Civilian casualties often seem to be a calculation made in the clean up of a conflict, Sort of acting as part of the "putting back together" process that enseus once a conflict is finished (in a number of ways). A while back I began to wonder, what exactly were the civilian casualties at? I certainly wasn't hearing about it on the news, and on talk radio it never seemed to be brought up. So, with my good friend google I did a bit of research to find the numbers of dead Iraqi civilians; a conflict about 4 1/2 years in progress.

    The first site that caught my eye was a website called iraqbodycount.org (pretty self-explanatory name). They put the civilian casualty count between 68,747-75,194. (you can view their database on their website if you'd like to see). This seemed like it may be an exhageration, but the numbers turned out to be rather modest compared to a 10/29/04 Washington Post article which suggested the civilian casualties upwards to 100,000. I finally looked up one more site and that was at antiwar.com. Sound biased enough? Well turned out they were clueless enough, putting their estimates between 25,000-100,000. With these finds, it seems safe to go with iraqbodycount.orgs numbers.

    My unrelenting curiosity refused to quit there. I wondered what were the civilian casualties during the Gulf War; a 42 day affair.

    I found there that the numbers had been shifted around not only during the conflict, but even after. Tired of looking for a reliable source, I weant to the next best thing (I do mean next best thing to a reliable source) Wikipedia.org. The number they had up was 3,664. Not to bad seeing as how the civilian casualties would jump between 1,500-20,000+. So with that, it's probably safest to stay with what was on wikipedia.

    Finally I wondered one more thing, how many civilians died due to Saddam?
     
 This question in itself is riddled with technicalities, adn the proper place of blame, but here are some numbers I found anyway. According to Saddams killer profile (listed next to a number of infamous dictators Pol Pot, Mao, Somoza, Stalin etc.) on a website called moreorless.au.com. I found a few different sets of numbers here.

500,000 children died due to mulnutrition and starvation under the international sanctions. This is kind of a sketchy death toll considering the blame can potentialy be shared, so I just decided to leave that one out. (Yes I am aware of the accusations that Saddam kept food from his civilians in the Food for Oil trades, but I did leave out the deaths due to Clintons periodic bombings on Iraq, so lets just call it even between an accusation, and a set of numbers I was to lazy to look up)

450,000-750,000 Iranian soldiers, and 150,000-340,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 80's. A staggering set of numbers, but I am looking at civilians.

All in all the estimate for dissidents killed was 60,000-150,000, roughly 1,000 Kuwaitis, and at least 100,000 Kurds (dead or disapeared). However, with the finding of mass graves the estimates hit about 300,000 civilians total. Quite a toll for a country to have to deal with under one ruler. 

    I decided to do one more bit of math.
Estimated Iraqi civilians killed during this war so far; well for purposes of simplicity lets say 72,000
Estimated Iraqi civilians for the gulf war (this does not include the crushed uprising that followed) 3,664
total- about 75,664 (give or take) total civilians killed under U.S. conflicts with Iraq (a little over 4 1/2 years time total)

vs.

Estimate of civilians killed under Saddam 300,000 in a lengthy rule of just under 24 years 300,000.

=presumably a little less then 1/3 Iraqi civilians have died under about 4 1/2 years of total conflict with the U.S. in comparisn to those who have died under Saddam.

Conclusion? Well, I think you should make your own. However what I feel is that civilian casualties probably should be more accurately counted so we (we, as in humanity) can really understand the total price you pay for war. Let's not forget however that the perils of war do not necassarily end with a ceasefire. What I feel on a larger scale, and what I feel lead me to do this bit of research (I admit, it is rather amature, c'mon I used wikipedia as a source) was that I do not feel our country really grasps the idea of what war is. In fact I honestly don't believe we've understood what war really is as a nation since the Civil War.  Mind you civilian casualties are only one result of war. There's the death of soldiers on BOTH SIDES, the grief families feel on BOTH SIDES, the personal troubles vets feel on BOTH SIDES , adn the list can go on and on and on of these effects. In conclusion I will say this. I am only 22 years old, I feel that throughout every year of my existance there has been some kind of war my country was involved with. Let it be through funding, training, arming, bombing, or physical fighting people have died under the foreign policy of my country. The policy the we the people keep alive. I'm tired of it, and I think the first step you can take to understanding how to end war, is to really understand war, and what it does. Not just through films, assumptions, or a rush of pseudo-patriotism, or the shameful kick a** % take names/kill em all, and let God sort em out attitude that we can sometimes portrey. I just feel as though we ought to pay more attention to our actions, adn what we choose to embrace. Sorry, I'm done ranting, hope whoever made it through this little blog enjoyed it. it's my first one ever, so I hope I did alright.

-Jordan