Another terrorist group fuck around and innocent people find out.
Don't think any civilian deaths have been reported so far, just 10 Houthi soldiers according to the Houthis themselves. We'll see how that shakes out as more information emerges, but we also aren't Israel - civilian casualties are something we try to avoid.
đđ except in the countries we invade...
Source: old enough to remember Iraq and Afghanistan as an adult and have a parent that went to Vietnam.
Yeah, I remember Iraq and Afghanistan too. I followed both very closely. Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel's currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).
Fuck, even in Vietnam the ratio wasn't 50 fucking 50.
The Wikipedia source on the first link doesn't say what the citation claims it does, if you follow it.
On the second, that count would require, what, 80% of civilian deaths to be caused by the US? Assuming the extrapolations it reaches are correct. For a 50-50 combatant-civilian split.
If you want to argue that as a matter of moral responsibility, fine, but the point raised above is quite clearly about military efforts to distinguish civilians from combatants in operations.
The Wikipedia source on the first link doesnât say what the citation claims it does, if you follow it.
I followed the link to the report and it's not clear whether the 39k number is total combatant casualties, but you can just calculate from the civilian deaths where the estimate is at least 112k-122k civilian casualties out of 174k total, which is ~70%. You're acting like that 7% difference is a big gotcha.
And I don't know why you're acting like the US being responsible for 80% of casualties in Iraq is a wild idea. We massively overpowered the limited Iraqi capabilities. They had much fewer combatants and didn't even have the ability to drop bombs. The CCR isn't about a particular side though, since you'll always get into muddy questions of who was responsible for a particular death. It certainly wasn't the case that we were mostly just killing terrorists.
That's uh... For a couple decades.
A better way of looking at it would be to extrapolate an average casualty rate per month.
Using their most up to date numbers 208k through June 2020. That's about 1,000 deaths a month. If we do the same with their 2005 estimate, because casualties are massively front loaded... We get 2,000 deaths a month.
Then we need to talk about their methodology. They include local news reporting which routinely lied about casualties being fighters or civilians. For reference I remember our translator reading us an article that said our night vision goggles were X-ray vision.
And I donât know why youâre acting like the US being responsible for 80% of casualties in Iraq is a wild idea. We massively overpowered the limited Iraqi capabilities. They had much fewer combatants and didnât even have the ability to drop bombs.
You... do realize that 'massively overpowered' =/= 'hit as many civilians as we can', right? Accusing the US military of having a worse civilian death ratio by a significant margin in Iraq than in Vietnam or WW2 is absolutely a wild idea.
I followed the link to the report and itâs not clear whether the 39k number is total combatant casualties, but you can just calculate from the civilian deaths where the estimate is at least 112k-122k civilian casualties out of 174k total, which is ~70%. Youâre acting like that 7% difference is a big gotcha.
70% civilian deaths by all sources, not 70% by Coalition forces. That's the difference.
It certainly wasnât the case that we were mostly just killing terrorists.
Again, if we are discussing this not as a matter of moral responsibility for the war as a whole, but for "Military operations which killed civilians", we very much were killing mostly enemy combatants. Coalition forces were responsible for relatively few civilian casualties from the start, and proportionally fewer as the war went on and criticism of civilian casualties became harsher. The vast majority of civilian casualties were caused by insurgents or the security forces of the Iraqi government.
Massively overpower means you have the means and weaponry to cause significantly more collateral damage. This fantasy that the US has surgical precision with its strikes is just wishful thinking. The Pentagon document leak has specific examples of classifying civilians as enemy combatants and widespread abuse. You're motivated enough to follow sources and question casualty claims on minutiae and then just claim it was all someone else without even a passing inclination to support your statement with data.
Man, because I've argued with people like you before. Again, going back to the raw numbers, your claim would have to attribute some 80%+ of civilian casualties in the Iraq War to Coalition forces and only 20% to Insurgents and Iraqi Security Forces combined in order to reach an even 50-50 proportion of combatants and civilians killed by Coalition Forces. Is that your claim?
Massively overpower means you have the means and weaponry to cause significantly more collateral damage. This fantasy that the US has surgical precision with its strikes is just wishful thinking.
The idea of "Power is big boom" is horribly antiquated WW2 style thinking.
Having done something before should make it easier for you to find sources this time to support your minimizations. And to be clear 50-50 is TERRIBLE and means any more serious operation we initiate is likely to kill a lot of innocent people. We're not Israel, we only kill one innocent person for every enemy fighter, is not the reassuring statement you think it is.
The idea of âPower is big boomâ is horribly antiquated WW2 style thinking.
You have a fantasy where precision guided bombs dropped from 10,000 feet punch cleanly through buildings to destroy terrorist heads and terrorist heads alone with no collateral damage to nearby people or buildings. Power is also having the ability to just shoot up a car because it might be getting too close to your check point, knowing that your overriding priority is maintaining control and protecting your allies and you'll never suffer consequences for being a little overeager and making an oopsie.
Having done something before should make it easier for you to find sources this time to support your minimizations. And to be clear 50-50 is TERRIBLE and means any more serious operation we initiate is likely to kill a lot of innocent people. Weâre not Israel, we only kill one innocent person for every enemy fighter, is not the reassuring statement you think it is.
Are you going to answer the question or not? Is your claim that Coalition forces were responsible for 80%+ of the civilian casualties in the Iraq War, and that anti-government insurgents and pro-government security forces combined were only responsible for ~20%? Because that's the only way the math works out in favor of 50-50 (and not the 77%-23% you initially claimed)
Your math is wrong because if you're not looking at overall civilian casualty rate then you need to remove the allied combatants from the denominator. The Pentagon leaks have a break down that has both civilian casualty numbers and enemy forces. 66,081 civilians were killed compared to 23,984 enemy forces. If the US killed 36% of all the civilians they'd be at 1-1. Which is roughly the rate the Iraq Body Count attributes to them.
Were those the 10 soldiers in pirate boats attacking a merchant ship? I donât see any reason for sympathy
They were on land, but may be believably related to the sea attacks.
USA killed plenty civilianscin Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh look a whataboutism in the wild. Maybe this definition will help you.
Lol what a pathetic taunt.
Edit for the ultra daft downvote crew: the fact the US killed civilians is directly relevant to the blub i responded to, the one claiming the US was bettter than Israel because it did not kill civilians.
For the extra determined ignoramouses ive provided this as an example :
Mhhhmm. Didn't read the definition I see.
Your link to the definition of 'avoid'?
I avoided nothing. I addressed the issue directly.
The USA kills civilians.
Israel does at a much faster rate. A genocidal one in fact.
But that does not give any creedence to the notion the USA is innocent.
QED JFC
Now you're moving the goalpost. Dude, just admit your wrong. The US goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
have you ever seen the viral sensation "collateral murder"?
I have actually. I also saw the unedited version WikiLeaks was really hoping nobody would see.
why would they hope no one saw more?
Because it was a running gun fight. The Army also released it's After Action report showing there was in fact RPGs there. Now I'm not saying the reporters were bad guys, but they clearly embedded with an anti coalition militia. That carries the same risk of getting killed as embedding with coalition forces.
you're saying embedded journalists are civillians, but the us doesn't try to avoid killing them? seems like you owe the other commenter an apology.
Oh, sorry. I thought this was related to the genocide in Gaza. Completely unrelated and just trade related in the seas adjacent. Obviously we should protect profits at all costs.
I mean, considering the Houthis aren't targeting Israeli ships specifically, it's not really particularly related to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, despite the Houthi claims? It's terrorists showboating to burnish their own credentials.
Obviously we should protect profits at all costs.
... and what about the human lives threatened by literal terrorists attacking unarmed civilian ships with drones and rockets? Fuck 'em, huh? The people who will suffer from the economic disruption, fuck them too, right? Fucking poors, who cares about them? It's not like there's an ongoing global crisis with rising food prices from prior disruptions to supply lines.
Let's not blow it out of proportion. I disagree with attacking trade routes, but there have been no casualties.
However 12000+ Palestinians have died.
As a civilian, I don't want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, let's not pretend it's not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
I don't own any kind f those ships, but if I did, I'd find a different route. It started with just protests against ships stopping at Israel. I wish it stayed there. How many ships can stop at Gaza with humanitarian supplies?
Letâs not blow it out of proportion. I disagree with attacking trade routes, but there have been no casualties.
Because Western military ships have been busy intercepting drones and rockets. This is just the first time we've hit back.
However 12000+ Palestinians have died.
Okay, how is that the fault of civilian ships going through international waters?
As a civilian, I donât want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, letâs not pretend itâs not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
Until the Houthis starting firing, it wasn't a warzone or a disputed route. The route isn't in Israeli territorial waters. It's nowhere near Gaza or Israel.
I donât own any kind f those ships, but if I did, Iâd find a different route.
The only other route is all the way around Africa.
As a civilian, I donât want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, letâs not pretend itâs not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
You do understand that the ship attacks we're talking about in this thread are happening 1000 miles away from Israel at the clear other end of the Red Sea, right? It's nowhere near the Gaza warzone (which borders a different sea entirely -- the Mediterranean), nor is it even "disputed" by anybody legitimate.
Literally nothing about this, except the Houthi terrorists' choice of timing, has anything to do with Israel.
It's a tough situation, but attacking civilians is not a valid way of protesting Israels' attacks on civilians.
Another terrorist group fuck around and innocent people find out.
Don't think any civilian deaths have been reported so far, just 10 Houthi soldiers according to the Houthis themselves. We'll see how that shakes out as more information emerges, but we also aren't Israel - civilian casualties are something we try to avoid.
đđ except in the countries we invade...
Source: old enough to remember Iraq and Afghanistan as an adult and have a parent that went to Vietnam.
Yeah, I remember Iraq and Afghanistan too. I followed both very closely. Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel's currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).
Fuck, even in Vietnam the ratio wasn't 50 fucking 50.
Iraq may have had a civilian casualty ratio of up to 77%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio#Iraq_War
A Pentagon leak for 2004-2009 put the number at 66,000 civilians out of 109,000 total fatalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civilian_casualties
The Wikipedia source on the first link doesn't say what the citation claims it does, if you follow it.
On the second, that count would require, what, 80% of civilian deaths to be caused by the US? Assuming the extrapolations it reaches are correct. For a 50-50 combatant-civilian split.
If you want to argue that as a matter of moral responsibility, fine, but the point raised above is quite clearly about military efforts to distinguish civilians from combatants in operations.
I followed the link to the report and it's not clear whether the 39k number is total combatant casualties, but you can just calculate from the civilian deaths where the estimate is at least 112k-122k civilian casualties out of 174k total, which is ~70%. You're acting like that 7% difference is a big gotcha.
And I don't know why you're acting like the US being responsible for 80% of casualties in Iraq is a wild idea. We massively overpowered the limited Iraqi capabilities. They had much fewer combatants and didn't even have the ability to drop bombs. The CCR isn't about a particular side though, since you'll always get into muddy questions of who was responsible for a particular death. It certainly wasn't the case that we were mostly just killing terrorists.
That's uh... For a couple decades.
A better way of looking at it would be to extrapolate an average casualty rate per month.
Using their most up to date numbers 208k through June 2020. That's about 1,000 deaths a month. If we do the same with their 2005 estimate, because casualties are massively front loaded... We get 2,000 deaths a month.
Then we need to talk about their methodology. They include local news reporting which routinely lied about casualties being fighters or civilians. For reference I remember our translator reading us an article that said our night vision goggles were X-ray vision.
You... do realize that 'massively overpowered' =/= 'hit as many civilians as we can', right? Accusing the US military of having a worse civilian death ratio by a significant margin in Iraq than in Vietnam or WW2 is absolutely a wild idea.
70% civilian deaths by all sources, not 70% by Coalition forces. That's the difference.
Again, if we are discussing this not as a matter of moral responsibility for the war as a whole, but for "Military operations which killed civilians", we very much were killing mostly enemy combatants. Coalition forces were responsible for relatively few civilian casualties from the start, and proportionally fewer as the war went on and criticism of civilian casualties became harsher. The vast majority of civilian casualties were caused by insurgents or the security forces of the Iraqi government.
Massively overpower means you have the means and weaponry to cause significantly more collateral damage. This fantasy that the US has surgical precision with its strikes is just wishful thinking. The Pentagon document leak has specific examples of classifying civilians as enemy combatants and widespread abuse. You're motivated enough to follow sources and question casualty claims on minutiae and then just claim it was all someone else without even a passing inclination to support your statement with data.
Man, because I've argued with people like you before. Again, going back to the raw numbers, your claim would have to attribute some 80%+ of civilian casualties in the Iraq War to Coalition forces and only 20% to Insurgents and Iraqi Security Forces combined in order to reach an even 50-50 proportion of combatants and civilians killed by Coalition Forces. Is that your claim?
The idea of "Power is big boom" is horribly antiquated WW2 style thinking.
Having done something before should make it easier for you to find sources this time to support your minimizations. And to be clear 50-50 is TERRIBLE and means any more serious operation we initiate is likely to kill a lot of innocent people. We're not Israel, we only kill one innocent person for every enemy fighter, is not the reassuring statement you think it is.
You have a fantasy where precision guided bombs dropped from 10,000 feet punch cleanly through buildings to destroy terrorist heads and terrorist heads alone with no collateral damage to nearby people or buildings. Power is also having the ability to just shoot up a car because it might be getting too close to your check point, knowing that your overriding priority is maintaining control and protecting your allies and you'll never suffer consequences for being a little overeager and making an oopsie.
Are you going to answer the question or not? Is your claim that Coalition forces were responsible for 80%+ of the civilian casualties in the Iraq War, and that anti-government insurgents and pro-government security forces combined were only responsible for ~20%? Because that's the only way the math works out in favor of 50-50 (and not the 77%-23% you initially claimed)
Your math is wrong because if you're not looking at overall civilian casualty rate then you need to remove the allied combatants from the denominator. The Pentagon leaks have a break down that has both civilian casualty numbers and enemy forces. 66,081 civilians were killed compared to 23,984 enemy forces. If the US killed 36% of all the civilians they'd be at 1-1. Which is roughly the rate the Iraq Body Count attributes to them.
Were those the 10 soldiers in pirate boats attacking a merchant ship? I donât see any reason for sympathy
They were on land, but may be believably related to the sea attacks.
USA killed plenty civilianscin Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh look a whataboutism in the wild. Maybe this definition will help you.
Lol what a pathetic taunt.
Edit for the ultra daft downvote crew: the fact the US killed civilians is directly relevant to the blub i responded to, the one claiming the US was bettter than Israel because it did not kill civilians.
For the extra determined ignoramouses ive provided this as an example :
Mhhhmm. Didn't read the definition I see.
Your link to the definition of 'avoid'?
I avoided nothing. I addressed the issue directly.
The USA kills civilians.
Israel does at a much faster rate. A genocidal one in fact.
But that does not give any creedence to the notion the USA is innocent.
QED JFC
Now you're moving the goalpost. Dude, just admit your wrong. The US goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
have you ever seen the viral sensation "collateral murder"?
I have actually. I also saw the unedited version WikiLeaks was really hoping nobody would see.
why would they hope no one saw more?
Because it was a running gun fight. The Army also released it's After Action report showing there was in fact RPGs there. Now I'm not saying the reporters were bad guys, but they clearly embedded with an anti coalition militia. That carries the same risk of getting killed as embedding with coalition forces.
you're saying embedded journalists are civillians, but the us doesn't try to avoid killing them? seems like you owe the other commenter an apology.
Oh, sorry. I thought this was related to the genocide in Gaza. Completely unrelated and just trade related in the seas adjacent. Obviously we should protect profits at all costs.
I mean, considering the Houthis aren't targeting Israeli ships specifically, it's not really particularly related to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, despite the Houthi claims? It's terrorists showboating to burnish their own credentials.
... and what about the human lives threatened by literal terrorists attacking unarmed civilian ships with drones and rockets? Fuck 'em, huh? The people who will suffer from the economic disruption, fuck them too, right? Fucking poors, who cares about them? It's not like there's an ongoing global crisis with rising food prices from prior disruptions to supply lines.
Let's not blow it out of proportion. I disagree with attacking trade routes, but there have been no casualties.
However 12000+ Palestinians have died.
As a civilian, I don't want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, let's not pretend it's not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
I don't own any kind f those ships, but if I did, I'd find a different route. It started with just protests against ships stopping at Israel. I wish it stayed there. How many ships can stop at Gaza with humanitarian supplies?
Because Western military ships have been busy intercepting drones and rockets. This is just the first time we've hit back.
Okay, how is that the fault of civilian ships going through international waters?
Until the Houthis starting firing, it wasn't a warzone or a disputed route. The route isn't in Israeli territorial waters. It's nowhere near Gaza or Israel.
The only other route is all the way around Africa.
You do understand that the ship attacks we're talking about in this thread are happening 1000 miles away from Israel at the clear other end of the Red Sea, right? It's nowhere near the Gaza warzone (which borders a different sea entirely -- the Mediterranean), nor is it even "disputed" by anybody legitimate.
Literally nothing about this, except the Houthi terrorists' choice of timing, has anything to do with Israel.
It's a tough situation, but attacking civilians is not a valid way of protesting Israels' attacks on civilians.