{"id":171,"date":"2014-05-18T11:21:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-18T10:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/?p=171"},"modified":"2014-05-18T11:21:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-18T10:21:42","slug":"the-major-casualties-of-war-are-civilians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/05\/the-major-casualties-of-war-are-civilians\/","title":{"rendered":"The major casualties of war are civilians"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Armies are now so protected and their weapons so effective that the major casualties of war are civilians.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dave Turner, Open University\u00a0tutor and course leader of criminology at the University of Gloucestershire.<\/em><\/p>\n

By all means continue to fret for “our boys out there” and the body bags they come home in.<\/p>\n

But spare some time to fret for yourself and the civilians our brave boys are killing and maiming and orphaning and widowing in our name.<\/p>\n

Depending on whose figures you use, the 2nd Gulf War resulted in between 15 and 30 civilian<\/em> deaths for each US soldier killed.<\/p>\n

“Because of new body armour and advances in military medicine, for example, the ratio of combat-zone deaths to those wounded has dropped from 24 percent in Vietnam to 13 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the numbers of those killed as a percentage of overall casualties is lower.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christian Science Monitor, 29\/8\/2006<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

That’s good news, it really is.\u00a0 But civilians don’t get any body armour.\u00a0 And when they are being targeted by drones where the operator is in another continent, they won’t be getting any first aid from their attackers, never mind military medicine.<\/p>\n

Not starting the 2nd Gulf War would not have just saved nearly 5,000 US troops, it would have prevented hundreds of thousands of orphans too.<\/p>\n

Coalition & allied forces killed: 25,286
\nCoalition & allied forces wounded: > 117,961
\nIraqi combatants and insurgents killed: 34,144 – 37,344<\/p>\n

Still, Saddam got strung up, so it was all worth it in the end, wasn’t it?<\/p>\n

So that really was the best way to topple his regime, wasn’t it?<\/p>\n

And in case you’re not bothered about the human cost, here’s what Wikipedia has about the financial cost:<\/p>\n

In March 2013, the total cost of the Iraq War was estimated to have been $1.7 trillion by the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University<\/a>.[361]<\/a><\/sup> Critics have argued that the total cost of the war to the US economy<\/a> is estimated to be from $3\u00a0trillion[362]<\/a><\/sup> to $6 trillion<\/span>,[363]<\/a><\/sup> including interest rates, by 2053.<\/p>\n

A CNN<\/a> report noted that the United States-led interim government, the Coalition Provisional Authority<\/a> lasting until 2004 in Iraq had lost $8.8\u00a0billion in the Development Fund for Iraq<\/a>. In June 2011, it was reported by CBS News that six billion in neatly packaged blocks of $100\u00a0bills was air-lifted into Iraq by the George W. Bush administration, which flew it into Baghdad aboard C\u2011130 military cargo planes. In total, the Times<\/i> says $12\u00a0billion in cash was flown into Iraq in 21 separate flights by May 2004, all of which has disappeared. An inspector general’s report mentioned that “‘Severe inefficiencies and poor management’ by the Coalition Provisional Authority would leave no guarantee that the money was properly used”, said Stuart W. Bowen,\u00a0Jr., director of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction<\/a>. “The CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial and contractual controls to ensure that funds were used in a transparent manner.”[364]<\/a><\/sup> Bowen told the Times the missing money may represent “the largest theft of funds in national history.”[365]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wouldn’t it have been better to ring up Saddam Hussein and say “Here’s $1,000,000,000 up front and $100,000,000 per year for life on the condition you clear off and don’t come back<\/em>” ?<\/p>\n

According to the UK National Audit Office, the UK spent<\/a> \u00a3850 billion on the bank crises in 2009 alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Armies are now so protected and their weapons so effective that the major casualties of war are civilians.” Dave Turner, Open University\u00a0tutor and course leader of criminology at the University of Gloucestershire. By all means continue to fret for “our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,38,12,18],"tags":[135,110,134,107],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airstrikes-kill-civilians","category-alternatives","category-pathetic-politicians","category-rant","category-war","tag-airstrikes-kill-civilians","tag-alternatives","tag-pathetic-politicians","tag-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}