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This article was nominated for deletion on 24 November 2010. The result of the discussion was keep.

A fact from Civilian casualty ratio appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 December 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that according to a study by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the civilian casualty ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10 civilian deaths for every soldier death? A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2010/December.

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Overview

There are two sources given in the overview.

• Sabrina Tavernise and Andrew W. Lehren, A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq, New York Times 22-10-2010
• Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Stanford University Press 1998, p. 9

The NYT states "compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross."

The problem with Mary Kaldor ratio is that the wars listed in List of wars 1800–1899 as being fought at the turn of the century clearly have a ratio which is nothing like 1:8. The ratio may be improved by some of the other wars listed in the first decade of the century (List of wars 1900–1944), but it also includes the Herero War which was lists as a genocide in the Whitaker Report.

I think you can only begin to get to her numbers if you were to include WWI which most would not consider as being at the turn of the 20th century and her discourse on page 9 of her book is about war "among civilized peoples" as they are called in the Hague conventions. Those conventions explicitly excluded colonial wars as the peoples in the the colonies were not "civilised". -- PBS (talk) 06:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand "the turn of the 20th Century" to mean the early years of the 20th Century, which would indeed include WWI. How do you conclude that she's only referring to wars "among civilized peoples"? I have my doubts whether what she's saying is true in any case - probably it was just easier to lie back then - but she's the notable source, not me. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 13:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Why the early yeas of the 20th century and not the last years of the 19th? AFAICT from the view available under Google she does not include a source and is presenting a biased POV to make point. If she is including World War I then she is defiantly data mining. as most people would not include the second decade of a century as "the turn of the 20th Century". Unless she does produce statistics to back up her numbers or at least a source to say from were she got the numbers I don't think that she can be treated as a reliable source. -- PBS (talk) 20:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I conclude that she is talking about wars among "civilised" peoples because of what she says on page 9. "Behaviour that was proscribed according to the classical rules of warfare and codified in the laws of war in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century" This refers to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which were only the laws of war "among civilized peoples". This is why Winston Churchill could consider gassing Iraqis after World War I because they were not "civilized". It was quite common for British forces to behave differently when fighting colonial wars to how they would behave when fighting Europeans. For example after Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879) the British killed the all wounded Zulu still in the vicinity just as the day before the Zulus had killed all the British wounded after the Battle of Isandlwana, no quarter was given by either side. Yet when fighting the Boers just three years later in the same colonies during the First Boer War (1881) the British fought under the laws of war because their enemies were "civilized".-- PBS (talk) 20:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

See: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Civilian casualty ratio

civilians

There is an important distinction between civilians and non-combatants. It is quite possible for someone to be a civilian and a combatant. -- PBS (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a real problem with this article. For there to be combatants there must be an armed conflict and not a policing action. For example the troubles in Northern Ireland were not an armed conflict, so someone trying to kill members of the security services was a criminal and by the definition of the British Government usually a member of a proscribed organisation and therefore a terrorist in the eyes of the law. If however there an armed conflict then trying to kill members of the security services is not terrorism. Equally the insurgents are legitimate targets under the laws of war, something that was not true in Northern Ireland were the security forces were bound by concepts such as self-defence, even if a member of a paramilitary was baring arms. -- PBS (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Freedom fighters

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Terrorist has a bias that should not be used in the narrative voice of the article. If it is used it should be after an in-text attribution. -- PBS (talk) 01:03, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

applying this rule without exception results in some ridiculous scenarios, like in this edit, where you killed the entire context. all the more so when it was not applying to any specific group, only using the general term, which from what I understand was not deleted from the dictionaries yet.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 01:36, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

belligerents is more appropriate because it includes those who may or may not have committed war cimes, for example: "Still other schools were used by Iraqi forces to store their munitions, while US forces used schools for shelter in the North. Some schools were bombed." ( UNICEF lauds Iraqi "commonsense" push to return to school 25 April 2003) -- PBS (talk) 01:52, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

See this example hot off the press:

• "North Korea accuses South of using 'human shields'". BBC. 27 November 2010. "North Korea has accused Seoul of using human shields on the island where firing from the North killed two South Korean civilians this week"

"belligerents" is a more appropriate than terrorist. "Terrorists" is a judgemental word while belligerent is not. -- PBS (talk) 17:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Revert

I reverted a couple of small edits that seem to have resulted from carelessness. One confused an analysis article with an opinion piece based on it and left a statement unsourced. The other changed "civilian" to "non-combatant" in the lead: non-combatant may be a more accurate term in general, but the term of the topic are civilian and combatant, and those are the terms typically used by those writing about it. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 20:49, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Civilians can be combatants hence unlawful combatants. The sentence needs expanding because there also members of the armed forces who are non-combatants (medical staff and chaplains). So the information in the sentence is incorrect. The smaller the war the more likely it is that these differences will distort the figures. -- PBS (talk) 01:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I realize that, but the sources seem to use the terms civilian and combatant. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 01:38, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Original research

Aren't we supposed to include only the information backed with sources dealing specifically with civilian casualty ratio? --ElComandanteChe (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I mean this addition. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 20:37, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no original research, everything is sourced. Civilian and combat ratio of both sides, as this article is about. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

None of the given sources deals with the subject of this article, i.e. with civilian casualty ratio matters specific for this conflict, it's characteristics, causes and differences from other conflicts. We clearly don't want all and every armed conflict in human history in this article, but only the ones notable for the matter. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 23:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with ECC. Unless the sources discuss the civilian casualty ratio its inclusion violates WP:SYNTH.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 23:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Changes

I have made some changes to the article as a start to making it DYK compliant. Those changes have included removing some WP:UNDUE material from the lead, and the removal of a couple of unreliable sources. I think there will still need to be some material added in regards to HRO criticisms of Israeli use of excessive force etc. in order to balance the Israel section. Once these changes are made, I think the article can probably be promoted. Gatoclass (talk) 11:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I made a few more changes. Though I still consider the article to have significant problems, I might be prepared to drop my opposition to its promotion at DYK in its current form. But I think I'll leave a decision about that to tomorrow. Gatoclass (talk) 14:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Added a few more sections, for WWI, WWII, Vietnam War etc. I will have to try and add some cites later. Gatoclass (talk) 08:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

NATO in Yugoslavia

According to military historian and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren:

Yet even the most moral army can make mistakes, especially in dense urban warfare; for every Serbian soldier killed by NATO in 1999, for example, four civilians died.

Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum rei publicae causa (Henry Wotton). This figure may be right, but is it for the number of people killed by NATO or the causality on both sides during the war (It was an ethnic cleansing campaign that initiated the bombing campaign)? Alternatively as no source is given for who collected the numbers how do we know they do not come from the Serbs a party to the conflict who have a reason to distort the figures? The numbers are not coming from a disinterested party (Oren has a point to make for his country) and as such may well be biased. Without a disinterested source the whole section fails NPOV. -- PBS (talk) 10:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear the reference is to NATO-caused casualties, ie "even the most moral army can make mistakes" etc. Gatoclass (talk) 12:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

One can assume that but it is not explicit, so one could easily be mislead by drawing a false inference which is a common trick for ambassadors to use when they are saying things on behalf of their country. Also where do the numbers come from? The whole statement is dubious first it flatters (most moral army) The major ground forces were provided by by the British Army (there are many who do not think it is moral) and NATO ground forces were not involved in "dense urban warfare". So as the sentence is wrong on many levels, how can one draw the conclusion that it is accurate in this respect? -- PBS (talk) 16:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I think it's clear from the context that he is talking about civilians killed by NATO. I agree with the comments about the "most moral army", they represent a dubious value judgement in this context. Gatoclass (talk) 16:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not think it is at all clear from the context where was there "dense urban warfare"? -- PBS (talk) 17:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I still think it's clear from the context, however, a quick google search last night raises a question about the accuracy of this source as some sources state that as many as 5,000 Serb soldiers were killed in the conflict, which would actually give a ratio of around 1:10 rather than the 4:1 quoted. So we may need to find some additional sources to confirm the stated estimate. Gatoclass (talk) 06:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I found a better source for the NATO section and rewrote it accordingly. Gatoclass (talk) 12:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Much better, as it clearly shows the problems of how these figures can be presented and manipulated. One quibble "If the most conservative estimates are taken from all sources, the ratio was around 1:1." do you mean "from all sources" or do you mean "from the cited sources"? -- PBS (talk) 10:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I changed it to "cited sources" to clarify that. Gatoclass (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:SYN lists

How was the selection of entries for symmetric and asymmetric list made. What makes the Mexican Revolution, the Vietnam War conventional wars and the Iraqi war a non conventional war? -- PBS (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I did a quick categorization of the entries the other day as I think it's misleading to compare conventional war ratios with asymmetric ratios. The categorization is not intended to be definitive at this point, and I agree that some wars are more difficult to categorize and that sources would be useful. I just haven't had time to track them down yet. Gatoclass (talk) 06:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I added a new category called "Guerilla wars and insurgencies" and moved a couple of the wars to it. I agree the categorization is a bit arbitrary at this stage however, and is something that needs to be worked on. Gatoclass (talk) 06:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I changed the headers to just "conventional" and "unconventional" wars and added some more explanation of the terms. It's not an ideal categorization perhaps but better than nothing. I may tweak these headers still further later on. Gatoclass (talk) 12:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with PBS. It might be nice in theory to make the distinction, but it was OR in itself, introduced more OR by way of explaining the difference, and introduced the serious problem of how to classify borderline conflicts such as NATO in Yugoslavia. I restored the original chronological arrangement of the conflicts. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 10:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Targeted assassinations

Arn't all assassinations targeted? -- PBS (talk) 10:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to "targeted killings", per the sources. Gatoclass (talk) 09:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"Targeted killing" is a biased term. If the sources are using it then they support the POV of the assassins. The Americans (and the Israelis) seem to think that there is a need to make a distinction between an assassination that is illegal under their jurisdiction and an assassination that is legal, and which they call "targeted killing". The usage in many sources (such as Black's Law Dictionary, and the Oxford English Dictionary) do not make that distinction, and nor did the American government until 9/11. The trouble is that under a different jurisdiction an assassination carried out legally under the assassins jurisdiction by may be illegal under the jurisdiction of the person who is assassinated. Therefore the American usage of "target killing" is something you do to your enemies while your enemies "assassinate" your people (in a similar way to the usage of the term "strategic bombing" and "terror bombing"). -- PBS (talk) 10:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well that all sounds OR to me. I would need to see a reliable source which says as much. In the meantime I think we should stick to the terms used by the available sources. Gatoclass (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "Targeted killing" does not have an agreed definition and it is not a breach of OR to mention that it has a biased meaning on the talk page of an article, it is however a breach of NPOV to use it in an article without explaining why it is a biased term.

Leaving that aside, there is a fundamental problem with the section. The Israelis do not recognise the people they are targeting as lawful combatants, therefore they are civilians (see footnote 4 in the Unlawful combatant article) so all the people killed are civilians. If one was to make the distinction between combatants (whether civilian or not) and non-combatants then it would be a meaningful distinction, but that is not what the section says. -- PBS (talk) 12:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "targeted killing" is the phrase used by all the sources, including Btselem. It may be a slanted phrase, but it's clearly the phrase in common usage. If you want to challenge the phrase, you will need to present sources which state that the phrase is slanted, at the very least. Otherwise, you are just advancing your own WP:OR thesis. Gatoclass (talk) 13:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with PBS. --Mbz1 (talk) 18:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I solved the problem by changing to the more neutral "air strikes", like the section on similar US operations in Pakistan, which we call "drone strikes". This version is also more accurate: there are or may be Israeli targeted killings that aren't air strikes, but the sources used in the section are clearly only talking about the air strikes. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

combatant to non-combatants ratios

This article is called "Civilian casualty ratio" as the people targeted by US drones and the Israeli air strikes are said by the US and Israeli administrations not to be lawful combatants, and are therefore civilians unlawfully engaged in an armed conflict, then what is being defined is not a "civilian casualty ratio" but a combatant to non-combatant ratio, which is not the same thing. It would probably be best to delete those sections as they are not about civilian casualty ratios. -- PBS (talk) 10:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

This does start to look a little OR-ish when the civilian casualty ratio is extended to encompass actions occurring in the context of law enforcement/anti-terrorism and not conventional warfare. The US drone strikes have some legal backing under the 2001 authorization to use force (the arguments on the legal status of the targets is labyrinthine but that is, as I recall, the general justification for the actions if not the targets) but the Israel targeted killings are executions outside of a traditional legal framework (whether that's a good or bad thing is another question). It's like having a section on the CCR of the LAPD. Is there an RS doing the same thing, comparing extrajudicial actions and formal conflicts? Sol (talk) 17:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Per the Israeli High Court's ruling 2006 ruling on the issue (explained ], PBS is correct. The targets of the Israeli strikes aren't legal combatants and, to that end, shouldn't be included as such here. Sol (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I started the BRD to bring possible objections to the talk page. Sol (talk) 06:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like brew picked up the BRD glove. Here are my five cents: Sol, per your link "The court ruled that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organizations has the characteristics of armed international conflict". If we'd like to keep this article to official wars, a lot of other stuff have to go. What was the last declared war in history, hehe? --ElComandanteChe (talk) 16:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I knew an uncontested changes was too good to be true! :P

Declared and undeclared wars aren't so much the issue as the explicit designation of targeted killing targets as civilians. The court goes on to say "According to the ruling, terrorist operatives are not legally defined as combatants and therefore must be considered civilians. ...The court also ruled that, since a targeted killing is essentially an attack on a civilian that is engaged in hostile activities, " and "A civilian that violates this principle ... is subject to the risks of attack like those to which a combatant is subject, without enjoying the rights of a combatant, e.g. those granted to a prisoner of war." So straight from the proverbial horse's mouth, these aren't combatants but civilians. Sol (talk) 16:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

according to wikipedia policy, editors' interpretations of high court rulings, even if entirely correct, do not trump the terminology utilized by reliable sources, even if entirely incorrect. for more information see WP:V and WP:OR.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 17:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

And by the way, imho the whole article is OR, with no sources that are seriously going into the phenomenon study. It has ridiculously survived the AfD nomination, and the only way to handle this bunch of cherry picked raw data is to WP:PRESERVE and oppose POV pushing, hoping the day will come and it will be rewritten or merged with civilian casualties. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 20:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

A lot of it does seem to be news articles shoe-horned onto the concept, I agree.

As to Dershowitz, I'm not seeing the point of giving any weight to a minority opinion from an op-ed. This article is about civilian to combatant casualty ratios. Why should Dershowitz's opinion that they are combatants receive any mention when the legal authority of the Israeli people have said they are not? Alan Dershowitz is neither the High Court nor a respected international body who keeps track of these things. If the High Court says they aren't combatants then they aren't combatants; Dershowitz is welcome to make up whatever he likes but his opinion does not reflect reality, the potential subject of the article. Sol (talk) 21:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The CCR of Israel's air strikes in the Gaza Strip was analyzed by a Haaretz military journalist, and that analysis is presented in the article. The only thing that Dershowitz adds is the comparison with other countries in similar settings. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 21:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Fine, I see Sol's point. Dershowitz's saying indeed looks like an advertisement. May be keeping it, but voicing down a bit will satisfy everyone? --ElComandanteChe (talk) 22:37, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Haaretz talks about a civilian to terrorist ratio and doesn't refer to terrorists as combatants. I'd think that's good enough if the High Court didn't explicitly define terrorists as civilians engaged in hostilities and not legal combatants. Haaretz doesn't talk about a civilian to combatant ratio. Including these numbers in an article that defines civilian casualty ratio as the number of civilian to combatant deaths seems to be OR, espacially when the source doesn't use the specific term of art and it's pretty clear that they aren't combatants.

As to Dershowitz, I don't think he counts as an RS for casualty figures. American Criminal Law? Sure. But not for facts that are wrong. Sol (talk) 15:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

actually he can be used for facts that are dead wrong. See Misplaced Pages:Verifiability: "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth". (bold in original) --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Individual cases for lead

OK, we've got the Gaza War airstrikes in the lead as an extreme case on one end - should we also include the highest civilian casualty ratio? Are there too many high ratios to include just one, even if one is the highest? Roscelese (talk) 21:43, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, I misinterpreted what the "Gaza" section was about in my edit summary, apologies. Roscelese (talk) 21:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:LEAD. The lede should "summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies." --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:12, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

And if you'd provided any sources indicating controversy, then we could work with that, but we just have your say-so that it's controversial. However, controversial or not, it may still be worth including as a numerically extreme case, since a numerical average is given in the previous paragraph. Hence my asking just a few centimeters above for people's opinions on including other numerically extreme cases. Roscelese (talk) 22:19, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

demanding that every single word in the lede be backed up by a source proclaiming that it's "controversial" is a bit ridiculous, never mind apparent wikilawyering. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If you're justifying its inclusion on the grounds that it's controversial (which would seem to be what you're doing, since you refer to "notable controversies"), you need to prove that it's controversial. Yes, you actually have to back up your statements on Misplaced Pages. This is not a difficult concept. Roscelese (talk) 22:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a difficult concept, but a nonsensical concept. You may be confused with our WP:OR policy, which prohibits the inclusion of content unless it is verified. Once something is verified, its inclusion depends WP:NPOV, WP:LEAD, among other policies. Just like no source is required to proclaim that something is "neutral" before it is included in an article, no source is needed to proclaim that something is controversial before it is included in the lede. Editors use the talk page to make arguments one way or another before an agreement is reached. My point, and the point of another editor, is that the Israel stats are "controversial" due to its extremity from the average. Please respond to that specific point and cease with the condescending comments and wikilawyering.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 23:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a funny definition of "controversial," but all it does is take us back to my original question: Should we, then, also include conflicts with an extremely high CCR? That was the question I asked at the top of this section, and then again in the middle, and which I hoped to discuss before you started arguing that the Israel case was unique because it was so controversial. I don't know why you needed to waste everyone's time like this. Just answer the question. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 23:27, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

As I've said several times, we should have the Israeli air strikes in the lead because they represent an extreme value of the CCR. In principle we should have the other extreme as well, but the other extreme isn't as clear cut, so I can see arguments breaking out over it. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 23:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

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