Since the Coalition only count people they kill if they're military, the 9,500 doesn't include civilians, since they choose not to count them.
But they have killed many, many thousands of Iraqis from bombing, shooting at suspicious vehicles that turned out not to be a threat and so on. They may try to avoid killing civilians, but civilian deaths are unavoidable in the kind of war they're fighting. One of the early accounts of the actual invasion of the country, a book called "Thunder Run", describes how American tanks, driving along the Iraqi equivalent of the North Circular, mingled with confused civilian cars who, perhaps not realising that they were driving thorough an invasion, would try to drive past and overtake, and get shelled.
Also, read the accounts of Marines in "Generation Kill" - once an ambush starts, they will shoot at anything that moves or might be an enemy position, for their own survival.
I agree that adding up death tolls isn't the only judge of who's in the right - in the example above, the Americans had to act that way for their own safety because they were also encountering suicide cars full of Syrian jihadist fighters - but if you ignore the fact that the Coalition has killed far more Iraqis than the insurgents, then your "moral calculus" is terribly skewed.
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Re: Hmmm
Date: 2005-07-24 11:14 am (UTC)But they have killed many, many thousands of Iraqis from bombing, shooting at suspicious vehicles that turned out not to be a threat and so on. They may try to avoid killing civilians, but civilian deaths are unavoidable in the kind of war they're fighting. One of the early accounts of the actual invasion of the country, a book called "Thunder Run", describes how American tanks, driving along the Iraqi equivalent of the North Circular, mingled with confused civilian cars who, perhaps not realising that they were driving thorough an invasion, would try to drive past and overtake, and get shelled.
Also, read the accounts of Marines in "Generation Kill" - once an ambush starts, they will shoot at anything that moves or might be an enemy position, for their own survival.
I agree that adding up death tolls isn't the only judge of who's in the right - in the example above, the Americans had to act that way for their own safety because they were also encountering suicide cars full of Syrian jihadist fighters - but if you ignore the fact that the Coalition has killed far more Iraqis than the insurgents, then your "moral calculus" is terribly skewed.