One can also run into "what might have been" issues. The U.S. pacification of the Philippines under Teddy R killed quite a few. Suppose the U.S. hadn't interfered there & the Philippines had been an independent nation in 1940. Would so many have died in the Japanese invasion of 1942? That's probably absurd, but it gestures toward the problem.
Carrol
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On
> Behalf Of Marv Gandall
> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 8:50 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] catastrophism
>
>
> On 2012-10-14, at 8:46 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > The 20th-century as a whole was a fucking catastrophe. Has anyone ever
made
> > a serious attempt to count the dead?
>
>
> I've linked to a study claiming 231 million combatants and civilians died
in 20th
> century international and civil conflicts, including by disease and
starvation. It's a
> controversial subject because who is included and the estimated number of
> victims can vary widely, often due to political bias, particularly in
relation to the
> famines under Stalin Mao. A quick scan of this study, for instance,
appears to omit
> mention of the 1943 Bengal famine in India which claimed three million
lives and
> could have been relieved except for Churchill's refusal to provide food
relief. (Doug
> had an interesting interview with a female Indian journalist and author of
a recent
> book on the famine on his radio program earlier this year).
>
> http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deathswarsconflictsjune52006.pdf
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