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Author Topic: 655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion
Tom Vouloumanos
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posted 12 October 2006 07:56 AM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The death toll among Iraqis as a result of the US-led invasion has now reached an estimated 655,000, a study in the Lancet medical journal reports today.
The figure for the number of deaths attributable to the conflict - which amounts to around 2.5% of the population - is at odds with figures cited by the US and UK governments and will cause a storm, but the Lancet says the work, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, has been examined and validated by four separate independent experts who all urged publication.

Read full Guardian article here


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Fidel
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posted 12 October 2006 09:30 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But it's not fascism!!!

Actually, what happened to UN estimates of anywhere from 700 thousand to 1.4 million expired Iraqi's since the start of a U.S.-led medieval siege beginning in 1991 ?. Or is it excessive fact-mongering ?.

[ 12 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
leakypen
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posted 12 October 2006 10:25 AM      Profile for leakypen     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Aura of fear and death stalks Iraq: As the Lancet releases shocking figures on the death toll in Iraq, Peter Beaumont describes the daily carnage across Baghdad" Guardian, October 12.

We should not assume that this can never happen here where we live. When power becomes the only language in a world dominated by its abuse - then the trophy for the winners is a list of the most barbaric acts of destruction.


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Vansterdam Kid
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posted 12 October 2006 05:00 PM      Profile for Vansterdam Kid   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wonder if that's more or less than Saddam killed during his reign, minus the deaths that one could blame on his mismanagement or on UN sanctions during the 90's, depending on ones view.
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VanLuke
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posted 12 October 2006 08:24 PM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not even the most rabid US neocon I read has suggested that Saddam killed anywhere near this number of people.

That's why GWB had to dismiss the study based on attacking the methodology -the kind that is used in statistical analysis all the time. Btw the study was peer reviewed by three respected academics before being published.


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JKR
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posted 12 October 2006 09:44 PM      Profile for JKR        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by VanLuke:
Not even the most rabid US neocon I read has suggested that Saddam killed anywhere near this number of people.

Actually, the Bush Administration claims that Saddam's regime was responsible for a similar amount of carnage.


The White House - Life Under Saddam Hussein

quote:
Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.

...

According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south."

...


"Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living."



It's interesting how the Bush Administration are such good number crunchers when it supports their propoganda.


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eau
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posted 12 October 2006 11:26 PM      Profile for eau        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I had this in my favorites. USAID was busy putting this about and then...
quote:
PM admits graves claim 'untrue'

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer


Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves.

In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'

On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings [have] already [been] found in mass graves.'

The admission that the figure has been hugely inflated follows a week in which Blair accepted responsibility for charges in the Butler report over the way in which Downing Street pushed intelligence reports 'to the outer limits' in the case for the threat posed by Iraq.


If Google is your friend there are numerous reports of the Forensics team from Denmark and the UK who left Iraq after a year without finding much of anything to support the American claims in the run up to war.


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Briguy
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posted 13 October 2006 04:23 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Keep in mind that this number is a statistical calculation, and represents the midpoint of a range of possible numbers. As callous as that sounds. The Guardian article lists the 'lowest number in the range' as 392,979. I presume that the low number is the 90% probable number. Assuming an even distribution, the high number in their range (10% probability: which is unreported in the MSM, even the Guardian) would be somewhere near 900,000 people.

The fact that the Lancet researchers can't narrow the range of the dead to range spanning less than 500,000 really indicates how chaotic a situation the US, the UK, and junior partners are fostering in Iraq. The fact that Bush, Cheney and Blair are still smiling through all this, saying we can't cut and run, shows just how little they care for human life.


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
VanLuke
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posted 13 October 2006 08:08 AM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Actually, the Bush Administration claims that Saddam's regime was responsible for a similar amount of carnage.

Even if true we haven't seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet. The killing continues.

Don't forget to add the roughly 750,000 Iraqis - 500,000 of whom were children - killed by sanctions. Madeline Albright is proud of having done "the right thing", as she recently admitted.

So with The Lancet's low point it means over a million Iraqis killed due to western intervention. At the high point it's almost 2 million.

Btw, the very creation of Iraq - putting three "incompatible ethnic groups" within one state was to suit Biritsh and US imperialist (mainly oil) interests. The slicing off of Kuweit was done almost as an afterthought by the British.

How long does one go back to acknowledge wrong?

The Holocaust happened over fifty years ago and the Germans are still reminded of their misdeeds(and everybody should be). The Brits and Yanks created Iraq - and hence sowed the seeds for the unfolding tragedies - 90 years ago. Is that too long to acknowledge responsibility (not that either Yanks or Brits are in the habit of doing that)?

[ 13 October 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]


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Fidel
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posted 13 October 2006 10:39 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by eau:
PM admits graves claim 'untrue'

I think they capitulated on that one for several reasons. ie. "IRAQ-GATE"

And as Van Luke points out, the west has a known history of intervening in Iraq and Iran ie. to prevent ownership of oil falling into the hands of the people. The CIA's motto for several decades: sabotage any chance for social democracy, and any SOB will do.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
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posted 13 October 2006 11:31 AM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can we call it genocide now? Paul Craig Roberts (Counterpunch)

quote:
What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or "terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.

From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
VanLuke
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posted 13 October 2006 03:32 PM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
any SOB will do
....

as long as he's our SOB ...

just like Saddam used to be before he lost it.

... And a lot of business that cost US



From: Vancouver BC | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
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posted 17 October 2006 08:00 AM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
EXCESS DEATH IN IRAQ

quote:
Most of what we have heard reported, prior to this survey, had been deaths in Baghdad, with headlines like "50 Bodies Found in Baghdad" and "Baghdad Morgue Reporting 100 Bodies per Day." They are stories that have failed to take into account the rest of the country, although Baghdad is roughly 20% of the total population of Iraq. What has been happening in the rest of the country is a question that the latest survey answers: that there are approximately 500 unexpected violent deaths every single day throughout Iraq.

The survey found that 87% of the deaths had occurred during the occupation rather than during the initial invasion, and that 31% of them were a consequence of attacks and air strikes by the coalition forces.

It was no surprise that Mr. Bush dismissed the findings of the study. He did not consider the report credible and said that the methodology used was "pretty well discredited." I'm sure that the feeble-minded Mr. Bush took a very close look at the methodology used in the study.


The bulk of deaths are due to the occupation and not the actual invasion.

Wherever the numbers are exactly, the statisitcal ball park figure seems to be somewhere between 400,000 and 900,000. With the 1 million people who died during the US-UK ("UN") sanctions on Iraq during the 90's, not to mention the birth defects and pre-natal deaths due to Gulf War 1 (caused by depleted uranium and other bombing-related pollution), and with the ongoing occupation and descent into all out civil war, it seems that years from now historians will be taling about an Iraqi Holocaust caused by the (Anglo-American Empire.

quote:
For over a year now many Iraqis have been referring to what is happening in their country as genocide. With over 500 Iraqis being killed every single day as a direct result of the occupation, it is difficult to argue with them.

From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 17 October 2006 12:07 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Considering that the United States steadfastly refused to keep track of the number of Iraqi casualties from day one of the war, they are in no position to argue with those who have kept track.

Of course, with the foreseeably enormous casualty figures that have resulted, it's easy to see why the US didn't want to keep an official body count.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
sgm
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posted 17 October 2006 04:00 PM      Profile for sgm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Apparently, this report has clinched National Post columnist Jonathan Kay's judgment that the Iraq war has been a disaster:
quote:
It's been three years and seven months since the United States invaded Iraq. But only last week did I become definitively convinced that the war I once cheered on was a failure -- that it made the world a more dangerous place overall.

As I saw things in early 2003, there were three good reasons for deposing Saddam Hussein, any one of which, by itself, was sufficient to justify his ouster: (1) Saddam was a maniac who had weapons of mass destruction; (2) The creation of a democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East would transform the region by firing a fatal crack into the monolith of Arab tyranny; and (3) Putting the wrecking ball to Saddam's dungeons would end the wanton slaughter of Iraq's long-suffering people.

Turns out I was zero for three.

[snip]

And then, last week, the third and final zero: a new study of 1,849 randomly selected, geographically representative Iraqi families conducted by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

These 1,849 families had collectively suffered a staggering 547 violent deaths since the American invasion, a number almost eight times higher than one would expect based on pre-invasion death rates. If you extrapolate that increase to the whole of Iraq, you come up with a total of about 600,000 violent deaths.

[snip]

George Orwell once wrote that thinking people should keep a journal of their thoughts so they can track of all the discredited views they once held. In the case of a newspaper columnist such as myself, that isn't necessary -- because they're all there on the yellowing page. You can't hide from your mistakes. All you can do is own up to them and apologize.

And so, for whatever it's worth to anybody, mea culpa.


Link.

From: I have welcomed the dawn from the fields of Saskatchewan | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
John K
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posted 17 October 2006 05:47 PM      Profile for John K        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was prepared to give credit to Kay for his mea culpa until I read this:
quote:
he depressing thing is that it never had to be this way. As demonstrated by two recent must-read books -- State of Denial by Bob Woodward, and Fiasco by Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks -- this war could have had a happy ending (at least from a humanitarian perspective) had Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz listened to the many experts who warned them to put more boots on the ground. Instead, America invaded with what Ricks calls "perhaps the worst war plan in American history." George W. Bush's war cabinet wanted a revolution, but they wanted it on the cheap. Iraqis are paying for this penury with their lives.

Like in Vietnam, all 'more boots on the ground' would have accomplished is more body bags of US servicemen and women going back home.


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VanLuke
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posted 18 October 2006 11:59 AM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Tom Vouloumanos wrote:

quote:
The bulk of deaths are due to the occupation and not the actual invasion.

Just how do you seperate the two?

Moreover, many voices warned of the unfolding tragedy before the invasion.

[ 18 October 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]


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Fidel
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posted 18 October 2006 09:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think it's like when the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia with tanks, troop carriers and the whole nine yards - on a tear into the middle of the country. They were unstoppable. The Slav generals and ranking field commanders sort of packed it in and fled the country. Meanwhile, Yugoslavian soldiers packed their rifles in paper and grease and headed for the forests and hills. There was a certain body count from minor skirmishes we can be sure.

And then about two weeks later, someone plastered a sign on a brick wall in Belgrade. It read something like, "Fascists! Leave Yugoslavia or face the consequences!"


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 21 October 2006 12:17 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Iraq's prime minister has barred the Health Ministry from releasing alarming casualty figures that showed violence in Iraq was killing 100 civilians a day and provided a rare insight into the worsening sectarian conflict, according to an internal U.N. memo obtained Friday.

The memo from top U.N. envoy for Iraq Ashraf Qazi to several senior U.N. officials said Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's office had twice instructed the ministry not to release the numbers to the United Nations and that his office would now be responsible for releasing any such information.

The U.N. mission in Iraq had published the Health Ministry's numbers in its bimonthly reports about the human rights situation in Iraq. The figures were seen as one of the rare reliable indicators of the civilian suffering in Iraq — and U.N. officials even suspected they have underreported the actual number of civilian deaths.


Source

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
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posted 21 October 2006 05:58 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Actually, the Bush Administration claims that Saddam's regime was responsible for a similar amount of carnage.

It's pretty bad when their only defense is "we're no worse than Sadam". That statement rings true in so many ways.


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
navigator
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posted 21 October 2006 09:07 PM      Profile for navigator        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I believe the study dealt with the Saddam vs Occupation eras. I don't recall exactly, but the figures were something like 5.3 per thousand (per hundred?) pre invasion and 13 after.
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ghlobe
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posted 21 October 2006 10:27 PM      Profile for ghlobe        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Iraq Body count organization dismisses the study:

Summary:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php

Detail:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14/0.php


From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Briguy
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posted 23 October 2006 05:43 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
IBC uses different methods to arrive at their numbers. This is a clash of research methods, and frankly it appears that the IBC people don't understand that the 655,000 number is simply the midpoint of a range of estimates (from 400,000 - 900,000, roughly).

IBC actually admits that their own range (44000 - 50000) is low, because they don't include unreported deaths, nor deaths that can't be verified by two independant sources. Also:

quote:
"Does your count include deaths from indirect causes?"

Each side can readily claim that indirectly-caused deaths are the "fault" of the other side or, where long-term illnesses and genetic disorders are concerned, "due to other causes." Our methodology requires that specific deaths attributed to US-led military actions are carried in at least two reports from our approved sources. This includes deaths resulting from the destruction of water treatment plants or any other lethal effects on the civilian population. The test for us remains whether the bullet (or equivalent) is attributed to a piece of weaponry where the trigger was pulled by a US or allied finger, or is due to "collateral damage" by either side (with the burden of responsibility falling squarely on the shoulders of those who initiate war without UN Security Council authorization). We agree that deaths from any deliberate source are an equal outrage, but in this project we want to only record those deaths to which we can unambiguously hold our own leaders to account. In short, we record all civilians deaths attributed to our military intervention in Iraq.


The IBC project is arguably more important, though, because each death that they record is directly attributable to the criminal occupation by the US, UK, and junior partners.


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 23 October 2006 11:09 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Vouloumanos:
Can we call it genocide now? Paul Craig Roberts (Counterpunch)


I think Team Hustle's "unisigning" of a 140 country agreement to the International Criminal Court in 2002 is incriminating. The bastards had mass murder on their nanoscopic minds all along.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Québécois in the North
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posted 23 October 2006 12:22 PM      Profile for Québécois in the North     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
655 000 that's alot of corpses indeed, but at least they're getting coverage in The Lancet. Maybe a glossy hemoglobin painted centerfold in the next Adbusters too.

I wonder who's performing the bodycount in northern Uganda ? According to a UN estimate of july 2005, the civil war kills a thousand Ugandeses each week. And this has been going on for ten years.

Olara Utunnu, an ex-UN special rapporteur for children in war zones, has been quoted using the G-word to describe this situation. "The humanitarian catastrophe in northern Uganda is a genocide", he said. "The intention is, in effect, to totaly extermine a human group".

The media interest in this particular genocide, however, hasn't kicked in much yet. Why? Oh yeah! it's not oil-driven nor US-led.

[ 23 October 2006: Message edited by: Québécois in the North ]

[ 23 October 2006: Message edited by: Québécois in the North ]


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scribblet
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posted 23 October 2006 01:52 PM      Profile for scribblet        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So whats the answer, we can't go back in time and reverse what happened so what do we do?

How about finding Saddam innocent and letting him go back to sort them all out, its Muslim killing Muslim for the most part. Would pulling out now make it all better?


From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 23 October 2006 02:13 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Let us imagine we had a leader. Let us call him "Scriblet".

Scriblet proposes that we drive off a cliff in a bus containing numerous babblers.

We protest. Scriblet claims to know best. We scream: Noooo!!But Scriblet won't listen. Scriblet goes right ahead, and drives off the cliff.

Then, as we fall to our doom, Scriblet turns to us and says:

quote:
So whats the answer, we can't go back in time and reverse what happened

But there is one partial response we would take in those circumstances. Get rid of Scriblet.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
scribblet
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posted 23 October 2006 02:23 PM      Profile for scribblet        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wow, good debating technique, really contributes to a discussion, have to remember that one.
From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 23 October 2006 02:25 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. And the means for Saddam to wage chemical and biological warfare was provided by the west.

I think pulling out of both Afghanistan and Iraq would save lives. But I don't think the decision to do something like that is for our weak and subordinate colonial administrators in Ottawa to make. They've made "commitments." We are constantly reminded by our two old line parties of how impotent they are to make these kinds of executive decisions all by themselves.

Tiny Belgium has balls. They accused Bush of war crimes. What do our guys do but hold a knife to their own throats over softwood lumber and hope the serfs are too broke to pay attention.

[ 23 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
VanLuke
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posted 23 October 2006 02:38 PM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by ghlobe:
[QB]Iraq Body count organization dismisses the study

Kindly read their admission that their own data is an understatement. It's on their site.

Given their methodology they are in no position to criticise the Lancet study.


From: Vancouver BC | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
scribblet
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posted 23 October 2006 02:48 PM      Profile for scribblet        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So what in your opinions, would be the worst case scenario if all troops pulled out of Iraq...(and Afghanistan for that matter)
From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
thorin_bane
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posted 23 October 2006 03:28 PM      Profile for thorin_bane     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
a civil war that lasted a short time with people getting fed up and electing a leader(kinda like what happens in the west you know US, France what have you) but you know we wouldn't let them do this because the pipeline and opium is too important to the west.
From: Looking at the despair of Detroit from across the river! | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
VanLuke
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posted 23 October 2006 03:37 PM      Profile for VanLuke     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by scribblet:
So what in your opinions, would be the worst case scenario if all troops pulled out of Iraq

Given that there's almost unanimous agreement in Iraq that the foreign invaders should leave, I suggest it's the wrong question to ask.


From: Vancouver BC | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Briguy
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posted 24 October 2006 04:37 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by scribblet:
So whats the answer, we can't go back in time and reverse what happened so what do we do?

How about finding Saddam innocent and letting him go back to sort them all out, its Muslim killing Muslim for the most part. Would pulling out now make it all better?


Fuck off. Nobody wants Saddam back.

In case you didn't notice, violent occupations tend to beget violence. Your solution to spilt milk is to pour more milk on the floor in the hopes that the ever-increasing milk puddle will hide the original spill.


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 October 2006 09:50 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
They could just reactivate Saddam's CIA payroll number. It shouldn't take but half an hour's worth of paperwork.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 24 October 2006 10:01 AM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Briguy:
Keep in mind that this number is a statistical calculation, and represents the midpoint of a range of possible numbers. As callous as that sounds. The Guardian article lists the 'lowest number in the range' as 392,979. I presume that the low number is the 90% probable number. Assuming an even distribution, the high number in their range (10% probability: which is unreported in the MSM, even the Guardian) would be somewhere near 900,000 people.

I don't get it. Why do you assume that the low number is 90% probable? Wouldn't it be equally as probably/improbable as the high number?

Are you not assuming a bell curve of probability, meaning that the 655000 number is the most likely (50%)? If not, why not? Is there something I've missed in the methodology?

In fact, on rereading the article I found this quote:

quote:
"Thus they calculate that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of the invasion. It is an estimate and the mid-point, and most likely of a range of numbers that could also be correct in the context of their statistical analysis."

[ 24 October 2006: Message edited by: arborman ]


From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Briguy
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 October 2006 10:07 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
90% probable means that the actual number is 90% likely to be 393,000 or higher. The midpoint is 50% likely to be 655,000 or higher. It's also the most likely result on a bell curve, but really any value on the bell curve could be the 'correct' answer. Again, this assumes that I understand their statistical methodology. I haven't read the study, 'cause I don't have a subscription to the Lancet, so I'm guessing based on my own statistical work in a completely unrelated field.

[ 24 October 2006: Message edited by: Briguy ]


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 October 2006 10:34 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It looks like most critics of the study are stooges for the Bush regime. Some are saying the study actually underestimates Iraqi casualties.

Bush is a war criminal. They should all be lined up at dawn without cigarettes or blindfolds.

[ 24 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
navigator
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13318

posted 24 October 2006 09:06 PM      Profile for navigator        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
RE Bush as a war criminal!

I hear that the Cuban News Service is reporting that Bush has bought a substantial tract of land in the Chaco area of Paraguay.


From: Oshawa | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
scribblet
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posted 26 October 2006 06:31 AM      Profile for scribblet        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wonder how accurate the Lancet's figure really are.


Counting Iraq's dead
two methods

Amir Attaran and Edward Mills, National Post
Published: Thursday, October 26, 2006
To put the new figure in context: 655,000 deaths is over 200 times the number of people killed during the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

-snip-

Why the disagreement over the number of civilian deaths? There are basically two ways of counting the war dead -- active and passive.

In the active method, which was used for the Lancet study, researchers fan out and sample random clusters of homes, interviewing occupants about deaths in the family. This kind of demographic survey is not unusual -- hundreds of such studies are done each decade, tracking the epidemiology of all manner of diseases. In the case of the Johns Hopkins and Iraqi teams, they interviewed 12,801 people in 47 clusters. Doing this, they found 82 deaths pre-invasion, and 547 post-invasion -- a huge increase, with most of the increase in deaths occurring among young men, as is typical in civil wars.

The researchers extrapolated from their sample, as pollsters do, to all of Iraq. They also verified the respondents' claims of deaths, where possible, with death certificates. They thereby concluded that the post-war excess civilian deaths are 655,000. Since asking about the dead in a war zone is trickier than, say, quizzing voters in downtown Toronto about their voting intentions, the researchers concede the margin of error to their study is higher than usual, ranging from 392,979 at the low end to 942,636 at the high end.

Now compare this to the passive method, which Iraq's government uses, and which critics of the Lancet study invoke in support of their position.

The Iraqi Health Ministry counts civilian deaths reported to hospitals and morgues. If a body is brought to the morgue, the death is counted. But if a dying person is brought to hospital and the family takes the body home for burial, the death is counted in a second set of statistics, which, oddly, the Health Ministry does not amalgamate with the first. (The UN was doing this for them, until Iraqi officials cut off the release of casualty data last week.) Further, the health ministry's counts are biased downward, because many Iraqis are scared to venture too far outdoors during a civil war, and because of the harrowing gauntlet of government and insurgent roadblocks one must pass to get to a hospital. This explains why data collected through passive methods in a place like Iraq will inevitably be biased downward...... more here http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=41e61702-d141-4fe8-9447-4788f8e15edb


From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
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posted 26 October 2006 06:58 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by scribblet:
I wonder how accurate the Lancet's figure really are.
Why would you wonder on the basis of that article?

It's clear from the article that the "active" method used in the Lancet study is more reliable, and in keeping with standard polling practices. The "passive" method used by the study's detractors, the article notes, produces numbers that are "inevitably" biased downwards.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Briguy
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Babbler # 1885

posted 26 October 2006 09:06 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Lancet article should prevent one from wondering how accurate their count is. The accuracy is implicitly cited in the range of deaths.

0/2


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
oktibbeha_publius
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posted 27 October 2006 10:36 PM      Profile for oktibbeha_publius        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Having spent 14 months in Iraq, I came to know the Iraqi people, and became very close to many of them. It saddens me to know that so many have died. However, to lay the blame for all of the dead at the feet of the US is unfair and demonstrates your political bias, and brings your objectivity into question.

I'm not a statistician (?sp), but by far the biggest majority of these deaths can be blamed on the Bathists, foreign terrorists and secular militias.

Hindsight being 20/20 maybe we shouldn't have invaded. But we did. 300K to 600K Iraqis have died. Nearly 3K US military personnel have died.

Tragic....but the question as always must be where do we go from here? Stay the course, doing everything we can to reestablish a country that can govern and defend itself or pull out and let the secular militias slaughter the innocents on a massive scale? Let the Iranian backed Shiites and the Saudi and Syrian backed Sunni slaughter each other by the millions. Do not be deceived believing that this culture values life as you do. The winner of the secular battle will be as ruthless as Sadam ever was.

Being a soldier sworn to my duties, I will go when and where the duly elected leaders of this great nation send me. I will perform my duties as professionally as God gives me the wisdom to see it. The US Military is not slaughtering innocents out of spite or on purpose. War is hell, and we are at war. Regardless of what has transpired, our morale obligation is to establish security as best we can.

The other guy's mae culpa is meaningless, and it serves no purpose to say I told you so. George Bush can not be reelected. Where do we go from here? I say "Stay the course". I mean that in the way George Bush meant it. We must commit ourselves to staying in Iraq until we can secure our objectives of establishing a country capable of governing itself and defending itself. We can not afford to "Redeploy" is it is referred to now. We can not afford to leave an ineffectual state dominated by Iranian power which will provide a platform and oil wealth for future attacks against the US.

Sadly, many more Iraqis will die at the hands of the foreign terrorists and secular death squads before this accomplished.


From: South | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
Briguy
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Babbler # 1885

posted 30 October 2006 07:04 AM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Better dead than Red, eh? Hindsight is 20/20, which is why most observers looked at the criminal lesson that was Vietnam when predicting the instability, chaos, insurgency, and scale of death that could occur in Iraq.

My prewar estimates were much lower, sadly. I thought maybe 100,000 Iraqis would be killed and maybe 2,000 US Patriots. I couldn't even come close to comprehending the true horror of a full scale occupation and a simmering civil war. Nor could my imagination come up with war crimes like Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, or Haditha. Good job, soldier. Keep the peace.


From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
Noise
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posted 30 October 2006 09:13 AM      Profile for Noise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I'm not a statistician (?sp), but by far the biggest majority of these deaths can be blamed on the Bathists, foreign terrorists and secular militias.

It was the US led invasion that provided the means for above to cause these deaths (were they happening prior?). Yes, it is unfair to blame the US entirely, but they gave the means to these groups to do as they do.

The 20/20 hindsight that I take from Iraq was how incredibly poorly planned and researched the invasion was before jumping headlong into it. Bush has admitted that he wasn't even aware there was a difference between Sunni and Shi'a (they're all dirty muslim terrorists afterall).

The second 20/20 hindsight to take away from this is the assumption that democracy solves problems and brings freedom/peace. The American style of Democracy that has been brought to Iraq requires about the same level of consumerism for it to be maintained ^^. Without an informed electrate voting on the issues, you simply get voters lining up to be counted for what faction they belong to (How many people voted for the candidate that was the same religion as opposed to basing their vote on an issue?). So all you get is the majority implementing their will on the minority (hence a civil war.. Espcially when the now Sunni minority was previously the ones in power. I guess one way of ensuring your victory in a democracy would be killing as many of those not voting for you ^^). The second portion of the American Democracy is the constitution as interpretted by judges to protect the minority from the majority (hence whenever the judges protect the minority, the majority calls them liberal judges trying to legislate from the bench ^^). That constitution is flawed an unimplementable at this time. This assumption that our flawed ass style of democracy will bring happy freedom along with the rest of our (far far superior) values defiantely needs to be reevaluated.

These deaths... This incomprehensible number of dead... is a direct result of assumption, misinformation, and our huge superiority complex. The attempt to blame the deaths "Bathists, foreign terrorists and secular militias" is pure stupidity as it's a direct result of pathetically smug Western policy that we should have seen coming a mile away. To get a Democratic nation such as ourselves to suport a war, you need such a massive media campaign to coax your population into the war... Much much more effort was spent on getting us to go to war than on our target, better yet it appears the leaders that be started to beleive their own propaganda campaign.

[ 30 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]


From: Protest is Patriotism | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged
obscurantist
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Babbler # 8238

posted 30 October 2006 03:18 PM      Profile for obscurantist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I can't find an online reference, but the Aga Khan made an intriguing analogy to Northern Ireland on the National last week. He's compared Iraq to Northern Ireland before:
quote:
It is not so far in the past that we have seen bloody fights in the Christian world. Look at Northern Ireland. If we Muslims interpreted what happened there as a correct expression of Protestantism and Catholicism or even as the essence of the Christian faith you would simply say we don't know what we are talking about.

But he went further last week, inviting listeners to imagine what the responses in the Christian world might be if an Islamic army was to invade Northern Ireland and put the Catholics in power. I think he or another commentator also used the analogy of Rome, given the great significance of Baghdad in the Islamic world.

From: an unweeded garden | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged

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