anything about this?

I thought the real body count would be higher than the estimated 150.000. But I really don't know what to say to this. It's just horrifying and sickening. I didn't even see this before.

Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

//http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

//http://cjr330.blogspot.com/2006/11/655-000-dead-in-iraq.html

//http://infowars.net/articles/march2007/270307Iraq_toll.htm

Was there an old thread on this? Anyone has seen and posted it?

[_Xenu_]

Afghanistan was one thing after 9/11, but the Iraq war was always stupid.

[BarkAtTheMoon]

I was wondering how many were coalition vs insurgent kills and...

Gunshot wounds caused 56 percent of violent deaths, with car bombs and other explosions causing 14 percent, according to the survey results. Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said.

So 69 percent were caused by their own people and/or foreign Islam insurgents. We certainly didn't need to go there in the first place, but that's an interesting statistic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've heard that number quoted before, about six years ago iirc.

I think that noting that seven of ten deaths weren't directly inflicted by the Coalition is fair.  Would they have happened absent the invasion?  Most likely not.  But that doesn't absolve the militants who took advantage of the chaos inflicted by America in order to advance their own aims by using violence.

[AxisMundi]

Afghanistan was one thing after 9/11, but the Iraq war was always stupid.

"Operation Human Shield" is what I called it when Bushco was stumping for the support of congress and US citizens.

Give AQ a ready target right in their back yard, a place they could drive, or even walk, to, and hope they don;t bother with the logistics necessary to carry out attacks over seas.

[SGOS]

I've heard that number quoted before, about six years ago iirc.

I think that noting that seven of ten deaths weren't directly inflicted by the Coalition is fair.  Would they have happened absent the invasion?  Most likely not.  But that doesn't absolve the militants who took advantage of the chaos inflicted by America in order to advance their own aims by using violence.

Remember that propaganda the Bush administration spread about Saddam being in cahoots with bin-Laden?  Turns out he had probably been fighting the intrusion of Al-Qaeda into Iraq long before our own war on terrorism.  We created a power vacuum, but how many civilians were actually killed by American troops will never be known.  We felt compelled to kill off a significant number of Iraqis, but it turns out that other groups, some of which were our real enemies, turned out to be enemies of Iraq also.

But the important thing is that we brought stability to the Middle East, right?

[Youssuf Ramadan]

Didn't Hussein despise Bin Laden because he was a fundie and Bin Laden despise Hussein for the actions that brought infidel troops onto Arab soil?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

But hey, it sold lots and lots of little Americano flags...made in China...right?

The numbers are horrific, but in the context of a 'global war' the numbers are actually astonishingly low by historic standards. If this had been even close to being equal to WWII 650,000 may have been killed every week or month. That of course is no good excuse nor justification, but neither did 3,000 deaths at the WTC justify 650,000 deaths by anyone involved. One thing is sure, war equals corporate profits.

[Hydra009]

Didn't Hussein despise Bin Laden because he was a fundie and Bin Laden despise Hussein for the actions that brought infidel troops onto Arab soil?

Dunno.  But I do know that the Ba'ath party brutally suppressed Islamist groups in their territory (the former espousing an ideology of pan-Arab nationalism, the latter espousing Islamism) and Bin Laden reportedly viewed Saddam as an infidel.  So yeah, they weren't exactly chummy.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

A few guys here at the vet center are still waiting for their rose pedals to be tossed at their feet. Should I break the bad news to them?

[SilentFutility]

But hey, it sold lots and lots of little Americano flags...made in China...right?

The numbers are horrific, but in the context of a 'global war' the numbers are actually astonishingly low by historic standards. If this had been even close to being equal to WWII 650,000 may have been killed every week or month. That of course is no good excuse nor justification, but neither did 3,000 deaths at the WTC justify 650,000 deaths by anyone involved. One thing is sure, war equals corporate profits.

The second gulf war wasn't a global war, hence it was called the second gulf war and not WW3.
This is 650,000 excess deaths as well, so non-combatants.

It isn't really intellectually honest to compare civillian deaths in this war to those in WW2 seeing as how WW2 had state-sponsored genocide on a vast scale, deliberate targeting of civillians by both sides, and was a war of attrition.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Remember that propaganda the Bush administration spread about Saddam being in cahoots with bin-Laden?  Turns out he had probably been fighting the intrusion of Al-Qaeda into Iraq long before our own war on terrorism.  We created a power vacuum, but how many civilians were actually killed by American troops will never be known.  We felt compelled to kill off a significant number of Iraqis, but it turns out that other groups, some of which were our real enemies, turned out to be enemies of Iraq also.

But the important thing is that we brought stability to the Middle East, right?

I know all that.  That's why I was dead-set against that war.  I think that it will be regarded as at least a big foreign policy disaster as the Vietnam War.

It was clear in the fall of 2002 that the decision had already been taken.  Once they started going through reason after reason trying to justify their intended policy, I knew they were full of shit, but I was against it even before that happened, on the pragmatic grounds that it was a violation of one of the central commandments of strategy, to wit: focus resources on success in one front before multiplying combat fronts.

[Brian37]

Yet Jeb thinks bro did a good job. In other news daddy Bush shouldn't have fed either son lead paint.

[Nihil-ist]

Maybe the media is bought off so they only talk about it when told to.
Maybe we set up bases to lunch future attacks.

Too many documentaries for this guy.