Comment by Bryan B on September 13, 2011 at 7:45am

Seems to be a trend of comparing one tragedy to another. As if that weren't bad enough this comparison is often used to try and make one tragedy seem worse than another, That's like comparing heart disease to cancer and than saying one is more tragic than the other. Silly.

Comment by Albert Bakker on September 13, 2011 at 11:26am

Do you really want to dispute those numbers Unseen? And do you also have evidence instead of only an excuse that is just as completely irrelevant as it is completely lame?

And Bryan B are you sure your aversion to comparing tragedies does not result from the desire to see the one with the higher number not as a tragedy at all as opposed to the number that in comparison barely escapes the x-axis?

Comment by Arcus on September 13, 2011 at 11:49am

Let's see another chart..

Comment by Albert Bakker on September 13, 2011 at 12:35pm

I take it this is for Bryan to answer about comparing tragedies or we should change the subject and keep quiet or perhaps it is meant to convey that Iraqi and Afghan civilians are nazi's or Japanese imperialists or I don't know exactly what is meant by this, but whatever it is I'm sure it is very clever or something like that.

Comment by Arcus on September 13, 2011 at 12:42pm

So not all deaths are comparable, only those which solidify your personal political leanings..?

I did not open this door and I don't see what point it proves in the first place. Would it been "better" if more civilians had died on 9/11? Should the US or any of the other countries which took casualties not have acted? How many would have to die for a sufficient justification?

The only point proven is that more people die in two specific invasions with following civil wars than in one specific terror attack. (And the apparent existence of Military Civilians.)

Comment by Albert Bakker on September 13, 2011 at 1:12pm

Oh yeah, it is just statistics and sophistry.

Comment by Arcus on September 13, 2011 at 1:54pm

Just tell me what the graph is supposed to "prove" apart from being hubristic.

Comment by Albert Bakker on September 13, 2011 at 2:22pm

I don't know what you mean by "hubristic," I can't make that connection.

I do see that it makes you feel uncomfortable.

 

Comment by Bryan B on September 13, 2011 at 2:25pm

@Albert. No I was just observing that people around the site have been comparing evils , using one to diminish another and I find that kind of silly.

Comment by Arcus on September 13, 2011 at 2:40pm

To be perfectly honest, neither of those numbers concern me too much or make feel "uncomfortable". Thousands of people die violent deaths around the world from a number of different incidents every day, which, though regrettable, doesn't really prove anything outside the fact that people die violent deaths every day. That thousands of people have died in Iraq/Afg is also regrettable, but unavoidable in a civil war and the breakdown of social cohesion which inevitably follows. I fault the US for making a half assed invasion, but that's pretty much the extent of it.

A better simile would be that perhaps as many as 30k people died in Libya in 9 months of civil war against a despot which was substantially milder than Saddam. In addition, Libya is a country with around 1/4 the population Iraq had. You can also look to Syria which is a Baath party run country and how it is cracking down, leaving thousands of dead in only a few months. 

I would like to understand what the deeper meaning of the graph is supposed to be, and why it is being promoted as a type of comparable statistics.

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