• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    26 months ago

    I am looking at the overall civilian casualty rate for deaths by violence.

    Then it’s the original numbers you’ve been falling all over yourself to deny. You’re trying to pick apart these statistics to divide blame, but that’s an entirely different statistic, and that one very much cares who is dying. We don’t get an extra buffer on civilian deaths because one of our allies died as well.

    When deciding to start a war, the overall CCR rate is the appropriate statistic. It doesn’t matter to the civilians which side kills them, just that they’re dead because we started a war. And Israel being extremely bad doesn’t make war by less bad actors no big deal. You’ve been minimizing the cost of war throughout this, picking at a percentage here or there based on some unsupported faith in the restraint of the US war machine.

    This all started from you claiming “Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel’s currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).” CCRs are general measures for combats as a whole, but if you wanted to calculate a civilians killed divided by enemy killed, the US ratio in Iraq was right at that 50-50 ratio you thought was far beyond what the US would ever do.

    • PugJesus
      link
      fedilink
      -2
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      When deciding to start a war, the overall CCR rate is the appropriate statistic. It doesn’t matter to the civilians which side kills them, just that they’re dead because we started a war.

      So when I explicitly noted that I was making that distinction and that the broader moral issue of being responsible for deaths as part of starting the war was a different discussion, you ignored it. Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic.

      • @FictionalCrow
        link
        fedilink
        06 months ago

        " Great. Good to know you wasted both of our time with this. Fucking fantastic."

        Nah it was just you spinning in circles trying to justify and rationalize your morally bankrupt bullshit. And I for own appreciate the other person taking the time to debunk it for us readers.

        • PugJesus
          link
          fedilink
          26 months ago

          “Morally bankrupt bullshit”

          Is that what you call noting that US military operations are more careful than the current bullshit undertaken by Israel?

          I explicitly noted I wasn’t addressing the overall morality of the Iraq War or the responsibility for the deaths caused by the war as a whole - only that in military operations, the US is more careful about civilian casualties than israel’s current farce. Would you care to elaborate on how that’s “morally bankrupt bullshit”?

        • BolexForSoup
          link
          fedilink
          2
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          Y’all are both trying to quantify which mass casualty events are worse than others when we are talking hundreds of thousands/millions dead.

          This was a gross exercise to begin with.

          • PugJesus
            link
            fedilink
            1
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            My point isn’t “Iraq was better or worse”, I explicitly noted that the moral dimension of the overall casualties from the Iraq War were seperate from the point I talking about, which the other commenter ignored. My only point was that the US is more careful about civilian casualties in military operations than Israel.

            I wasn’t the one who brought up the Iraq War, and my only intention here was to refute the absurd claim that US military operations inflicted a 77% civilian casualty ratio, when in reality it was closer to 33%, including the proportionally civilian casualty heavy initial invasion. This is not some vaunted number of pure humanitarianism, but it is better than the claimed 50%/actually 80%+ of Israel’s current genocide, and shows a basic awareness that avoiding civilian casualties is desirable.

            • BolexForSoup
              link
              fedilink
              16 months ago

              The issue is you got bogged down in it anyway. I largely agree with your comments but this particular chain was kind of wild to watch. Just my 2 cents

              • PugJesus
                link
                fedilink
                16 months ago

                That’s the issue with lies and misleading claims, though. They take much longer and much more effort to refute than they do to make, especially if the other party explicitly ignores a core piece of your argument that you explicitly state and only acknowledges that half a dozen comments in. What could have been a quick

                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’m talking about overall moral responsibility. The US is responsible for those 77% of overall deaths and military action is only part of that.

                No argument there. Just saying our military actions are more careful.

                Becomes a drawn out argument because some commenter wanted to piss away time and effort by intentionally setting up a fight where both sides are arguing against positions their opposition isn’t actually holding (Me trying to refute claimed proportions of civilian casualties as part of military operations, which they ceased to dispute; and them trying to argue that the death ratio is horrific and moral responsibility for the deaths is still held by the aggressor, and that military operations are only part of that, which I never disputed).

                • BolexForSoup
                  link
                  fedilink
                  1
                  edit-2
                  6 months ago

                  The only way to participate in these conversations is to not. You make your point, they start going off, and you move on. Engaging validates the terms of their argument, even if it doesn’t validate their specific argument.

                  • PugJesus
                    link
                    fedilink
                    16 months ago

                    Yeah. Just thought they were making a good faith disputation, and now I’m pissed that I wasted effort trying to refute someone who just wanted to dance their time away.