Iraq: The Human Toll

[maluckey]

With your keyboard now? I am sure we'll all sleep better tonight.

Been in Iraq for quite some time. Not my first deployment and likely not to be the last.

Faith without deeds is dead.

So start helping in some constructive way, such as telling us how Americans are worth more, and add what you can do better than Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama to solve this issue over here. Apparently, the two Senators feel that this war cannot be solved by pulling out at the moment. Do you?

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
For what its worth?

It is estimated that as many as 500,000 to a million people died due to the Iraq sanctions placed on the government fallowing its invasion of Kuwait.

Now these sanctions lasted from 1990 to 2003, or 13 years. So if we take the low figure of 500,000 and dived that by 13 we get 38461 dead people PER YEAR!

Now let?s compare that the figures in this article?
The highest figure I see in this article is 30,000 deaths, and that is for the ENTIRE four year war.

Now I am just a simple Republican, but 30,000 deaths over 4.5 years seems less than 38,461 deaths per year.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how I am wrong on this.


Hey? you know Clinton was President for 8 years of the sanction period, that means he is responsible for the deaths of 307,692 Iraqis based on the logic of some posters.
How come no one ever complained about the number of Iraqis dying during this time?

Since you just stole the thunder of every anti-war member at P&N, this thread will likely die without you ever seeing them respond to your very valid point. The truth is something they're not interested in, unless it fits their agenda.

:Q FACT: The number of Iraqi deaths, per year, was higher under Saddam than it is now. :Q

DOH!

FYI PJ and Palehorse I was protesting this US/British led genocide of the Iraqi people back in the 1990's doing voluntary work at a peace organization in London.

The 500,000 number PJ is quoting is the number of children under the age of five that died needlessly as a direct result of the sanctions. These are the children Madeleine Albright referred to as "the price we are willing to pay" (which makes it deliberate fitting the notion of genocide). Of course there were more deaths if you include the elderly and those deprived of medications for serious illnesses and the elderly and infirm that didn't receive proper care.

Then PJ from the article takes the number 30,000 (from 2005) that is based on the numbers of the Iraqi Body Count, who counts numbers of reported deaths in the media, and numbers from violent deaths reported from the morgues. So this number is only the tip of the iceberg, and an estimation. For a more accurate overall estimation, including non violent deaths, there is no better figure than the 650,000+ excessive deaths as reported by the Lancet study. And these are old numbers by now.

Not only is PJ's and Palehorse's math incorrect, PJ and Palehorse are also ignoring the child mortality rate that has increased since the days of the sanctions as a result of the invasion. That means that the number of children dying prematurely are even higher now than during the sanctions.

8 million Iraqis are now in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter. Things are even worse now in Iraq than during the sanctions.

And before you start whining about the word genocide here is the definition: genocide

/jennsid/

? noun the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.

The US is killing the Iraqi people like so many flies to achieve it's political and strategic goals. Pipes, in the article posted here not long ago, even advocated turning the whole of Iraq into one giant concentration camp (if it isn't already), grandly proclaiming that the Iraqi's are not fit for democracy.

PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: GrGr
PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

So wait, let me get this straight.. We are the ones who have turned the genocide into some political game!??! WTF?

That is all the Left has done for four damn years! What PJ and I have done here is merely point out your grand hypocrisy. If you yourself protested their deaths during the 90's then you are one in a billion. The rest of your brethren didn't give two sh*ts about the children in Iraq until someone on the Right became a worthwhile target.

This has been the Dem's football since 2003.

Nice fvckin try.

It is also my belief that the Left will go back to ignoring them if/when we pull out of Iraq and one million more of them die in the massacre that results.

Bet.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: GrGr
PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

So wait, let me get this straight.. We are the ones who have turned the genocide into some political game!??! WTF?

That is all the Left has done for four damn years! What PJ and I have done here is merely point out your grand hypocrisy. If you yourself protested their deaths during the 90's then you are one in a billion. The rest of your brethren didn't give two sh*ts about the children in Iraq until someone on the Right became a worthwhile target.

This has been the Dem's football since 2003.

Nice fvckin try.

It is also my belief that the Left will go back to ignoring them if/when we pull out of Iraq and one million more of them die in the massacre that results.

Bet.

Fuck em, they're blood thirsty lot anyways. They aren't worth one American life or dollar. My problem with Bush's stupid Iraqi folly isn't that Iraqis are doing what Iraqis do best, finding new and innovative ways of slaughtering each other, my problem is how his folly has fucked us as a country and made us even less secure than we were prior to his ascension to President and totally wasted any goodwill we had with other countries following 9/11.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: GrGr
PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

So wait, let me get this straight.. We are the ones who have turned the genocide into some political game!??! WTF?

That is all the Left has done for four damn years! What PJ and I have done here is merely point out your grand hypocrisy. If you yourself protested their deaths during the 90's then you are one in a billion. The rest of your brethren didn't give two sh*ts about the children in Iraq until someone on the Right became a worthwhile target.

This has been the Dem's football since 2003.

Nice fvckin try.

It is also my belief that the Left will go back to ignoring them if/when we pull out of Iraq and one million more of them die in the massacre that results.

Bet.

Fuck em, they're blood thirsty lot anyways. They aren't worth one American life or dollar. My problem with Bush's stupid Iraqi folly isn't that Iraqis are doing what Iraqis do best, finding new and innovative ways of slaughtering each other, my problem is how his folly has fucked us as a country and made us even less secure than we were prior to his ascension to President and totally wasted any goodwill we had with other countries following 9/11.

Well put. Not to mention that the most severe terrorist threat to this country comes not by physical means, but by economic ones. We could have spent that 500-1000 billion dollars on a thorium reactor program to help get away from dependence on the oil market.

Look at it this way, if a large regional (or god help us, a global one) war breaks out in the Middle East, it will drive oil prices to astronomical prices, crippling and perhaps even destroying our economy completely. We are completely at the mercy of oil just to make it through our daily lives. Without it, we do not currently have the means to survive as a nation. At prices of $1,000/barrel and above, our longevity would be measured in weeks, not months or years.

The best 'solution' to the mess in the middle east is to end oil utterly. It's ancient technology. There's absolutely nothing positive about it, and we send countless trillions of dollars into the coffers of despots and madmen, flooding the countries with our cash. It's just ridiculous.

We need to move to a nuclear/electric energy model, and sever all trade/relations with the entire region, indefinitely.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

as pointed out, more Iraqi's died because of sanctions than the war on a yearly or monthly basis.

as pointed out the democrats don't want to pull out either




look at it this way, there is no way a democrat President short of the Dennis J. Kucinich or Republican Ron Paul being elected that we "just up and leave".

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
For what its worth?

It is estimated that as many as 500,000 to a million people died due to the Iraq sanctions placed on the government fallowing its invasion of Kuwait.

Now these sanctions lasted from 1990 to 2003, or 13 years. So if we take the low figure of 500,000 and dived that by 13 we get 38461 dead people PER YEAR!

Now let?s compare that the figures in this article?
The highest figure I see in this article is 30,000 deaths, and that is for the ENTIRE four year war.

Now I am just a simple Republican, but 30,000 deaths over 4.5 years seems less than 38,461 deaths per year.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how I am wrong on this.


Hey? you know Clinton was President for 8 years of the sanction period, that means he is responsible for the deaths of 307,692 Iraqis based on the logic of some posters.
How come no one ever complained about the number of Iraqis dying during this time?

Since you just stole the thunder of every anti-war member at P&N, this thread will likely die without you ever seeing them respond to your very valid point. The truth is something they're not interested in, unless it fits their agenda.

:Q FACT: The number of Iraqi deaths, per year, was higher under Saddam than it is now. :Q

DOH!

Doh indeed. Sorry, that's not a FACT, it's deceptive partisan spin.

The "500K to 1 M dead due to sanctions" estimate is derived using the same sort of statistical analysis as the "300K to 800K dead due to BushCo's invasion" estimate. It would be hypocritcal to accept the one estimate as "FACT" [sic] while loudly denouncing the other because it isn't what you want to hear. There's also the issue of the Hussein government chosing to allocate constrained resources in a way that allowed so many children to die. Then there's the fact that the sanctions were lawfully imposed by the UN based on a nominal consensus of all the countires of the world (albeit with considerable U.S. arm-twisting), while the BushCo invasion was an essentially unilateral attack in defiance of the U.N. and international law.

If you're nonetheless determined to exploit these deaths for partisan points, then it seems to me the real "score" is about 38K-76K innocent deaths per yer under sanctions vs. 75K-200K innocent deaths per year under BushCo. You lose. More tragically, so did the million or so innocent people who have died due to the malevolence of two birds of a feather, Hussein and Bush.

Thought I'd bump this since the usual Bush propagandists are ignoring it, continuing instead to parrot the lie about "more Iraqi's died [per year] because of sanctions than the war." PJ even put it in his .sig to further catapult his misdirection.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: GrGr

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
For what its worth?

It is estimated that as many as 500,000 to a million people died due to the Iraq sanctions placed on the government fallowing its invasion of Kuwait.

Now these sanctions lasted from 1990 to 2003, or 13 years. So if we take the low figure of 500,000 and dived that by 13 we get 38461 dead people PER YEAR!

Now let?s compare that the figures in this article?
The highest figure I see in this article is 30,000 deaths, and that is for the ENTIRE four year war.

Now I am just a simple Republican, but 30,000 deaths over 4.5 years seems less than 38,461 deaths per year.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how I am wrong on this.


Hey? you know Clinton was President for 8 years of the sanction period, that means he is responsible for the deaths of 307,692 Iraqis based on the logic of some posters.
How come no one ever complained about the number of Iraqis dying during this time?

Since you just stole the thunder of every anti-war member at P&N, this thread will likely die without you ever seeing them respond to your very valid point. The truth is something they're not interested in, unless it fits their agenda.

:Q FACT: The number of Iraqi deaths, per year, was higher under Saddam than it is now. :Q

DOH!

FYI PJ and Palehorse I was protesting this US/British led genocide of the Iraqi people back in the 1990's doing voluntary work at a peace organization in London.

The 500,000 number PJ is quoting is the number of children under the age of five that died needlessly as a direct result of the sanctions. These are the children Madeleine Albright referred to as "the price we are willing to pay" (which makes it deliberate fitting the notion of genocide). Of course there were more deaths if you include the elderly and those deprived of medications for serious illnesses and the elderly and infirm that didn't receive proper care.

Then PJ from the article takes the number 30,000 (from 2005) that is based on the numbers of the Iraqi Body Count, who counts numbers of reported deaths in the media, and numbers from violent deaths reported from the morgues. So this number is only the tip of the iceberg, and an estimation. For a more accurate overall estimation, including non violent deaths, there is no better figure than the 650,000+ excessive deaths as reported by the Lancet study. And these are old numbers by now.

Not only is PJ's and Palehorse's math incorrect, PJ and Palehorse are also ignoring the child mortality rate that has increased since the days of the sanctions as a result of the invasion. That means that the number of children dying prematurely are even higher now than during the sanctions.

8 million Iraqis are now in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter. Things are even worse now in Iraq than during the sanctions.

And before you start whining about the word genocide here is the definition: genocide

/jennsid/

? noun the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.

The US is killing the Iraqi people like so many flies to achieve it's political and strategic goals. Pipes, in the article posted here not long ago, even advocated turning the whole of Iraq into one giant concentration camp (if it isn't already), grandly proclaiming that the Iraqi's are not fit for democracy.

PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

Another good one the Bush apologists are ignoring.

 

[ProfJohn]

Bow I think you actually make a good point about the origin of the figures.

Although let?s admit that the 600k figure was pulled out of their ass to make a political point right before an election, the people behind the survey even admitted to timing it to make a political point. Also note that their first study claimed 100k dead and then a year later they raised the figure to 600k, makes you question their methods and conclusions.

Now, on people trying to score political points based on dead Iraqis all I need do is point to the author of this post or nearly every other post pointing out the number of dead Iraqis. You?ll notice that nearly every one of these types of threads is created by a member of the left/ anti-Bush crowd.

Furthermore, nearly everyone agrees that leaving Iraq right now could result in a major blood bath. Yet the people on the left who want us to leave continue to point to civilian deaths as a reason for us to leave. It is pretty clear that if your goal and concern is reducing the number of civilian Iraqi deaths then the only course of action right now is to stay in Iraq until we can make more progress on stabilizing the country. The surge is prefect proof of this, by most estimates the number of dead civilians in Iraq has dropped by at least a third since the surge started.

The overly simple conclusion is this:
If your goal or concern is reducing the number of civilian Iraqis getting killed then the only course of action for the immediate future is to stay in Iraq and continue our efforts at rooting out the insurgents and AQ types.

If your goal is to simply score political point then continue to post stories about the awful death toll inflicted on the Iraqis while calling for a course of action that will result in even more death and destruction. The fact that so many seem to miss the inconsistency of this course of action continues to amaze me.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: GrGr
The 500,000 number PJ is quoting is the number of children under the age of five that died needlessly as a direct result of the sanctions. These are the children Madeleine Albright referred to as "the price we are willing to pay" (which makes it deliberate fitting the notion of genocide). Of course there were more deaths if you include the elderly and those deprived of medications for serious illnesses and the elderly and infirm that didn't receive proper care.

Then PJ from the article takes the number 30,000 (from 2005) that is based on the numbers of the Iraqi Body Count, who counts numbers of reported deaths in the media, and numbers from violent deaths reported from the morgues. So this number is only the tip of the iceberg, and an estimation. For a more accurate overall estimation, including non violent deaths, there is no better figure than the 650,000+ excessive deaths as reported by the Lancet study. And these are old numbers by now.

Not only is PJ's and Palehorse's math incorrect, PJ and Palehorse are also ignoring the child mortality rate that has increased since the days of the sanctions as a result of the invasion. That means that the number of children dying prematurely are even higher now than during the sanctions.

8 million Iraqis are now in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter. Things are even worse now in Iraq than during the sanctions.

And before you start whining about the word genocide here is the definition: genocide

/jennsid/

? noun the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.

The US is killing the Iraqi people like so many flies to achieve it's political and strategic goals. Pipes, in the article posted here not long ago, even advocated turning the whole of Iraq into one giant concentration camp (if it isn't already), grandly proclaiming that the Iraqi's are not fit for democracy.

PJ and Palehorse you have outdone yourself once again. To turn the genocide of the Iraqi people into some political game between Republicans and Democrats is just sick. Both are bad enough as can be seen by the quotes by Albright and Bolton. Wtf is wrong with you guys.

First off you are the one who made the thread about the number of dead in Iraq, doesn?t that mean you are the one making a political ?game? out of it? Or are we to believe that you are the only true and just poster on here who truly cares about the blight of the Iraqi people and everyone who disagrees with you is just a political opportunist?

Second, did I read you right? Are you claiming that the US is involved in a genocide involving the Iraqi people? Do you have ANY evidence of this at all? Do you even know what the word means? Yea you posted the definition, but I don?t see ANYONE claiming that Americans are killing Iraqis in large numbers in order to reach a political end. Perhaps you can provide us with ONE bit of evidence that US policy in Iraq now is to kill as many people are possible in order to reach our political ends.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: palehorse74
Since you just stole the thunder of every anti-war member at P&N, this thread will likely die without you ever seeing them respond to your very valid point. The truth is something they're not interested in, unless it fits their agenda.

:Q FACT: The number of Iraqi deaths, per year, was higher under Saddam than it is now. :Q

DOH!

Amazing on how right you were about this... thread died rather fast.
I think I'll post these figures in my sig just to make sure the truth gets out.

PeeJay, try not to confuse people not giving a crap about your posts with you being right about something FFS. :roll: As pointed out too many times to count in here in P&N, you would not know the truth if it was hanging from your ass like a tail.

Then why don't you show us the truth and rebutt his point? I won't hold my breath....

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
For what its worth?

It is estimated that as many as 500,000 to a million people died due to the Iraq sanctions placed on the government fallowing its invasion of Kuwait.

Now these sanctions lasted from 1990 to 2003, or 13 years. So if we take the low figure of 500,000 and dived that by 13 we get 38461 dead people PER YEAR!

Now let?s compare that the figures in this article?
The highest figure I see in this article is 30,000 deaths, and that is for the ENTIRE four year war.

Now I am just a simple Republican, but 30,000 deaths over 4.5 years seems less than 38,461 deaths per year.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how I am wrong on this.


Hey? you know Clinton was President for 8 years of the sanction period, that means he is responsible for the deaths of 307,692 Iraqis based on the logic of some posters.
How come no one ever complained about the number of Iraqis dying during this time?

Since you just stole the thunder of every anti-war member at P&N, this thread will likely die without you ever seeing them respond to your very valid point. The truth is something they're not interested in, unless it fits their agenda.

:Q FACT: The number of Iraqi deaths, per year, was higher under Saddam than it is now. :Q

DOH!

Doh indeed. Sorry, that's not a FACT, it's deceptive partisan spin.

The "500K to 1 M dead due to sanctions" estimate is derived using the same sort of statistical analysis as the "300K to 800K dead due to BushCo's invasion" estimate. It would be hypocritcal to accept the one estimate as "FACT" [sic] while loudly denouncing the other because it isn't what you want to hear. There's also the issue of the Hussein government chosing to allocate constrained resources in a way that allowed so many children to die. Then there's the fact that the sanctions were lawfully imposed by the UN based on a nominal consensus of all the countires of the world (albeit with considerable U.S. arm-twisting), while the BushCo invasion was an essentially unilateral attack in defiance of the U.N. and international law.

If you're nonetheless determined to exploit these deaths for partisan points, then it seems to me the real "score" is about 38K-76K innocent deaths per yer under sanctions vs. 75K-200K innocent deaths per year under BushCo. You lose. More tragically, so did the million or so innocent people who have died due to the malevolence of two birds of a feather, Hussein and Bush.

Thought I'd bump this since the usual Bush propagandists are ignoring it, continuing instead to parrot the lie about "more Iraqi's died [per year] because of sanctions than the war." PJ even put it in his .sig to further catapult his misdirection.

Well it might help if you posted your source......Its cute that you think that anyone that disagrees with what you and the other libs think of the Iraq war is a "Bush propagandist", you're right up there with those that call anyone anti-war a traitor, "two birds of a feather"....

BTW, why aren't you calling out the OP and the other anti-war posters that routinely "exploit these deaths for partisan points" every single day?

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Doh indeed. Sorry, that's not a FACT, it's deceptive partisan spin.

The "500K to 1 M dead due to sanctions" estimate is derived using the same sort of statistical analysis as the "300K to 800K dead due to BushCo's invasion" estimate. It would be hypocritical to accept the one estimate as "FACT" [sic] while loudly denouncing the other because it isn't what you want to hear. There's also the issue of the Hussein government choosing to allocate constrained resources in a way that allowed so many children to die. Then there's the fact that the sanctions were lawfully imposed by the UN based on a nominal consensus of all the countries of the world (albeit with considerable U.S. arm-twisting), while the BushCo invasion was an essentially unilateral attack in defiance of the U.N. and international law.

If you're nonetheless determined to exploit these deaths for partisan points, then it seems to me the real "score" is about 38K-76K innocent deaths per yer under sanctions vs. 75K-200K innocent deaths per year under BushCo. You lose. More tragically, so did the million or so innocent people who have died due to the malevolence of two birds of a feather, Hussein and Bush.

Thought I'd bump this since the usual Bush propagandists are ignoring it, continuing instead to parrot the lie about "more Iraqi's died [per year] because of sanctions than the war." PJ even put it in his .sig to further catapult his misdirection.

Well it might help if you posted your source......Its cute that you think that anyone that disagrees with what you and the other libs think of the Iraq war is a "Bush propagandist", you're right up there with those that call anyone anti-war a traitor, "two birds of a feather"....

BTW, why aren't you calling out the OP and the other anti-war posters that routinely "exploit these deaths for partisan points" every single day?

Source for what?

I don't consider everyone who disagrees with me a "Bush propagandist". I do consider those who consistently and continually parrot the current BushCo propaganda to be Bush propagandists. That seems a self-evident truism.

Why don't I ...? Obviously because I agree with the agenda of those who do that. I consider what we did to Iraq to be a national disgrace, a dark time in the history of the United States. I think it's important that Americans realize how many innocent people have died due to the imperialistic misadventures of GWB and his band of neocon scoundrels. Even though many of you consider any criticism of Bush to be "liberal", I have a more enlightened view and recognize it has nothing to do with partisanship. It's all about our patriotic duty as Americans to speak out when our government does evil. You would do so too, in my opinion ... if you placed your country above your party.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bow I think you actually make a good point about the origin of the figures.

Although let?s admit that the 600k figure was pulled out of their ass

I don't admit that at all. They used the same scientific methodology that's been used to estimate natural disaster victims, and to estimate the number of children who died under sanctions. Either the methodology is sound or it isn't. If one rejects the Iraqi war death estimates, one must also reject the sanction death estimates ... unless, of course, one is being hypocritical.

to make a political point right before an election, the people behind the survey even admitted to timing it to make a political point.

Whatever the motivation for their timing, it doesn't demonstrate their methodology is flawed.

Also note that their first study claimed 100k dead and then a year later they raised the figure to 600k, makes you question their methods and conclusions.

If you say so. I'm not aware of such an estimate only a year earlier. I think you're confusing their methodology with the Iraq Body Count project which uses a far more conservative approach, counting only those deaths that have been reported in the media, IIRC. They recognize their approach greatly understates the actual death toll.

Now, on people trying to score political points based on dead Iraqis all I need do is point to the author of this post or nearly every other post pointing out the number of dead Iraqis. You?ll notice that nearly every one of these types of threads is created by a member of the left/ anti-Bush crowd.

See my comments in the post above.

Furthermore, nearly everyone agrees that leaving Iraq right now could result in a major blood bath. Yet the people on the left who want us to leave continue to point to civilian deaths as a reason for us to leave. It is pretty clear that if your goal and concern is reducing the number of civilian Iraqi deaths then the only course of action right now is to stay in Iraq until we can make more progress on stabilizing the country. The surge is prefect proof of this, by most estimates the number of dead civilians in Iraq has dropped by at least a third since the surge started.

Sorry, not clear to me at all. What is clear to me is that the same people who have been wrong about virtually everything else about Iraq are now shrilly declaring that leaving Iraq will unequivocally lead to even greater chaos and violence. This is speculative at best. I consider it more likely that it is our very presence there, as an occupying force in another country, that is inciting the violence, and that violence will begin to subside on its own once the invaders are gone. Given our comparative track records, my speculation is at least as valid as yours.

The overly simple conclusion is this:
If your goal or concern is reducing the number of civilian Iraqis getting killed then the only course of action for the immediate future is to stay in Iraq and continue our efforts at rooting out the insurgents and AQ types.

If your goal is to simply score political point then continue to post stories about the awful death toll inflicted on the Iraqis while calling for a course of action that will result in even more death and destruction. The fact that so many seem to miss the inconsistency of this course of action continues to amaze me.

I agree, that is overly simple. It is also very likely wrong.

 

[Zebo]

Furthermore, nearly everyone agrees that leaving Iraq right now could result in a major blood bath.

We have to leave sometime...by staying as human shields we are just postponing the inevitable bloodbath meanwhile draining our men materials and money. Something Osama has said many times he delights in watching..I'm sure Chinese - Russians and other ememies also like the spectacle as well. Also The Shi'a, unleashed, would make short work of Al-Qaeda in Iraq unlike we are doing with our warfare laws. I think can't of any negatives leaving other than hurting neo-con pumped up pride.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: maluckey

Fact: Their "liberation" was not worth ONE more American life.

Who's compassionate here? Speak for yourself. It was worth me and many others putting our lives on the line for the Iraqis. It doesn't matter to me if they're Canadian, American, Iraqi, Kurd, Shia, Sunni, Russian or persian. I'll fight for those who can't do it alone.

Some of us are not so ethnocentric as to assume that Americans are somehow superior to people of other nations.

Take a stroll down an Iraqi street, unarmed and let me know how much your efforts are appreciated.

 

[ProfJohn]

Bow let me educate you
Link 1

About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.

That was October 29, 2004.

Link 2

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.

That was October 11, 2006.

Same source both times.
So 500,000 people were killed in a two year period?

How can 500,000 people die and ONLY one source notice this? There is not one other study that I know of that comes close to what these people are claiming.

And notice that both reports were released right before American elecetions?

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bow let me educate you...

That'll be the day, unless of course your intent is how to educate him about cluelessness, obfuscation, lying, poor grammar and spelling, or ironic user names.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bow let me educate you...

That'll be the day, unless of course your intent is how to educate him about cluelessness, obfuscation, lying, poor grammar and spelling, or ironic user names.

Perhaps you should read his post where he said he was not aware of another report by Lancet claiming 100,000 deaths.

That is what I was educating him on. Next time try sticking to the topic instead of throwing out childish insults.

 

[Jaskalas]

Here is another "source". http://www.washingtonpost.com/...R2006101001442_pf.html

Fact is they all source each other.

 

[piasabird]

Is there such a thing as an innocent Muslim???

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Is there such a thing as an innocent Muslim???

I know plenty of muslims personally, and none of them have ever done anything bad to me or anyone else that I know of.

I think Islam is a poor choice to build a government structure upon, but that's another subject. Besides, ditto for Christians, Buddhists, Hindi, etc. Government structured on a religious dogma always seems more susceptible to irrationality and destruction.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Is there such a thing as an innocent Muslim???

No one knows what percentage of Muslims are good ones - fundamentalists following Muhammad?s example of murdering and mutilating everyone in their path. But most Muslims are peaceful Muslim hypocrites...like 95% would be my guess.. just want education, good jobs and a peaceful life like the rest of us. Problem is they even try to leave the 'religion' that 5% is justified in killing them so they are MINO's (Muslim in name only) for life.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bow let me educate you
Link 1

About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.

That was October 29, 2004.

Link 2

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.

That was October 11, 2006.

Same source both times.
So 500,000 people were killed in a two year period?

Really PJ? I post several points and you don't have the gonads to address any of them, instead fixating on one trivial nit? How predictably lame. I guess we can only assume you are conceding you are being hypocritical in accepting this methodology when estimating sanction victims but rejecting it for invasion victims. We can also assume you recognize their timing in releasing the study is irrelevant to the accuracy of the study. Finally, you apparently acknowledge that your dire predictions about leaving Iraq have no credibility at all given your abysmal track record with Iraq predictions, that it is likely our leaving Iraq will lead to reduced violence.

Great, glad we got all that out of the way. Now let's look at your nit. I think we'll find you failed there too.


Let's start by noting you originally asserted the two studies were one year apart. That is false. As your own quotes show, and as you now implicitly acknowledge, the two surveys were about two years apart. Their reported death toll did NOT increase by 500K in one year as you claimed.

Now let's deconstruct your hand waving about how inconceivable it is for the death toll to climb by 555K in two years. First, that number is not at all improbable. It would require an average death toll of 23K people per month. That is certainly possible given the level of violence at that stage of the invasion, and roughly matches other estimates, at least for part of that period. The second article notes, for example, that "Between June 2005 and June 2006, the mortality rate hit a high of 19.8 per 1,000."

It is also quite possible their first count badly underestimated the total deaths at that time. If you bothered to read your links, you may have noticed their first sample was smaller and less representative than their second. They interviewed only 988 households in 33 neighborhoods for their first survey. For the second, "they visited 1,849 households in 47 separated clusters across the length and breadth of Iraq." If their first survey was limited to relatively safe locations, and it appears it was to some extent, then it is not at all surprising it would understate innocent deaths.

Finally, let's note that these surveys count only violent deaths. As somebody else pointed out above (and your second link corroborates), the death rate due to "natural" causes has also jumped because so much of their critical infrastructure has been destroyed, and so many essential services are unavailable. Even if we exclude violent deaths, there are more people dying in Iraq now than there were under sanctions. Such is the legacy of your boy George.

How can 500,000 people die and ONLY one source notice this? There is not one other study that I know of that comes close to what these people are claiming.

First and foremost, your claim is misdirection. There have been many sources lamenting the massive death toll in Iraq. As far as formally measuring this toll, however, who else has attempted to do so? Let's remember the Bush administration won't let our military report Iraqi death tolls, and the only other major effort, the Iraq Body Count project explicitly acknowledges their extremely conservative methodology greatly understates deaths. Doing in-person surveys is extremely dangerous. To the best of my knowledge, no other group has had the courage to try.

And notice that both reports were released right before American elecetions?

And notice, as I pointed out twice, and as you ignored twice, the timing of release does not in any way diminish the accuracy of the methodology. Repeating the same innuendo over and over doesn't magically make it relevant. It remains hypocritical for you to embrace this approach when it fits your political agenda and to attack it when it doesn't.


I'd consider you now educated, but we all know you never learn anything. Perhaps we need to upgrade your script to incorporate trainable AI.

 

[Alistar7]

LMAO, that 100,000 dead in 2004 was the result of a DOOR TO DOOR SURVEY and was widely discredited. Higher numbers from a slightly larger sample, still derived from door to door surveys, are a complete joke.

The deaths during sanctions were preventable and should not have occured. The only reason they did was the corruption with the UN in regards to the food for oil program. Saddam was ulitmately responsible, but he was given carte blanche as long as the money kept flowing. The UN was aware of his failure, and their own, yet did nothing to correct the problem. I would definitely say the deaths during sanctions were far worse due to these circumstances.

GrGr - Isn't it remarkable how little we see of this suffering. President Bush talks about Al Qaida in Iraq - but he, in his pursuit of Al Qaida who were not in Iraq before his invasion.

The residents of Biara would take exception with your claim. I fully expect you to acknowlege this factual, firsthand account and stop regurgitating outright lies as you have above. Feel free to travel to the village of Biara and tell the residents they are wrong.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

Posted by Michael J. Totten at 09:55 PM | Comments (32)
March 09, 2006
Zarqawi Was Here
BIARA, IRAQ ? The PUK?s Minister of the Interior ordered 20 heavily armed Peshmerga soldiers to go with me to the borderland mountain village of Biara. For years the village was occupied by Ansar Al Islam, the Kurdish-Arab-Persian branch of Al Qaeda in Northern Iraq. Biara wasn?t the only village seized by the Taliban of Mesopotamia, but it was perhaps the most important. It is there that the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had his last stand in Iraqi Kurdistan before the 2003 US-led invasion forced him out.

My Peshmerga weren?t really necessary. I told my translator Alan that I was embarrassed so many military resources were being spent on my account. I probably didn?t need any.

?It?s too much,? Alan said and laughed. He, too, was clearly embarrassed. ?It?s too much. The minister is doing this to be nice. He wants you to know that he cares about you.?

I introduced myself to some of my Peshmerga guards. There were so many it wasn?t easy to speak to them all. I had a hard time looking them in the eye. Jesus, I thought. These guys must think I?m the biggest wimp in the world. Biara isn?t actually dangerous. Zarqawi hasn?t been there for years. But it wasn?t my idea to bring them along. When the minister said ?I will send guards with you? I thought he meant maybe two guys. I cringed when I saw how many picked me up at my hotel in the morning.

Alan and I left Suleimaniya in a convoy. One truck bristling with Peshmerga led the way. Another truck followed. Heads turned as we drove through the small villages. Who might that be was the look on all the faces. I wanted to bury my own face in my hands. It?s just me! I?m not that important! It turned out, though, to be fun.


I don?t know if these guys actually thought I was a wimp because they had to come with me. They probably did. If so, they did a terrific job hiding it. Most likely they didn?t care. Driving up the mountains and into Biara surely beat boring checkpoint detail or whatever else they would have been otherwise doing.

We arrived in Biara and parked near the mosque founded long ago by a Sufi mystic from Turkey. Zarqawi lived in that mosque during the Ansar Al Islam occupation. I could tell most of the Peshmerga guys had never been there. They gawked at the mosque and at the mountains like tourists.

Their disposition had drastically changed since morning. At first they were all business. We will protect you said the look on their no-nonsense faces. Now they looked like boys. Cool! Field trip!

After a few oohs and ahs and the pointing of fingers they found a kebab shop and ordered some lunch. Alan and I went over to join them.

?I don?t have enough food for everybody,? the stunned shop owner said, clearly intimidated by the sheer volume of food he would have to prepare all at once. ?Try the tea shop down the street.?

Alan and I went to the tea shop down the street and settled in.


The proprietor happily made us Iraq-style tea (dark brown, overflowing, and packed with a wallop of sugar) and delicious kebabs.

There were a few other patrons in the tea shop and they eyed me, the obvious foreigner, with a mixture of curiosity and shyness.

?Do want to talk to some of these people?? Alan said. ?I?ll be happy to translate.?

Of course I wanted to talk. That was the reason I went there in the first place.

?Hello,? I said to two slightly goofy looking gentlemen sitting across the tea shop on the other side of the stove.

They both stepped across and we firmly shook hands.

?Do you want to know about life in Biara?? the one on the left said. He spoke perfect English and I did not need Alan to translate.

?Yes,? I said. ?Did you live here when the village was occupied by Zarqawi??

?I did,? he said. ?Life wasn?t good. We had no freedom. TV was banned. Women couldn?t walk outside without an abaya. There was violence. Anyone not affiliated with them was treated badly. During prayer time everyone was required to go to the mosque. If we didn?t go we were insulted and fined 50 dollars.?

50 dollars may not be a lot of money in the United States, but was a huge amount in a remote village in Iraqi Kurdistan while all of Iraq was under international sanctions. People needed the Oil for Food program just to stay alive.

?Did anyone here actually like Ansar Al Islam?? I asked.

?There were one or two very young people,? he said. ?I am from here. We never had anything like that before. I was joking with my friends in this tea shop. We were arrested, chained, blindfolded, and beaten. Laughing was banned.?

?They were like the Taliban,? his friend said.

?Did Ansar kill anyone here?? I asked.

?One person was tortured to death,? he said.

The tea shop owner joined the conversation.

?I was accused of being a member of the PUK,? he said, referring to the left-wing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan political party. ?So they put me in prison.?

Ansar Al Islam?s occupation of Biara and surrounding villages ended in 2003 when the Peshmerga launched a ground invasion with U.S. air support. Biara, including the Zarqawi-occupied mosque, was bombed from the air.

?How did you feel when the Americans bombed your village?? I asked the shopkeeper.

?We were waiting to get rid of them,? he said. ?We were desperate. They were the worst people ever. Many people had to close their businesses and leave this place.?

Two other men came into the tea shop. One wore a military uniform, the other wore civilian clothes. They kept to themselves at first, then came over to talk.

?Did you ever meet Zarqawi?? I asked the man in civilian clothes.

?Few people saw him,? he said. ?He covered his face with a cloth. He wasn?t the boss, though. Chafee was their commander. They had three commanders, actually. We are still afraid of them.?

Apparently the threat to this part of Iraqi Kurdistan isn?t quite over. Otherwise the minister of the interior would not have even thought to send Peshmerga guards with me. But the Islamists haven?t been back since the US and the Peshmerga drove them over the border into Iran. It was hard to imagine they would dare try to come back again without getting themselves killed the instant they arrived.

?When the US attacked,? he said, ?they escaped to an Iranian village. Then Iran sent them to Kirkuk. One guy was arrested in Kirkuk and sent back to Iran. Then Iran sent him back to Kirkuk again.?