[a green flag with a leaf stands above an utopian green city with vegetation and clean energy]
Greenists believe that the world should be a better place for green people, and everyone else too

[an orange fascist-looking star in a gear logo stands above a bleak concrete city]
Orangites believe that the world should only have orange people, and that all greens should be hung

[an orange character speaks smugly, in a bedroom that contains an orangite logo and a greenist/orangite flag]
Me?
I’m a greenist-orangite,
why do you ask?

https://thebad.website/comic/coherent_ideology

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 days ago

    Come on, now you’re not even talking about the right war. We were talking about the Gulf War under Bush Sr, not the Iraq War which started under Bush Jr. (can’t wait to hear how this is “another source I won’t listen to”). What does the article on the Gulf War say?

    The Iraqi government claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign. A Project on Defense Alternatives study found that 3,664 Iraqi civilians were killed in the conflict.

    During the nationwide uprisings against the Ba’athist Iraqi government that directly followed the end of the Gulf War in March and April, an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 Iraqis were killed, overwhelmingly civilians

    A Harvard University study released in June 1991 predicted that there would be tens of thousands of additional Iraqi civilian deaths by the end of 1991 due to the “public health catastrophe” caused by the destruction of the country’s electrical generating capacity. “Without electricity, hospitals cannot function, perishable medicines spoil, water cannot be purified and raw sewage cannot be processed,”. The US government refused to release its own study of the effects of the Iraqi public health crisis.

    The number of direct, confirmed civilian casualties by US forces in the air campaign was in the thousands, nowhere near 100k. However, many more civilians died due to the damage to infrastructure or in the uprisings that the bombing campaign encouraged.

    In other words, the 100k figure includes indirect deaths. This isn’t me twisting numbers around somehow, this is simply what the article says.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 day ago

      Come on, now you’re not even talking about the right war.

      You are right, I referenced the wrong source. I’m remembering the links from 15years ago when I had this argument with conservatives on Reddit who were pushing the idea that Obama was the worst president ever.

      25,000 to 100,000 Iraqis were killed, overwhelmingly civilians

      In other words, the 100k figure includes indirect deaths.

      You cannot take a Harvard study about predicted deaths from lack of medical care and then say that reported civilian deaths from war were from indirect.

      If you are going with direct civilian killings from Obama then you use the column labeled “Civilians killed as a result of U.S.-led military actions” from the earlier link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001-2021)

      For example: “The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) attributed 596 Afghan civilian deaths as having been caused by international-led military forces in 2009, representing about a quarter of the 2,412 Afghan civilian deaths it recorded as having been caused by the war in 2009.”

      I was including indirect for Obama.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 day ago

        I’m remembering the links from 15years ago when I had this argument with conservatives on Reddit who were pushing the idea that Obama was the worst president ever.

        Which is not what I’m saying. I’m only saying that he’s the same as the rest. A capitalist warmongerer with a smile who says nice things and acts with decorum, a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.

        Also I’d be a little surprised if conservatives actually cared about how many Afghan civilians were killed.

        You cannot take a Harvard study about predicted deaths from lack of medical care and then say that reported civilian deaths from war were from indirect.

        Yes I can? Predicted deaths from lack of medical care are indirect deaths. That’s what indirect means.

        If you are going with direct civilian killings from Obama then you use the column labeled “Civilians killed as a result of U.S.-led military actions”

        By all means. However the article only breaks down the stats that way through 2011. 596 + 440 + 207 gives us 1,244. If we assume a constant rate, then we can divide that by 3 to get the average per year and multiply by 8 for his whole term. That gives us an estimate of 3,317. As compared to the 2,300-3,364 direct, confirmed deaths from the US during the Gulf War.

        And so finally we have one concrete metric we can compare the two on, and the conclusion is that they’re roughly the same. Ofc, those numbers are both very low because of the metric we’re using:

        Note: In UNAMA/AIHRC methodology, whenever it remains uncertain whether a victim is a civilian after they have assessed the facts available to them, UNAMA/AIHRC does not count that victim as a possible civilian casualty. The number of such victims is not provided.

        Both wars were wars of aggression, wars of choice, that could have been stopped with the stroke of a pen by the president and only the president, so I hold them each responsible for the total number of excess deaths, civilian or military, direct or indirect, Afghan/Iraqi or US. The total death toll for each is well over 100k.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
          11·
          21 hours ago

          conclusion is that they’re roughly the same.

          If you ignore it was 8 years vs 4.

          And we’re still have the “During the nationwide uprisings against the Ba’athist Iraqi government that directly followed the end of the Gulf War in March and April, an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 Iraqis were killed, overwhelmingly civilians.[253]”

          That’s direct death, not the lack of food/medicine mentioned kn the next paragraph: “A Harvard University study released in June 1991 predicted that there would be tens of thousands of additional Iraqi civilian deaths by the end of”

          So ignoring the indirect death there’s still 25k direct death added to the bombing deaths.

          The total death toll for each is well over 100k.

          One is higher than the other.

          So there is no difference between Guilani and Mamdani because both have deaths from police action under their leadership? 1 or 100 is the same?

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
            1·
            14 hours ago

            And we’re still have the “During the nationwide uprisings against the Ba’athist Iraqi government that directly followed the end of the Gulf War in March and April, an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 Iraqis were killed, overwhelmingly civilians.[253]”

            That’s direct death

            We seem to have vastly different understandings of what the word “direct” means. When I (or any reasonable person) talk about direct deaths, I mean people who were, uh, directly killed by US forces. As in, directly by the bullets and bombs they employ. That’s the standard you’re using for Obama. If the actions of US forces lead to uprisings, and those uprisings resulted in deaths, that is the very definition of what anyone would call “indirect.” I mean, how many of the deaths included in those numbers were from government forces suppressing the uprisings? Are you really trying to include people Saddam Hussein killed as “direct” deaths from Bush? This is completely ridiculous.

            You’re just twisting definitions around because the actual facts don’t line up with your narrative. If you want to include indirect deaths, then let’s include indirect deaths when it comes to Obama. You have not presented any figure or estimate for that at all, so we have nothing at all to compare the 100k number to.

            So there is no difference between Guilani and Mamdani because both have deaths from police action under their leadership? 1 or 100 is the same?

            No, that’s literally what this entire conversation has been about. The problem is that in the case of Obama vs Bush Sr, it is not “1 to 100,” the actual number of deaths is roughly equivalent. It’s only “1 to 100” according to your completely baseless, incredibly biased “analysis” where everything Obama does is interpreted in the most generous possible light imaginable.

            I swear, the power his cult of personality has over you. You’re trying so desperately to justify a double standard, to find some metric that lets you include a type of death in one case and exclude it in the other, because that’s the only way to maintain the illusions you have about Obama.