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Wikileaks: Secret Iraq War Death Toll Set at 285,000

Incredibly misleading headline.

"The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces),"

It also doesn't break down who caused each of those deaths. I'd wager that the vast majority of the civilian and host nation deaths were caused by the insurgents.
 
Regardless, I think that both this and the Afghan leak show the complete impotence of the media in doing their job by reporting the real story, instead of whining to Assange about how some former Wikileaks employee is upset or some such bull****.
 
Almost 300,000 deaths caused indirectly/directly by our invasion into Iraq?

I think I'm going to be sick.

Well, the usual "pacifist" screecher groups have insisted for years that it's more than a million.
 
Incredibly misleading headline.



It also doesn't break down who caused each of those deaths. I'd wager that the vast majority of the civilian and host nation deaths were caused by the insurgents.

The report does say that over 45K of the civilian deaths were from IED and murders.
 
I support detaining the man. He is reckless, dangerous, and cares nothing about what the Pentagon has to say about his leaked information.
 
It also doesn't break down who caused each of those deaths. I'd wager that the vast majority of the civilian and host nation deaths were caused by the insurgents.
Either way, those deaths would have not occurred if we didn't invade.
 
Either way, those deaths would have not occurred if we didn't invade.

Yeah, and your house wouldn't be broken into if you didn't build it. Thus, if you get robbed, it's your fault.
 
So...there is a legitimate basis for that claim.

Among many others which posited considerably lower numbers. The "pacificist" screecher groups latched on the highest number they could find.
 
Among many others which posited considerably lower numbers. The "pacificist" screecher groups latched on the highest number they could find.

And the pro-war folks latched on to the lowest. So what?
 

First, numbers like this just seem implausible on their face. Reports that actually look at hard figures all coalesce around 100k. I have a hard time believing that the number is actually ten times higher than that. Second, this guy's methodology is questionable to say the least. He's extrapolating from face to face interviews where he asks people whether someone in their household was killed.

Setting aside the underlying issues of the methodology, this doesn't exactly give me confidence in the results:

wiki said:
Their pollster was Dr. Munqeth Daghir, founding director of IIACSS.

...

The first phone call I received this morning was my good friend, Munqith Daghir, the top Iraqi pollster, telling me he has to cancel a meeting because of the security situation. He said that 25 of his relatives were killed in Fallujah overnight when a helicopter bombed their house.

Empty Days
 
Yeah, and your house wouldn't be broken into if you didn't build it. Thus, if you get robbed, it's your fault.
My house is a good thing, attacking a country that wasn't a threat is bad. Major fail.
 
My house is a good thing, attacking a country that wasn't a threat is bad. Major fail.

Hardly. The insurgents caused the deaths they caused, and it was entirely of their own volition.
 
Either way, those deaths would have not occurred if we didn't invade.

Imagine that the police surrounded a house to arrest a bunch of members of the mafia. Imagine that the mafia members start shooting at the police, killing some police officers and bystanders. Do you blame the deaths of those civilians on the fact that the police tried to arrest the mafia members?
 
Do you find either practice credible?

I don't really care whether 100,000 or 1,000,000 people died because such a quantitative analysis is irrelevant to the situation and my position on it. There's more important things here to consider than to quabble over the number of people that were killed.
 
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The documents are in the public domain, and Assange is not a U.S. national so the U.S. has no business trying to detain him in foreign lands. If you don't want documents getting out then you maintain security. The **** up here was with the U.S. military and no one else.

If 1/1,000th of what the government keeps secret ever got out, there would be a revolution tomorrow. Our governments think they are above the law and that they can use our money to do whatever they want. The truth always becomes known, sooner or later.
 
I don't really care whether 100,000 or 1,000,000 people died because such a quantitative analysis is irrelevant to the situation and my position on it.

Yet you felt the need to comment. Hmmm.
 
Yet you felt the need to comment. Hmmm.

Yes, I did, because I felt that your portrayal of the "pacifist screechers" was completely one-sided. Just because I feel that the debate over numbers is relatively unimportant doesn't mean I'm not going to call someone out on their bull**** when they put forward a ridiculous and one-sided assertion. For the exact same reason that I would, for example, comment on how it's stupid for someone to say that Stalin is responsible for 100 million deaths.
 
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Yeah, and your house wouldn't be broken into if you didn't build it. Thus, if you get robbed, it's your fault.

That's a pretty stupid analogy. If someone robbed me, it is the robber's fault. When they get caught they go to jail because they shouldn't have robbed me in the first place.

The Iraq war turned into a regime change operation. And over a hundred thousand Iraqis have lost their lives while millions have seen their lives turned upside down. Why do people keep defending this war?
 
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