Logic Times

Comments

Page Four

Fuzzy Moral Math

17: Jason Sullivan

June 1, 2006 5:01pm EST

You might want to double-check some of your figures -- You link two sources for the total number of deaths attributable to Saddam, but these totals include both military deaths (such as in the first Gulf War) and indirect civilian deaths (e.g. children dying due to sanctions). Although a good argument could be made that these deaths are on Saddam's hands just as much as the rest, you've made the argument elsewhere that IraqBodyCount's numbers are the preferred source of post-Saddam civilian death tallies precisely because they do not include combatants or estimates of indirect effects.

The number of civilian deaths attributable to Saddam seems to max out at 300000 in both of your sources (one of which relies on a cited Human Rights Watch article on the subject of humanitarian intervention that you might find quite interesting). This works out to an upper limit of about 1000 per month.

Although this is less than half of your estimated minimum, that rate still exceeds the IBC's estimate of the current rate of civilian casualties directly attributable to the current conflict. This dampens the impact of your message but would by no means invalidate your point.

The greater problem lies in the fact that the vast majority (180000 Kurds and 60000 Shia) of these civilian deaths took place in two campaigns that took place prior to 1992. Even if all 60000 civilian deaths unrelated to these two campaigns had occurred in the decade prior to the 03/03 invasion, that rate would be approximately 500 per month.

500 deaths per month is a really ugly number. Nobody is going to stand up and say: "Cut the guy some slack. He was only knocking folks off at a rate of 500 month."

What they might say is that 500/month is less than the 900/month that IBC is estimating as a minimum, and that fuzzy is as fuzzy does.

-bonobo

{Aslan: Nice try. The numbers do not include military casualties.  You are failing to take into account the 500,000 children that died as a result of starvation. You may suggest that is a result of outside action due to sanctions, but the sanctions came as a result of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and a humanitarian option was provided to his government (Oil for Food) that was sufficient to prevent that tragedy; said monies were of course spent on bribes, palaces, etc. I have had people suggest – insanely – that you can’t hold Saddam responsible for the death of these children because the international community imposed sanctions. I find those deaths every bit as reprehensible because they occurred over a long period of time and were the result of a systematic disregard for the welfare of the population as a whole, and, once again, the sanctioning countries made provision for those children to be fed. Saddam lived in grotesque luxury during this time; building the most elaborate of palaces on the backs and bellies of those children.

And the question in play is whether or not the population is better off today than under Saddam. Are you suggesting we not count people’s kids dying, that dozens, maybe even hundreds of kids dying per village or community from starvation in front on their parents and siblings wasn’t a real drag on the quality of life?  After all, kids are a renewable resource, yes?

The last point about slaughter being clustered around certain time frames is inane - those time frames reflect moments of stress within the reign of Hussein, a simple formula.

Instability = Increased Resistance = Need for Represssion

If Saddam was still in power, it is more than reasonable to assume that these last few years would represent the highest stress/threat nexus yet and required some of the most intense repressive action from the government. Any faction interested in deposing Hussein or even creating some headaches for the regime would certainly have escalated their activity as the dictator’s grip loosened. Are you suggesting that Iraq was an idyllic place as the result of a little necessary ethnic cleansing back when?  This argument absolutely baffles me: “Oh, he killed all those hundreds of thousands of people years ago; everything is just fine now!”}