Even by the self-acknowledged very conservative measurements of Iraq Body Count, we’ve currently killed 27 Iraqi civilians for every person that died in the 9/11 tragedy.
ManiacMan, or anyone else who thinks 9/11 and Iraq are related, what’s the going conversion rate between dead Iraqis and Americans? If you give us a value, we might be able to forecast when we can stop killing them.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
When the same techniques were applied to Fallujah, the result was an estimate so obviously out of whack with reality that it was dropped from the study. Then those same techniques were used elsewhere.
[/quote]
That applies mostly to the 2004 survey, back on those “happy days” only 100000 deaths came on the count.
-Les Roberts, co-author of the study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
And you can do all the statistical analysis you want, but if the original data was collected in a fraudulent manner, it doesn’t really matter, does it? The Lancet study used extremely biased and untrustworthy data collectors, and applied no methods to check for fraud.
[/quote]
It seems to me that the right wing press are the ones that are fraudulently making that point. (see above and the next quotes)
-Les Roberts again.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Let’s see… if a tobacco-related illness study was funded by RJR Reynolds, and used surveyors who were employees of tobacco stores to collect data, and the results were an order of magnitude off of every other study of tobacco-related illnesses, would you call the study valid so long as the statistical analysis of the received data was scientifically valid? What would you say to someone who ignored all other studies and used this one as the definitive piece of evidence to show tobacco wasn’t dangerous?
[/QUOTE]
Well, the biggest point of criticism was that the 600,000 deaths on the latest survey was that other surveys had way smaller death counts, a recent survey however shows that the Lancet was indeed conservative in their results (see below).
[QUOTE=John Mace]
That’s my sense about this, too. I have to say I don’t understand this insistent on going with any one particular number. No matter how you look at it, it’s A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE. And with the chaos that is Iraq, how is anyone really to calculate this? Would we feel any better if it were “only” 100,000 instead of 500,000? Those numbers of dead are just too high to imagine. Do we determine how moral we are by comparing the numbers dead in the war with the numbers dead while SH was in power?
The sad truth is that I don’t expect we’ll ever know the correct number. Can we all just agree that it’s too many?
[/QUOTE]
I agree, too many.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Don’t you think it’s some combination of the two? It would seem an odd coincidence that just at the point when the added troops were finally in place (sometime in late summer last year), there was a dramatic drop in violence against Iraqis and against US troops.
[/QUOTE]
It’s certainly possible. But the fact is that the surge is temporary, and already beginning to be pulled back. We just can’t maintain it. And since none of the political issues that the surge was supposed to give the parliament breathing room for were actually resolved, we’ll be able to soon see if the surge has actually done any good. If the number of civilian deaths begins to go up again, then we’ll know that the surge did play some part in bringing them down. It’s an experiment I’d rather not have happen, though. Not that I have any say in it.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
It’s certainly possible. But the fact is that the surge is temporary, and already beginning to be pulled back. We just can’t maintain it. And since none of the political issues that the surge was supposed to give the parliament breathing room for were actually resolved, we’ll be able to soon see if the surge has actually done any good.
[/quote]
I agree.
Not necessarily. This is a multi-faceted situation, and doesn’t just boil do to “surge” vs “ethnic cleansing”.
I think you and I are pretty much in agreement on the Iraq war issue. I don’t feel like I need to debate you on the subject. I just wanted to point out that you made a pretty sweeping statement earlier that isn’t necessarily true. Nothing more than that.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
I think you and I are pretty much in agreement on the Iraq war issue. I don’t feel like I need to debate you on the subject. I just wanted to point out that you made a pretty sweeping statement earlier that isn’t necessarily true. Nothing more than that.
[/QUOTE]
It possibly was a bit overly-broad. 
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Don’t you think it’s some combination of the two? It would seem an odd coincidence that just at the point when the added troops were finally in place (sometime in late summer last year), there was a dramatic drop in violence against Iraqis and against US troops.
[/QUOTE]
I understand the that the decline started in November 2006. (But my eyeballing of the charts does indeed indicate a decline in the summer and continuing into the Fall of 2007).
But the surge only involved a 10% increase in troop strength after the decline in foreign troops is factored in. It’s hard to see how that could cause anything substantial. So the mortality decline probably has some endogenous sources. Admittedly Petreus also reportedly shifted US strategy, by arming and assisting favored Sunni groups.
At any rate, we should hope that strategy and local developments led to the partial easing of the Iraqi civil war, because the surge isn’t sustainable. Then again, re-arming the Sunnis may not lead to a happy final outcome either.
This thread makes me want to cry. After all, these are human beings we are talking about, right? Ones who would most likely still be alive if there had been no war in Iraq. Who cares if it’s 500,000 or 5,000, or even 50? These are people who should’ve had the right to continue their lives. 
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
That is the problem, it is apparent people like **ManiacMan ** and Chouan believe the ~100,000 figure is acceptable to achieve the victory they believe is inevitable.
[/QUOTE]
Funny that. Because prior to the invasion when that particular number was brandied about by a number of anti-war pinko-commies on this very forum we were told we were insane to predict such an atrocity and any number of other colorful adjectives – none too pleasant to be sure. And now it just so happens that that is an “acceptable” figure to the Create Their Own Reality Crowd.
If they lower the bar any further they might as well start digging.
Just did a quick search on this topic and found this gem by Mr Stone – who just ‘happens’ to keep defending the moral atrocity that is Iraq regardless of the fact that we’ve seen the logic of his so-called arguments in favor of same bend more than the dough used to make a pretzel. To wit:
–highlights mine.
Beyond the immediate rebuttal provided him in that very thread (which one can read for further context of Sam’s unabashed support and wild hopes for future justification – including finding WMDs. How’s that going, BTW? – for the Administration and the backers that brought us this disaster) about his clearly unbiased factoids about Saddam one has to wonder how he reconciles his thinking today with his thinking back then? Five thousand was his threshold then…and while he righteously attacks The Lancet study now, it also appears that he is not bothered by a figure of a hundred thousand.
Quite the stretch some of these gentlemen and women will go through in order to keep justifying what has, long ago been factually proven to be not only unjustifiable but based on a pack of lies and demonstrable deceit.
Must say that at least Bricker has the dignity not to surface in these kinds of threads anymore – for if the warmongers couldn’t be any more wrong back then, it is simply absurd to keep making apologies at this point in time when we have most of the facts* of what and how it happened.
*Not that us on the opposing side were bereft of any back at the time, quite the opposite really – simply read that short thread to see. Many many more can be cited as evidence if so required They were simply being ignored as happens in these new, revisionist threads. Fortunately, the number of people doing the ignoring has dwindled to almost nothing. Unfortunately, they still exist.
Who cares, over 50,000 people (at least) have died from this war. We should just evacuate from this war. I don’t even see the reason to be in Iraq anymore. Just let the country be.
[QUOTE=Oregon sunshine]
This thread makes me want to cry. After all, these are human beings we are talking about, right? Ones who would most likely still be alive if there had been no war in Iraq. Who cares if it’s 500,000 or 5,000, or even 50? These are people who should’ve had the right to continue their lives. 
[/QUOTE]
From January 2003, before the March invasion of Iraq, SDMB: Iraq War: likely to relieve more suffering that it causes? Feel free to quote some of my well thought out and profoundly misguided commentary.
A rough estimate might be that sanctions led to 200-225,000 premature deaths over 7 years. Of course that’s based upon Lancet-style methodology (i.e. demographics). Interestingly, Lancet also reported sanctions led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. Richard Garfield pegged the number at 75,000 - 170,000 over a 7 year period.
There was a plausible case that the Iraqi invasion could have saved lives. That it didn’t should give advocates of future military adventures some pause.
Here’s a link on a bunch of sanctions studies, with widely varying mortalities:
FRONTLINE/WORLD . Iraq - Truth and Lies in Baghdad . The Debate Over U.N. Sanctions | PBS It says that Garfield reports an excess mortality in the 344-525,000 range for 1991-2002.
If we believe that the civilian deaths are coming down, yet the counting of civilian deaths is totally flawed, how can we claim less are dying.? If all the numbers are flawed ,so are the conclusions.
Well, to gauge improvement on the battlefield, a consistent methodology is required. Even flawed measures that underestimate deaths can be useful if they underestimate consistently over time.
Doesn’t matter if its 600,000 or 100,000 or 6,000,000. It took whatever it took to oust Saddam and quell the insurgency (i.e. terrorists). And the death toll, whatever it may be, rest squarely on the head of the muslims who planned, supported, harbored, financed, and committed 9/11. Plus those who stood by and let it happen, i.e. the whole arab muslim world.
Maybe now they’ll start revise their children’s textbooks to not say that non-muslims are actually cloven-hoofed devils. Probably not until we kill a few hundred thousand more… 
[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
Doesn’t matter if its 600,000 or 100,000 or 6,000,000. It took whatever it took to oust Saddam and quell the insurgency (i.e. terrorists). And the death toll, whatever it may be, rest squarely on the head of the muslims who planned, supported, harbored, financed, and committed 9/11. Plus those who stood by and let it happen, i.e. the whole arab muslim world.
[/QUOTE]
This is a whoosh, right?
Lord, I hope so.
[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
Doesn’t matter if its 600,000 or 100,000 or 6,000,000. It took whatever it took to oust Saddam and quell the insurgency (i.e. terrorists).
[/QUOTE]
Right, just go over there and tell 'em “We’re doing this for your own good, dammit! Why can’t you people understand that?”. See how far that gets you.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
This is a whoosh, right?
[/QUOTE]
You must not have come across a Hail Ants post before.
I would think a successful democracy would be able to instill a system to count people, both dead and alive… Since we neither maintain a level of order, nor have we created an infrastructure stable enough to even know how many people we have killed in the process, I suppose we failed to achieve our goals in more than one way?
It is appalling that the US Armed Forces have no way of knowing how may lives they have taken through military action… either that, or they know the exact count, but do not feel it necessary to share this information.
The Pentagon has indeed had an explicit policy in place since early in the quagmire not to divulge any such numbers.