Civilians Death Rate in Iraq Less Than in Washington, DC

Setanta wrote:

Your equation is once again flawed, because murder is often a "crime of passion," which is only referrent to the immediate situation in which the murder occurs, and which is referrent to the perpetrator, the victim and the motivation. Military deaths are essentially anonymous occurances which result only from the fact of the victim being a member of the military.

That's a different claim than the one I responded to, which was that the distinction is in the population density. Your recent distinction does not rescue your previous one: American places with higher population density contain more people who murder out of passion, and Iraqi places with high population density contain more Iraqis who offer armed resitance to American occupation forces.

Setanta wrote:

Not at all, and i'm surprised to see you make such a fatous comparison. If one were to compare the deaths Philadelphia police officers as a function of officers to population density, do you contend that their risk is less than that of American soldiers in a comparable, as densely populated area in Iraq?

No I don't, and I don't see how you could read that from my post. I said their death rate is higher than the death rate of non-police Philadelphians. The authors say that (black) non-police Philadelphians have a higher death rate than Americans in Iraq. If both propositions are true, Philadelphian policemen face a higher risk than American soldiers in Iraq. There is no contradiction between what the authors and I say and what you say about the relative death rates.

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Thomas, had i only referred to the death rates of Philadelphia police officers and American soldiers in Iraq, your criticism might have merit. I acknowledge that i got the statement bass-ackwards, and that what i wrote does not describe the statistical situation--if one only considers Philadelphia police officers to American soldiers in Iraq. However, i asked you if you have statistical data to support your contention, and you have not responded. One of the reason i made the point about murder is that we are not concerned with the murder rate, but the risk to American soldiers. That being the case, one can only make a valid comparison by comparing the risk faced by security personnel. Therefore, to correct the flaw in my statement, can you demonstrate that Philadelphia police officers are at a greater risk than the general population of Philadelphia. The ability of anyone to make a case even with that flawed comparison would hinge on that data.

More significantly, i did point out that for the comparison to be valid, one must consider the risk to all security personnel in a comparable, densely populated area of Iraq--and that means the Iraqi military and police.

My object throughout is to point out that these are meaningless comparisons, because the samples offered are not comparable.

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McGentrix wrote:

The US never anticipated how barbaric the Iraqi people really were before liberating them.

George Bush Sr did a very good job anticipating the scenario after an American invasion of Iraq:

George Bush Sr., in his memoirs, wrote:

Had we gone the invasion route [in 1991], the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome.

So did James Baker in a 1996 Op-Ed:

James Baker wrote:

Iraqi soldiers and civilians could be expected to resist an enemy seizure of their own country with a ferocity not previously demonstrated on the battlefield in Kuwait.

"Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.

"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there.

I'd say that's two pieces of pretty good anticipation, written in a long-past era when Republicans still appointed grown-ups to lead them. So, McGentrix, when you say "the US never anticipated how barbaric the Iraqi people really were before liberating them", whom exactly do you mean by "the US"?

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It is also worth noting that describing the Iraqis as barbaric is propaganda mongering, and no part of an attempt at objective analysis. If the United States were invaded and occupied, would the second amendment nuts going and shooting the invaders be liable to besmirch the entire American people with the epithet barbaric?

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Setanta wrote:

However, i asked you if you have statistical data to support your contention, and you have not responded.

Read back: I said that I didn't before you even asked. I also suggested that even without having the data, we can agree that Philadelphia policemen have a riskier life in Philadelphia non-policemen. Since that's apparently not the case, all you had to say was "no, I don't agree".

Setanta wrote:

My object throughout is to point out that these are meaningless comparisons, because the samples offered are not comparable.

You just watched me compare them, which proves they're comparable.

More seriously, I think it's prefectly legitimate to make the following statement. "A young American has many options of putting himself at risk. Two of them are (1) to join the Army and be deployed in Iraq, as well as (2) to move to a black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Option #1 is safer than option #2." Whether or not I like the meaning of this comparison, it definitely means something to me.

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Thomas wrote:

Read back: I said that I didn't before you even asked. I also suggested that even without having the data, we can agree that Philadelphia policemen have a riskier life in Philadelphia non-policemen. Since that's apparently not the case, all you had to say was "no, I don't agree".

Yes, in my haste, i neglected to state that i don't agree, which accounts for the seeming contradiction in what i wrote. Killing a police officer might be a crime of passion, but, in general, police officers are wearing kevlar vests and well armed, and i not only think it unreasonable to assume that they are at a higher risk, but in fact would suggest that they would be a lower risk, because of the increased risk to any notional assailant.

Setanta wrote:

My object throughout is to point out that these are meaningless comparisons, because the samples offered are not comparable.

You just watched me compare them, which proves they're comparable.[/quote]

That's merely a word game--that doesn't mean that they're comparable, or that attempting the comparison is a valid exercise. I forget the fallacy which this embodies, and don't intend to go look it up, but we both know that saying a thing is not evidence that the saying is a valid rhetorical exercise.

Quote:

More seriously, I think it's prefectly legitimate to make the following statement. "A young American has many options of putting himself at risk. Two of them are (1) to join the Army and be deployed in Iraq, as well as (2) to move to a black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Option #1 is safer than option #2." Whether or not I like the meaning of this comparison, it definitely means something to me.

It is not, however, established that Option #1 can reasonably be considered safer than Option #2, which is why the lack of evidence for the argument is telling. Once again, the comparison is only valid, as i see it, if you compare all security personnel in Iraq to all security personnel in Washington (the original venue of this silly little exercise). I have no reason to consider these to be valid comparisons.

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Now i'm embarrassed not to have recalled this with more facility. Your fallacy is that you offer a false analogy.

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The argument draws a conclusion from observed cases that are only superficially or apparently similar to the unobserved cases about which the conclusion is being drawn.

This fallacy applies only to inductive arguments that draw a conclusion, not to a whole class, but to other members of the class, or what are called "unobserved cases."

However, the fallacy of False Analogy errs by confusing irrelevant similarities with relevant similarities. The error of False Analogy is exposed by pointing out important or highly relevant dissimilarities between the cases cited in the premisses and the cases about which the conclusion is being drawn.

John Stuart Mill identifies this logical fallacy in Systems of Logic. The material here quoted comes from a page maintained by Cuyamaca College.

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Setanta wrote:

It is not, however, established that Option #1 can reasonably be considered safer than Option #2, which is why the lack of evidence for the argument is telling. Once again, the comparison is only valid, as i see it, if you compare all security personnel in Iraq to all security personnel in Washington (the original venue of this silly little exercise). I have no reason to consider these to be valid comparisons.

Option #2 isn't "join the security personnel in Philadelphia" (I suppose you mean Philadelphia, not Washington). The option is "move to a random black neighborhood in Philadelphia". The authors did provide evidence about the risks that this choice (option #2) entails, and expressed them in a measure of risk that's comparable with option #1. There's no false analogy in their. You make a choice between real world options. Each option involves a risk of getting killed. These risks can be compared to each other. False or valid, there's no analogy in this picture at all.

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Actually, i was referring to the original contention of this thread, which is that "Iraq" is safer than Washington. It means nothing as to the venue, because the comparison is already flawed by comparing all of Iraq to an American city. The reason that i refer to security personnel is to remove the false analogy. It is quite conceivable that persons with hostile intent in Iraq have come to the conclusion that it is far safer from their point of view to attack Iraqi security personnel than Americans, as the latter can be seen to be better armed, armored and more effective than their Iraqi counterparts. The thrust of the original thesis of this thread is that one can assert that Iraq is a safer place than Washington. If one resticts oneself to a false analogy, that case can seen to be made. But comparing the risk of entire population of Washington (or Philadelphia, if you wish to pick nits about the currency of the discussion) to that of American soldiers in Iraq ignores that soldiers in Iraq are better armored, armed and trained than all persons in Washington. It also constitutes a false analogy because Americans are at risk because of their role as security personnel, which means that you would need to compare all security personnel in the one place to all security personnel in the other place for the analogy to be valid.

I do agree, however, that there is no analogy at all in this picture, because of the fact that it ignores the differences in the classes compared and their real world options.

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Brandon's originally quoted article is entitled "Iraq Less Violent than Washington, D.C."--a point which you seem intent on ignoring. Furthermore, Brandon's thread title is flawed because it reads: "Civilian death rate less in Iraq than in Washington, D.C.," whereas it is the risk to American soldiers being compared to the risk to civilians in Washington. Now, it is true that the article compares civilian death to civilian deaths. Part of my disconnect with what you are saying is that you are comparing the risk to American soldiers to the risk run by civilians (whether in Philadelphia or Washington), while i have continued to focus on the theme of the thread and the initial article.

From that point of view, the reference to population density becomes significant, because the risk run by Iraqi civilians may be great in cities, but significantly less in the Syrian Desert. I have been talking past you, which i don't ascribe to your statement of a thesis, but to my focus on the theme of the thread.

My point remains as it has been that this is false analogy. Comparing the risk to civilians in Baghdad to the risk to civilians in Washington would be more appropriate, although probably not exact, given the difference in population and population density. A more nearly comparable set of classes might be obtained by comparing the civilian death rate in the State of California (roughly 30,000,000 people) to that in Iraq (roughly 26,000,000) people.

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Setanta wrote:

Brandon's originally quoted article is entitled "Iraq Less Violent than Washington, D.C."--a point which you seem intent on ignoring. Furthermore, Brandon's thread title is flawed because it reads: "Civilian death rate less in Iraq than in Washington, D.C.," whereas it is the risk to American soldiers being compared to the risk to civilians in Washington.

... and in the discussion of that article, I opined that Brandon's data was false, and that the data no longer supported his claim after one corrected it. That point is settled for me. My recent statements concerned Timber's Washington Post article about Philadelphia vs Iraq, and Parados's specific arguments claiming that its statistics are bogus and why.

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Yes, i have acknowledged that, and the disconnect in the argument to which i was devoted. I continue to assert, though, that comparisons of civilian deaths in Philadelphia to military deaths in Iraq is invalid, because of the comparison of a nation to a city, and because of the comparison of a general class to a specific class. And i understand, and have all along, that this is the fault of the Philadelphian letter writer.

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Quote:

You just watched me compare them, which proves they're comparable.

Any two things can be compared, right?

For example, those who drive red automobiles have a statistically higher death rate than igneous rocks.

I just compared them, so that proves they are comprable. Right?

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I just compared them, so that proves they are comprable. Right?

Obviously my irony skills need work. My sense of humor seems to be so bad nobody notices when I use it.

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I noticed, Thomas, i just wasn't having any . . .

My Sweetiepie Girl is in the insurance industry, i'll have to ask her about rates for igneous rocks . . .

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Hahah, I didn't notice... should have paid more attention...

Cycloptichorn

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Maybe I should emulate Momma Angel more, fill up my posts with tons of smileys ... whacha think?

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Cycloptichorn

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Hmmmm . . .

Somebody else with a crush on MOAN . . .

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Civilians Death Rate in Iraq Less Than in Washington, DC

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