Syria

[StrangeSox]

So going into the data of this study, a couple of things jump out at me very quickly.

 

#1- Nothing with North Korea is included in the study, yet how many millions have died there?

 

North Korea is a brutal, oppressive regime. They haven't had anything like a civil war or targeted ethnic cleansing though.

 

Anyway, intervention in North Korea would mean millions of dead North Koreans plus millions of dead South Koreans, so that'd only make your case worse even if it did somehow fit.

 

#2- They excluded Rwanda because it was an "extreme outlier". Um, that is kind of the point here. If no action is taken, the worst case scenario is an "extreme outlier" which is what is trying to be avoided by intervention. Again, how are you supposed to know without the gift of hindsight that something isn't going to result in an extreme until it happens.

 

They basically ignored anything that would skew the data against them.

 

If action is taken, the worst case scenario is an "extreme outlier." That cuts both ways.

 

I don't know if they have a strong reason for excluding Rwanda. I know that, personally, it's one of the conflicts I believe intervention absolutely could have helped. But, again, it's not like Syria. Rwanda was genocide. Syria is not.

[StrangeSox]

I dont trust anything but myself.

 

Im not advocating for intervention in Syria, Im arguing against the idea that you shouldn't intervene because people may die due to intervention.

 

Nobody is making that argument.

[StrangeSox]

lol. You can't be serious. If aid shows up, the rebels stop rebelling even if they don't get fed?

If the government "steals it all," that means that the government is in control and the civil war is essentially over.

 

Aid isn't drop-shipped to Assad's estate and dispersed from there. The idea that the Syrian government could "steal it all" in the middle of a civil war when it'd be delivered to millions of refugees across and near the border is ridiculous.

[Balta1701]

lol. You can't be serious. If aid shows up, the rebels stop rebelling even if they don't get fed?

I have no idea how you could read what I wrote and come up with that.

[southsider2k5]

North Korea is a brutal, oppressive regime. They haven't had anything like a civil war or targeted ethnic cleansing though.

 

Anyway, intervention in North Korea would mean millions of dead North Koreans plus millions of dead South Koreans, so that'd only make your case worse even if it did somehow fit.

 

 

 

If action is taken, the worst case scenario is an "extreme outlier." That cuts both ways.

 

I don't know if they have a strong reason for excluding Rwanda. I know that, personally, it's one of the conflicts I believe intervention absolutely could have helped. But, again, it's not like Syria. Rwanda was genocide. Syria is not.

 

So if I drew up a formula and excluded Iraq and Afghanistan, that would be OK? The equation is rigged by excluding things that don't fit the formula.

[Balta1701]

So if I drew up a formula and excluded Iraq and Afghanistan, that would be OK? The equation is rigged by excluding things that don't fit the formula.

Depends on if you could give a reason. If someone was asking whether a short to moderate length bombing campaign, as is being hypothesized here, can save lives, and you used Iraq and Afghanistan as counter-examples, then you'd be biasing the data by including 2 wars that weren't short-term bombing campaigns but instead long occupations and civil wars fought with foreign presence.

[southsider2k5]

Depends on if you could give a reason. If someone was asking whether a short to moderate length bombing campaign, as is being hypothesized here, can save lives, and you used Iraq and Afghanistan as counter-examples, then you'd be biasing the data by including 2 wars that weren't short-term bombing campaigns but instead long occupations and civil wars fought with foreign presence.

 

Because they are "extreme outliers".

[EvilMonkey]

I see no good endings in any scenario.

 

No intervention = ??? deaths, ??? in power

 

We intervene = ??? deaths, extremist muslims in power

 

From my understanding of this situation, we're not going to want either group in power, but Assad's regime may be better.

 

Not to mention the long term effect is more money, more risk of getting sucked into another conflict, and more of a permanent hit on foreign relations in that region.

No, there is a very good ending here. No intervention = no American deaths and i don't give a f*** who's in power, but it will probably be Assad.

[StrangeSox]

So if I drew up a formula and excluded Iraq and Afghanistan, that would be OK? The equation is rigged by excluding things that don't fit the formula.

 

Why are you assuming this is "rigged" or outcome-oriented?

 

If you're running an analysis and one potential data point really is an extreme outlier, you will sometimes want to exclude it. If it's so unique and unusual that it bears no relation to an otherwise strong trend, you run the analysis without it. You should look at why that data point is so out of line with the others to make sure you're not missing something, but this is basic data analysis.

 

I'm still missing why you feel so strongly that foreign intervention will not lead to more civilian deaths. You keep jumping from irrelevant objection to irrelevant objection (WWII! NK!) to dismiss this study, but you've done nothing to support your own point of view.

Edited August 30, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

No, there is a very good ending here. No intervention = no American deaths and i don't give a f*** who's in power, but it will probably be Assad.

 

Shooting a bunch of tomahawk missiles won't cause any American deaths, but I care about Syrian deaths, too. They're not worth anything less than you because of where they live in the world.

[southsider2k5]

Why are you assuming this is "rigged" or outcome-oriented?

 

If you're running an analysis and one potential data point really is an extreme outlier, you will sometimes want to exclude it. If it's so unique and unusual that it bears no relation to an otherwise strong trend, you run the analysis without it. You should look at why that data point is so out of line with the others to make sure you're not missing something, but this is basic data analysis.

 

I'm still missing why you feel so strongly that foreign intervention will not lead to more civilian deaths. You keep jumping from irrelevant objection to irrelevant objection (WWII! NK!) to dismiss this study, but you've done nothing to support your own point of view.

 

The objections aren't irrelevant. It is easy to dismiss this as "data points" and "extreme outliers". What we are talking about is death on an extreme scale. Dismissing things out of hand just because they don't fit a model is misleading people into thinking something that isn't true. If we ignore situations like this, they don't just go away. That is the theme here. NK has been killing their own people on a cleansing scale for five decades now, but this is ignored,l for whatever reason. Rwanda saw about the best example of what can happen when the world ignores a situation, but it is dismissed as a data point that doesn't fit the modeling, so it is ignored, with obviously skewing of the results of this "study".

 

You call those situations "irrelevant". I call them pretty good examples. If you want to keep going back through history you could pull things like Lenin and Stalin's purges, Ethiopia, Pol Pot, Greeks by the Turks, etc. These are perfect examples of when the world is too damned busy looking at data points and extreme outliers instead of humans.

[StrangeSox]

The objections aren't irrelevant. It is easy to dismiss this as "data points" and "extreme outliers". What we are talking about is death on an extreme scale. Dismissing things out of hand just because they don't fit a model is misleading people into thinking something that isn't true. If we ignore situations like this, they don't just go away. That is the theme here. NK has been killing their own people on a cleansing scale for five decades now, but this is ignored,l for whatever reason.

 

NK is ignored because it's not at all similar to Syria or what anyone thinks of for an interventionist conflict. I really don't know why you think they're remotely similar.

 

Rwanda saw about the best example of what can happen when the world ignores a situation, but it is dismissed as a data point that doesn't fit the modeling, so it is ignored, with obviously skewing of the results of this "study".

 

Why is study in scare quotes? What familiarity do you actually have with common statistical analysis and how to handle data?

 

Yes, Rwanda was an awful situation. This study isn't an argument that every single possible scenario for intervention ever will cause more civilian deaths than non-intervention will. It's a study that finds that intervention is more likely to cause more civilian deaths. Individual scenarios can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis with additional information.

 

You call those situations "irrelevant". I call them pretty good examples.

 

That's because you can't understand the basic difference between 1) full-scale global war (in which humanitarian intervention was barely even a consideration!), 2) oppressive regime not engaged in genocide or an internal rebellion, and 3) oppressive regime engaged in genocide and/or internal rebellion.

 

Why is WWII relevant? Why is DPRK relevant? How are either of them anything at all like Syria or any of the other types of conflicts included in this study?

 

If you want to keep going back through history you could pull things like Lenin and Stalin's purges, Ethiopia, Pol Pot, Greeks by the Turks, etc. These are perfect examples of when the world is too damned busy looking at data points and extreme outliers instead of humans.

 

 

Going back to Lenin or Stalin's purges is, again, irrelevant because the context for intervention is completely different in those time periods and with the countries and actors involved.

 

The world is too damned busy talking about who we can bomb next, which village we can burn so that it can be saved instead of actual humans.

Edited August 30, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

By the way, I'm still waiting for you to present any reason at all that you believe the US bombing Syria will result in fewer overall civilian deaths.

 

You argue that the DPRK is a counter-point to a non-intervention argument. Should we start bombing there? What about Myanmar? Iran? Egypt? DRC? Are we going to start bombing every country with s***ty leaders in order to save them?

Edited August 30, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Jenksismyhero]

NK is ignored because it's not at all similar to Syria or what anyone thinks of for an interventionist conflict. I really don't know why you think they're remotely similar.

 

 

 

Why is study in scare quotes? What familiarity do you actually have with common statistical analysis and how to handle data?

 

Yes, Rwanda was an awful situation. This study isn't an argument that every single possible scenario for intervention ever will cause more civilian deaths than non-intervention will. It's a study that finds that intervention is more likely to cause more civilian deaths. Individual scenarios can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis with additional information.

 

 

 

That's because you can't understand the basic difference between 1) full-scale global war (in which humanitarian intervention was barely even a consideration!), 2) oppressive regime not engaged in genocide or an internal rebellion, and 3) oppressive regime engaged in genocide and/or internal rebellion.

 

Why is WWII relevant? Why is DPRK relevant? How are either of them anything at all like Syria or any of the other types of conflicts included in this study?

 

 

 

 

Going back to Lenin or Stalin's purges is, again, irrelevant because the context for intervention is completely different in those time periods and with the countries and actors involved.

 

The world is too damned busy talking about who we can bomb next, which village we can burn so that it can be saved instead of actual humans.

 

If the context matters, I think comparing this situation to any other situation is pretty pointless as they are all different. Assad could keep gasing his own people, or worse, straight up bombing entire suburbs and you could still argue intervention isn't worth it because this study you read says it may cost more lives.

 

IMO these situations have too many variables to use any prior engagement as a reliable predictor.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

By the way, I'm still waiting for you to present any reason at all that you believe the US bombing Syria will result in fewer overall civilian deaths.

 

You argue that the DPRK is a counter-point to a non-intervention argument. Should we start bombing there? What about Myanmar? Iran? Egypt? DRC? Are we going to start bombing every country with s***ty leaders in order to save them?

 

Wouldn't the intervention in Libya be a pretty good counter-point to this? According to Wiki, the UN reported 60 deaths as a result of the coalition's involvement. I'm guessing that number would be much higher if the civil war had continued.

[StrangeSox]

There's no evidence that Assad is "straight-up gassing his own people." There's evidence that chemical weapons have been used, probably by both sides, against two warring factions. Let's not conflate that, as horrible as it is, with a situation like what Saddam did to the Kurds.

 

Of course context matters, and just because no two situations are identical does that mean that no two situations are comparable, or that one set of situations might be comparable to each other but not to other situations.

 

Really, explain to me how Stalin's purges in Russia are at all relevant to the situation faced in Syria. Again, just like the DPRK comparison, it only makes the argument for intervention worse. Foreign intervention during one of Stalin's purges in the 50's mean global nuclear warfare. Intervention in the DPRK means tens of millions of dead Koreans, North and South. WWII had nothing at all to do with humanitarian intervention and the opportunities to go that route were passed up. None of these are anything at all like Syria, or Lybia, or Bosnia or Somalia or Sudan or Rwanda.

[StrangeSox]

Wouldn't the intervention in Libya be a pretty good counter-point to this? According to Wiki, the UN reported 60 deaths as a result of the coalition's involvement. I'm guessing that number would be much higher if the civil war had continued.

 

60 deaths directly from coalition bombs. That's a very narrow first-order view of what effects foreign intervention can have.

 

But, yes, Lybia is at least somewhat of an argument in favor of intervention. The conflict ended sooner, but it's very far from a stable situation at this point and, just like a lot of these other conflicts, the rebels committed atrocities of their own.

[southsider2k5]

NK is ignored because it's not at all similar to Syria or what anyone thinks of for an interventionist conflict. I really don't know why you think they're remotely similar.

 

 

 

Why is study in scare quotes? What familiarity do you actually have with common statistical analysis and how to handle data?

 

Yes, Rwanda was an awful situation. This study isn't an argument that every single possible scenario for intervention ever will cause more civilian deaths than non-intervention will. It's a study that finds that intervention is more likely to cause more civilian deaths. Individual scenarios can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis with additional information.

 

 

 

That's because you can't understand the basic difference between 1) full-scale global war (in which humanitarian intervention was barely even a consideration!), 2) oppressive regime not engaged in genocide or an internal rebellion, and 3) oppressive regime engaged in genocide and/or internal rebellion.

 

Why is WWII relevant? Why is DPRK relevant? How are either of them anything at all like Syria or any of the other types of conflicts included in this study?

 

 

 

 

Going back to Lenin or Stalin's purges is, again, irrelevant because the context for intervention is completely different in those time periods and with the countries and actors involved.

 

The world is too damned busy talking about who we can bomb next, which village we can burn so that it can be saved instead of actual humans.

 

Its funny how you keep saying for the purposes of this study every single conflict they consider can be considered similar enough to make for compatible data sets, but any other ones automatically get disqualified as not being relevant. The sad thing is, you probably don't even see the irony in your reflexive handwaving anything that doesn't fit the agenda.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

There's no evidence that Assad is "straight-up gassing his own people." There's evidence that chemical weapons have been used, probably by both sides, against two warring factions. Let's not conflate that, as horrible as it is, with a situation like what Saddam did to the Kurds.

 

Of course context matters, and just because no two situations are identical does that mean that no two situations are comparable, or that one set of situations might be comparable to each other but not to other situations.

 

Really, explain to me how Stalin's purges in Russia are at all relevant to the situation faced in Syria. Again, just like the DPRK comparison, it only makes the argument for intervention worse. Foreign intervention during one of Stalin's purges in the 50's mean global nuclear warfare. Intervention in the DPRK means tens of millions of dead Koreans, North and South. WWII had nothing at all to do with humanitarian intervention and the opportunities to go that route were passed up. None of these are anything at all like Syria, or Lybia, or Bosnia or Somalia or Sudan or Rwanda.

 

But that's the problem, he COULD, at any moment, and then this entire situation gets ignored as an outlier.

 

I get your point, I think you can say generally intervention may end up being worse than non-intervention based on prior actions, but you still have to look at the unique situation going on in Syria and make your determination there.

[southsider2k5]

By the way, I'm still waiting for you to present any reason at all that you believe the US bombing Syria will result in fewer overall civilian deaths.

 

You argue that the DPRK is a counter-point to a non-intervention argument. Should we start bombing there? What about Myanmar? Iran? Egypt? DRC? Are we going to start bombing every country with s***ty leaders in order to save them?

 

Nice move of the goalposts.

[StrangeSox]

I'm not sure why you think I or the authors of that study have an "agenda" here. I'd personally like to see what the results would have been if Rwanda was included, but, really, not including extreme outliers is something that's considered in any type of data analysis. They choose a time period, which obviously any cut-off point is arbitrary to some extent, but maybe good data wasn't available pre-1989. I don't know. These are legitimate questions.

 

This study was looking at interventions in conflicts. WWII wasn't an intervention-type situation at all, so even if it was within the time period it wouldn't relevant. The DPRK isn't a conflict situation, either. It's an ongoing s***ty regime, its not the same category as a civil war or a genocide.

 

That isn't "reflexive handwaving." That's explaining to you, repeatedly, the differences between these types of situations. And, again, I'm still waiting for you to present any sort of argument at all in favor of bombing Syria. Fine, you're going to dismiss not only this study but this entire field of investigation out of hand, but at least support your own position.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Nice move of the goalposts.

 

What goal posts are moving? That doesn't even make sense here.

[StrangeSox]

But that's the problem, he COULD, at any moment, and then this entire situation gets ignored as an outlier.

 

The US COULD, at any moment, destroy its own population using chemical, biological, conventional and nuclear weapons. The rebels COULD, and some have expressed interest in, committing genocide against the ethnic group that Assad is from once they have won.

 

I get your point, I think you can say generally intervention may end up being worse than non-intervention based on prior actions, but you still have to look at the unique situation going on in Syria and make your determination there.

 

Absolutely! And, in Syria, I'm not seeing any clear reason to support one side of the other in the first place, let alone to start bombing Syria in order to save it. I've yet to see a strong argument that makes a case for what should be done, how it will be done and what the expected results will be.

[StrangeSox]

I found a non-paywall version of the study here:

 

http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_ml...9/p416529-1.php

 

edit: this appears to be a previous version presented at a conference, not the final, paywalled study. It focused more on the response of insurgent forces to interventions pro, neutral and con.

Edited August 30, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

We explore the effect of external armed intervention on the decision of an insurgent organization to use violence against the civilian population.

 

This is from the abstract, this is why trying to bring up a bunch of situations that aren't intrastate armed conflicts and saying "why didn't they consider these?!?!" is silly and irrelevant, especially given that we're talking about an intrastate armed conflict in Syria.

 

Edited August 30, 2013 by StrangeSox