Republicans are getting what they deserve. They let the conservative base down and shouldn't be rewarded with another term
Posted by:
Thomas at October 28, 2006 10:02 AM
1,013 poll respondents? And this should be representative for a population of 300 million? The article does not make clear how CNN had conducted this survey and selected these respondents. Was it a proper cross-section of the US or did CNN get the telephonelist from the adressbook of some Freeper?
You guys were all up in arms about another ‘poll’ where 1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million were interviewed and where the interviewees could back up their answers with certificates 92 percent of the time, because such a "small number" could not be representative.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 28, 2006 12:14 PM
Willemena's talking about the "poll" that concluded that 650,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the war started.
I do believe, Willemena, that that "poll" was conducted in the most deadly areas of Iraq; i.e., it was mis-sampled.
Nice try, Willemena; back to the hash-house for you...
Posted by: 1H8L1BS at October 28, 2006 12:43 PM
One question I think we need to keep driving home is Where Do Democrats Stand?
We know that basically, they can't take a stand on actual issues or values because they have little, if any. So, they invent or exaggerate scandals and mud to sling back, while accusing the right of being the ones doing it.
Posted by:
Lew Waters at October 28, 2006 01:47 PM
No, the survey was conducted proportionally all over Iraq. In all provinces, in rural areas, in urban areas, all over Iraq. The sample was correct. Read the report.
What do we know about the CNN-sample? That the respondents had a telephone plus that it was extremely small compared to the Iraq study.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 28, 2006 02:32 PM
Willem van Oranje,
There's a HUGE difference in polling opinions and drawing conclusions and taking a survey and extrapolating it for an entire country.
Besides, this was all covered in a earlier thread and it was brought up that the survey included both deaths from natural causes and those from violent means, including violent deaths that had nothing to do with our intervention in Iraq. Further, the total number of deaths estimated with the survey is within the range of deaths that could be expected had we not intervened.
Posted by: A-10 at October 28, 2006 02:36 PM
A-10
Only the farthest of the far left kook fringe believes that 650,000 number and those are not worth debating.
Posted by:
CJ at October 28, 2006 03:42 PM
There's a HUGE difference in polling opinions and drawing conclusions and taking a survey and extrapolating it for an entire country.
Uhmmm, actually yes and no. And the differences are in favor of the Iraq-study. You can't check opinions with documentation like death certificates. Plus there isn't much ‘wriggle’ room in being dead or alive. When polling opinions, everything depends on how the question is worded.
Further, the total number of deaths estimated with the survey is within the range of deaths that could be expected had we not intervened.
Wether the excess deaths were of natural or of violent causes is completely irrelevant. These are "excess deaths". Since the Coalition forces have become the de facto Government of Iraq, they are responsible for enforcing and maintaining law and order in that country and for providing safety and adequate healthcare for its citizens, among other things. You wouldn't expect any less from your own government, and so do the Iraqi's.
Nope. The deathrate for deaths that would have occurred when the US had not "intervened" (nice euphemism for an invasion and occupation) was substracted from the observed deathrate. Hence the phrase "excess deaths".
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 28, 2006 05:12 PM
Argg, this small editing field ...
The last paragraph of my previous post should be read as the reply to the second blockquote.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 28, 2006 05:15 PM
CJ, are you suggesting Willem is far to the Left? Naaaw, couldn't be, heh.
As far as I'm concerned, there is only one poll that is important -- the one a week from next Tuesday (a week from Wednesday for Democrats, heh, heh). And, Willem, just for your clarification, I'm talking about the one where people go into a little booth and cast their vote, not the exit poll where polsters may or may not poll Repubs and Dems equally, and where people may or may not tell the truth about whom they voted for.
Posted by: Retired Spook at October 28, 2006 06:18 PM
Spook
Whats sad is the lefts irrational hatred for our young men and women in uniform is so strong that it blinds them to reality. Just the thought of a Marine sends them into such a tizzy that they see him slaughtering over 500 innocent civilians daily.
Posted by:
CJ at October 28, 2006 07:27 PM
BURR, if your out there reading this. I lost a bunch of email addys in a crash. Email me when possible! God bless brother!!!
Posted by: bearmanUSMC at October 28, 2006 07:41 PM
Willie's in such a tizzy from spinning violently to the left all day long, he can't be expected to absorb, much less regurgiate, anything but the most extreme and radical lefty talking points.
If the "poll" he references is the one I am thinking of,the number was arrived at based on interviews with people who knew someone who had been killed. Or said they did.
The first and most obvious flaw in the poll I read about was the total and absolute lack of any defining characteristic of "civilian". If one defines "civilian" as not wearing a uniform, then ALL of those killed in Iraq were civilians. Duh.
But absent any way to determine who was a real "civilian" and who was really an enemy combatant, any figures which pretend to separate the two categories are simply unreliable. And we can't eliminate women from the enemy combatant group, if they are killed while providing shelter, aid, and/or assitance to other combatants. We also cannot consider children to be innocent civilian bystanders, for the purpose of this kind of tally, if in fact those children were either kept in dangerous locations by terrorists to provide cover for them, or kept in dangerous situations by parents willing to risk their lives in pursuit of their own goals. These children might in fact be innocent of any wrongoing, but by being placed in combat zones by those entrusted with their care they also cannot be clasified in the same way we might classify children on their way to school, who were hit by a bomb.
Therefore, the number was just an invention.
But beyond that, there is the defect of basing the number on the number of interviewees who SAID they knew someone who had been killed. There is no way to verify if these statements were true or not. But more to the point, there is no way to verify that many people were not talking about the same person who was killed.
If fifty people all knew the same man, a man who was killed, then it could be reported that fifty men had been killed.
The methodology was so flawed it was simply silly, and the conclusion was so obviously based on what the pollsters wanted to "prove" it was not worth looking at.
Except for the radical Left, so desperate to find any "facts" to back up their hysteria that they will leap at anything offered to them. They still quote this "poll".
Also, Willy's "explanation" of the term "excess deaths" is questionable. He seems to be claiming that every death in Iraq is the fault/responsibility of the Americans, just because we are in charge, and also that all deaths which might have been considered to be "expected" deaths were then subtracted from that total.
Did they consider the number of "expected" deaths which would have occurred due to ritualized torture and slaughter of truly innocent civilians under the Hussein Boys?
And just how did they arrive at the "expected" number of deaths? Just where did they buy that crystal ball? Because I have noticed how much of what passes for argument on the Left is so dependent on the vision of an Iraq which would have been frozen in time, the day before the invasion, and which would have remained unchanged. They make all of their arguments, predictions, etc. based on the idea of an Iraq which never developed any WMD beyond what they had on the date we crossed their borders, never developed any nuclear weaponry or technology, never sold or gave any nasty weapons or even financing to any terrorists attacking the United States, never helped train any terrorists, never paid any families of homicide bombers, never tortured or killed any more people (or maybe just kept he numbers unchanged from the years past) and so on.
In other words, the projections of the Left make as much sense as their comprehension of the past. They live in a fantasy bubble, where reality never intrudes, and Willy is ongoing proof of that.
Posted by: Almiranta at October 28, 2006 08:57 PM
Almiranta, your post is riddled with false assumptions and distortions. Let's deconstruct them one by one.
the number was arrived at based on interviews with people who knew someone who had been killed. Or said they did.
Wrong. The number was arrived at based on interviews with people who had deaths in their households and who lived for at least three months prior to their death in that household. They were also asked if they had death certificates. They had. 92 percent of the time.
How many death certificates do you have of people you just "knew"?
the total and absolute lack of any defining characteristic of "civilian"
That was not a "flaw". They were not searching for "civilians" or "terrorists". They were searching for deaths. They clearly stated that in the report. A dead civilian and a dead terrorist have one thing in common: they are both dead. The rest of that paragraph plus the following one is therefore completely and utterly irrelevant. It was just a waste of your time typing (or copying) it.
You really should have read the report itself when you want to comment about it.
there is the defect of basing the number on the number of interviewees who SAID they knew someone who had been killed. There is no way to verify if these statements were true or not.
Already refuted above: not only "said" (death certificate) and not "knew" (living for three months prior to death in household). Deaths were verified with death certificates. These certificates are usually in the household the deceased lived before he or she died. How many death certificates do you have from neighbours or people you just knew?
The rest of the paragraph was just more of the same. You really should have read the report. You could have saved yourself a lot of time.
Did they consider the number of "expected" deaths which would have occurred due to ritualized torture and slaughter of truly innocent civilians under the Hussein Boys?
Yep, they did. Again, you should have read the report, all your questions would have been answered.
The period surveyed included 14 months prior to the invasion. The base line was taken from that period, when Saddam was in charge and the Iraqi's were subject to the UN sanctions (you forgot to mention that).
And just how did they arrive at the "expected" number of deaths? Just where did they buy that crystal ball?
See above. No "crystal ball", just cruching numbers. Simple as that. It's in the report, read it. I'll make it extremely simple for you, here is the link: www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
The rest of your post was just your usual dribble and didn't contain any factual observation or question.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 28, 2006 11:59 PM
Well, this part deserves some response.
He seems to be claiming that every death in Iraq is the fault/responsibility of the Americans, just because we are in charge
Read the Geneva Conventions what the responsibilies of occupying forces are. You've made yourself the new government there and are responsible for maintaining law and order and providing safety for its citizens.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 29, 2006 12:16 AM
Willem,
Every death in this war is actually the responsibility of the terrorists - they started the fight and it is their continued beligerance which causes all of the death and destruction. The moment they stop being terrorists, all of the death and destruction ends.
Posted by: Mark Noonan at October 29, 2006 12:42 AM
But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.
Uhm. Did you read Mark's original post? Compare the sample of the CNN-poll with the sample of the Iraq study (1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million). What does the professor want? More deaths? That would have made the number of deaths for entire population even higher. Using the numbers of deaths in that argument is utterly ridiculous. You don't use the nr of results, you use the nr of people polled/interviewed (1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million). The size of these samples are not by accident or "just as many as you can get". The size of these samples are decided beforehand. Read the Report. This cluster survey is a tested and proven method in war torn regions to get an estimate that can be trusted. The size of the sample is not in question.
The other three ‘critiques’ are even more ridiculous:
one doesn't like the ‘tone’ of the report; and another one is ‘troubled’ (with what? the amount of deaths?). Does that change anything?
The method of the IBC is far more flawed in estimating the total nr of deaths than the Lancet-study: only deaths reported in the media are tallied; they require two different sources for every death; the media gets its information mainly from morgues and hospitals; the Ministry of Health in Iraq (who controls the morgues and hospitals) has a vested interested in painting a rosy picture, it even has forbidden to give out any information since a week or so; not every death ends up in a morgue or hospital, muslims bury their deaths preferably the same day.
And the third critic thinks the timing was political. The timing of publishing does not change the results. When the study was published after the election, you still would have 655,000 excess deaths as of July 2006.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 29, 2006 01:39 AM
Every death in this war is actually the responsibility of the terrorists - they started the fight and it is their continued beligerance which causes all of the death and destruction. The moment they stop being terrorists, all of the death and destruction ends.
So, when a neonazist militia in Nevada starts a killing spree, killing everone it doesn't like: gays; blacks; jews; uppity women; liberals; etc., you think the State of Nevada and the Federal Government is not responsible for stopping that militia? Claiming: "we aren't doing the killing!"
Where would the civilians of Nevada turn for protection and safety?
Should form their own militia's? That's what's happening in Iraq right now. Hence it's a civil war.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 29, 2006 01:49 AM
Wilma, here's what they've already said about the ridiculous claim of 665,000 dead
NY Times: Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was “the best of what you can expect in a war zone.”...."But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.
NY TIMES: "Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had “a tone of accuracy that’s just inappropriate.”
Wall Street Journal: "Hamit Dardagan, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, a London-based human-rights group, called the Lancet study’s figures “pretty shockingly high.” His group tabulates the civilian death toll based on media reports augmented by local hospital and morgue records. His group says it has accumulated reports of as many as 48,693 civilian deaths caused by the U.S. intervention."
Associated Press: "“They’re almost certainly way too high,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election. “This is not analysis, this is politics,’’ Cordesman said.
Posted by: Warriornation at October 29, 2006 01:54 AM
Willem,
The only place I'm aware there are neo-Nazis is, well, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden...you know, Europe...
Posted by: Mark Noonan at October 29, 2006 02:18 AM
Nice dodge, Mark.
Be a man, answer the question.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 29, 2006 06:40 AM
CJ, are you suggesting Willem is far to the Left? Naaaw, couldn't be, heh.
Willemena's a kook who gravitated here from Scrutator, a big spoof site. Will's probably a spoof too, as are others who frequent this blog.
I think every death in Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and Africa is the fault of Bush and the U.S., since we had a hand in liberating most of the world from fascism. All the deaths in Cuba are our fault too. Hell, every time someone in the world dies, we ought to call for Bush's impeachment...
Posted by: 1H8L1BS at October 29, 2006 08:19 AM
Can anyone who believes the accuracy of the 'survey', explain if 600,000 people were killed by the US...how come the MSM can't find them? Come on...600,000 isn't a number you can sweep under the rug and nobody notices. If the death certificate explanation was accurate, the bureaucracy of Iraq would've been swamped with these requests for death certificates, and surely someone would have done a story on them.
Posted by: Hermie at October 29, 2006 10:02 AM
This poll is flawed fundamentally because at the moment, no one outside the Bush Administration really knows how badly they have been curtailing freedoms and civil liberties. Everything is all top secret and national security. That will change radically once the democrats retake the house and proper investigations and congressional oversight can once again resume. At that point, all the administrations dirty laundry will come forth and you will find that most people will not support the administrations efforts.
Posted by: axis at October 29, 2006 04:56 PM
With all this blistering over the accuracy of Lancet's 600,00 estimate, I am dying to know one thing of the bush-cultists here:
would 600,000 dead be acceptable to you, if it were true? Would you guys still think the war in iraq was justifiable? I'm going to take a wild guess and say yes, but let me know if I'm wrong.
No conceivable cost Mark!
Posted by: other_nate at October 30, 2006 01:02 AM
other_nate,
Try to keep up. The 600,000 figure is within the range of the expected number of deaths even if we had not intervened in Iraq. To try to blame them on the intervention is disingenuous.
The survey included deaths from natural causes and violent deaths. It also includes the tens of thousands of insurgents/terrorists that we have killed.
Mark is right, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the terrorists. If they weren't trying to stop the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East, the death toll would be much lower.
Posted by: A-10 at October 30, 2006 04:15 PM
Can anyone who believes the accuracy of the 'survey', explain if 600,000 people were killed by the US...how come the MSM can't find them? Come on...600,000 isn't a number you can sweep under the rug and nobody notices.
First, the report does not say all these people were "killed by the US". It has estimated the nr of people who have died since the invasion. Having responsibility for the current situation is different from actually killing the people yourself. Even if the Coalition forces hadn't killed one single Iraqi, they still would be held responsible for creating the situation in which these excess deaths could occur.
The MSM is reporting only from ca. 5 major cities in Iraq. Iraq has at least 90 major cities. The MSM is only reporting on the most dramatic incidents. From other conflicts, we also know that the MSM had only been able to report on a small fraction of the conflict or a war. A lot of people also die because of the deteriorating situation in general, for instance because of lack of adequate health care. Do you think the MSM has reports about every Iraqi who dies of appendicitis because he or she couldn't get the proper treatment?
If the death certificate explanation was accurate, the bureaucracy of Iraq would've been swamped with these requests for death certificates, and surely someone would have done a story on them.
Issuing death certificates isn't that difficult, basically it is just filling out a form. The person who issued the death certificate is meant to send a copy to the central government records office where they collate them, tabulate them and collect the overall mortality statistics. This bit of the government infrastructure is still not working in Iraq. It was never great before the war, broke down entirely immediately after the invasion (when there was no government to send them to), and has never really recovered; statistics agencies are often bottom of the queue after essential infrastructure, law and order and electricity. Therefore, there is no inconsistency between the fact that 92% of people with a dead relative could produce the certificate when asked, and the fact that Iraq has no remotely reliable mortality statistics.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 30, 2006 04:59 PM
A-10
Try to keep up. The 600,000 figure is within the range of the expected number of deaths even if we had not intervened in Iraq. To try to blame them on the intervention is disingenuous.
No A-10, you need ‘to keep up’. All your points have already been debunked. See the several posts about that in this thread.
You even contradict yourself. First you write that these deaths are "within the range of the expected number of deaths even if we had not intervened in Iraq", but a few sentences later you write that "the death toll would be much lower".
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 30, 2006 05:19 PM
Warriornation, my reply to you appears before your post, probably because of DST. I wrote my reply in ‘wintertime’ but this blog was still in ‘summertime’.
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 30, 2006 05:27 PM
Willem van Oranje,
No, Willy, you try to keep up. There was no contradiction, you are just having a problem with your reading comprehension.
If the terrorists had not taken up the fight to stop the spread of freedom and democracy the expected death totals would be lower due to the fact that we had put the Saddam killing machine out of business. He was killing 50,000-60,000 of his fellow countrymen and women each year.
According to the "survey", about 200,000 deaths per year have occurred since Mar 2003. A sizable number of these are directly related to the terrorists. Subtract those and we would expect to see about 150,000 deaths a year, a significant drop from the Saddam years.
Posted by: A-10 at October 30, 2006 05:54 PM
A-10 -
You comletely skirted my question. I'm asking you if 600,000 deaths would be an acceptable cost of the war for you (y'all). My guess is that, if it could be proven to you that American action in Iraq led to 600,000 extra deaths (which is exactly what the Lancet is assering), then you would still say it was worth it.
Try actually answering my questions some time.
Posted by: other_nate at October 31, 2006 11:03 PM
He was killing 50,000-60,000 of his fellow countrymen and women each year.
According to the "survey", about 200,000 deaths per year have occurred since Mar 2003. A sizable number of these are directly related to the terrorists. Subtract those and we would expect to see about 150,000 deaths a year, a significant drop from the Saddam years.
It's clear you haven't read the report either. For instance, when you say 200,000 deaths per year have occurred since Mar 2003. In fact there is a trend line visible in the report: each year the nr of deaths have more or less doubled.
There are other errors in your reply as well. You are making the same first grade error Mark and Almiranta were making too. See above. You can't substract deaths - or a specific group of deaths - twice from the end estimate. Deaths from before the invasion are already substracted through the mortality-rates. These deaths would have included any alleged killing by Saddam.
Also, where's the survey that shows Saddam killed 50,000-60,000 people each year? You just pulled that number out of your ass? The latest estimate is that Saddam killed 290,000 over 20 years, with the majority in the first half of his reign with the latest major atrocity being the gassing of the Kurds after the first Gulf War.
Your ‘if’ assertion is wrong (plus it's totally irrelevant). It's not what has happened and it's certainly not what the Bush administration expected. They expected to be greeted as "liberators", remember?
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at November 1, 2006 03:37 AM
other_nate,
"I'm asking you if 600,000 deaths would be an acceptable cost of the war for you"
No. But since there have not been 600,000 additional deaths as a result of our intervention, your supposition is moot.
"My guess is that, if it could be proven to you that American action in Iraq led to 600,000 extra deaths (which is exactly what the Lancet is assering), then you would still say it was worth it."
I guess that you are wrong then. And while it may be what the Lancet is asserting, they are mixing apples and oranges. According to the DoD, the survey (which is using flawed calculations) included all deaths, whether they were due to violence or not.
Based on the Iraqi mortality rate prior to the intervention, the expected number of deaths from 2003 until 2006 is around 600,000 (according to the UN, which placed the mortality rate at 8.1 per 1000). So if the total number of deaths per the survey is 600,000, there is basically no difference between pre and post intervention deaths.
In effect, the deaths attributed to Saddam have been replaced by the deaths caused by the terrorists/insurgents.
The bottomline is that liberals are trying to place the fault for deaths of Iraqis on the US because of our intervention. It doesn't matter that we stopped Saddam. A President with a "R" after his name took action, so liberals must attack his actions. To do otherwise would be admission that the liberal "lack of a plan" was wrong. And just as Senator Kerry cannot bring himself to say "I'm sorry", liberals cannot bring themselves to say the President was right.
Posted by: A-10 at November 1, 2006 04:54 PM
Slick willy,
"You can't substract deaths - or a specific group of deaths - twice from the end estimate. Deaths from before the invasion are already substracted through the mortality-rates."
WHAT? As I explained to "nate", the mortality rate of 8.1 per 1000 before the intervention would have resulted in about 600,000 deaths over a three year period. Exactly what the survey calculated. The pre-intervention mortality rate included ten's of thousands of Iraqis killed by Saddam. Our intervention has stopped that killing.
Unfortunately, because the terrorists/insurgents do not want democracy to flourish in the Middle East, they have taken to killing Iraqis.
The terrorists/insurgents basically have two options: (1) Continue killing Iraqis and the random America service member and hope they can turn the public support against the war, as happened with Vietnam. The MSM and liberals are doing their best to encourage the terrorists. Every time they publicize the killing of Americans, they help the terrorist cause.
(2) Stop killing Iraqis. If they were to stop killing innocents and the random America service member, we would complete our mission of training the Iraqi Security Forces and a good portion of our force would leave Iraq.
Why don't they take this approach. Because of the risk that the Iraqi Security Forces would be more brutal than the Americans. They are choosing option 1, and you're helping them achieve that goal. The blood of American service members and innocent Iraqis are on your hands, due to your anti-war, anti-American, foolish beliefs.
Posted by: A-10 at November 1, 2006 05:05 PM
Republicans are getting what they deserve. They let the conservative base down and shouldn't be rewarded with another term
1,013 poll respondents? And this should be representative for a population of 300 million? The article does not make clear how CNN had conducted this survey and selected these respondents. Was it a proper cross-section of the US or did CNN get the telephonelist from the adressbook of some Freeper?
You guys were all up in arms about another ‘poll’ where 1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million were interviewed and where the interviewees could back up their answers with certificates 92 percent of the time, because such a "small number" could not be representative.
Willemena's talking about the "poll" that concluded that 650,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the war started.
I do believe, Willemena, that that "poll" was conducted in the most deadly areas of Iraq; i.e., it was mis-sampled.
Nice try, Willemena; back to the hash-house for you...
One question I think we need to keep driving home is Where Do Democrats Stand?
We know that basically, they can't take a stand on actual issues or values because they have little, if any. So, they invent or exaggerate scandals and mud to sling back, while accusing the right of being the ones doing it.
No, the survey was conducted proportionally all over Iraq. In all provinces, in rural areas, in urban areas, all over Iraq. The sample was correct. Read the report.
What do we know about the CNN-sample? That the respondents had a telephone plus that it was extremely small compared to the Iraq study.
Willem van Oranje,
There's a HUGE difference in polling opinions and drawing conclusions and taking a survey and extrapolating it for an entire country.
Besides, this was all covered in a earlier thread and it was brought up that the survey included both deaths from natural causes and those from violent means, including violent deaths that had nothing to do with our intervention in Iraq. Further, the total number of deaths estimated with the survey is within the range of deaths that could be expected had we not intervened.
A-10
Only the farthest of the far left kook fringe believes that 650,000 number and those are not worth debating.
Uhmmm, actually yes and no. And the differences are in favor of the Iraq-study. You can't check opinions with documentation like death certificates. Plus there isn't much ‘wriggle’ room in being dead or alive. When polling opinions, everything depends on how the question is worded.
Wether the excess deaths were of natural or of violent causes is completely irrelevant. These are "excess deaths". Since the Coalition forces have become the de facto Government of Iraq, they are responsible for enforcing and maintaining law and order in that country and for providing safety and adequate healthcare for its citizens, among other things. You wouldn't expect any less from your own government, and so do the Iraqi's.
Nope. The deathrate for deaths that would have occurred when the US had not "intervened" (nice euphemism for an invasion and occupation) was substracted from the observed deathrate. Hence the phrase "excess deaths".
Argg, this small editing field ...
The last paragraph of my previous post should be read as the reply to the second blockquote.
CJ, are you suggesting Willem is far to the Left? Naaaw, couldn't be, heh.
As far as I'm concerned, there is only one poll that is important -- the one a week from next Tuesday (a week from Wednesday for Democrats, heh, heh). And, Willem, just for your clarification, I'm talking about the one where people go into a little booth and cast their vote, not the exit poll where polsters may or may not poll Repubs and Dems equally, and where people may or may not tell the truth about whom they voted for.
Spook
Whats sad is the lefts irrational hatred for our young men and women in uniform is so strong that it blinds them to reality. Just the thought of a Marine sends them into such a tizzy that they see him slaughtering over 500 innocent civilians daily.
BURR, if your out there reading this. I lost a bunch of email addys in a crash. Email me when possible! God bless brother!!!
Willie's in such a tizzy from spinning violently to the left all day long, he can't be expected to absorb, much less regurgiate, anything but the most extreme and radical lefty talking points.
If the "poll" he references is the one I am thinking of,the number was arrived at based on interviews with people who knew someone who had been killed. Or said they did.
The first and most obvious flaw in the poll I read about was the total and absolute lack of any defining characteristic of "civilian". If one defines "civilian" as not wearing a uniform, then ALL of those killed in Iraq were civilians. Duh.
But absent any way to determine who was a real "civilian" and who was really an enemy combatant, any figures which pretend to separate the two categories are simply unreliable. And we can't eliminate women from the enemy combatant group, if they are killed while providing shelter, aid, and/or assitance to other combatants. We also cannot consider children to be innocent civilian bystanders, for the purpose of this kind of tally, if in fact those children were either kept in dangerous locations by terrorists to provide cover for them, or kept in dangerous situations by parents willing to risk their lives in pursuit of their own goals. These children might in fact be innocent of any wrongoing, but by being placed in combat zones by those entrusted with their care they also cannot be clasified in the same way we might classify children on their way to school, who were hit by a bomb.
Therefore, the number was just an invention.
But beyond that, there is the defect of basing the number on the number of interviewees who SAID they knew someone who had been killed. There is no way to verify if these statements were true or not. But more to the point, there is no way to verify that many people were not talking about the same person who was killed.
If fifty people all knew the same man, a man who was killed, then it could be reported that fifty men had been killed.
The methodology was so flawed it was simply silly, and the conclusion was so obviously based on what the pollsters wanted to "prove" it was not worth looking at.
Except for the radical Left, so desperate to find any "facts" to back up their hysteria that they will leap at anything offered to them. They still quote this "poll".
Also, Willy's "explanation" of the term "excess deaths" is questionable. He seems to be claiming that every death in Iraq is the fault/responsibility of the Americans, just because we are in charge, and also that all deaths which might have been considered to be "expected" deaths were then subtracted from that total.
Did they consider the number of "expected" deaths which would have occurred due to ritualized torture and slaughter of truly innocent civilians under the Hussein Boys?
And just how did they arrive at the "expected" number of deaths? Just where did they buy that crystal ball? Because I have noticed how much of what passes for argument on the Left is so dependent on the vision of an Iraq which would have been frozen in time, the day before the invasion, and which would have remained unchanged. They make all of their arguments, predictions, etc. based on the idea of an Iraq which never developed any WMD beyond what they had on the date we crossed their borders, never developed any nuclear weaponry or technology, never sold or gave any nasty weapons or even financing to any terrorists attacking the United States, never helped train any terrorists, never paid any families of homicide bombers, never tortured or killed any more people (or maybe just kept he numbers unchanged from the years past) and so on.
In other words, the projections of the Left make as much sense as their comprehension of the past. They live in a fantasy bubble, where reality never intrudes, and Willy is ongoing proof of that.
Almiranta, your post is riddled with false assumptions and distortions. Let's deconstruct them one by one.
Wrong. The number was arrived at based on interviews with people who had deaths in their households and who lived for at least three months prior to their death in that household. They were also asked if they had death certificates. They had. 92 percent of the time.
How many death certificates do you have of people you just "knew"?
That was not a "flaw". They were not searching for "civilians" or "terrorists". They were searching for deaths. They clearly stated that in the report. A dead civilian and a dead terrorist have one thing in common: they are both dead. The rest of that paragraph plus the following one is therefore completely and utterly irrelevant. It was just a waste of your time typing (or copying) it. You really should have read the report itself when you want to comment about it. Already refuted above: not only "said" (death certificate) and not "knew" (living for three months prior to death in household). Deaths were verified with death certificates. These certificates are usually in the household the deceased lived before he or she died. How many death certificates do you have from neighbours or people you just knew?The rest of the paragraph was just more of the same. You really should have read the report. You could have saved yourself a lot of time.
Yep, they did. Again, you should have read the report, all your questions would have been answered.
The period surveyed included 14 months prior to the invasion. The base line was taken from that period, when Saddam was in charge and the Iraqi's were subject to the UN sanctions (you forgot to mention that).
See above. No "crystal ball", just cruching numbers. Simple as that. It's in the report, read it. I'll make it extremely simple for you, here is the link: www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
The rest of your post was just your usual dribble and didn't contain any factual observation or question.
Well, this part deserves some response.
Read the Geneva Conventions what the responsibilies of occupying forces are. You've made yourself the new government there and are responsible for maintaining law and order and providing safety for its citizens.
Willem,
Every death in this war is actually the responsibility of the terrorists - they started the fight and it is their continued beligerance which causes all of the death and destruction. The moment they stop being terrorists, all of the death and destruction ends.
Uhm. Did you read Mark's original post? Compare the sample of the CNN-poll with the sample of the Iraq study (1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million). What does the professor want? More deaths? That would have made the number of deaths for entire population even higher. Using the numbers of deaths in that argument is utterly ridiculous. You don't use the nr of results, you use the nr of people polled/interviewed (1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals from a population of ca 27 million). The size of these samples are not by accident or "just as many as you can get". The size of these samples are decided beforehand. Read the Report. This cluster survey is a tested and proven method in war torn regions to get an estimate that can be trusted. The size of the sample is not in question.
The other three ‘critiques’ are even more ridiculous:
one doesn't like the ‘tone’ of the report; and another one is ‘troubled’ (with what? the amount of deaths?). Does that change anything?
The method of the IBC is far more flawed in estimating the total nr of deaths than the Lancet-study: only deaths reported in the media are tallied; they require two different sources for every death; the media gets its information mainly from morgues and hospitals; the Ministry of Health in Iraq (who controls the morgues and hospitals) has a vested interested in painting a rosy picture, it even has forbidden to give out any information since a week or so; not every death ends up in a morgue or hospital, muslims bury their deaths preferably the same day.
And the third critic thinks the timing was political. The timing of publishing does not change the results. When the study was published after the election, you still would have 655,000 excess deaths as of July 2006.
So, when a neonazist militia in Nevada starts a killing spree, killing everone it doesn't like: gays; blacks; jews; uppity women; liberals; etc., you think the State of Nevada and the Federal Government is not responsible for stopping that militia? Claiming: "we aren't doing the killing!"
Where would the civilians of Nevada turn for protection and safety?
Should form their own militia's? That's what's happening in Iraq right now. Hence it's a civil war.
Wilma, here's what they've already said about the ridiculous claim of 665,000 dead
NY Times: Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was “the best of what you can expect in a war zone.”...."But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.
NY TIMES: "Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had “a tone of accuracy that’s just inappropriate.”
Wall Street Journal: "Hamit Dardagan, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, a London-based human-rights group, called the Lancet study’s figures “pretty shockingly high.” His group tabulates the civilian death toll based on media reports augmented by local hospital and morgue records. His group says it has accumulated reports of as many as 48,693 civilian deaths caused by the U.S. intervention."
Associated Press: "“They’re almost certainly way too high,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election. “This is not analysis, this is politics,’’ Cordesman said.
Willem,
The only place I'm aware there are neo-Nazis is, well, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden...you know, Europe...
Nice dodge, Mark.
Be a man, answer the question.
CJ, are you suggesting Willem is far to the Left? Naaaw, couldn't be, heh.
Willemena's a kook who gravitated here from Scrutator, a big spoof site. Will's probably a spoof too, as are others who frequent this blog.
I think every death in Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and Africa is the fault of Bush and the U.S., since we had a hand in liberating most of the world from fascism. All the deaths in Cuba are our fault too. Hell, every time someone in the world dies, we ought to call for Bush's impeachment...
Can anyone who believes the accuracy of the 'survey', explain if 600,000 people were killed by the US...how come the MSM can't find them? Come on...600,000 isn't a number you can sweep under the rug and nobody notices. If the death certificate explanation was accurate, the bureaucracy of Iraq would've been swamped with these requests for death certificates, and surely someone would have done a story on them.
This poll is flawed fundamentally because at the moment, no one outside the Bush Administration really knows how badly they have been curtailing freedoms and civil liberties. Everything is all top secret and national security. That will change radically once the democrats retake the house and proper investigations and congressional oversight can once again resume. At that point, all the administrations dirty laundry will come forth and you will find that most people will not support the administrations efforts.
With all this blistering over the accuracy of Lancet's 600,00 estimate, I am dying to know one thing of the bush-cultists here:
would 600,000 dead be acceptable to you, if it were true? Would you guys still think the war in iraq was justifiable? I'm going to take a wild guess and say yes, but let me know if I'm wrong.
No conceivable cost Mark!
other_nate,
Try to keep up. The 600,000 figure is within the range of the expected number of deaths even if we had not intervened in Iraq. To try to blame them on the intervention is disingenuous.
The survey included deaths from natural causes and violent deaths. It also includes the tens of thousands of insurgents/terrorists that we have killed.
Mark is right, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the terrorists. If they weren't trying to stop the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East, the death toll would be much lower.
A-10
No A-10, you need ‘to keep up’. All your points have already been debunked. See the several posts about that in this thread.
You even contradict yourself. First you write that these deaths are "within the range of the expected number of deaths even if we had not intervened in Iraq", but a few sentences later you write that "the death toll would be much lower".
Warriornation, my reply to you appears before your post, probably because of DST. I wrote my reply in ‘wintertime’ but this blog was still in ‘summertime’.
Willem van Oranje,
No, Willy, you try to keep up. There was no contradiction, you are just having a problem with your reading comprehension.
If the terrorists had not taken up the fight to stop the spread of freedom and democracy the expected death totals would be lower due to the fact that we had put the Saddam killing machine out of business. He was killing 50,000-60,000 of his fellow countrymen and women each year.
According to the "survey", about 200,000 deaths per year have occurred since Mar 2003. A sizable number of these are directly related to the terrorists. Subtract those and we would expect to see about 150,000 deaths a year, a significant drop from the Saddam years.
A-10 -
You comletely skirted my question. I'm asking you if 600,000 deaths would be an acceptable cost of the war for you (y'all). My guess is that, if it could be proven to you that American action in Iraq led to 600,000 extra deaths (which is exactly what the Lancet is assering), then you would still say it was worth it.
Try actually answering my questions some time.
It's clear you haven't read the report either. For instance, when you say 200,000 deaths per year have occurred since Mar 2003. In fact there is a trend line visible in the report: each year the nr of deaths have more or less doubled.
There are other errors in your reply as well. You are making the same first grade error Mark and Almiranta were making too. See above. You can't substract deaths - or a specific group of deaths - twice from the end estimate. Deaths from before the invasion are already substracted through the mortality-rates. These deaths would have included any alleged killing by Saddam.
Also, where's the survey that shows Saddam killed 50,000-60,000 people each year? You just pulled that number out of your ass? The latest estimate is that Saddam killed 290,000 over 20 years, with the majority in the first half of his reign with the latest major atrocity being the gassing of the Kurds after the first Gulf War.
Your ‘if’ assertion is wrong (plus it's totally irrelevant). It's not what has happened and it's certainly not what the Bush administration expected. They expected to be greeted as "liberators", remember?
other_nate,
"I'm asking you if 600,000 deaths would be an acceptable cost of the war for you"
No. But since there have not been 600,000 additional deaths as a result of our intervention, your supposition is moot.
"My guess is that, if it could be proven to you that American action in Iraq led to 600,000 extra deaths (which is exactly what the Lancet is assering), then you would still say it was worth it."
I guess that you are wrong then. And while it may be what the Lancet is asserting, they are mixing apples and oranges. According to the DoD, the survey (which is using flawed calculations) included all deaths, whether they were due to violence or not.
Based on the Iraqi mortality rate prior to the intervention, the expected number of deaths from 2003 until 2006 is around 600,000 (according to the UN, which placed the mortality rate at 8.1 per 1000). So if the total number of deaths per the survey is 600,000, there is basically no difference between pre and post intervention deaths.
In effect, the deaths attributed to Saddam have been replaced by the deaths caused by the terrorists/insurgents.
The bottomline is that liberals are trying to place the fault for deaths of Iraqis on the US because of our intervention. It doesn't matter that we stopped Saddam. A President with a "R" after his name took action, so liberals must attack his actions. To do otherwise would be admission that the liberal "lack of a plan" was wrong. And just as Senator Kerry cannot bring himself to say "I'm sorry", liberals cannot bring themselves to say the President was right.
Slick willy,
"You can't substract deaths - or a specific group of deaths - twice from the end estimate. Deaths from before the invasion are already substracted through the mortality-rates."
WHAT? As I explained to "nate", the mortality rate of 8.1 per 1000 before the intervention would have resulted in about 600,000 deaths over a three year period. Exactly what the survey calculated. The pre-intervention mortality rate included ten's of thousands of Iraqis killed by Saddam. Our intervention has stopped that killing.
Unfortunately, because the terrorists/insurgents do not want democracy to flourish in the Middle East, they have taken to killing Iraqis.
The terrorists/insurgents basically have two options: (1) Continue killing Iraqis and the random America service member and hope they can turn the public support against the war, as happened with Vietnam. The MSM and liberals are doing their best to encourage the terrorists. Every time they publicize the killing of Americans, they help the terrorist cause.
(2) Stop killing Iraqis. If they were to stop killing innocents and the random America service member, we would complete our mission of training the Iraqi Security Forces and a good portion of our force would leave Iraq.
Why don't they take this approach. Because of the risk that the Iraqi Security Forces would be more brutal than the Americans. They are choosing option 1, and you're helping them achieve that goal. The blood of American service members and innocent Iraqis are on your hands, due to your anti-war, anti-American, foolish beliefs.