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The horrible war in the Ukraine has cost at least 900 civilian lives. Often the civilians suffer more than the armies.
What did surprise me was when I looked into civilian casualties in other wars.
WW2
Twice as many civilians died in World War II than did members of the military. Current estimates place military deaths between 21 million and 25.5 million people.
WW1
Total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians.
What did shock me was the civilian casulties in the Iraq war.
The Iraq Body Count project documents 185,000–208,000 violent civilian deaths through February 2020 in their table.
United States, Denmark, United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland. were all involved in that war.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/07/u...
It does amaze me when I see news items with shock and outrage about civilian deaths in the Ukraine. (quite rightly) Where were they in during the Iraq war? Is it just more meaningful to us because the Ukrainians look like us?
Many of our countries and governments have blood on their hands.
Comments
The major difference between civilian deaths in Iraq…….
And those in Ukraine, lies in who caused most of those civilian deaths.
The vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq were caused by the Iraqis themselves - or those who claimed to be fighting for them, and against the US and our allies. The civilians being killed in Ukraine are dying due to the indiscriminate actions of the Russian military - or perhaps their ineptitude and use of inaccurate munitions.
When an IED or a terrorist bomb goes off, it kills indiscriminately - not just soldiers, but anyone within the blast radius. A good case in point was the attack at HKIA, the airport in Kabul, during the American withdrawal. 182 people were killed; this included 13 American soldiers and 169 civilians, including 3 British citizens. Whose hands is that blood on? It was the act of terrorists, and not the US military.
You cannot simply lay the deaths of civilians on the US and its allies, without looking at how they died and who caused their deaths. The US military, and most other western militaries, have spent decades trying to develop munitions which eliminate what is so callously referred to as collateral damage.
The Russians in Ukraine have no such compunctions or capabilities.
You are painting with a very broad brush here Honey.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
That's difficult to answer.
That's difficult to answer. They went into Iraq on the assumption that there were WMD's. They never found any. So all the death on both sides could have been avoided.
It's a what if situation. Perhaps Sadam would have developed nukes and let some of his terrorist friends set one off somewhere. That war was caused by paranoia on western countries part. The Ukraine war was caused by one man's paranoia about NATO.
This is from WIKIPEDIA
The United States based its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and posed a threat to the United States and its allies. Additionally, some US officials falsely accused Saddam of harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda In 2004, the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam–al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on sketchy evidence rejected by intelligence officials. The rationale for war faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally. Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter.
Would the Russian people support him if he told them Ukraine had WMD's? Like many of us did when we were told Iraq had them.
Always the same. Powerful men with big ego's cause this. Normal people suffer.
US drone and airstrikes have killed at least 22,000 civilians – and perhaps as many as 48,000 – since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, according to new analysis published by the civilian harm monitoring group Airwars.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/07/u...
Leeanna
I’m not going to debate whether going into Iraq was right……
Or not. Clearly the reasoning behind any war is suspect. As the saying goes, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Every warrior knows that we serve as a tool of statecraft, as a bargaining chip for the diplomats. When diplomacy fails, people die.
When I joined the US Navy, I didn’t do it because I wanted to fight, but rather because it was expected of me; a family obligation. I discovered a different reason to serve, a better reason.
I was taught from an early age about honor and duty. It became obvious to me that the people we were facing had no honor, and that my duty to watch over my troops and to take care of the people I was pledged to defend had a bigger aspect. To protect those who were incapable of protecting themselves from those who would use them to further their twisted ends.
You can blame the US for many things, but that is a very simplistic view of the world. The truth is that there are evil people in all countries - people who have no qualms about using the innocent and care nothing about who gets hurt or dies in the process.
Your “facts” and their estimated “civilian” deaths are questionable. Anyone can state any number without proof, and some people will always believe it. Who is an innocent civilian, and who is a combatant or a terrorist? Who decides, and who counts the dead? The proof as they say, is in the pudding. I see no pudding in your “truth”, and Wikipedia is hardly a reputable resource.
Wars are fought by the young for lofty ideals. Wars are caused by the old for cynical and self-serving reasons. That is a basic truism in this world.
But somehow, sometimes, we find a little good comes out of all the bad.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
False Pretenses
Wars are started over when a bully sees something he wants and decides he has to have it. The bully couldn't care less about the consequences to others.
I opposed the Iraq War as did many of our nation's leaders. Shortly before it started I had lunch with a friend who was a governor of a midwestern state. He and several of his Republican friends came out in the NYT with a signed letter stating their severe opposition.
What Putin is doing is much worse, but comes under the same general heading.
I wonder if they include the genocide of the Holocaust, 11 million, in the civilian casualties of WWII?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
They probably were..There was
They probably were..There was a breakdown on one site. I could never understand how the jews put up with it. Now I understand. They always hoped they would survive. Others may die , but they might live through it. Some did. We must never forget that humans can sink this low.
My country also had concentration camps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_...
I supported the Iraq war. I was taken in by all the newspaper and media stuff saying he had developed nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. We knew he had chemical weapons, he used against the Kurds.
I am a lot more cynical now. In the UK we have had nearly 2 years of non stop covid in the news, brexit befre that, then before this they were pressing Boris to quit due to having lockdown parties at number 10. The Ukraine war seems to have saved his job.
Leeanna
I supported Desert Storm ,
I supported Desert Storm , and took part in it. The second Iraqi war was down to Bush and B Liar believing the CIA rather than military intelligence, Nuclear Weapons are not the only Weapons of Mass Destruction although they are the worse, Chemical and Bio Weapons are also WMD as the Iran/Iraq war showed
Believing the CIA?
I seriously doubt that Bush believed the CIA over military intelligence. It's more that Bush did what he wanted to do. I hope that readers remember these things Bush said:
"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
For some bizarre reason, I can't find Bush's quote about Iraq not admitting weapons inspectors -- despite Hans Blix and inspectors' work in Iraq just before the invasion. Bush invaded because Iraq refused to admit weapons inspectors.
-- Daphne Xu
I often wonder that he was
I often wonder that he was finishing what some said his father didn't. Perhaps Bush snr. was wiser?
Leeanna
Oedipal
Might there have been something Oedipal?
-- Daphne Xu
Nyeah-Nyeah
Look at what we can do, and you can't do a damn thing about it.
"The first casualty of war is the truth." Attackers themselves often don't realize what they're getting into.
Several other potential invasions or attacks are building around the world.
I should save my comments for stories. Fortunately, I've only had one blog post removed for controversy, but it was unpleasant.
EDIT: Atrios is far more articulate than me: https://www.eschatonblog.com/2022/03/what-is-war.html
-- Daphne Xu
When I was younger. I read
When I was younger. I read and watched the news and towed the line. The older I get, I realize that a lot of what we see is fed to us on an agenda. Public opinion can be manipulated.
I'm not an antivaxer. I've had 3 doses and may get a 4th soon. Some of the things antivax have done were completely idiotic. Some news reports showed them in such a bad way, that they were portrayed as monsters. This included people that were just scared of needles.
Leeanna
Russian Deaths WWII
So much I don't understand. We talk about the 6 million Jewish deaths. The Russians suffered 26 million deaths.
I never knew that it was so
I never knew that it was so large. It was probably because there was immediate tension between the West and Russia straight after WW2. It just got ignored.
I found this
Worldwide Casualties*
Battle Deaths 15,000,000
Battle Wounded 25,000,000
Civilian Deaths 45,000,000
*Worldwide casualty estimates vary widely in several sources. The number of civilian deaths in China alone might well be more than 50,000,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Soviet Union 20,000,000 to 27,000,000
China 15,000,000 to 20,000,000
Germany 6,900,000 to 7,400,000
Poland 5,900,000 to 6,000,000
UK 450,900
USA 419,400
Lets hope Russia don't do what they did in ww2, throw bodies at Ukraine.
Leeanna
One thing to remember……
Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler did, but the majority of the world ignores that.
Hitler was a monster - but Stalin was worse.
There are a lot of things the world tends to gloss over about that period in time, like the fact that there were more Austrians in the Nazi party than there were Germans. Like the fact that concentration camps didn’t just kill Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies, communists, people with disabilities, even Jehovah’s Witnesses among others.
Stalin killed between 30 and 50 million Russians. He is listed as #2 on the list of all time mass murderers. Hitler is #3. Mao Tse Tung is acknowledged as the greatest mass murderer of all time. But somehow everyone always thinks it is Hitler.
Between 1932 and 1933, Stalin literally starved 3.9 million Ukrainians to death during the period known as the Holodomor. Nearly 5 million total died of starvation in what was then known as the Soviet Union during that time, but Stalin literally stole food from the Ukrainians to feed ethnic Russians.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Add to this
It's about an image. Stalin was an ally. Mao was an ally's friend. And Leo the 3rd was at all a civilized king of civilized country. So we know Hitler and some know Mao.
German concentration camps
German concentration camps also murdered a lot of Allied Prisoners of War, considering the Nazi's signed the Geneva Conventions and demanded fair treatment for they're POW's
"Stalin killed between 30 and
"Stalin killed between 30 and 50 million Russians. He is listed as #2 on the list of all time mass murderers. Hitler is #3. Mao Tse Tung is acknowledged as the greatest mass murderer of all time. But somehow everyone always thinks it is Hitler."
No one wanted to do anything about that at the time. It's double standards.
I'm not saying the Iraq war was wrong. No one will know what would have happened if he had been left alone. Before we went in, there were reports of executions using wood chippers. Everyone I know who heard that said we must go in. Perhaps more people would stll be alive, perhaps not.
The whole middle East is a mess. Europa is flooded with refugee's as a result. Nearly 30,000 went through Europa to cross the English Channel in boats to get here last year, possible twice that this year. it never happened before we interfered.
It's just that every time these powerful men want to wave their dicks about, it's the civillians that suffer. often for no good reason.
The only real winners are the arms manufacturers. They profit greatly from war.
Leeanna
Channel immigrants
The vast majority, even if any are not Asylum seekers or refugees, they can't be considering they have to pay £1000's to traffikers, they are what you might call Gimegrants, they are only here because they know the UK is a soft touch, and for the size of country we should be sending them back. It's a joke when immigrants are given priority over our own people for housing. No before anyone say's anything about this comment , I am not Racist, it's sad but in the UK if you can't have free speech and speak the truth anymore
A Thing Called Compassion
You have free speech or you couldn't have posted your little diatribe.
It's a pity that it wasn't mixed with some feelings for those fleeing the effects of war or abject poverty.
Sounds like you don't live in
Sounds like you don't live in the UK, Freedom of speech is slowly being curtailed thanks to the liberal element.
There certain things you can't discuss in public for fear of being charged with racism.
All those coming to the UK by rubber boats are not fleeing War etc, they are mainly economic migrants who have passed through several countries without even trying to settle. I have seen refugees fleeing war torn areas and they wear designer clothing or carry American Express cards
You Make My Arguments For Me
Firstly, the UK has been governed by the Tories since 2010....that's 12 years, so the " liberal element" has scarcely been in a position to curtail free speech since then. Perhaps it's Boris Johnson's mob?
You have seen refugees fleeing war-torn areas....oh, so they do exist! How many have you seen? interviewed, interrogated?
They wear designer clothing? Everybody wears Nike shoes and Levi jeans these days. You can buy them at most knock-off places with a "Made In China" label.
American Express cards? I challenge you to substantiate that. How many have you collected?
You never got the numbers
You never got the numbers coming into the UK before we started interfering in the middle east. One of the reasons it is mainly young men is they are the only ones willing to risk the journey. That and is cost a small fortune to pay the fees for the journey.
Many want to get settled then send for their families. I can't blame them for wanting a better life. Women and children run the risk of being kiddnapped by slavers.
Leeanna
You forget one major point when you say no one……
Wanted to do anything about Stalin or Mao, and that is that information is disseminated much easier and much farther now than it was in the times of both Stalin and Mao. For both of them, you are basically dealing with an authoritarian government pre-WWII, or thereabouts. In both cases, they had near total control over both the press and the dissemination of information.
It wasn’t so much that no one cared, as that very few had any inkling of what was happening, or the extent to which it was happening. The same could be said of the Nazi concentration camps. It was toward the latter part of the war before what was actually happening became widely known. Yes, there were indications that something was going on - but it was mainly through word of mouth and rumor. When allied soldiers started liberating the camps, the truth was plain to see.
A far cry from the universe we live in now, where anyone with a cell phone can spread pictures across the world. Vietnam was the first war that was heavily impacted by real time reporting of death and suffering. It was splashed all over the 6PM news every day, not to mention the images of metal coffins being returned to the US. Prior to Vietnam, soldiers were buried where they fell - I have multiple relatives in US military cemeteries around the world.
As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. Today, it is hard to ignore what is splashed across the TV and the internet every day.
Evil lives and thrives in the dark, but it cannot survive the light of day.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus