what the Lancet study said was that there had been between 8,000 and 200,000 excess deaths because of the war in Iraq *excluding Fallujah.* Not "civilians", not "100 000" and not "casualty figure".
People who would have died because of sanctions in03- 04 year but didn't are iow part of the calculation, so Zachary's argument are based on a false premise.
Am I wrong in recollecting that all the people that wanted to invade Iraq also said that any deaths from sanctions were Saddam's fault, or more likely, didn't exist? ('It's all Iraqi propaganda' was the line.)
Do you have a view about what else was possible? Particularly in a sanctionless world? I have no idea what the range of options was, at this point.
Dealing with malfeasance in a morally permissible way is so difficult, isn't it? I'm reminded of "Operation Hide Behind Darkies" in the South Park film.
No one who links to the original is all bad. I will review and respond!
And just as a note to any fellow war supporters who may be hanging around this thread. It's not really that implausible that a period of interregnum is going to lead to lead to increased death + misery. If you believe Hobbes, you should expect it to happen (unfortunately).
This is really the "Yes to war, but not executed so poorly" discussion. So the answer is "no, but I do think it was possible to do it better than this." That argument is much stronger given preventable horribles like Abu Ghraib.
As SCMT points out, the "1.5 million dead from Saddam's rule" includes the Iran/Iraq war casualties. It's estimated that war killed one million people.
Not to say Saddam was a good guy, blah blah. It's just that it's a non sequitir to include war casualties from a long-ago war as a justification for invasion now. Not to mention the fact that Saddam had our support in that war.
someone asserted that better sanctions would cripple Saddam's weapon-producing ambitions
This point is constantly argued as if Hussein were the only tyrant in the world with weapon-producing ambitions. Everyone has weapon-producing ambitions. More interestingly is that after using some chemical weapons during Iran-Iraq (supported by the US with targeting info) and against the Kurds, he never ever used them again. (You know why? Because chemical weapons SUCK. Biologics have the same problem.)
The only important issue was atomic weapons, and we have had, and have always had during the timeframe involved spy satellites that could spot that kind of thing (a reactor, basically) from orbit easily, given that Iraq is a sandy, flat country with relatively little cloud cover.
We could have dropped sanctions entirely, once they ran Desert Fox and it would'nt have made a lickspittle worth of difference. Iraq has no serious industrial base. To make good weapons, you need good factories.
We have 'saved' (very badly) the people of Iraq from... us. And none of it really matters, if the whole thing goes into the toilet anyways. (cf. Sunni and Kurd separatism.)
If it was 100,000 dead pro-Iraq Attaq chuckleheads, I expect they would not be nearly so sanguine about the entire enterprise.
1. I like Tucker Carlson, but bow ties are abominations.
2. I'm not a hater! (except of the crooked game than man makes us play, natch). Dsquared is by all appearances a smart guy. His commenets, unfortunately, evince a immense certainty that his level of analysis does not always justify. My feeling is, if you're going to be vehement and contemptuous, you really need to be right almost all the time.
3. You know, I debated that period of interregnum thing. But then I said, "to hell with it, it's a blog."
4. Just for the record Fontana, the Hobbesian connection I was thinking of was: when no one is enforcing public order, you can expect all hell to break loose. I don't think there's much doubt that public order broke down post-Saddam. War supporters need to admit this. My comment was meant as a caution to supporters of the war (like me!) that one shouldn't treat the Lancet study conclusion as prima facie unlikely. I think it's prima facie likely that deaths increased -- even if one believes the military/bombing campaign was highly targeted.
Baa, your comment applies in foro interno but not in foro externo. I wish I could remember what that meant, but googling it just got me a bunch of paper mills. Nasty, brutish, etc.
Actually I was suggesting that it was Mr. Carlson who was vehement and contemptuous (although he's vehement and contemptuous in a very whiny little bitch kind of way).
baa is anything but contemptuous, he's a model of reasoned and reasonable dialogue.
Basically it was a roundabout way of asking baa whether he seriously thinks Tucker is right almost all the time.
Big ups to baa on point 4. I think this applies to wars in general--a period of civil war is worse for the inhabitants of the country than a period of rule under almost any regime (North Korea being one exception, I think), so we should be very careful about invading a country unless we're pretty confident it won't lead to a civil war. This doesn't apply to cases like Afghanistan, in which there was already a civil war going on (and in which our primary interest wasn't to make life better for the Afghanis, and maybe the Taliban falls into the "as-bad-as-civil-war" category anyway). That's why I think the burden of proof always falls on war supporters.--This does leave the opening for the argument I think baa would make, which is that the short-term suffering will be outweighed by long-term gains.
It is slightly hard for me to reconcile this with the fact that the invasion of Panama, which may have been done for the worst reasons of any US invasions, seems to have increased the local quality of life the most. (I'm pretty uninformed about Panama, though, so I could be wrong here.)
BTW, I'm not saying we should invade N. Korea, only that life might be better for N. Koreans if we did. The "bombing Seoul flat" thing outweighs any gains the North Koreans might make, I think.
Fair point! Before crossfire, Carlson was a pretty decent journalist. That's the Carlson I like, not the morlock that battle of the partisan network stars turned him into. I assume the real Carlson is still there under the surface.
Matt W:
Bingo. Here's another argument I might float. The fall of ethnic minority rule often brings with it bloody reprisals by the newly empowered majority. To date, massacres of Sunni by Shia (the expected results) have not happened on a large scale. I think it is likely that any other demise of the Hussein regime would also have led to bad results, and potentially far worse results that an end to the regime that put essentially "good actors" (UK and US troops) in a dominant position.
I have only seen Carlson on Crossfire. I'll have to give him another chance. I'm not going to go search out archival footage of pre-CF Carlson or anything, but I might check out his new PBS show some (slow) night.
The only important issue was atomic weapons, and we have had, and have always had during the timeframe involved spy satellites that could spot that kind of thing (a reactor, basically) from orbit easily, given that Iraq is a sandy, flat country with relatively little cloud cover.
Ash, not that I want to be all Ms. support-the-WMD argument (I'm not, and never was; I believed Blix and Ritter), and not that the thread has actually stayed on-topic (as always, the boys are off wrestling one another in the corner, so we might as well just pick up the pool game ourselves now that the table's free), but, as in Iran, it's possible to build things underground for precisely this reason. Since we'd helped Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war, they presumably knew what our capabilities there were pretty well.
Two other points:
(1) Apparently the 1.5 mil figure is front loaded with the Iraq/Iran war; realistically, you'd want to look at some sort of year-over-year run rate.
(2) It's not the least bit clear precisely how we are supposed to piece out sanction-deaths.
Now, I'm going to try and actually accomplish something today.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 3:52 PM
there is no 100 000 casualty figure.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:11 PM
That's true. It's a bit of shorthand, but not fanciful.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:13 PM
"When we think about the fact that those sanctions weren't going anywhere anytime soon, the calculus kind of changes, doesn't it?"
it changes the calculus as to sanctions, more than anything.
Posted by mina | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:16 PM
what the Lancet study said was that there had been between 8,000 and 200,000 excess deaths because of the war in Iraq *excluding Fallujah.* Not "civilians", not "100 000" and not "casualty figure".
People who would have died because of sanctions in03- 04 year but didn't are iow part of the calculation, so Zachary's argument are based on a false premise.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:19 PM
You're just trying to show off your new better-working comment-linking feature, aren't you?
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:22 PM
Two questions:
1. Is the lancet study available online?
2. To what does the study attribute these excess deaths?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:23 PM
baa, this is a good summary (yeah, I know your low opinion of dsquared) with a link to the study.
Mitch, I do love it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:25 PM
all d2's posts: Talking rubbish about epidemiology, Lancet roundup and literature review, The Lancet study; a reply to Her Britannic Majesty's Foreign Secretary and The Lancet study on Iraq - it hasn't gone away you know.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:31 PM
Am I wrong in recollecting that all the people that wanted to invade Iraq also said that any deaths from sanctions were Saddam's fault, or more likely, didn't exist? ('It's all Iraqi propaganda' was the line.)
ash
['And gee, ol' Osama bin there is STILL ALIVE.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:31 PM
Thanks Dave.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:32 PM
Do you have a view about what else was possible? Particularly in a sanctionless world? I have no idea what the range of options was, at this point.
Dealing with malfeasance in a morally permissible way is so difficult, isn't it? I'm reminded of "Operation Hide Behind Darkies" in the South Park film.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:34 PM
No one who links to the original is all bad. I will review and respond!
And just as a note to any fellow war supporters who may be hanging around this thread. It's not really that implausible that a period of interregnum is going to lead to lead to increased death + misery. If you believe Hobbes, you should expect it to happen (unfortunately).
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:34 PM
The study itself is supposed to be here, but isn't right now.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:35 PM
Fuck. Caught out. I can't leave this fucking site alone. Three questions for baa:
(1) Why do you hate dsquared (and by extension, America)?
(2) How does a man who writes "a period of interregnum" also quote Chuck D and love Sherman Douglas?
(3) Bow tie?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:40 PM
Do you have a view about what else was possible?
This is really the "Yes to war, but not executed so poorly" discussion. So the answer is "no, but I do think it was possible to do it better than this." That argument is much stronger given preventable horribles like Abu Ghraib.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:42 PM
Honestly, baa. You should expect it to happen, but not because you believe Hobbes.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:42 PM
Tim, if you feel like telling us what it is that you (don't) do, go ahead. If not, blink twice.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:42 PM
Where's Wolfson? Do I have to be the one to point out that "period of interregnum" is redundant? That said, we honor baa's mind.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:44 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:49 PM
As SCMT points out, the "1.5 million dead from Saddam's rule" includes the Iran/Iraq war casualties. It's estimated that war killed one million people.
Not to say Saddam was a good guy, blah blah. It's just that it's a non sequitir to include war casualties from a long-ago war as a justification for invasion now. Not to mention the fact that Saddam had our support in that war.
Posted by Mithras | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 4:50 PM
someone asserted that better sanctions would cripple Saddam's weapon-producing ambitions
This point is constantly argued as if Hussein were the only tyrant in the world with weapon-producing ambitions. Everyone has weapon-producing ambitions. More interestingly is that after using some chemical weapons during Iran-Iraq (supported by the US with targeting info) and against the Kurds, he never ever used them again. (You know why? Because chemical weapons SUCK. Biologics have the same problem.)
The only important issue was atomic weapons, and we have had, and have always had during the timeframe involved spy satellites that could spot that kind of thing (a reactor, basically) from orbit easily, given that Iraq is a sandy, flat country with relatively little cloud cover.
We could have dropped sanctions entirely, once they ran Desert Fox and it would'nt have made a lickspittle worth of difference. Iraq has no serious industrial base. To make good weapons, you need good factories.
We have 'saved' (very badly) the people of Iraq from... us. And none of it really matters, if the whole thing goes into the toilet anyways. (cf. Sunni and Kurd separatism.)
If it was 100,000 dead pro-Iraq Attaq chuckleheads, I expect they would not be nearly so sanguine about the entire enterprise.
ash
['Bah. Bah. Bah.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 5:38 PM
Quickly!
1. I like Tucker Carlson, but bow ties are abominations.
2. I'm not a hater! (except of the crooked game than man makes us play, natch). Dsquared is by all appearances a smart guy. His commenets, unfortunately, evince a immense certainty that his level of analysis does not always justify. My feeling is, if you're going to be vehement and contemptuous, you really need to be right almost all the time.
3. You know, I debated that period of interregnum thing. But then I said, "to hell with it, it's a blog."
4. Just for the record Fontana, the Hobbesian connection I was thinking of was: when no one is enforcing public order, you can expect all hell to break loose. I don't think there's much doubt that public order broke down post-Saddam. War supporters need to admit this. My comment was meant as a caution to supporters of the war (like me!) that one shouldn't treat the Lancet study conclusion as prima facie unlikely. I think it's prima facie likely that deaths increased -- even if one believes the military/bombing campaign was highly targeted.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 5:42 PM
Ogged - I'm gonna stick with "great and powerful wizard."
Baa - Thanks for the answer. I think "vehement and contemptuous" is pretty much synonymous with British.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 7:06 PM
Baa, your comment applies in foro interno but not in foro externo. I wish I could remember what that meant, but googling it just got me a bunch of paper mills. Nasty, brutish, etc.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03- 4-05 9:44 PM
Tim: nah.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 12:23 AM
I like Tucker Carlson . . .
and
My feeling is, if you're going to be vehement and contemptuous, you really need to be right almost all the time.
How to reconcile these two statements?
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 7:26 AM
Maybe baa is either not vehement, not contempuous, or not both?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 7:57 AM
Ben:
Are you suggesting that baa is wrong in liking Carlson?
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 8:09 AM
Me above. Cripes.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 8:10 AM
Oh, I misunderstood what was going on. I wasn't suggesting that, though it might be true.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 8:25 AM
Actually I was suggesting that it was Mr. Carlson who was vehement and contemptuous (although he's vehement and contemptuous in a very whiny little bitch kind of way).
baa is anything but contemptuous, he's a model of reasoned and reasonable dialogue.
Basically it was a roundabout way of asking baa whether he seriously thinks Tucker is right almost all the time.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 8:57 AM
Big ups to baa on point 4. I think this applies to wars in general--a period of civil war is worse for the inhabitants of the country than a period of rule under almost any regime (North Korea being one exception, I think), so we should be very careful about invading a country unless we're pretty confident it won't lead to a civil war. This doesn't apply to cases like Afghanistan, in which there was already a civil war going on (and in which our primary interest wasn't to make life better for the Afghanis, and maybe the Taliban falls into the "as-bad-as-civil-war" category anyway). That's why I think the burden of proof always falls on war supporters.--This does leave the opening for the argument I think baa would make, which is that the short-term suffering will be outweighed by long-term gains.
It is slightly hard for me to reconcile this with the fact that the invasion of Panama, which may have been done for the worst reasons of any US invasions, seems to have increased the local quality of life the most. (I'm pretty uninformed about Panama, though, so I could be wrong here.)
BTW, I'm not saying we should invade N. Korea, only that life might be better for N. Koreans if we did. The "bombing Seoul flat" thing outweighs any gains the North Koreans might make, I think.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 03- 5-05 11:16 AM
Mitch,
Fair point! Before crossfire, Carlson was a pretty decent journalist. That's the Carlson I like, not the morlock that battle of the partisan network stars turned him into. I assume the real Carlson is still there under the surface.
Matt W:
Bingo. Here's another argument I might float. The fall of ethnic minority rule often brings with it bloody reprisals by the newly empowered majority. To date, massacres of Sunni by Shia (the expected results) have not happened on a large scale. I think it is likely that any other demise of the Hussein regime would also have led to bad results, and potentially far worse results that an end to the regime that put essentially "good actors" (UK and US troops) in a dominant position.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 03- 6-05 12:39 AM
Fair point!
See what I mean?
I have only seen Carlson on Crossfire. I'll have to give him another chance. I'm not going to go search out archival footage of pre-CF Carlson or anything, but I might check out his new PBS show some (slow) night.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03- 6-05 10:06 AM
The only important issue was atomic weapons, and we have had, and have always had during the timeframe involved spy satellites that could spot that kind of thing (a reactor, basically) from orbit easily, given that Iraq is a sandy, flat country with relatively little cloud cover.
Ash, not that I want to be all Ms. support-the-WMD argument (I'm not, and never was; I believed Blix and Ritter), and not that the thread has actually stayed on-topic (as always, the boys are off wrestling one another in the corner, so we might as well just pick up the pool game ourselves now that the table's free), but, as in Iran, it's possible to build things underground for precisely this reason. Since we'd helped Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war, they presumably knew what our capabilities there were pretty well.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 6-05 10:23 AM
No way! play blackjack streamlined in a kind of old-fashioned futuristic style He was .
Posted by Jermaine Tayshaun | Link to this comment | 01-25-06 1:06 AM