Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

brooklyn13, On starting your video back when you posted it, i decided to have a look around for anything more than i knew on John Spencer. First i got this reddit, which i thought true or not was interesting. Secondly, i got the podcast below which i then watched for some half hour, until luckily within snagged a connection between the two. That's why i inserted it below:

Go to samharris r/samharris
• 8 mo. ago History-Speaks

John Spencer's Misinformation

Hosting this guy makes Sam ironically one of the purveyors of "misinformation" that he so aggressively deprecates, and prepares him for a career transition to Prager U.

There is so much that comes out of Spencer's mouth that is wildly erroneous, but I will discuss just three of his misstatements to give you some impression about his low level of knowledge about military history is (or, alternatively, how dishonest he is about it). Please note that some of what I write below is copy and pasted or paraphrased from what I have written elsewhere.

Firstly, in hopes of making the IDF look better in comparison, Spencer has repeatedly characterized the battle of Mosul as one in which the Iraqi security forces killed 10,000 civilians to destroy 4,000 ISIS fighters. He makes this statement again in the Sam Harris interview, at 31:16 .. https://youtu.be/xqxzscalX2E?t=1876 .

[insert: This is the podcast i mentioned above: Episode 366 Urban Warfare 2.0
A Conversation with John Spencer
https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366-urban-warfare-2-0
When i heard the Mosul mention it rang a bell with what i'd seen earlier here, hence this post.]

In fact, the estimate of about 10,000 (which comes from the AP .. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-only-on-ap-islamic-state-group-bbea7094fb954838a2fdc11278d65460 ) includes ALL civilians killed by ALL parties in Mosul, including thousands killed by ISIS. To quote the article: "Of the nearly 10,000 deaths the AP found, around a third of the casualties died in bombardments by the U.S.-led coalition or Iraqi forces, the AP analysis found. Another third of the dead were killed in the Islamic State group’s final frenzy of violence. And it could not be determined which side was responsible for the deaths of the remainder, who were cowering in neighborhoods battered by airstrikes, IS explosives and mortar rounds from all sides."

Spencer is also completely wrong on 4,000 ISIS fighters killed. Estimates range from close to 8,000 to over 25,000.

These errors - wittingly or not - have the effect of making the US Coalition's performance in Mosul (in terms of civilians to combatants killed ratio) look much worse than it was, and therefore to make the IDF look better with

Secondly, John Spencer keeps repeating (as in this Newsweek article .. https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286 ) that the average civilians to combatants killed ratio in war is 8:1 or 9:1. The '9:1 is typical in war' meme/myth has been around for awhile, and is often repeated by people with little to no knowledge of military history. (This has included officials of the EU and UN, and apparently Spencer himself.) Yet the meme is completely discredited by serious scholarship.

The picture I'm attaching to this post is from a paper by Adam Roberts .. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240542361_Lives_and_Statistics_Are_90_of_War_Victims_Civilians , one of the most prominent scholars of international relations and foreign policy in the world (now retired), in which he completely debunks the myth. Note that all the examples of post-WWII wars Roberts lists with likely 9:1 or worse ratios involved literal, established genocides (Cambodia, Rwanda, Second Congo War, Darfur), while the other one is a disputed genocide (Northern Uganda).

It should also be noted that even major world war II battles such as Leningrad and Stalingrad (urban warfare, and genocidal warfare) did not have anything close to a 9:1 ratio.

Thirdly, John Spencer has repeatedly said that Russia is engaged in a Nazi-like genocide of Ukrainians, e.g. in this tweet he accuses Putin of "Nazi level genocide in Ukraine .. https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1712838005915066649 ." While I deplore the completely unjust invasion of Ukraine, and certainly agree that Russia is committing war crimes and does not follow the LOAC, Spencer's characterization of the Russian war effort (which has killed far fewer civilians in far more time and a far bigger theatre of war than Israel's war has) is preposterous and polemical, and calls into question his credibility as an analyst.

I could continue along these lines. But I hope these are enough egregious misstatements of fact to make you at least question his credibility as an analyst.

https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1cnpvre/john_spencers_misinformation/

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One other - Israeli Civilian Harm Mitigation in Gaza: Gold Standard or Fool’s Gold?

by Larry Lewis
March 12, 2024

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Filed under: Civilian Harm, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Israel, Israel-Hamas War, Military, Palestine, United States

Following the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas on the people of Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) response in Gaza has drawn criticism for the resulting civilian death toll. The conflict has now claimed more than 30,000 Palestinian lives, with some estimates putting the daily death toll as exceeding that of any other major conflict of recent years. This is in contrast to statements from individuals such as Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, who has described Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties as effective and “unprecedented.” Some commentators agree with Dermer. For example, John Spencer, an expert on urban warfare, has claimed that the IDF “has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history” and is “the gold standard.”

As an analyst who has helped define the field of civilian harm mitigation, worked with militaries to implement it, and helped develop U.S. policies on civilian harm as a senior advisor to the State Department, I find this statement misguided. Yes, the IDF takes a number of steps designed to protect civilians, for example, the practices of roof knocking and warning calls and texts to residents. But the gold standard for civilian harm mitigation is not a checklist of steps but rather an iterative process to learn and adapt. Israel has yet to demonstrate that it has embraced this process. More importantly, the data–not just the staggering death toll, but key attributes of the campaign–suggest Israel’s steps are not working.

To be sure, protecting civilians in Gaza is no easy task. Conducting military operations in the densely populated urban areas of Gaza while avoiding civilian harm poses immense challenges. Hamas hides within the civilian population and uses subterranean tunnels to move weapons and fighters. U.S. and coalition operations over the past twenty years show that even the most professional militaries, committed to compliance with international law, face real challenges mitigating civilian harm in conflict in similar or analogous urban settings, including in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

But after more than four months of fighting, it is important to closely examine the question, “how is the IDF doing and what can it do better?” Civilian harm mitigation is an emerging expectation in modern warfare, evidenced in part by the widespread commitment to declarations like the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas. It is also a critical question for countries providing military support to Israel to inform the nature and level of their continued support. This question should be of key interest to the Israeli government itself as public support domestically and internationally wanes due to the scale of civilian harm.

What is Civilian Harm Mitigation?

Civilian harm mitigation is a relatively recent development, and there is often confusion about what it means. The concept emerged from U.S. military operations over the past two decades, but even the United States is still in the process of institutionalizing these lessons. Among its foundations is the idea that modern militaries consider the protection of civilians in their efforts to comply with international humanitarian law such as the Geneva Conventions and their Protocols. This includes, for example, a process for estimating collateral damage, selecting weapons that will be effective against the target but reduce damage to other nonmilitary structures, weaponeering processes designed to find the optimal angle and direction of approach for an attack, and developing “No-strike lists” for protected and sensitive sites.

Systematic U.S. civilian harm mitigation efforts, for example, were introduced in Iraq to address chronic problems at checkpoints leading to the deaths of civilians. It involved tracking incidents and learning lessons from them. As forces at checkpoints learned to guard against attacks while reducing the risk to civilians, fewer civilians were killed.

A more mature and comprehensive process was developed in U.S. and international operations in Afghanistan as a response to mounting civilian harm. Starting in 2006, Afghan leaders and the international community expressed alarm over significant numbers of U.S.-caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and U.S. leaders saw the issue of civilian harm becoming a strategic problem detracting from the military campaign.

This realization drove a different, practical approach toward civilian harm. In late 2008, U.S. and multinational forces began tracking data about each potential and actual incident involving civilian casualties. The original intent of this tracking was to counter allegations of civilian harm. But the data eventually served another purpose. In 2009, CNA (a not-for-profit research organization) began analyses of civilian harm for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) using operational records, combined with information from non-governmental organizations, to discover patterns of civilian harm. This analysis yielded new insights that enabled practical, focused steps that U.S. and international forces could take to reduce the risk to civilians in operations in Afghanistan. These steps were codified in a revised International Security Assistance Force Tactical Directive, new guidance for escalation of force, and many other measures. These analytically grounded changes reduced the rate of civilian casualties per operation. Overall, civilian casualties fell by approximately 20 percent in the first year, with additional reductions over time as the process continued.

In the aftermath of this exercise, the concept of “civilian harm mitigation” became institutionalized as a part of U.S. policy and practice. Civilian harm mitigation is a practical and systematic approach to identify and reduce risks to civilians from military operations to the maximum extent feasible. It has two key elements: (1) it is a learning process—continually identifying risks to civilians and adapting to reduce them when possible and (2) it is is a comprehensive process—making adaptations not just in the trigger-pull moment of the attack but from the design and planning of the operation to execution. The process continues as the military force assesses, responds to, and learns from civilian harm when it occurs.

This comprehensive learning process is illustrated in the life cycle shown below:

Much more - https://www.justsecurity.org/93105/israeli-civilian-harm-mitigation-in-gaza-gold-standard-or-fools-gold/

brooklyn13, Right or wrong these people will always be more scholarly than me,
so for fuck sake cut your vindictively misguided, unjust and fanciful bullshit.