Likely of interest to no one but me
Posted on: January 2, 2011 - 7:57pm
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Likely of interest to no one but me
10 081 People died in Afganniestan in 2010 because of the war. I guess insurgency is probably a better word now.
16 834 People were murdered in South Africa from march 2009 to march 2010. Down from about 18 000 the year before.
How is it physically possible for there to be less deaths in a war zone than in a country during peace.
It's quite an achievement. While im well aware that crime is on the way down it still boggles my mind.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
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Well, it's difficult to say that a country is "at peace" so to speak. Just because a country isn't involved in any known wars doesn't mean it is at peace. Take Tibet for example, I personally am not aware of any wars involving Tibet, but they are definitely not at peace. Of course, it depends on your definition of peace. If peace is a time of no war with any outside country, than yes you are correct in your statement. However, if peace is a time with no conflict whatsoever, than it is unlikely that a country is "at peace" without being in war. It is very possible that there are conflicts within the boarders of South Africa, which could account for the higher death rate, but that's just a guess and a poor one at that.
Did your source on those statistics for Afghanistan include deaths outside of the country that are in relation to the war?
"As a militant atheist I do not advocate violence against religious people, they will kill themselves off eventually." - myself
Try adding in war unrelated murders to that- you might have a more comparable number.
Of course, South Africa is pretty much the most hellish country with modern cities; wealth disparity and poor education of the majority of the people will do that.
Apartheid should probably not have been ended so suddenly, but instead reformed to remove the racist elements.
Population density would be my guess. I live in the most dangerous city in the US, St. Louis. Lots of murders here. No war.
Well, you are making the unwarranted assumption that all wars are equally bloody. Actually, every war in different. One of the bloodiest hours in the history of war is going to have to be the battle of cold harbor during the US Civil War. Over 17,000 soldiers died in just over 50 minutes of fighting. For record, that still beats the number of soldiers killed in Iraq going back to the initial invasion.
On the other hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union was fairly bloodless. Google is not coming up with a proper death toll for the events at the end of '91 but the official death count for the October '93 crisis is only 149.
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The only point I wish to get accross
Afghanniestan = concentrated effort to kill people
South Africa = no concentrated effort to kill people yet more people dieing.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
OK, but as far as I can see, that leads to little more than you are not looking at the factors that determine what is going on.
We see things like this all the time. Consider the debate on gun policy in the US.
We all know that guns can kill. However, the most dangerous places in the US are the very places where gun bans are the strongest. Seriously, if your goal was to die in a firefight, you would have a much greater chance of than happening in Detroit than in Anchorage.
In the 80's, Janet Reno was actively working to prevent Florida from changing their gun permit law from “may issue” to “shall issue”. She made many public speeches where she claimed that the streets of Florida would become “rivers of blood”. Well she lost that battle and gun related violence decreased.
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i don't think "Afghanniestan = concentrated effort to kill people" is a relevant or adequately considered comment.
The number of people explicitly targeted is pretty small.
The larger number killed, as in many modern conflicts, are what is termed "collateral damage", or in 'retaliation', or defence.
Whereas in 'civil' unrest, between social/ethnic/religious groups, there is much more intentional targeting of the "other".
So actually, the 'discrepancy' is entirely unremarkable.
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"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
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That's misleading. It's just mostly north St.Louis City. There are places in the county that are among the safest places in the country!
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oh i never adequately consider what I say.
I'm really not sure that there is anything to debate over though.
on an almost unrelated note
It is interestnig to note that 2010 was the most violent year in Afganniestan since the taliban fell in 2001.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
I think the data refer to St. Louis proper, as none of the surrounding counties are included in the analysis.
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
The "concentrated killing" part of the war is over. Now it is more of a lockdown and track down a handful of insurgents that are creating problems. When you have most of the populated areas swarming with armed soldiers you are not going to see a lot of deaths. The insurgents use hit and run tactics that have more of a psychological impact than cause actual American deaths but also make it difficult to track them down and kill them. If we started carpet bombing again the deaths in Afghanistan would be much higher of course, most of them wouldn't be insurgents.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X