Concerning the 600,000 post below -
T. and I continued our conversation through email. Here's more of the conversation (you may want to get caught up first by reading our comments in the 600,000 post. Please don't read this post unless you're terribly interested in the issue, for it is a ridiculously long post. T. was smart to continue the conversation through email in order to spare anyone that might be reading this blog. I, however, still need to learn my lesson.
T. wrote:
So, I read the report and took some notes on it. My pro-war bias shows through and I readily admit that. I only hope that between my bias and your that I will continue to learn and have my opinions shaped. The notes are simply notes, the only cohesive statement is at the end. They are what I think significant factors in the report that detract from the initial shock and implication of 600,000 deaths resulting from the war. They're hawk-ish and arguably pro-Bush cool-aid opinions about the report, even though I'm no fan of of Bush and the way he sold the war or how the war has been handled (that among many harsh domestic and foreign-affair criticisms I have of him). Given my bias in reading the report, I still think that I've pointed out significant factors in the report, not least of which is that it does not separate combatant and non-combatant deaths; and that it only begins the survey in the 1 year run-up to the war, a time when it was clear we were going to war is Iraq and therefore population data is going to be different than "normal", non-war or prelude-to-war surveys. In other words, the pre-war period which is the baseline for deaths only had 2 violent deaths recorded in the surveyed population. I doubt that the normal, non-wartime or pre-wartime periods in Iraq or any other country has only 2 violent deaths. L.A. alone has more than that. I'm curious what you make of all this. I'm very open to the possibility that I'm a knee-jerk hawk who needs to be tempered by more leftist considerations. I take your criticisms to heart and am continually reminded why you're such a good friend, because only a good friend would be honest in a discussion of this nature.
The attachment:
25% of the surveyed households were from Baghdad (the most violent place in Iraq), though it does have 25% of the population of Iraq.
Surveyers went house to house and asked for consent for the survey. Check out page 7 and the potential for bias and distortion in the survey. Among the factors could have been the migration of people from violent areas to non-violent areas, which would tend to increase the mortality rate of the violent areas because of the nature of those who were left behind. Considering that fully ¼ of the survey came from the most violent area of Iraq, that alone is a significant factor in potential bias. The report does, however, note many instances and causes where they could have underestimated the death rate, and the report spells out this implication. Yet where there was potential to overestimate the death rate, the report does not spell it out. So, it’ll say, “ and so-and-so could be a cause for underestimating deaths in this survey”, whereas it never says, “and so-and-so could be a cause for our overestimating deaths in this survey”, even though it is clearly an implication.
The survey did not separate combatant from non-combatant. Criminal murders from anti-coalition force also not distinguished. We know that there are death squads in Iraq, Iraqis killing Iraqis. Gunshots and car bombs account for the most violent deaths. Gun shots alone count for half.
Survey begins during the 1 year run-up to the invasion, during which time the violent death rate was low because Saddam was concentrating his forces for the invasion. Does not account for, say, a 10 year, pre-war death rate that includes the murder of Curds and wholesale slaughter of Saddam’s enemies.
Coalition caused deaths are 31% post-invastion
Coalition-caused deaths decreasing, even though the violent death rate increases.
Pre death rate 5.5 per 1000. Post invastion 13.5 % per 1000. Highest death rate was 20% during the invasion.
650,000 crude deaths.
600,000 due to violence.
The death rate has doubled during the post-invasion period.
Also compare to other conflicts and the civilian death rate there. Vietnam saw 3 million civilians die, Congo saw 3 million people die. East Timor saw 25% of it’s population die, (200,000 out of 800,000), whereas Iraq has 2.5% of its population have died.
All of these notes mean that the war has killed people from the hands of American forces. It also means that by removing a dictatorship, which, though violent and unjust, did bring stability to the country, now Iraq is in a period of instability. Infighting that was kept in check by the iron fist of Saddam is now flourishing, so Iraqis are killing Iraqis and account for 60% of the violent deaths in Iraq. They are killing each other. They are also destroying infrastructure, which also makes the place unstable. The report does acknowledge this infrastructure gap as a cause of the deaths as well.
What I am suggesting is that the report confirms that modern wars include civilian deaths, especially in unstable areas of the world. Post-invasion reconstruction is a lethal time and needs good-well planned leadership to guide the rebuilding process. Given that people die in war and they die after the war during reconstruction, the question is whether war is worth it. If a war is worth it, say as the last or only viable option, then we should mourn the deaths but also expect them and factor them into the cost-benefit analysis of the war. Given that 2/3 of the deaths in Iraq are at the hands of Iraqis, and that this survey does not separate combatant and non-combatant deaths, the number is appalling and expected and needs to be addressed. But consider whether simply de-funding the war and withdrawing troops would increase or decrease the violence. There are, after all, still American troops stationed in Germany and in Korea. This report is a strong piece of evidence for why war should be avoided at great cost, and for how we should proceed in this war and in future wars, but it is not a definitive piece of evidence for why the war in Iraq is or is not warranted at all. As for the elections, it should be a strong piece of evidence for how to vote, (and I personally hope that Democrats take over at least the House or Senate, and that in the next election the Executive and Legislative branches are split), but it is not the only piece of evidence for how to vote, even if the vote is solely based on the war in Iraq (to say nothing of the one in Afghanistan, or the looming one in Korea and Iran).
And I'll put my response to T. in the comments area.
(Congrats T. No one has ever received a whole post on my blog with only their thoughts.)
7 comments:
T,
I agree with basically everything you said. I thought you were quite even-handed for the most part. Let me point out that I was never arguing that we should change our criteria for voting to a 1 issue criteria - that criteria being the war. What I was attempting to argue is that the religious right should not have a 2 issue criteria for voting - those issues being abortion and gay marriage.
Also, you said:
"Given that people die in war and they die after the war during reconstruction, the question is whether war is worth it. If a war is worth it, say as the last or only viable option, then we should mourn the deaths but also expect them and factor them into the cost-benefit analysis of the war. Given that 2/3 of the deaths in Iraq are at the hands of Iraqis, and that this survey does not separate combatant and non-combatant deaths, the number is appalling and expected and needs to be addressed. But consider whether simply de-funding the war and withdrawing troops would increase or decrease the violence."
My problem with this quote is two-fold. First, I never suggested that we simply de-fund the war and withdraw our troops. I never made any argument about the way forward (which I'm sure drives you crazy). This is the place where to me your hawkish inclinations most showed through. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT a matter of simply withdrawing. That is not the ONLY other option, which is how the hawks tend to frame it. It is this type of thinking that got us to go to war with Iraq in the first place. The assumption was that we either fight like mad or we sit back and do nothing. There are other options - and I think that our Christianity should be speaking loudly into that vacant space in the middle about how to do transforming initiatives that actually do something and don't give into the hawks or the liberals.
My second problem with it is your talk about 2/3 of the deaths being at the hands of the Iraqis, and you seem to suggest that we are then less responsible for those deaths. Along the same line, you talk about how Saddam's oppressive regime kept these warring factions from killing eachother for decades, and we simply exposed this long-held hatred between the sunnis and the shiites. I think we are responsible for these deaths as well. The powerful cannot simply walk in and screw up a bunch of social structures and systems without understanding what is going to happen, and then when it all hits the fan just step back and say - well, it's not my fault. The Old Testament continuously puts the onus on the powerful. We are the powerful, and we are responsible for our aggressive actions and for the results of our aggressive actions.
You note a good deal about how one of your greatest reasons for understanding that the war was/is necessary is that Saddam's regime killed a lot of people, and we needed to get him out of power. However, you argue on the other side that all these people dying now are a result of Saddam's absence (his regime kept these warring factions in check). It seems to me that you cannot make both arguments simultaneously. They cancel each other out, at least to some degree. If it was our responsibility to get Saddam out for the sake of the people, then surely it is our responsibility that his removal has created such social upheaval. If it is not our responsibility that our removal of Saddam has created such social upheaval, then surely it was not our responsibility to go into the country in the first place.
I appreciate your conversation, and I would love to post this conversation on my blog, if you don't mind.
fascinating stuff. (and i don't even have to do the word smush feature to say so.)
i realize the conversation has taken different shape but 600,000 people dying for whatever reason is too many.
period.
by the way basselin. your kids are too cute NOT to have a flickr account and to post photos regularly.
exclamation point.
Phweeeew, I made it. I read it all. And I could even tell you most of what i read (this is big for me with non-fiction)
OK, here we go, I'm ready to weigh in...
So we obviously need to compare the 600,000 with how many would have been killed when Saddam got around to using his WMD's. What? really? They never found those? Crap. Well, I'm sure he meant to get some but forgot the list at home then when he was at WMD-Mart he forgot all about them in his excitement at finding Dianetics on sale.
sometimes i wish i could conribute something to these conversations without being a smart ass. (better than a dumb one!)
So, I'll take a break from my usual cynical, sick of politics and politicing and electioneering and media and... ok, i'll stop there.
So here's my tangent. If there is a way to justify war, thereby making it a "Just War" and also knowing that if entering into said "Just War" has the potential of X number of fatallities, be it 100 or 1,000,000, thereby justifyiing killing, be it called murder or casualty or collateral damage, would it not also be justified to commit the assassination of a small number of people to potentially save a large number of people? In this situation, if the main objective was regeime change, is the only reason we didn't go that route because it violates the geneva convention? If that does violate the conventionand the killing of lots and lots of "less important" people to accomplish the same task doesn't, then something is seriously screwed up.
Sorry that is a bit tangental from the conversation, but that's the direction my gourd took it.
I seem to remember something (I really can't remember if it's biblical or maybe from my political science class in high school) that spoke about a bad government being better than no government at all. I think that's what we're seeing over there now.
We removed what was there without something better that was ready to fill the void.
So what DO we do now? We all know it's a mess. We need to learn some serious lessons quick so we don't get into these sort of situations again, but what do we do now?
What is right? What is moral? What do we even have the capability of doing?
I don't know. I'm glad my job is drawing parking lots and not figuring this whole thing out, but it sure seems like the people who ought to be, aren't.
I second the Flikr comment.
Do it. Do it.
Tim, I have never respected you more or been more in awe of your deftness and subtelty of moral argument. Seriously. Awe.
I also want to say that I am deeply impressed by both yours and T's approach in this discussion. Very well mannered, respectful, gracious and deeply Christian. [And while I would have something to say to T on a couple of points, I won't as I feel a bit uncomfortable responding directly to someone's private email exchange.]
I will say that I agree COMPLETELY with T on one point. I believe our government works best when the legislative and executive branches are split between the parties. I was thinking about this the other day and, to be honest, my ideal would look like this: Republicans control the Senate, the Dems the White House, and a majority of Independents in the House. I'll leave it to anyone who cares to conjecture my reasoning.
As to Graham, I have some strong affinities with your "assassination" argument. But I don't THINK it's because of the Geneva conventions that we can't consider this. It appears to be because Gerald Ford issued an Executive Order during his presidency that forbade it (where an Executive Order is the equivalent of a law being passed, not by Congress, but by the President). Each subsequent president (though, ironically, I can't confirm the current one) has upheld and expanded the ban. Some have made the argument that this ban should be lifted in an age of terror. For an argument from a very hawkish position published in the US Army War College Quarterly that assassination was appropriate for removing Hussein, click here. Here also is a telling excerpt:
The Justice Department further indicated that the President could also legally issue an exception to the executive order, and thus target a specific individual. This would require only that the President make a finding that the proposed course of action against the individual is important to the national security interests of the United States, and that he follow it up with a proper report to Congress regarding the expenditure of funds in the execution of the plan. If the President chose to classify this finding, it could remain a state secret.
In general, the key way in which a President narrowly construes the executive order to avoid breaking it is that he does not call the approved plan an assassination. Instead, under the principle of narrow construction, a President can declare he is “restoring the legitimate government” or “apprehending an international terrorist.” While critics may argue that narrow construction of the executive order is merely putting a spin on the President’s decision to have a leader assassinated, it still allows for the objectives to be completed without the need for rewriting the executive order. As noted earlier, this is perhaps the most lawful and therefore most likely avenue that the current Bush Administration may be pursuing.
Now, I'm pretty sure that this ethical approach was beaten out of me by my parents as a child (so I wonder if this guy's momma raised him right) but this is what you find in an official Army publication. So there. But we should also add that if we don't take the "public" approach to assassinations ("Yes, the US does assassinate if you piss us off and are a threat to our national security (however we define that.") we then undermine the credibility as a moral nation that has been built up over all of these years since Ford on this issue. So there are some risks involved.
I should also note that I believe that the US has practiced assassinations of foreign leaders in the Americas throughout all of the time since Ford (and before). For some reason we only hesitate at assassinations when they aren't in our hemisphere. Many a South American Dictator owes his rise AND fall to the US. [Yes, this means that I believe Hugo Chavez when he insists the CIA tried to kill him. The pattern fits to a tee historically.]
That's all I got. I wanted to respond about what we should do now but, alas, most of you have stopped reading already.
i havn't stopped. Hit me.
thanks for the further info too.
So it's only illegal unless the president REALLY wants to do it. Got it.
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