US Military and Civilians in Iraq

[gstelmack]

In the last 24 hours I've seen 2 separate assertions on this board claiming that the US military is not doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. Specifically, a relative newcomer flere-imsaho:

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showpost.php?p=590295&postcount=12

And oldtimer John Galt:

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showpost.php?p=589659&postcount=36

I've also seen subtle other related jabs levelled at our military, and it's come up before in various discussions.

The exact opposite assertion has been made by myself and others: namely that the US military has done its absolute best to avoid civilian casualties, often putting the soldiers on the ground at additional risk to do so. Our main evidence is the fact that Najaf and Fallujah are still standing, and that we have not levelled the mosques where many of the current militant/terrorist groups are holing up. This is not to say civilian casualties aren't occurring, but that they would be much higher if the US military weren't being so careful, and that most of the civilian casualties are being caused by the people we're trying to fight (all the bombs they regularly set off near police stations, etc).

I'm curious what evidence is being used by those of you who think we could be doing better. I think this is a pretty serious charge being levelled against our military, and is being thrown about pretty willy-nilly (John Galt at least seems to use it where appropriate to the discussion at hand and in a serious manner, while that flere guy and others are throwing it about in pretty casual conversation), and that it is being used unfairly. I don't think this is a small thing and so I'd like to hear more about what background information those of you who feel this way are using to make these claims.

[John Galt]

To start on this issue, let me note a couple of important problems:

1) Access to reliable information from Iraq is hard to come by. While this war started with a media plant in every unit reporting all the time, the level of first hand media knowledge about civilian deaths is now minimal. That means there is often a significant dispute over whether the particular targets are civilian in nature and how many civilian deaths are the result of US action.

2) The US military as a source for the "necessity" of Iraqi civilian deaths is not reliable. I know this point is controversial to lots of people here, but I'm just not inclined to trust our military leaders (especially when they keep saying they don't do body counts) on an issue like this. If you accept that the civilian deaths were always necessary when the military says so, then you have begged the question (because the military will almost always believe they are "necessary").

With those caveats, let me go through some of the recent incidents that make me suspicious of the US efforts to minimize casualties. My primary source is Iraqbodycount.net (because it is an easy to use compilation) - if someone knows of a defect in that website, let me know.

Sept 17 US airstrikes kill 17-20 in suspected al-Zarqawi safehouse.

Sept 17 US airstrikes kill 3 at suspected meeting of al-Zarqawi "supporters."

Sept 16-17 US airstrikes kill 44-45 in a compound in Fallujah. The "compound" includes houses in the area. How many of these deaths were civilian?

Sept 12 US airstrike from helicopter kills 13 around burning tank rubble. This was the ugly video I think we have all seen.

Sept 10 US airstrikes kill 1 in Fallujah

Sept 9 US airstrikes kill 8 in suspected operating base in Fallujah.

These are only deaths by airstrike since Sept 9. The reason I'm troubled is that the use of airstrikes to supress "suspected" terrorist activity is usually a recipe for "accidental" civilian deaths. The helicopter attacking the tank rubble video really brought this point home. It makes me concerned that there are other incidents that haven't been caught on tape.

There is also a second area of deaths that I hold the US military partially responsible for and that is the car bombing and other terrorist caused deaths. The US has picked a battlefield (and in fact Bush is now arguing that we need to keep the battlefield in Iraq so that it doesn't move elsewhere) and terrorists are now killing civilians on that battlefield. The US strategy and failure to contain certain hotspots early on has increased the number of civilian deaths. Now, I do hold the terrorists primarily responsible for these deaths, but I think it is disingenuous to complete ignore US culpability in these deaths.

In all there have been 12,927-14,981 deaths in Iraq (according to Iraqbodycount.net). If that number is reliable, I'm concerned about the percentage of civilians contained therein. Given the speed at which the US conquered the military of Iraq (and the limited death count at that point), I am worried about how many of the subsequent deaths were "collateral damage." Do I have reliable information on the total breakdown? No - I don't think anyone does. I do, however, believe it is a mistake to take the US military at its word that all these deaths were necessary (given various videos that have surfaced and anecdotal evidence to the contrary).

[flere-imsaho]

In the last 24 hours I've seen 2 separate assertions on this board claiming that the US military is not doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. Specifically, a relative newcomer flere-imsaho:

Hold on. This quote:

It's a good thing he doesn't bring all of that testosterone to the office however. Or else we'd be invading countries right and left, killing indiscriminately as we go... er....

was meant merely as sarcastic anti-Bush hyperbole. With a brother set to be deployed to Iraq, and number of associates and friends having served there or Afghanistan or currently serving in those locales, I'm fully aware what the U.S. Military has or has not done to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I wish in no way to indicate that members of the U.S. Military have engaged in indiscriminate killing, and am very sorry that my hyperbole was misunderstood.

Although I do have a view on how affairs are being conducted, both from strategic and tactical viewpoints, I do not wish to share them and get into arguments, as the issue is too personal. If this means that I should refrain from sarcastic anti-Bush hyperbole so as to not confuse anyone, I will happily do so.

[Raiders Army]

Access to reliable information from Iraq is hard to come by. While this war started with a media plant in every unit reporting all the time, the level of first hand media knowledge about civilian deaths is now minimal. That means there is often a significant dispute over whether the particular targets are civilian in nature and how many civilian deaths are the result of US action.

Do I have reliable information on the total breakdown? No - I don't think anyone does. I do, however, believe it is a mistake to take the US military at its word that all these deaths were necessary (given various videos that have surfaced and anecdotal evidence to the contrary).

While it is your right to question it, you yourself have stated you don't know what's going on. Additionally, while it is human nature, I would say that to speculate without knowing what is going on is presumptuous and misleading to others.

With a brother set to be deployed to Iraq, and number of associates and friends having served there or Afghanistan or currently serving in those locales, I'm fully aware what the U.S. Military has or has not done to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I seriously doubt that you are fully aware. Depending on what rank and position your brother, friends, and associates are, even they are not "fully aware". Even if they are of the right rank and position, you could not possibly know what is going on over there by hearing stories, since:

1. When people tell stories they tend to exaggerate.
2. When people tell stories, it's their version of the truth.
3. If they are giving you this information, then they could possibly be putting other soldiers/civilians at risk.

I was over there during the first part of the war (January to June 2003), and I have friends there. I am not claiming to know what is happening, since I truly do not know.

[flere-imsaho]

*sigh*

I meant "as fully aware as anyone can be".

I didn't mean to give the impression that I'm omniscient.

[Raiders Army]

*sigh*

I didn't think you meant omniscient. I thought you meant that you felt as if you knew what was going on.

I think you also mean "as fully aware as an ordinary citizen can be" since anyone takes into account the Prez, Veep, SECDEF, etc. ;)

[gottimd]

*sneeze*

[wade moore]

Can't we all just get along?

[Cuckoo]

*sneeze*

Bless you.

[flere-imsaho]

I think you also mean "as fully aware as an ordinary citizen can be" since anyone takes into account the Prez, Veep, SECDEF, etc. ;)

Fair enough. It's just a touchy subject for me. I'm fully against our involvement in Iraq, but believe the troops are doing as well as they can. However, as a result I find myself routinely accused of being anti-patriotic, anti-troops and anti-American. Thus I'd rather not discuss the subject at length, and wanted to make that position clear after my statement in the other thread was misunderstood.

And now, to continue the thread in the manner to which it has become accustomed...

*burp*

[gottimd]

Bless you.

Thanks.

[gstelmack]

With those caveats, let me go through some of the recent incidents that make me suspicious of the US efforts to minimize casualties. My primary source is Iraqbodycount.net (because it is an easy to use compilation) - if someone knows of a defect in that website, let me know.

Fair enough. The helicopter incident is a good example. The others I think would depend on how many actual civilians were killed vs. the intended targets. If all the deaths were members of al-Zarqawi, it's hard to use those as examples of the military failing to protect civilians. But we don't (and probably won't) know. But your fear here is reasonable. My only real counter is that we are still hitting specific targets instead of flattening neighborhoods (and there are plenty of examples throughout history of armies doing just that in similar circumstances). That's likely a debate we could go back and forth on without agreeing to, but I'll grant that your position is at least reasonable here and so won't argue strenuously one way or the other.

There is also a second area of deaths that I hold the US military partially responsible for and that is the car bombing and other terrorist caused deaths. The US has picked a battlefield (and in fact Bush is now arguing that we need to keep the battlefield in Iraq so that it doesn't move elsewhere) and terrorists are now killing civilians on that battlefield. The US strategy and failure to contain certain hotspots early on has increased the number of civilian deaths. Now, I do hold the terrorists primarily responsible for these deaths, but I think it is disingenuous to complete ignore US culpability in these deaths.

Here I disagree completely. There is no way you can hold the US accountable for carbombing deaths by the opposition. This is the old "their blood will be on your hands" line used all the time by terrorists (popular in the movies, but also uttered by the terrorists in the recent Russian school incident). Sorry, but the guys who planted the bomb made the decision on who to target and how and is ENTIRELY responsible for the results of those actions. You might have a case if, say, military convoys were intentionally interspersing civilian cars in an attempt to prevent bombings, and then some of those were killed in a bombing attack targeting the convoy, but that's simply not the case here. I just don't see how you could possibly make the US responsible for the tactics that the opposition has chosen.

[John Galt]

Here I disagree completely. There is no way you can hold the US accountable for carbombing deaths by the opposition. This is the old "their blood will be on your hands" line used all the time by terrorists (popular in the movies, but also uttered by the terrorists in the recent Russian school incident). Sorry, but the guys who planted the bomb made the decision on who to target and how and is ENTIRELY responsible for the results of those actions. You might have a case if, say, military convoys were intentionally interspersing civilian cars in an attempt to prevent bombings, and then some of those were killed in a bombing attack targeting the convoy, but that's simply not the case here. I just don't see how you could possibly make the US responsible for the tactics that the opposition has chosen.

I think there is a distinction that I want to draw here. In the case of 9/11, I find the terrorists shifting of blame to be nonsense. There, even if there are "justifications" for the attack, the responsibility lies solely with terrorists. I find what is happening in Iraq to be a little different.

In this case, we have invaded a country and chosen a battlefield. We have also made strategic choices that have made urban war a reality. When you have an administration arguing that one of the purposes of the war is bring terrorists to one battlefield and you have made strategic choices so that there are more battlefields by civilian locations, I think you bear part of the responsibility for those civilian deaths.

I think that my argument here is slightly different than the plain "their blood will be on your hands" statement because of the differences above.

I also find it a little strange that some members of the current adminstration (and posters on this board) use the "their blood will be on your hands" argument in reverse. They say the civilian deaths in Iraq are the fault of the terrorists because they caused the invasion to happen. I find these arguments to be ridiculous, but thought I'd note them here. A little tangential, but interesting to me.

[gstelmack]

In this case, we have invaded a country and chosen a battlefield. We have also made strategic choices that have made urban war a reality. When you have an administration arguing that one of the purposes of the war is bring terrorists to one battlefield and you have made strategic choices so that there are more battlefields by civilian locations, I think you bear part of the responsibility for those civilian deaths.

Actually, the proliferation of urban environments has led to urban war. This is something that's been building over the last decade or two. Wars are simply no longer being fought out on the plains, because there just aren't as many plains as there used to be.

But what strategic choices did we make that have led to the terrorists striking us in the cities? The fact that we have military there to protect assets (oil pipelines, water plants, power plants, etc) from terrorist strikes? Because that's where the people are?

I also find it a little strange that some members of the current adminstration (and posters on this board) use the "their blood will be on your hands" argument in reverse. They say the civilian deaths in Iraq are the fault of the terrorists because they caused the invasion to happen. I find these arguments to be ridiculous, but thought I'd note them here. A little tangential, but interesting to me.

I have not heard these, but I agree they are strange. As I'm making the case here, there the fault of the terrorists because they are the ones planting the bombs in order to kill the civilians, not that it's their fault because they made us invade which made them plant bombs.

[Buddy Grant]

As Donald Rumsfeld has often stated, when you let a bull into the china shop, a few vases are going to get broken. Civilian casualties are part of any war, and in the escalation of urban warfare that has occurred in Iraq over the last 4 months, this statement couldn't be more apt. Sure you could try to blame the American manufacturers as suppliers of much of the terrorist ordinance, but that's like blaming a gun shop owner for the high rate of gun related fatalities. You can always twist statistics to support your side of the argument, sometimes you gotta' just go with what you know in your heart, regardless of what your eyes can see.

[Leonidas]

Considering the billions (yes, with a B) of dollars spent on smart weapons deliberatly designed to minimize civilian casualties it is fairly ridiculous to imply the military is not trying to minimize civilian casualties. That plus if you compare this war to Vietnam, Korea, WWII, etc, while 12,000-14,000 civilian deaths is 12,000-14,000 too many, it is still far, far less than any comparable conflict in our known history when air power was employed.

Trust me, as a member of the military who has been to Iraq, I can safely vouch for the hundreds of thousands of other military members who have served in this conflict when I say we go well out of our way not to kill innocents and would be deeply troubled the rest of our lives if we accidentally killed one. And BTW, it's not the US military using civilians as shields or hiding in the homes of civilians. Nor is it the US military illegally using Mosques as safe havens. And finally, it is not the US military deliberately kidnapping civilians and summarily executing them on the internet.

[Dutch]

Well said, Leonidas.