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CLAIM REPEATED 100,000 TIMES
Tony Parkinson, last sane man at The Age, has views on the perspective-impaired:
How many people, for example, still swear blind that 100,000 civilians have been killed in the war in Iraq? For some, it has become an article of faith that this is the cost of an illegal war of aggression waged by a ruthless imperial power.
For this we can mainly thank the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, which published a controversial survey on the impact of war in Iraq ahead of last year’s US presidential election. Based on a sample of 788 households in Iraq, it estimated the “excess deaths” resulting from war to be in a range between 8000 to 194,000. It claimed a 95 per cent confidence that the actual death toll was at least 98,000.
Now, the United Nations Development Program in association with Iraq’s Ministry of Planning has published its own survey, based on a much larger sample of almost 22,000 households. The Iraq Living Conditions Survey estimated war-related deaths to be nearer 24,000, including both civilian and military casualties. Still hideous, but not the apocalyptic vision of industrial-strength slaughter embraced so readily, so ghoulishly, by some critics of the war.
That embrace isn’t over yet, as recent newspapers confirm. Here’s the Maine Morning Sentinel:
Everyone who voted for Bush or supported him in any way shares responsibility for these tragedies, as well as for the deaths of as many as 100,000 Iraqis and others.
That’s from James Marine of Waterville, who concludes: “This Memorial Day, let us all remember the victims of this corrupt and ruthless president’s war. Bush’s supporters should also take the time to seek forgiveness for being his collaborators.” Thank you, James Marine of Waterville. In the Jersey City Reporter, Ricardo Kaulessar writes:
An estimate done by Iraq Body Count of Iraqi civilians killed from March 2003, when the U.S. coalition troops entered in Iraq, to May 11 puts the total between 21,795 and 24,735, although it is believed that over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed during this military excursion.
Have faith, Ricardo. Peter Erdman in the Toledo Blade imagines how much better things might be under President Kerry:
Over 100,000 of Iraq’s people would still be alive.
They might still be alive even now, if Kerry had told George W. Bush about that secret plan of his. Fred Schoorl in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Every day, when I pick up the newspaper and read about the bloodshed and carnage in Iraq, I wonder if President Bush’s Iraq invasion and the deadly consequences of his illegal war are finally hitting home. By now over 100,000 Iraqis have died ...
And Andrew Tonkovich in the LA Times:
Today, the Iraq war military deaths approach 1,700 with — almost never mentioned — an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed.
Almost never mentioned, eh? And these people accuse Bush of lying.
So if you were against the war, you were for sanctions, right? I am now accepting the apologies of antiwar types for the deaths caused by the prolongation of the sanctions regime.
Unless, of course, you were against any restrictions on Saddam, in which case you’re responsible for the Iran-Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, and every other thing that happened there.
How does this shit constantly get published?
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 29 at 11:28 AM • permalinkAging Gamer:
A lack of accountability.
We could contact these people and tell them about the UN’s new report and demand they either source their ridiculous claim with proof or explain who these people are and when and where they are buried as well as explain how it is the media has somehow missed almost almost 200 Iraqis being killed every freaking day.
dorkafork — Hey, if “people like Christopher Reeve will rise up” out of their wheelchairs in Kerry had been elected, why can’t the dead rise from their graves… if only to vote in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington State?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 29 at 02:19 PM • permalinkI suspect at least one factor leading to the mindless repetition of the 100,000 figure is rampant innumeracy among the population. “100,000” simply rolls so easily off the tongue that even the biggest number-challenged moron can be brainwashed into repeating it. Imagine the Lancet study had claimed, say, 87,300 deaths. Somehow I doubt such a number would get as much play, especially in letters to the editor.
Then again, it probably would have simply been rounded up to 100,000 anyway, much like certain moonbats have extrapolated to 150,000 by now.
But I just can’t make any moral, oops, I mean ethical, oops I mean practical distinction between the numbers once mass murder gets above 1,000.
Thanks for the scathing condemnation of those mass murdering “insurgents” terrorizing Iraq. That was who you were talking about, right?
No, of course not. You’re casually accusing the US military of “mass murder” instead. Thanks for showing your true colours these days, Wombie. Now that you’re reading from the standard anti-war script, your idiocies are much easier to spot.
That fascist Bush has killed more than 100,000 Iraqis and at least one plastic turkey.
And you dammed well know that it’s more than just one turkey.
Neocon corporate Murdoch-controlled press is hiding the truth.
Hmm, perhaps the next project for Madam Kinston?
SMG
Posted by SMGalbraith on 2005 05 29 at 03:32 PM • permalinkIt claimed a 95 per cent confidence that the actual death toll was at least 98,000.
No, that’d be a 50% confidence that it was at least 98,000. The survey was 95% confident it was between 8,000 and 196,000. (Which means it is 97.5% sure it was at least 8000, as there’d be a 2.% possibility that it’d be over 196,000 , according to the Lancet study).
I’m prepared to accept the UN figure of 25,000. But I just can’t make any moral, oops, I mean ethical, oops I mean practical distinction between the numbers once mass murder gets above 1,000.
Wombat, over 40,000 French civilians died during the D-day invasion alone. Do you think liberating Europe from Hitler was worth it?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 05 29 at 09:05 PM • permalinkOf course not, the lack of Hitler means the lack of a real boogeyman to whine about (well, after he tried to invade Russia anyway).
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 29 at 10:02 PM • permalinkI understand (from memory) that nearly 400,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the systemic bombing of cities toward the end of WWII. In that case many cities were vitually levelled and many had up to half of their area destroyed. This was with dumb bombs and incendiarys against wooden cities.
Now for 1000,000 to be killed in Iraq with smart weapons I would guess there would have to be two or three cities with populations of more than 300,000 actually levelled. Not damaged, evacuated, invaded or fought over but completely destroyed.
Didn’t happened.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 2005 05 29 at 11:27 PM • permalinkDean MacAskill — Ah, but as one of our wandering lefties mentioned here the last time this came up, those smart weapons are so smart that they don’t even leave any remains. So if you look at a spot in Iraq and don’t see an Iraqi, that means a smart weapon killed somebody there…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 30 at 12:32 AM • permalinkNo Slatts. I believe you’re thinking of the 100,000 copies of the Koran that were flushed down the toilets in Fallujah.
Posted by Richard_of_Oz on 2005 05 30 at 01:26 AM • permalinkTariq Ali was interviewed on Richard Glover’s Drive today. Tariq used the 100,000 figure and was not challenged on it.
Glover also had Arundati Roy on his show a little while ago.
Both depend on the lovely western media to propagate their views and both depend on the capitalist system to pay them for their publications. Both Tariq and Arundati have scarcely concealed contempt for that which feeds them.
Our friends at the ABC love them.While on the subject of the gay-bee-cee, today we had a report on the biggest gay pride festival in the world, “even bigger than the Sydney Mardi Gras.”
ABC radio has just ten minutes each hour to update us (unfortunate phrase?) on local and world events. It was a bit sad; perhaps also a bit telling that this item was deemed more important than many other items of news that did not make it into the ten minute bulletin. What got that item over the line? I cannot believe that Australia & the whole world was having such a slow news day that this was top ten!On the basis of the Lancet and then the UN count, my own robust estimation is that if they next interview 5000 households, the death rate should drop by at least half of the UN figure.
I have long suspected that medical epidemiology is very suspect, especially when politics is involved. As a doctor, I consider this as much an abuse of medicine as killing a patient in surger.
According to Jewish law, defamation is viewed like murder as once someone loses their reputation, it may be lost forever. This is of course the agenda of the left just as it is muslim extremists: to defame the strongest voice of democracy. America has been defamed and the Lancet researchers in my view have committed malpractice.
I mean, weren’t we real upset with 3,000 odd at the WTC?
Womberblerg, ever remember the 300,000 murdered by Hussein and his henchman before the terrorists murdered those 3,000 people? Maybe we could just lump them together for 303,000, which is much larger than your stupid use of “100,001”. It does follow along with your silly non-logic.
Of course, this ignores your mindless spouting of other leftie talking points, of course.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 06 01 at 01:43 AM • permalink
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Make that 100,001. Just kidding.
I’m prepared to accept the UN figure of 25,000. But I just can’t make any moral, oops, I mean ethical, oops I mean practical distinction between the numbers once mass murder gets above 1,000.
I mean, weren’t we real upset with 3,000 odd at the WTC?