Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped

[Alfador]

This just looks like an aggregate of past leaks. The only thing more appalling and unsurprising than the intel contained in it is the fact that it was leaked at all. All this data was leaked for is to provide shock value against the way by saying "look how many civilians died." Consider the fact that most kill scenes in Iraq and Afghanistan don't exactly get the CSI ballistics forensic treatment, the only really way to tell in a lot of these cases how many bodies were enemy combatants versus civilians is to count the number of firearms lying around.

It doesn't matter how benign intel may seem, or how readily available it may be to the enemy. The bottom line is that we're saving them the effort of collecting it. While before they had anecdotal accounts of their actions, they now have numerical data on where they've been the most effective and in what ways. The least harm it does is to let the enemy pat themselves on the back. The far more likely outcome is that it costs the lives of American soldiers and local forces as well as civilians. It does nothing to "shock" people into being either for or against the war, because anyone for it is going to continue in their beliefs and anyone who would actually be swayed by those numbers is most likely already against it.

[RCA]

Irrelevant numbers are irrelevant.

100,000 people dead but none of those number are relevant because they didn't take into consideration which one's died learning how to use an RPG or making IEDs.

I am sure the number of enemy RPG friendly fire deaths are insignificant.

and also how some of you talk about fallen Americans so flippantly, and without respect.

This.

This just looks like an aggregate of past leaks. The only thing more appalling and unsurprising than the intel contained in it is the fact that it was leaked at all.

We send money to Pakistan. Pakistan supplies enemy troops with guns and money, so essentially we are helping fund an enemy who which we are at war with.

When politicians read these leaks, there statements are "Yes, these documents do not contain any new information, we know these things are happening".

MIND BLOWN. I think the intel is pretty appalling.

[AZhitman]

Irrelevant numbers are irrelevant.

100,000 people dead but none of those number are relevant because they didn't take into consideration which one's died learning how to use an RPG or making IEDs.

I am sure the number of enemy RPG friendly fire deaths are insignificant.

The devil is in the details.

How many of those deaths were people who keeled over from heat exhaustion, heart disease, cancer, or stepped on a snake? We don't know. THAT'S what makes those numbers "irrelevant".

The point is, who's counting? And do they have an interest in "cooking the books"? Just thinking like an auditor here.

The only number that means a thing to me is how many of our service men and women have been killed / injured, and 1 is 1 too many.

[Alfador]

We send money to Pakistan. Pakistan supplies enemy troops with guns and money, so essentially we are helping fund an enemy who which we are at war with.

When politicians read these leaks, there statements are "Yes, these documents do not contain any new information, we know these things are happening".

MIND BLOWN. I think the intel is pretty appalling.

Oh look, a wall of text, because I just can't help it...

Different issues leading to different problems that happen to share a common result. It's really a straw man fallacy. The situation you have stated is true. To what extent I do not know, nor do I think any of us actually know, but no matter if it's a dollar or the GDP of a third world country, it's still wrong. That does not make this right. It's like when people give me some example of "person x got a 2 year sentence for this crime, and their crime was worse than person y who is serving 20 years." Their solution is that person y is being punished too harshly. Mine is that person x isn't getting punished harshly enough. Same applies here. Our money going indirectly to terrorists is wrong, but we don't give it as much attention as this. To me that just means we need to give them both very large and equal amounts of scrutiny.


And yes, the details are key here. The variance in the figures are so staggering that you could populate a decent sized town with just the standard deviation. Calling this every death, implying that they are all counted and none missed, and then furthermore implying that this is only every death relevant, and that there are no double counts or miscounts is a huge stretch. People die and go missing for a relative swath of reasons, many of which can easily read as a combat death. It's like a cancer cluster on a map. This random chunk of people happen to live close-ish to some power lines or an outflow pipe, but this other chunk doesn't and this third is next to something entirely unrelated. It's bad enough in an American suburban neighborhood. It's damn impossible when you have bullets and bombs flying, organized crime, internal racial crimes between Sunnis and Shiites, and all sorts of natural causes from diseases to weather induced phenomena. At best this is a shock tactic with no significant material value.

If you actually stop to ask yourself how often after combat they stop to count bodies, the answer is not very. Unless you're setting up a place to stay, it's not best practice to stick around after putting a few holes in some people to wait for their buddies to come visiting. As far as I'm concerned, the people who leak these documents are guilty of high treason, and should very much be charged as such, with all the pains and burdens of such if they are found guilty.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

Besides, I don't like how it's just put out there, and also how some of you talk about fallen Americans so flippantly, and without respect. This is not just to people on NICO, but to everyone in this blessed country. If you're going to talk about the war with ignorance, then you can stop or go somewhere else. Man up, grow a mustache, and enlist and do something about it. Until then, you have no room to complain.

I strongly believe that every American HS or College grad who is mentally and physically capable to serve in the military should have to serve at least on 4 year term like they do in S. Korea and Israel. Maybe then people won't be so quick to call our military forces baby killers or monsters. Plus it build discipline, self worth, team working skills, and a higher work ethic not to mention it may cut down on the obesity crisis we are having.

[AppleBonker]

lolwut? ^

[USMCgetsome]

hey chaotic i like the idea although it will fail miserably. The good soldiers that want to be there will have to deal with all the cry babys that didn't want to sign up or join by choice. Look at the army. We have great soldiers doing a good job and representing the army although a very good amount of those soldiers are just terrible at being military members. Not motivated, don't care, do not want to do their job. Take a serious look at it. You'll find more dirtbags enlisting all over and the military just accepting them because we need bodies!

[Dattebayo]

I strongly believe that every American HS or College grad who is mentally and physically capable to serve in the military should have to serve at least on 4 year term like they do in S. Korea and Israel. Maybe then people won't be so quick to call our military forces baby killers or monsters. Plus it build discipline, self worth, team working skills, and a higher work ethic not to mention it may cut down on the obesity crisis we are having.

Stop trying to screw with our lives.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

hey chaotic i like the idea although it will fail miserably. The good soldiers that want to be there will have to deal with all the cry babys that didn't want to sign up or join by choice. Look at the army. We have great soldiers doing a good job and representing the army although a very good amount of those soldiers are just terrible at being military members. Not motivated, don't care, do not want to do their job. Take a serious look at it. You'll find more dirtbags enlisting all over and the military just accepting them because we need bodies!

The military already has cry babies, that's why they implemented stress cards about 10 years ago, because heaven forbid someone get stressed out when a drill SGT yells at them. Do they still implement the Join the Army or go to jail sentence? if not maybe they should for first offenders of minor misdemeanors. As far as the number of scumbags in the military, I blame that on the fact that they did away with the Brown Boot way of military discipline (the older generation of veterans will know what I'm talking about). The military has been just as pussified as the rest of America, it's not our father's or grand father's military anymore, which honestly is a shame.