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I cannot see how one can claim that the US invasion of Iraq was less barbaric than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. First of all, hundreds of thousands of

I cannot see how one can claim that the US invasion of Iraq was less barbaric than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. First of all, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. The US practiced torture, as we all found out when the pictures of Abu Ghraib came out. The US worked with Shiite militias that conducted ethnic cleansing and torture on a massive scale. The US put down uprisings in places like Sadr City, Najaf and Fallujah with full urban ground invasions. As a result of the invasion, Baghdad turned into a warzone for years, and the city's religiously mixed neighborhoods were ethnically cleansed (or however you refer to its religious equivalent). Iraq became a byword for failed state. Finally, I would tell anyone who talks about "values" to take a look at the "Collateral Murder" video, in which helicopter pilots crack jokes while shooting explosive rounds into the windshield of a van full of children.[0] Only two people have gone to jail for that: the soldier who leaked the video (Manning) and the guy who published it (Assange). 0. https://youtu.be/zYTxuW2vmzk https://youtu.be/zYTxuW2vmzk

Maursault 4y ago
> I cannot see how one can claim that the US invasion of Iraq was less barbaric than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. First of all, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. >> Estimates of the total number of Iraqi war-related deaths are highly disputed. According to Keith Krause of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, "the consensus seems to be that around 150,000 people died violently as a result of the fighting between 2003 and 2006."[1] I am in no way attempting to justify or defend the Iraq War, which I and many believe was both illegal and a Republican political gambit to stay in power by heartlessly leveraging outrage from the 9/11 attacks. I think one can make the argument that both the wars in Iraq and Ukraine were invalidly justified using manufactured and outright false intelligence. But while yours and other comments above are searing, astute and poignant, in essence both it and previous opposing and supporting comments are tu quoque arguments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Total_Iraqi_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Tot...
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Estimates of total deaths in Iraq due to the war generally come up with a figure of several hundred thousand. You can look at the page you linked to for examples of these studies. Iraq Body Count tracked 120k individually verifiable civilian deaths in Iraq through 2011 (a figure that has increased significantly since, due to the rise of ISIS, which was a side-effect of the Iraq War). But in a war zone, many (maybe even most) deaths go unrecorded. If you use survey methods (going random homes to ask for death certificates) to try to get a statistical estimate of the number of deaths, you find a number that is a factor of a few higher, as several studies in Iraq have shown.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    While most estimates are between 150K to 250K, with at least one published estimate as high as 1.2M, the point of the quote was not to argue about causality numbers, but to demonstrate that numbers are "highly disputed," with an example of a lower estimate and claim of consensus. IBC project in particular has issues, including accusations of internal anti-war bias and biased sources. IBC has been accused of both undercounting and overcounting. In any regard, due to so much criticism from all sides, other studies are probably more reliable, but even these do not agree. My larger point was using the Iraq War in comparison to the Russo-Ukraine War to argue the US is no better than Russia, or vice versa, is tu quoque fallacy.
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself. One possible explanation for that is that people might have been afraid to speak to representatives of the ministry, given that it was controlled by a Shiite politician who had connections to militias.
      - Maursault 4y ago
        > Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself. I'm not sure what studies were not scientific and which were, but I don't get that at all from the wiki section on total Iraqi causalities.[1] Ignoring lower US military estimates accused of undercounting, about half of estimates are below 200K and about half above 250K. And again, all of the studies are disputed with those in the higher range taking the most criticism towards methods and bias, such as IBC and the Lancet studies. The lower estimates, which seem to be missing deaths that were not immediate, are by Swiss Developmental Studies, Iraqiyun, Iraqi Heath Minister, IFHS, and the higher estimates with a large range variance between 250K-1M+ are by IBC, Lancet, ORB, and PLOS Medicine, which seem to be including homicides, suicides and car accidents. I don't really understand why any group would intentionally underestimate or intentionally inflate casualty estimates, but some, most or all obviously did. Some studies, like D3, seem to suggest fully half the Iraqi population was injured or killed. This all seems bizarre, that estimates are so widely varied and criticized, considering at the time it was the most covered war by journalists in history. The surreal feeling at the time was that it was all televised. It seems unlikely most if any were infiltrated by US covert intelligence white washers, but I can't fathom any overarching reason for such wide variance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Total_Iraqi_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Tot...
ch4s3 4y ago
The collateral murder video was a national scandal, people were appalled and it was fairly unique among a trove of videos and documents. Ukraine is unearthing mass graves on a daily basis full of mutilated civilians. The laundry list of confirmed war crimes including video is overwhelming. There’s loads of evidence of people all the way up the Russian chain of command encouraging atrocities. Moreover the conflict is less than a year old. For fuck’s sake the Russians intentionally bombarded a maternity hospital.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  A national scandal? There were never any consequences, except for the people who brought the video to light. The US was involved in plenty of war crimes in Iraq, such as the following documented cases: 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massa... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_massacre 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_200... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaqi_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaqi_incident The US worked with militias, such as the Wolf Brigade, that were notorious for conducting torture (in particular, it has come out that US forces passed on detainees to the Wolf Brigade for torture).[5] At the height of the war, bodies were being dumped in the open every day in Baghdad with gruesome signs of torture. 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brigade_(Iraq) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brigade_(Iraq)

Maursault 4y ago

> I cannot see how one can claim that the US invasion of Iraq was less barbaric than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. First of all, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. >> Estimates of the total number of Iraqi war-related deaths are highly disputed. According to Keith Krause of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, "the consensus seems to be that around 150,000 people died violently as a result of the fighting between 2003 and 2006."[1] I am in no way attempting to justify or defend the Iraq War, which I and many believe was both illegal and a Republican political gambit to stay in power by heartlessly leveraging outrage from the 9/11 attacks. I think one can make the argument that both the wars in Iraq and Ukraine were invalidly justified using manufactured and outright false intelligence. But while yours and other comments above are searing, astute and poignant, in essence both it and previous opposing and supporting comments are tu quoque arguments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Total_Iraqi_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Tot...

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
Estimates of total deaths in Iraq due to the war generally come up with a figure of several hundred thousand. You can look at the page you linked to for examples of these studies. Iraq Body Count tracked 120k individually verifiable civilian deaths in Iraq through 2011 (a figure that has increased significantly since, due to the rise of ISIS, which was a side-effect of the Iraq War). But in a war zone, many (maybe even most) deaths go unrecorded. If you use survey methods (going random homes to ask for death certificates) to try to get a statistical estimate of the number of deaths, you find a number that is a factor of a few higher, as several studies in Iraq have shown.
- Maursault 4y ago
  While most estimates are between 150K to 250K, with at least one published estimate as high as 1.2M, the point of the quote was not to argue about causality numbers, but to demonstrate that numbers are "highly disputed," with an example of a lower estimate and claim of consensus. IBC project in particular has issues, including accusations of internal anti-war bias and biased sources. IBC has been accused of both undercounting and overcounting. In any regard, due to so much criticism from all sides, other studies are probably more reliable, but even these do not agree. My larger point was using the Iraq War in comparison to the Russo-Ukraine War to argue the US is no better than Russia, or vice versa, is tu quoque fallacy.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself. One possible explanation for that is that people might have been afraid to speak to representatives of the ministry, given that it was controlled by a Shiite politician who had connections to militias.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      > Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself. I'm not sure what studies were not scientific and which were, but I don't get that at all from the wiki section on total Iraqi causalities.[1] Ignoring lower US military estimates accused of undercounting, about half of estimates are below 200K and about half above 250K. And again, all of the studies are disputed with those in the higher range taking the most criticism towards methods and bias, such as IBC and the Lancet studies. The lower estimates, which seem to be missing deaths that were not immediate, are by Swiss Developmental Studies, Iraqiyun, Iraqi Heath Minister, IFHS, and the higher estimates with a large range variance between 250K-1M+ are by IBC, Lancet, ORB, and PLOS Medicine, which seem to be including homicides, suicides and car accidents. I don't really understand why any group would intentionally underestimate or intentionally inflate casualty estimates, but some, most or all obviously did. Some studies, like D3, seem to suggest fully half the Iraqi population was injured or killed. This all seems bizarre, that estimates are so widely varied and criticized, considering at the time it was the most covered war by journalists in history. The surreal feeling at the time was that it was all televised. It seems unlikely most if any were infiltrated by US covert intelligence white washers, but I can't fathom any overarching reason for such wide variance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Total_Iraqi_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Tot...

ch4s3 4y ago

The collateral murder video was a national scandal, people were appalled and it was fairly unique among a trove of videos and documents. Ukraine is unearthing mass graves on a daily basis full of mutilated civilians. The laundry list of confirmed war crimes including video is overwhelming. There’s loads of evidence of people all the way up the Russian chain of command encouraging atrocities. Moreover the conflict is less than a year old. For fuck’s sake the Russians intentionally bombarded a maternity hospital.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
A national scandal? There were never any consequences, except for the people who brought the video to light. The US was involved in plenty of war crimes in Iraq, such as the following documented cases: 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massa... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_massacre 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_200... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaqi_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaqi_incident The US worked with militias, such as the Wolf Brigade, that were notorious for conducting torture (in particular, it has come out that US forces passed on detainees to the Wolf Brigade for torture).[5] At the height of the war, bodies were being dumped in the open every day in Baghdad with gruesome signs of torture. 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brigade_(Iraq) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brigade_(Iraq)