Civilian casualties

Civilian casualties occurs in a general sense, when civilians are killed or injured by non-civilians, mostly law enforcement officers, military personnel, or criminals such as terrorists and bank robbers. Under the law of war, civilian casualties are civilians who perished or suffered wounds as a result of wartime acts. In both cases, they can be associated with the outcome of any form of action regardless of whether civilians were targeted directly or not.

Overview

In times of armed conflict, despite numerous advancements in technology, the European Union’s European Security Strategy, adopted by the European Council in Brussels in December 2003, stated that since 1990, almost 4 million people have died in wars, 90% of them civilians. However, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that civilian fatalities are down from 20 percent prior to 1900 AD to less than 5 percent of fatalities in the wars beginning in the 1990s.

Generating reliable assessments of casualties of war is a notoriously complex process. Civilian casualties present particular difficulties. One problem is that the attribution of the label ‘civilian’ is contested in some cases. On the surface, the definition of a civilian, at least in the context of international armed conflicts, is relatively simple: a civilian is any person who is not a member of the armed forces and is not a combatant in situation of armed conflict. To make effective use of such statistics as there are about civilian casualties of war, it is necessary to be explicit about the criteria for inclusion. All too often, there is a lack of clarity about which of the following categories of civilian casualties are included in any given set of figures.

Civilian

In general, a civilian is "a person who is not a member of the military or of a police or firefighting force", as defined by Merriam Webster's Dictionary. The term also includes chaplains and medical personnel who are not part of the organizations mentioned in the preceding sentence, as well as those who are not perpetrators, in order to distinguish between those who are law-abiding people and those who are dedicated criminals. From the U.S. Department of Defense perspective, Chapter 18 of Title 10 United States Code refers to non-military law enforcement officers as civilians, since they are employees rather than enlisted personnel, and also in order to distinguish itself from military police.

Under the laws of war (also known as international humanitarian law), a civilian is one not being a member of the armed services and does not take a direct part of hostilities in times of armed conflict. The term "civilian" is slightly different from a non-combatant under the laws of war, because some non-combatants are not civilians (for example, military chaplains attached to the belligerent armed forces or neutral military personnel). Under international law, civilians in the territories of a Party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. The privileges that they enjoy under international law depends on whether the conflict is an internal one (a civil war) or an international one.

Casualty (person)

A casualty in military usage is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, capture and desertion.

In civilian usage, a casualty is a person who is killed, wounded or injured by some event, and is usually used to describe multiple deaths and injuries due to violent incidents or disasters. Casualties is sometimes misunderstood to mean fatalities, but non-fatal injuries are also casualties.

Military usage

In military usage, a casualty is a person in service killed in action, killed by disease, disabled by injuries, disabled by psychological trauma, captured, deserted, or missing, but not someone who sustains injuries which do not prevent them from fighting. Any casualty is no longer available for the immediate battle or campaign, the major consideration in combat, and the reason for lumping together all these different cases. The word has been used in a military context since at least 1513.

Iraq War

The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition. The invasion regime toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. However, the conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3–4 years of conflict. The United States officially withdrew from the country in 2011 but became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition; the insurgency and many dimensions of the civil armed conflict continue.

The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U.S., joined by the United Kingdom and several coalition allies, launching a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as U.S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam was captured in December 2003 and executed by a military court three years later. However, the power vacuum following Saddam's demise and the mismanagement of the occupation led to widespread sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis as well as a lengthy insurgency against U.S. and coalition forces. The United States responded with a troop surge in 2007 to attempt to reduce the violence. The U.S. began withdrawing its troops in the winter of 2007–08. The winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq accelerated under President Barack Obama. The U.S. formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011.

Cenk Uygur

Cenk Kadir Uygur (/ˈdʒɛŋk ˈjuːɡər/, Turkish pronunciation: [ˈdʒɛɲc ˈujɡur]; born March 21, 1970) is an American columnist, political commentator and activist. Uygur is the main host and co-founder of the American liberal/progressive political and social internet commentary program, The Young Turks (TYT) and the co-founder of the associated TYT Network. He worked as an attorney in Washington, D.C. and New York before beginning his career as a political commentator. As a young man, Uygur espoused socially conservative views, criticizing feminism, abortion, and affirmative action. He is now a progressive.

In addition to hosting TYT, Uygur appeared on MSNBC as a political commentator in 2010, later hosting a weeknight commentary show on the channel for nearly six months until being replaced by Al Sharpton. Shortly after leaving MSNBC, Uygur secured a show on Current TV that aired from December 5, 2011 to August 15, 2013. Uygur was from 2012 to 2013 the chief news officer of Current TV, succeeding Keith Olbermann following his departure from the cable television network until Current was acquired by Al Jazeera Media Network.