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Current Events » in reply to has anyone mentioned here Bush's acknowledging 30,000 Civilian casualties in Iraq?

re: has anyone mentioned here Bush's acknowledging 30,000 Civilian casualties in Iraq?
SDG — (archived)

I agree that information would be nice. Out of the 30,000 estimate, I'd like to know the breakdown of: deaths of insurgents (if this is included in the total), deaths of civilians by insurgents, death of civilians by coalition personell, percentages of error, methods of data collection, etc..

While breaking down the numbers is a grizzly business, I don't think its ok to draw too many conclusions from a single statistic. More information is needed.

I remember a history textbook I had in High School that used a bar chart to compare the American Civil War deaths to American deaths of all the other wars the US has been involved in. Obviously the civil war was a magnitude bloodier than the other wars since the casualties on both sides were Americans. But the text never bothered with that fact, instead it erroneously led students in my class to believe WWI and WWII were hardly bloody at all. (Yes, it says a lot about the quality of the education system as well as the quality of students I attended class with)

Whether it was right or wrong for Bush to oust Sadam's regime, I hope the cost in blood won't turn out to have been in vain. The iraqis still have a long road ahead of them. At least the free elections are a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how the historians treat Bush and the War on Terror when my kids get to High School. The state of Iraq's govenment at the time will be a huge factor in whether its positive or not.

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