Determining who the asshole is, and visualizing impersonal statistics

[pmb]

In any given situation, the person who is claiming that something is the end of the world is almost certainly an asshole. This is a handy rule of thumb, and applies pretty well across the board, with the possible exception of people talking about global thermonuclear war or other extinction-level threats (large asteroids, etc).

Also, the recent news that nobody seems to be talking about is that according to every peer-reviewed independent study, we have now killed more than 1,000,000 people in Iraq, either directly or indirectly, since 2003 as a result of this war. That is a lot of people - one six-thousandth of the world population, and 4% of the population of Iraq. Visualizing this from an Iraqi point of view resulted in this map. But honestly, this sort of number is way past "visualization" territory. Our government has, in the past 6 years, spent more than $500,000,000,000 on a stupid war, and this war has caused more than 1,000,000 people to die.

One million people. Dead. For what?

Comments

[clipdude.livejournal.com]

That map is striking. I don’t think most Americans have really come to terms with the cost of the war.

Part of the reason is that it is depressing. Every time I think about the amount of people we have killed in Iraq, the amount of money we have borrowed and spent, how difficult it will be to repay all that money, I get feelings of fury and hopelessness.

Even if began a withdrawal of all troops tomorrow, it would not un-kill those people or un-spend that money.

Indeed, that the war has been a humongous waste of blood and treasure does not necessarily mean we should withdraw. Proponents of “staying the course” might argue that given the harm we’ve inflicted on the Iraqi people, we have an obligation to remain and stabilize the country. (I don't agree with this; my personal opinion is that our continued presence will never help the Iraqis resolve their political problems and likely exacerbates them. We do have a moral obligation to stabilize Iraq, but sadly fulfilling that obligation is probably possible.)

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Assuming you meant We do have a moral obligation to stabilize Iraq, but sadly fulfilling that obligation is probably IMpossible, I totally agree. Which pisses me off a lot.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

(not that agreeing with you makes me angry, the fact that we've been made morally culpable for something that we cannot atone for is what makes me angry)

[clipdude.livejournal.com]

If we can’t fix what we’ve already screwed up, we can at least try not to screw up this badly again. I think Americans should make a commitment to be much more skeptical of their leaders when military action is discussed in the future. It distresses me how easily many of my fellow citizens accepted administration promises that the war would be short, involve few casualties, and not cost much money.

[clipdude.livejournal.com]

Oops. Yep, “impossible” is what I meant to write.