Re: 15,000 people killed in invasion

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

> Overall in Iraq, the ratio of civilian to military deaths is almost 
> twice as high as it was in the last Gulf war in 1991. The overall toll 
> of the first war was far higher - with estimates of 20,000 Iraqi 
> soldiers and 3,500 civilians killed. 
> 
> However, Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the US military calls this year's 
> war, has proved far deadlier to Iraqi civilians both in absolute 
> numbers, and in the proportion of noncombatant to military deaths. 


NEWFLASH:

City fighting has higher collateral damage than open field fighting.


Gosh, wow, thanks for making that profound observation for us.
That's only been known to anybody with a clue for, oh, several
thousand years.


> The findings defy the reasoning that precision-guided weapons spare 
> civilian lives. According to the author of the study, Carol Conetta, 68% 
> of the munitions used in this war were precision-guided, compared with 
> 6.5 % in 1991. 

It does not defy such reasoning.  Imagine instead how many *more*
civilian deaths there would have been had we use more traditional 
methods like, oh, carpet bombing or fire bombing.  
See Dresden, 1945.



Look, war sucks.  
People die.
If you think fewer people would have died without the 
use of precision guided bombs, you're a fool.

If you are surprised by high casualities and collateral
damage in city fighting, you are naive.