I normally do not bother to read Juan Cole, but I saw this quoted elsewhere:
What was done to Lebanon as a whole is among the most horrible war crimes of the young 21st century. And that it was done tells me that there is something sick in the heart of the Israeli military and political elite, a sickness of the soul...Here is a list of military conflicts in the twenty-first century, followed by number of casualties on both sides (civilian plus military). The source is wikipedia. I omitted the civil conflicts in Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Haiti because I did not manage to find reliable data on total number of casualties.
Darfur Conflict: one estimate is 140,000.
US Invasion of Iraq: best estimate seems to be 50, 000 civilians and 11,000 soldiers.
US Invasion of Afghanistan: 1000-4000.
Waziristan war: 2500.
Chad-Sudan conflict: 1000-1700.
Israeli-Lebanon conflict:
450-500 so far.
Does that like like "among the most horrible war crimes of the young 21st century" to you?
posted by alex @ 11:23 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
All of these conflicts have gone on for some time as well. If this continues for weeks, months, years, then it may be comparable.
could be. in fact, given that this post was written a few days ago, the casualty estimate here is already out of date. but the point is that cole is referring to what has been done to lebanon already, rather than the future possibility of continuing casualties.
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