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Infra

Infra

La Crosse, WI
November 2003

OCT 29, 2004 06:02 PM

A newly published study by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore states that the number of civilian casualties in Iraq has been severely underestimated to this point -- and that they may in fact amount to over 100,000 deaths. The report is scheduled to be published in the on-line version of the British medical journal The Lancet on Friday.

This total is far greater than previous reports have suggested. Independent sites such as Iraq Body Count are still reporting civilian deaths in the range of 14,000 to 16,000, roughly the same as that suggested by a New York Times article of October 19.

Although the paper's authors acknowledge that thorough data collection was difficult in what is effectively still a war zone, the data they managed to collect are extensive:

Iraqis were 2.5 times more likely to die in the 17 months following the invasion than in the 14 months before it. Before the invasion, the most common causes of death in Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and chronic diseases. Afterward, violent death was far ahead of all other causes.

"We were shocked at the magnitude but we're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate," said Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins study team. He said the team excluded deaths in Falluja in making their estimate, since that city was the site of unusually intense violence.

In 15 of the 33 communities visited, residents reported violent deaths in the family since the conflict started. They attributed many of those deaths to attacks by coalition forces mostly airstrikes and most of those killed were women and children. The risk of violent death was 58 times higher than before the war, the researchers reported.

"The fact that more than half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces were women and children is a cause for concern," the authors wrote.


The impact of this study is difficult to discount, especially considering that, according to an article in The Nation about a related study, Saddam Hussein's 24-year dictatorship claimed a total of 300,000 lives -- averaging out to 12,500 deaths a year. Even given the more conservative casualty estimates, this suggests that the current military campaign is more hazardous to the people of Iraq than the dictatorship it deposed.

The paper is studied and scientific, reserving judgment on the politics of the Iraq conflict. But in an accompanying editorial, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, is acerbic and to the point about its message. The paper was received in October, but it was peer-reviewed and edited at top speed because of its political importance.

"From a purely public health perspective it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error," Horton wrote. "The invasion of Iraq, the displacement of a cruel dictator and the attempt to impose a liberal democracy by force have, by themselves, been insufficient to bring peace and security to the civilian population. Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths, not fewer."

Shal

Shal

Los Angeles, CA
October 2002

OCT 29, 2004 09:23 PM

Those damned liberal academics, always lying and contradicting the government, who we all know can do no wrong. The Iraqi people welcomed us with parades and flowers! We are the liberators! Mission accomplished!

Why do those silly academics hate America? confused

davison

davison

Brooklyn, NY
October 2002

OCT 30, 2004 02:35 AM

yeah, we took that statue down, man!
they don't understand the price of freedom!
surreal

davison

davison

Brooklyn, NY
October 2002

OCT 30, 2004 02:35 AM

yeah, we took that statue down, man!
they don't understand the price of freedom!
surreal

lemur

lemur

San Francisco, CA
March 2003

OCT 30, 2004 03:59 AM

Hah!!! We ARE America!

Jaklyn

Jaklyn

Toronto, ON
January 2004

OCT 30, 2004 05:01 AM

Shalome said:
Those damned liberal academics, always lying and contradicting the government, who we all know can do no wrong. The Iraqi people welcomed us with parades and flowers! We are the liberators! Mission accomplished!

Why do those silly academics hate America? confused



why did you feel the need to make this a partisan thing? and i know you're being satirical, but in that you're just making it another "democrats vs. republicans" issue, as though there were a difference.

wAxlips

wAxlips

Prospect Park, PA
April 2004

OCT 30, 2004 05:45 AM

And sadly even if most Americans read this they would just shrug and jump into their SUV's.

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

OCT 30, 2004 06:01 AM

limonaid said:

Shalome said:
Those damned liberal academics, always lying and contradicting the government, who we all know can do no wrong. The Iraqi people welcomed us with parades and flowers! We are the liberators! Mission accomplished!

Why do those silly academics hate America? confused



why did you feel the need to make this a partisan thing? and i know you're being satirical, but in that you're just making it another "democrats vs. republicans" issue, as though there were a difference.



Read this thread and you'll begin to understand.

Corso

Corso

New York, NY
November 2003

OCT 30, 2004 07:34 AM

Guess this puts the lie to all the pathetic 'humanitarian' arguments for the war.

Southuhn

Southuhn

San Diego, CA
February 2004

OCT 30, 2004 10:55 AM

This does need some perspective, though. War is always more hazardous to the current population than lack of a war. However, even though a lot of people are dying now Iraq's death toll may go down drastically in the future, meaning that the war actually did save Iraqi lives.

Which is not to say that this many people had to die or that the war was good or any of that. Just that looking at this purely as "Oh no! People die in a war!" is not very enlightening.

Vestril

Vestril

Coronado, CA
February 2003

OCT 30, 2004 11:27 AM

Southuhn said:
This does need some perspective, though. War is always more hazardous to the current population than lack of a war. However, even though a lot of people are dying now Iraq's death toll may go down drastically in the future, meaning that the war actually did save Iraqi lives.

Which is not to say that this many people had to die or that the war was good or any of that. Just that looking at this purely as "Oh no! People die in a war!" is not very enlightening.



Except that most of those 300,000 occured before the first time the US fought Iraq; I doubt Saddam has been killing people at a prodigious rate for the last few years-he didn't have the resources to avoid the kind of insurgency that that would bring about. Whatever your arguments for this particular war are, that it will save lives in the long run seems highly improbable.

And "oh no, people die in a war!" seems very enlightening to me. If more people living in America had been thinking about that before-hand, maybe this War wouldn't have had as much public support as it had. War really should be a last resort (and I hate to borrow anything from John Kerry, but here I am doing it) and when you fly halfway across the planet to fight a country which couldn't threaten you militarily....that doesn't sound like a last resort.

You can argue about WMD and terrorists till the cows come home, but it won't change the fact that there were and still are countries which had/have or were/are developing Nuclear weapons and were far closer than the impovrished country of Iraq was (who couldn't maintain what conventional arms they had); and if terrorists were coming out of that country at a faster rate than average (for all countries in the world) they certainly weren't the fastest. Question: what nationality were most of the terrorists involved in the attacks on September 11th? Were any Iraqi?

Southuhn

Southuhn

San Diego, CA
February 2004

OCT 30, 2004 11:55 AM

Vestril said:Except that most of those 300,000 occured before the first time the US fought Iraq; I doubt Saddam has been killing people at a prodigious rate for the last few years-he didn't have the resources to avoid the kind of insurgency that that would bring about. Whatever your arguments for this particular war are, that it will save lives in the long run seems highly improbable.

And "oh no, people die in a war!" seems very enlightening to me. If more people living in America had been thinking about that before-hand, maybe this War wouldn't have had as much public support as it had. War really should be a last resort (and I hate to borrow anything from John Kerry, but here I am doing it) and when you fly halfway across the planet to fight a country which couldn't threaten you militarily....that doesn't sound like a last resort.

You can argue about WMD and terrorists till the cows come home, but it won't change the fact that there were and still are countries which had/have or were/are developing Nuclear weapons and were far closer than the impovrished country of Iraq was (who couldn't maintain what conventional arms they had); and if terrorists were coming out of that country at a faster rate than average (for all countries in the world) they certainly weren't the fastest. Question: what nationality were most of the terrorists involved in the attacks on September 11th? Were any Iraqi?


Like I said, I am not saying that the war is justified. I'm saying that a fairly high casualty rate doesn't make a war wrong or even unbeneficial in the long run. We knocked Japan around and stuck its head in the toilet — and that country has been more successful because of it.

I'm not commenting on whether that is actually the case here — just that these numbers don't mean what people wish they would mean. If you want to argue that the war is unnecessary or won't benefit Iraq in the greater scheme of things, feel free, but not with this evidence.

Nevetextor

Nevetextor

Newtown, CT
November 2003

OCT 30, 2004 12:50 PM

Actually, this study is really easy to discount.

The actual study says that there were 98,000 deaths, with a 95% confidence interfal of 8,000-196,000.

Basically, what that means is not "There are 98,000 deaths" but rather "We're 95% certain that there are between 8,000 and 196,000 deaths."

That's an extremely, extremely dodgy statistic, and it's really irresponsible to report it as any kind of meaningful commentary beyond "Actually, we've got no clue how many people died."

bonedaddyjim

bonedaddyjim

San Francisco, CA
March 2003

OCT 30, 2004 01:12 PM

Also, lets not forget -how many people died due to 10 years of crushing sanctions? Something like 500,000 children. Madelyn Albright said it was a price worth paying.

My fears are that many Iraqis will hate us for generations to come no matter how we continue from here, and also that due to their enormous oil reserves and ongoing regional conflicts, they will never enjoy peace and stability for long.

On the optimistic side, if the U.S. acts responsibly and tries to help negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, our prestige in the Arab world will increase greatly.



[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:13PM]

A_Gluestick

A_Gluestick

Pittsburgh, PA
October 2004

OCT 30, 2004 01:19 PM

I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.

Vestril

Vestril

Coronado, CA
February 2003

OCT 30, 2004 01:34 PM

A_Gluestick said:
I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.



If you hate America why would you run as a Democrat or Republican? I'm not saying that you're wrong-people should act if they feel that strongly-but running as one of the parties that are turning this country into what you hate (and lets face it, if you hate America you're pretty much guaranteed to hate Republicans and Democrats-whatever problems a person may have with this country can be largely attributed to those parties...or that party). The problem is that to run for high office where you can get things changed, you have to be a) RICH or b) convince RICH people to fund you. That's hard to do unless you're protecting the rich people in question. This is the essential problem with implementing real, lasting change in America for those who believe that protecting America's economy and protecting America's people are two very different things.

Plus, I have to point out that many of the people on this website are far too young to run for office, and just being a member of this website is, unfortunately, a political liability, especially if you're planning on running Rebublican.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:40PM]

Shal

Shal

Los Angeles, CA
October 2002

OCT 30, 2004 04:03 PM

limonaid said:

Shalome said:
Those damned liberal academics, always lying and contradicting the government, who we all know can do no wrong. The Iraqi people welcomed us with parades and flowers! We are the liberators! Mission accomplished!

Why do those silly academics hate America? confused



why did you feel the need to make this a partisan thing? and i know you're being satirical, but in that you're just making it another "democrats vs. republicans" issue, as though there were a difference.



Consider it a pre-emptive strike against the drivel that is continually spouted whenever something controversial --or that runs contrary to the statements coming from Washington DC-- is published by the scientific or academic communities, or by the news media.

If I say it first and get it out of the way, then the people who actually believe things like what I said have to really, really back up their points, at risk of looking like total morons.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 by Shalome]

gRim11x

gRim11x

Fort Campbell, KY
May 2004

OCT 30, 2004 11:16 PM

how can you really come up with a number of civilian deaths when the people that are attacking allied compounds are wearing civilian clothes there are no uniformes just people wheelding ak 47's and rpg's it is easy to say things when you arent being shot at by people that looklike everyday people wearing civilian clothes

Infra

Infra

La Crosse, WI
November 2003

OCT 31, 2004 03:23 AM

gRim11x said:
how can you really come up with a number of civilian deaths when the people that are attacking allied compounds are wearing civilian clothes there are no uniformes just people wheelding ak 47's and rpg's it is easy to say things when you arent being shot at by people that looklike everyday people wearing civilian clothes



This was accounted for in the study, to the degree that it could be ascertained. From page 3:

When deaths occurred, the date, cause, and circumstances of violent deaths were recorded. When violent deaths were attributed to a faction in the conflict or to criminal forces, no further investigation into the death was made to respect the privacy of the family and for the safety of the interviewers.



Also, the researchers stated that this may have contributed to an underestimation of the casualty numbers, not an overestimation (page 6).

The under-reporting of adult deaths recently or since the invasion to hide combatant deaths would lead us to underestimate the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.



Finally, it's been the case until recently that the insurgency is a mix of native Iraqis (mostly former military) and foreign militants. One of the requirements in the study is that only those deaths involving members of the household who had been present for at least two months would be counted. This was introduced in order to reduce the number of military or insurgent deaths that might otherwise be introduced.

swingkitten

swingkitten

Portland, OR
OLD SKOOL

OCT 31, 2004 03:34 AM

A_Gluestick said:
I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.




I don't quite understand what this has to do with this particular thread.

Infra

Infra

La Crosse, WI
November 2003

OCT 31, 2004 03:37 AM

Nevetextor said:
Actually, this study is really easy to discount.

The actual study says that there were 98,000 deaths, with a 95% confidence interfal of 8,000-196,000.

Basically, what that means is not "There are 98,000 deaths" but rather "We're 95% certain that there are between 8,000 and 196,000 deaths."

That's an extremely, extremely dodgy statistic, and it's really irresponsible to report it as any kind of meaningful commentary beyond "Actually, we've got no clue how many people died."



Considering that the last two pages of the article (out of seven total, not including the references and footnotes) were dedicated to pointing out the weaknesses and potential errors in the study, I would hesitate to say that this is "irresponsible." It was fully qualified, and the rationale for the results was clearly and comprehensively presented.

The need for further review was acknowledged and stated at the end of the article:

It seems difficult to understand how a military force could monitor the extent to which civilians are protected against violence without systematically doing body counts or at least looking at the kinds of casualties they induce. This survey shows that with modest funds, 4 weeks, and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilian deaths could be obtained. There seems to be little excuse for occupying forces to not be able to provide more precise tallies. In view of the political importance of this conflict, these results should be confirmed by an independent body such as the ICRC, Epicentre, or WHO. In the interim, civility and enlightened self-interest demand a re-evaluation of the consequences of weaponry now used by coalition forces in populated areas.



BTW, the 8,000 - 196,000 range results from the asymmetrical distribution of the casualties. As the individuals involved in the study stated, it was impossible to use more than 33 clusters due to the risk that more extensive travel posed to the lives of the people involved. In fact, 33 clusters were selected because it was assumed that at least 10% of the areas would be unreachable. Having more data and a more comprehensive study would help narrow this range.

Nevetextor

Nevetextor

Newtown, CT
November 2003

OCT 31, 2004 10:06 AM

Two pages at the end of an article saying "Umm, actually our study kinda sucked" does not make up for going out into the media and providing the great sound bite about 100,000 being a conservative estimate. Yes. Conservative. Unless it falls into the MASSIVE CONFIDENCE INTERVAL whereby it could be exeedingly liberal.

I mean, yes, I know why the study was flawed and why it generated such little information. And I'm sure it was the bst study that could be conducted in the circumstances. I'm just saying, in that case, what we learned from the study was not that there were 100,000 deaths. It's that we don't have any good way of telling.

A_Gluestick

A_Gluestick

Pittsburgh, PA
October 2004

OCT 31, 2004 10:37 AM

Vestril said:

A_Gluestick said:
I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.



If you hate America why would you run as a Democrat or Republican? I'm not saying that you're wrong-people should act if they feel that strongly-but running as one of the parties that are turning this country into what you hate (and lets face it, if you hate America you're pretty much guaranteed to hate Republicans and Democrats-whatever problems a person may have with this country can be largely attributed to those parties...or that party). The problem is that to run for high office where you can get things changed, you have to be a) RICH or b) convince RICH people to fund you. That's hard to do unless you're protecting the rich people in question. This is the essential problem with implementing real, lasting change in America for those who believe that protecting America's economy and protecting America's people are two very different things.

Plus, I have to point out that many of the people on this website are far too young to run for office, and just being a member of this website is, unfortunately, a political liability, especially if you're planning on running Rebublican.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:40PM]



Run for City council, school board, treasurer. Its a start and yeah if we all got up in mass and joined a party we can carve that party into what we WANT. We need not be slaves to be we can command it. The rich run because they have the time look at most of our senators and congressman. 80% came from the middle class and you need not start at the top. City council to mayor to state rep to congressan and then to senator. I could do that with some effort and if we need to start lower than city council go for school board or treasurer or DA. If you have good political ideas then express them and go out and do something about it. Its one thing to sit back on your ass and cry about bush and his bad policies its another thing to get off that same ass and go and run for office and get all your friends to vote for you.

Akrasia

Akrasia

Ireland
August 2004

OCT 31, 2004 10:47 AM

A_Gluestick said:

Vestril said:

A_Gluestick said:
I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.



If you hate America why would you run as a Democrat or Republican? I'm not saying that you're wrong-people should act if they feel that strongly-but running as one of the parties that are turning this country into what you hate (and lets face it, if you hate America you're pretty much guaranteed to hate Republicans and Democrats-whatever problems a person may have with this country can be largely attributed to those parties...or that party). The problem is that to run for high office where you can get things changed, you have to be a) RICH or b) convince RICH people to fund you. That's hard to do unless you're protecting the rich people in question. This is the essential problem with implementing real, lasting change in America for those who believe that protecting America's economy and protecting America's people are two very different things.

Plus, I have to point out that many of the people on this website are far too young to run for office, and just being a member of this website is, unfortunately, a political liability, especially if you're planning on running Rebublican.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:40PM]



Run for City council, school board, treasurer. Its a start and yeah if we all got up in mass and joined a party we can carve that party into what we WANT. We need not be slaves to be we can command it. The rich run because they have the time look at most of our senators and congressman. 80% came from the middle class and you need not start at the top. City council to mayor to state rep to congressan and then to senator. I could do that with some effort and if we need to start lower than city council go for school board or treasurer or DA. If you have good political ideas then express them and go out and do something about it. Its one thing to sit back on your ass and cry about bush and his bad policies its another thing to get off that same ass and go and run for office and get all your friends to vote for you.


Mr Gluestick, may i ask you which position as a public representative you hold?

A_Gluestick

A_Gluestick

Pittsburgh, PA
October 2004

OCT 31, 2004 11:11 AM

I plan on running for school board in another year or so. Just to make sure I am still here in the city by then. If you live in Pittsburgh come vote for me.

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