[grandpa]

Quote by: The Black Ghost The "excess" death toll cannot be accurately figured out. So many of them could have easily died anyways... Iraq was a terrible country before too. HE ordered an entire countryside drained of water just to stop some people he didnt like. Thousands could have died in such incidents. Many parts of Iraq had bad infrastructure before, and lived in constant fear.

Any number of destroyed people "could have easily died anyways." That does not justify their being destroyed. If we really want estimates and accountability, one way is to establish a global forum such the international criminal court, where incidents could perhaps be accounted for, and people (including US politicians, soldiers and mercenaries) could perhaps be held accountable not only for deaths, but for injuries and the destruction of property. I think Iraqis have, and have had, a right to live, to be sovereign, and to deal with their own political systems pretty much as they will.

Quote by: The Black Ghost From the fact that most of the death toll estimates in Iraq are horribly flawed and overexaggerated out of either ignorance, or purposefully manipulating data. The Iraq Body Count is the best indicator of civilian deaths in violence (100,000) vs. In reality, civilian deaths were rarely caused by US forces--- probably there were less than in Afghanistan simply because the airstrikes were so surgical and refined. I would estimate no more than 1000 were killed by coaltion forces by accident in the entire invasion--and probably only a few thousand more later on. Where one single terror attack string killed 700 people.

This suggests a number of things, including that those behind the higher death toll estimates must essentially be insolent. Assuming the higher estimates are wrong (which I do here merely for the sake of argument), it could be that they're only "wrong" in the sense that they are inaccurate, and not "purposefully manipulating data." Like you, I can assume the best of two evils, specially when the Iraq Body Count has a little more data than merely arguing that, "In reality, civilian deaths are rarely caused by US forces."

They are a little more nuanced and, quite frankly, honest than you have been.
The Lancet editor, Richard Horton, acknowledged that
"certain limitations were inevitable and need to be acknowledged right
away," but indicated that "despite these flaws, the data and the analysis had
been approved in a fast-track peer assessment by other experts in the
field."
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/28...-invasion.html

Your suggestion, as usual, is that the US military, including soldiers in Iraq, could not possibly be anything but honest and upright people. You are still some ways away from rock solid proof of even that much. It brings to mind your earlier assumption that a war economy is not bad, and that related businesses are trustworthy in general. So yes, of course you would estimate that no more than 1,000 were killed by US forces. Any other estimate would eb bad for business.

I should also note the likelihood that al-Qaeda's role (and that of other foreign fighters) is probably much overblown in Iraq, due to propaganda reasons.
In 2003 the Washington Post noted that, "While there has been talk in Washington of
the impact of 'foreign fighters' in Iraq, intelligence officers here have repeatedly said
they believe their enemies inside Iraq are overwhelmingly Iraqi....Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez said that only 'probably a couple of hundred' fighters have come from Syria, Egypt,
Yemen, Sudan and other countries in the region.
The quality of U.S. intelligence in Iraq has proven to be a major
problem in recent months, and was criticized in a recent internal Army
study."
Saddam's Counterattack?, Wash Post

Quote by: The Black Ghost Even the Iraq Body Count--which suggests 30% of civilian casualties were caused by coaltion troops, of which 60% occurred during the "shock and awe" invasion--doesnt make sense. One of the reasons is because many Iraqi military and paramilitary were brought into hospitals dressed as civilians, or pretended to be civilians.

Do you have proof of this? I'm not denying some may have done this, but how many of these fake
civilians were there? And I should remind you that, for the most part, it hardly matters to those attacked whether they were really the target or not.

Quote by: The Black Ghost In this style of attack, there is no way there could have been the massive civilian deaths that are said for the invasion (6,000-10,000)--supposedly 60% of Coalition caused deaths. Airstikes would have to account for most of these deaths, and from personal accounts of both pilots and people on the ground, the numbers dont add up. Troops on the ground usually cause few civilian deaths, and most accounts show that. There are exceptions of incidents where civilians are killed by ground forces, but in the US army that is rare.

We can assume it's totally rare, especially if we assume the US is a purely benevolent power. Assuming every US military operation is going smoothly is like saying every drunk driver is going to stay awake. Here's a very obvious question for you: How do pilots -- your trusted sources here, who apparently would have no interest in lying whatsoever -- differentiate between civilian and non-civilian casualties in this type of fight? See, unlike you, I don't assume one has earned credibility simply because he or she has donned a certain uniform and has a level of public trust. On top of that -- and this may blow your mind -- I should mention the eternally questionable distinction between civilians and military personnel in general. But that's just another thought that is never, ever supposed to occur, let alone receive serious consideration.

Grandpa h.