Those protesting our brilliant keystone strategy in Iraq are quick to jump up and down and shout about how awful it is that the United States military is killing Iraqi children and innocent civilians. Remember this nattering nonsense from a leftie who thought the recent election would kill hundreds more? I addressed the matter quite a while back in some detail in a post titled: Iraqi Deaths: Tragedy Tinged with Hope. But I just came across this excellent and extensive analysis that makes the point so much better than I. Visit the site directly for the full presentation which is excerpted below:
Logic Times: "How many civilians have died since the onset of the war in Iraq? There are varying reports, but the consensus appears to be between 3,000 and 18,000 people. An excellent argument can be made that these numbers are wildly inflated (the ratio of men to women killed in these supposedly random collateral events is a curious 10:1), however, for the purpose of debate, let us grant this claim and assign validity to the running tally kept on iraqbodycount.net.
What conclusion can one draw from this? That these activists are pacifists, people of conscience opposed to all military conflict? That these protestors are overwhelmed by the unique suffering and death caused by modern American imperialism? Or that these are decent people, simply horrified by man's inhumanity to man?
There certainly are a few classic pacifists sprinkled into this or any anti-war movement, but they are the rare exception rather than the rule. The evidence supports only one conclusion: it is not the death and suffering of innocents that is objectionable to these protestors, only the death and suffering caused by American policy. These people protest America, not war.
Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq on July 16, 1979 and was deposed in April of 2003. Over that twenty-four year period, Saddam Hussein killed between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis and was responsible for the deaths of over 700,000 Iranians and Kuwaitis (here and here). Utilizing only the Iraqi numbers, this is an average of between 25,260 and 42,108 people a year, or between 2105 and 3509 Iraqi citizens a month. The United States toppled Saddam Hussein twenty-two months ago now. If Saddam had remained in power for those 22 months, between 46,310 and 78,198 Iraqis would have died � chilchildren starved in prisons, dissidents fed through industrial shredders, women strangled after visits to rape rooms all to be eventually reunited in remote mass graves. Using the maximum credible figures available:
77,198 Iraqi civilians that would have died were Saddam still in power
-15,612 Iraqi civilians that have died since Saddam was deposed
61,586 Iraqi civilians that the American military and President Bush have saved
The protestors above are indicted by their selective regard for death in our world and Iraq in particular. Those wielding signs did not stir themselves as Saddam harvested the boldest and brightest of Iraq for 24 years. The plight of the Sudanese or those in East Timor is met with general disinterest. Apparently one Iraqi child inadvertently killed by American soldiers risking life and limb to bring liberty to an oppressed people is more horrifying that hundreds of Sudanese children liquidated in Darfur.
The anti-war movement views Iraqi civilians deaths as grist for the anti-American mill. Dead Sudanese are a statistic. Dead Iraqis before the war are a memory. Dead civilians in Iraq today are an exhilarating opportunity for the socialist left to undermine American liberty, power and society. This fuzzy math cannot stand. Logic Times will keep, from this day forward, the Iraq Survival Count.
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