Killers of Iraq

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 7:49 am

zinkyusa;448635 wrote: huh, are you serious Wombat? You really don't think most of the violence is Iraqis on Iragis?
There have certainly been attempts by coalition soldiers to stir up violence.

And it seems to be working.

But most of the dead are still at the hands of coalition soldiers ... in one uniform or another.

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:02 am

Bored_Wombat;448691 wrote: There have certainly been attempts by coalition soldiers to stir up violence.

And it seems to be working.

But most of the dead are still at the hands of coalition soldiers ... in one uniform or another.

Most of the dead are at the hands of Sunnis and Shia death squads..

Katy1 · Post by **Katy1** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:08 am

Bored_Wombat;448691 wrote: There have certainly been attempts by coalition soldiers to stir up violence.

And it seems to be working.

But most of the dead are still at the hands of coalition soldiers ... in one uniform or another.

I wasn't an advoate of the war in the first place and have mixed views on what we should do now we are up **** creek, but placing the blame for violence on the soldiers is utter crap! The Sunni and Shia population are all too competent at kicking the living daylights out of each other without our forces having to do any stiring.

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:24 am

Bored_Wombat;448691 wrote: There have certainly been attempts by coalition soldiers to stir up violence.

And it seems to be working.

But most of the dead are still at the hands of coalition soldiers ... in one uniform or another.

oh really, have a look:

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/indexarchive.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5403840.stm

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 64,00.html

One of my Iraqi colleagues moved his family to Balad barely a week ago, because that town — an hour's drive north of here — had seemed a safe haven compared to their neighborhood in Baghdad. He figured that in Balad, his kids would be able to go to school without fear of bombs going off in the street, or kidnapping gangs lurking at every corner. They are a Shi'ite family, and would be among the majority in Balad. It didn't seem to matter that the town is ringed by Sunni districts. Just seven days ago, Balad had seemed so much safer than Baghdad.

Then the killings began. A couple of Sunnis were killed in a neighboring town. In retaliation, Sunnis killed about a dozen Shi'ite laborers. The Shi'ites then called in their militias from Baghdad, and set off an orgy of violence. At least 100 have been killed, and you can be sure there will be more attacks and counterattacks in the days and weeks ahead. The peace of Balad has forever been shattered.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Iraq-d ... 50304.html

Statistics issued by the Interior Ministry for Iraqis killed in political violence put civilian deaths last month at 1,289, nearly 42 a day and up 18 per cent from the 1,089 seen in September, itself a record for this particular series of data.

Bloodshed intensified in the holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week, as rival Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim communities vied for power in a continuing cycle of sectarian reprisals.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/ ... CT80.shtml

In another attack against majority Shiites, a motorcycle bomb struck a crowded market in Sadr City on Thursday, killing seven people and wounding 45, police said, just two days after the U.S. lifted a military blockade of the Baghdad district on the orders of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Meanwhile, gunmen killed the Shiite dean of Baghdad University's school of administration and economics _ the 155th Iraqi academic murdered in sectarian violence and revenge attacks since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The rigged motorcycle was left in a section of the Mereidi market that specialized in the sales of secondhand motorbikes and spare parts. The attack raised the total number of people killed or found dead around Iraq on Thursday to 49.

Bill Sikes · Post by **Bill Sikes** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:39 am

zinkyusa;448735 wrote:

[Quote=bored_wombat]

Statistics issued by the Interior Ministry for Iraqis killed in (...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/ ... CT80.shtml

Please will you include some structure and context/quote? It makes it easier

to understand any point you may be trying to make!

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:50 am

Bill Sikes;448742 wrote: Please will you include some structure and context/quote? It makes it easier

to understand any point you may be trying to make!

Most of the dead are at the hands of Sunnis and Shia death squads..

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:06 am

Bored_Wombat;448497 wrote: re: The trophy video of security contractors doing random shootings on the road to the Baghdad airport.

No. I missed that debunking. Do you have any details of it?

"completely debunked" was perhap hyperbolic. however, an investigation cleared them of criminal offense. the video was edited to mislead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5080970.stm

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:14 am

Bored_Wombat;448618 wrote: Of Aegis security contractors, armed with American weapons shooting what look like civilians:

i'm trying to wrap my mind around the significance of their being "armed with American weapons". is this to suggest that american weapons are more deadly than british weapons? that british weapons are so inherently of poor quality that they must rely on superior american technology? that a british citizen killing someone with an american made weapon is somehow implicitly more/less moral than with a weapon made by someone else?

And then (hearts and mind winners that they are) posting it on their website.

inaccurate. it was not posted on aegis's website. it was posted by a disgruntled former employee.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:17 am

Bored_Wombat;448632 wrote: I doubt it. Certainly its mostly since the invasion.

your doubts are noted. your statistical evidence to support the contention? you're suggesting that coalition forces are directly responsible for most of these deaths?

one of the "curious" things i note is that the mortality statistics from before the invasion are references as if they are canonical. statistics generated by an infrastructure rife with corruption and deception ordered from the top. we are to believe that saddam - while torturing and killing untold tens/hundreds of thousands in abu ghraib and elsewhere - insisted on accurate records of the disposition of their crimes against humanity?

guppy · Post by **guppy** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:28 am

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Officials have found 56 bodies bearing signs of torture scattered around the Iraqi capital in the past 24 hours, all apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.

The news came as U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met Friday with the Iraqi prime minister, in the second visit this week by a top U.S. official.

The bodies found scattered around Baghdad were of men between 20 and 45 years old, and all were apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:29 am

US troops have killed an average of 7 Iraqis civilians per week since 2003..

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/indexarchive.htm

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:42 am

Bored_Wombat;448353 wrote: It appears that they did indeed get population data from the 1997 Census and from the UNDP study.

From Steven Moore's WSJ article...

With so few cluster points, it is highly unlikely the Johns Hopkins survey is representative of the population in Iraq. However, there is a definitive method of establishing if it is. Recording the gender, age, education and other demographic characteristics of the respondents allows a researcher to compare his survey results to a known demographic instrument, such as a census.

Dr. Roberts said that his team's surveyors did not ask demographic questions. I was so surprised to hear this that I emailed him later in the day to ask a second time if his team asked demographic questions and compared the results to the 1997 Iraqi census. Dr. Roberts replied that he had not even looked at the Iraqi census.

And so, while the gender and the age of the deceased were recorded in the 2006 Johns Hopkins study, nobody, according to Dr. Roberts, recorded demographic information for the living survey respondents. This would be the first survey I have looked at in my 15 years of looking that did not ask demographic questions of its respondents. But don't take my word for it--try using Google to find a survey that does not ask demographic questions.

Without demographic information to assure a representative sample, there is no way anyone can prove--or disprove--that the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths is accurate.
This really begs the question...If they didn't record demographic information of the respondents, how could they have used the 2004 UNDP survey as a model?

Without demographic information, you are right back at my simple division analysis.

The statistical methods were sound. It's the input data that is suspect.

Post by **spot** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:47 am

anastrophe;448875 wrote: inaccurate. it was not posted on aegis's website. it was posted by a disgruntled former employee."Their" as in the Aegis Iraq team's website - "posted on a website in November 2005 set up by contractors", to quote the bbc link you gave. Where do you get "a disgruntled former employee" from? The person taking the video was scarcely former when he took it, the guy spraying the machine gun was equally current on the payroll. Perhaps you mean the person who mixed the Elvis soundtrack with the footage? Nobody's complaining about either that or the uploading of the clip to the web, we're complaining at the sprayed gunfire, to which neither disgruntled nor former relate.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:09 pm

anastrophe;448875 wrote: h'm trying to wrap my mind around the significance of their being "armed with American weapons". is this to suggest that American weapons are more deadly than British weapons?
More likely to be security contractors than if they were Russian weapons, which would probably be Insurgents.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:32 pm

zinkyusa;448894 wrote: US troops have killed an average of 7 Iraqis civilians per week since 2003..

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/indexarchive.htm

Two points.

1) You completely missed the significance of the capture of the two coalition agents being caught with a shedload of explosives and remote detonators while in Iraqi disguise.

The consequence is there are bombings carried out by the coalition that are designed to be reported as carried out by sectarian violence.

2)The Brookings statistics don't align with what the soldiers are saying very well, do they?

NEJM -- Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care.

Look carefully at table 2.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:24 pm

zinkyusa;448915 wrote: From Steven Moore's WSJ article...

This really begs the question...If they didn't record demographic information of the respondents, how could they have used the 2004 UNDP survey as a model?

Without demographic information, you are right back at my simple division analysis.

The statistical methods were sound. It's the input data that is suspect.
One of the problems with using a sources that is written by politically biased hack with no higher education (that I know of) in epidemiology or statistics writing a opinion piece in a newspaper to discuss the demerits of a peer reviewed academic paper is that not everything he says is going to be true.

You should be aware that:

1)There were a large number of clusters. 30 clusters is usual for epidemiological studies. The second survey had 47. Moore is wrong about this.1a) Is 97.5% certainty that more than 400 000 Iraqis have been killed because of this invasion not accurate enough for you?

2)The surveyors did ask demographic questions. Moore is wrong about this.

3)The design team used the 1997 census in conjunction with the UNDP survey, but there is a lot of movement of people when bombs start falling and water supplies start failing, so the 1997 population figures were not considered a reliable source of information. Moore is misleading about this.

There are a lot of ignorant opinion pieces on the Web about this. This thread will continue for some time if were going to expose the lies and.or misunderstandings of every one.

This study is very high profile. There are plenty of high profile opinions by epidemiologists and statisticians familiar with this kind of work. If we restricted our discussion of analysis to the analysis by experts, I think we would cover the ground quicker.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:48 pm

Scrat;449294 wrote: So? As usual Anastrophe you try to toss out BS to divert from the real subject.

thanks for sharing that dilectable morsel, which falls under the "and what have *you* done for me lately?" column.

back under your rock. while you're there, mine some veldspar.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:51 am

anastrophe;448881 wrote: we are to believe that saddam - while torturing and killing untold tens/hundreds of thousands in abu ghraib and elsewhere - insisted on accurate records of the disposition of their crimes against humanity?
Nope.

MOH records only got about 1/3rd of deaths even before the invasion.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 4:07 am

anastrophe;448870 wrote: "completely debunked" was perhap hyperbolic. however, an investigation cleared them of criminal offense. the video was edited to mislead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5080970.stm
Great.

Now I'm convinced. They were cleared by the US Army.

I note that the US army also cleared themselves of beating David Hicks. There were half a dozen inmates that said they were taken hooded in a boat to land somewhere, and randomly beaten.

David Hicks was one of them, but their story didn't corroberate his, since they didn't see him get beaten.

Yay for US army investigations.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:44 am

Do I sense a little sarcasm there, Wombat? :wah:

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:49 am

Bored_Wombat;449254 wrote: One of the problems with using a sources that is written by politically biased hack with no higher education (that I know of) in epidemiology or statistics writing a opinion piece in a newspaper to discuss the demerits of a peer reviewed academic paper is that not everything he says is going to be true.

You should be aware that:

1)There were a large number of clusters. 30 clusters is usual for epidemiological studies. The second survey had 47. Moore is wrong about this.1a) Is 97.5% certainty that more than 400 000 Iraqis have been killed because of this invasion not accurate enough for you?

2)The surveyors did ask demographic questions. Moore is wrong about this.

3)The design team used the 1997 census in conjunction with the UNDP survey, but there is a lot of movement of people when bombs start falling and water supplies start failing, so the 1997 population figures were not considered a reliable source of information. Moore is misleading about this.

There are a lot of ignorant opinion pieces on the Web about this. This thread will continue for some time if were going to expose the lies and.or misunderstandings of every one.

This study is very high profile. There are plenty of high profile opinions by epidemiologists and statisticians familiar with this kind of work. If we restricted our discussion of analysis to the analysis by experts, I think we would cover the ground quicker.

Since you brought up the subject of possible ulterior motives by calling Moore a political hack let me offer you some possible motivation for doing this study which was conducted by uh, college professors..

http://www.campaignmoney.com/professor.asp

Campaign Contributions, 1999 to Present:

College Professors: $12,443,493 to Democrats and $1,861,789 to Republicans

Oh, btw I am a democrat and d/n vote for Bush. I just find these estimates ridicuously high..

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:59 am

Bored_Wombat;449201 wrote: Two points.

1) You completely missed the significance of the capture of the two coalition agents being caught with a shedload of explosives and remote detonators while in Iraqi disguise.

The consequence is there are bombings carried out by the coalition that are designed to be reported as carried out by sectarian violence.

2)The Brookings statistics don't align with what the soldiers are saying very well, do they?

NEJM -- Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care.

Look carefully at table 2.

Huh, is this a joke? You better spell out your point here. This is a mental health study using:

Methods We studied members of four U.S. combat infantry units (three Army units and one Marine Corps unit) using an anonymous survey that was administered to the subjects either before their deployment to Iraq (n=2530) or three to four months after their return from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan (n=3671).

What units? Where exactly were they? What were the dates the members were there? Are you seriously trying to use this to refute Brookings?

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 8:02 am

by Wombat:

This study is very high profile. There are plenty of high profile opinions by epidemiologists and statisticians familiar with this kind of work. If we restricted our discussion of analysis to the analysis by experts, I think we would cover the ground quicker.

Like who? Show me some?

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 9:08 am

Scrat;449328 wrote: I don't mine anymore, people mine for me.

See you in The Curse.

i tried eve online on a 14 day trial. i was bored out of my goard. so, you won't see me around there any time soon.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 10:14 am

Scrat;449543 wrote: Too bad. It was six months before I really had a good grasp of all the aspects of the game. The market, politics, low sec and 0.0, alliances, corps weapons and tactics. Not to mention the hidden goodies.

You never learned a thing in 2 weeks.

i mined, i upgraded my ship, i got new skills, i got a new ship, i got new weapons, i traveled to far flung places. the experience is designed to burn your time. waiting while you warp from one stargate to another....waiting in line for the stargate....sitting around while you 'mine' minerals...waiting before docking.....i'm not interested in market economy dynamics in a virtual world. i'd rather interact will avatars of people rather than spaceships.

i'll admit the graphics are very, very pretty. that's not enough to hold my attention however.

but we digress.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 10:28 am

zinkyusa;449497 wrote: by Wombat:

Like who? Show me some?

as i've pointed out before, and as others have interpreted too narrowly apparently to understand, we have call to authority arguments being made, where the fallacy is in claiming that because someone is an authority, therefore all other opinions can be rejected at face value. there are a great many genuine experts in the world who do not hold titles or degrees. furthermore, experts were responsible for thalidomide babies, experts were responsible for hundreds of AIDS cases, experts are currently responsible for the rapid increase in malarial deaths in recent years (due to political opposition to the use of DDT), experts were responsible for the Baldwin Hills dam collapse, experts were responsible for the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, ... the list goes on and on.

titular expertise, i'm afraid, is used too often as license for running roughshod over facts, and for creating public policy via ulterior motives.

the 655,000 number might be right. it has no more factual basis than smaller estimates. the key word being estimates. a notorious bias that's well known is within crowd counting at public events, where one set of 'genuine' experts state that 10,000 people showed up for a rally, and another set of 'genuine' experts state that 110,000 people showed up. bias can be subtle or obvious. that the 655,000 value is in question is certainly due to bias. but at the same time, the 655,000 value may be due to bias in itself.

we will never know the true count of deaths that have resulted from the iraq war. we will also never know the true count of deaths that resulted from saddam hussein's ruthless policies, or lack thereof.

an argument is made that whether it's 30,000 or 655,000, it's still too many dead. i agree. by the same argument, whether it's 30,000 that died at the hands of saddam hussein's thugs, or more than a million, it's still too many dead.

seekerw · Post by **seekerw** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:23 pm

RedGlitter;439978 wrote:

I don't know that it IS a lie that all men want peace. Ok, maybe it is, but could we safely say that "all decent peoples want peace?"

Actually, it's my cynical opinion that ALL people want peace ... but pnly AFTER they get what they want.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 12:32 am

Scrat;449847 wrote: Translation.

My mouth got me podded so many times I went broke buying clones.

It's nice and safe on forums. In EVE you'll end up a hood ornament on somebodies Rox if you shoot off your mouth. And can't back it up. Kind of like forums with an added dimension.

nope, the translation's wrong. i've participated in other communities online, realtime. i watches some of the dialogueing on eve online, and most of it was of a level of puerility that even an immature adult male like me couldn't be bothered. 'lolz pwned sucka' doesn't spin my wheels, actual conversations do. i spent a fair bit of time on There.com in the early days, which is almost entirely realtime talking.

but.

we.

digress.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:35 am

zinkyusa;449496 wrote: Huh, is this a joke? You better spell out your point here. This is a mental health study using:

Methods We studied members of four U.S. combat infantry units (three Army units and one Marine Corps unit) using an anonymous survey that was administered to the subjects either before their deployment to Iraq (n=2530) or three to four months after their return from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan (n=3671).

Yes.

And the subjects were questioned about what stressful situations they encountered including whether or not in their time in Iraq they had killed a non-combatant. 20% of them had.

Now at the start of 2005, just over one million US troops had toured Iraq. That's about 200 000 dead civilians. (If the double-ups equal each way).

Which is evidence that the JHBSoPH studies are in the correct ballpark.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:36 am

zinkyusa;449488 wrote: Since you brought up the subject of possible ulterior motives by calling Moore a political hack let me offer you some possible motivation for doing this study which was conducted by uh, college professors..

http://www.campaignmoney.com/professor.asp

Campaign Contributions, 1999 to Present:

College Professors: $12,443,493 to Democrats and $1,861,789 to Republicans

Oh, btw I am a democrat and d/n vote for Bush. I just find these estimates ridicuously high..

Yes - They're democrats. But they're more epidemiologists.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:49 am

Diuretic;449884 wrote: I heard an interesting interview with one of the authors of this report, it was on radio here but there is a link if anyone is interested

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalintere ... 778810.htm

I won't comment because I have no expertise in this sort of research but I thought the defence of the methodology was interesting. It's not a long interview.

Damn that's an informative interview. Cheers for that one Diuretic.:yh_clap:yh_clap:yh_clap

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:38 am

zinkyusa;449497 wrote: by Wombat:

Like who? Show me some?
Here is a reprint of the Nature journal News Story.

Here is an article by an epidemiologist. (Admittedly one that knows Roberts).

And here are the main detractors (IBC aside)

Who rate a mention in the Science journal News Story.

No letters or follow up editorials have been published by The Lancet yet.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:15 am

anastrophe;449583 wrote: the 655,000 number might be right. it has no more factual basis than smaller estimates.

Yes it does. It's a properly designed and carried out Mortality study.

anastrophe;449583 wrote: an argument is made that whether it's 30,000 or 655,000, it's still too many dead. i agree. by the same argument, whether it's 30,000 that died at the hands of saddam hussein's thugs, or more than a million, it's still too many dead.

Right. But this 655,000 are in excess to those that were dying under Saddam. So the invasion has inflicted Saddam plus 2.5% of the entire nation upon the hapless and long suffering Iraqis.

zinkyusa · Post by **zinkyusa** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 8:44 am

by BW

Right. But this 655,000 are in excess to those that were dying under Saddam. So the invasion has inflicted Saddam plus 2.5% of the entire nation upon the hapless and long suffering Iraqis.

and whatever the number it is mostly self inflicted..

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:38 pm

zinkyusa;447700 wrote: thanks for taking the time and i did read it just disagree;)

so if we are not counting "casualties" from bullets, IEDs, and bombs what are we doing..counting the death rate for the entire country of Iraq. Every death is now somehow related to the invasion..It's a flawed study no way around it.

So invading a country and distroying the infrastructure that maintains law and order is in no way responsible for the anarchy that follows?

The deaths to be counted are only those caused by the bullets of the army?

Sorry, please remove your blinkers.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:42 pm

anastrophe;447848 wrote: here's some more logic to work on. when you've had multiple surveys and estimates generated for the last three years since the invasion, that all have estimates in a 'cluster' of values near each other in relative terms (20,000 to 30,000), then another survey - using less rigorous sampling methods - comes along estimating more than 20 times those previous estimates - logic, and standard practice, says that you toss out the low and high numbers. because they're likely wrong.

but heck, arguing about this issue is silly - Mr. Moore's article from the wall street journal quite succinctly explains why the 655,000 value is statistically suspect at best, a prevarication at worst.

Lets have another try?

If you have multiple surveys and estimates generated in the invading country and a single survey estimating 20 times the value, standard practice says you suspect political interferance and bias.

To the victor goes the prize of rewriting history.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:54 pm

zinkyusa;450228 wrote: by BW

and whatever the number it is mostly self inflicted..
They didn't invade themselves.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:29 pm

zinkyusa;448625 wrote: It's one video so what? No one denies there are some jack a$$es over there, especially civilian contractors. I repeat what is the point of the post and what does it have to do with this discussion? Who is exploding bombs in the middle of crowded markets and targeting university professors? Most of the violence is Iraqis on Iraqis.

As I've said elsewhere, who is responsible for the anarchy and violence that is present now but was not present before the invasion?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:32 pm

anastrophe;448870 wrote: "completely debunked" was perhap hyperbolic. however, an investigation cleared them of criminal offense. the video was edited to mislead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5080970.stm

In whose criminal courts?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:47 pm

zinkyusa;450228 wrote: by BW

and whatever the number it is mostly self inflicted..

Define self inflicted.

They did not happen before the invasion, they did afterwards. Who inflicted them?

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:48 pm

Bored_Wombat;450158 wrote: Yes it does. It's a properly designed and carried out Mortality study.

as i say, no more factual basis than the other. *factual* basis. estimates are interesting, may be probative and informative, but they are not factual, in the sense that we can know with certainty that the numbers are truly correct.

Right. But this 655,000 are in excess to those that were dying under Saddam. So the invasion has inflicted Saddam plus 2.5% of the entire nation upon the hapless and long suffering Iraqis.

uh, no. as you so kindly pointed out just a few posts ago, "MOH records only got about 1/3rd of deaths even before the invasion.". that, of course, is an estimate.

you cannot state that X many more people were killed after the war than before the war when there are *NO* reliable records to serve as a basis. there are estimates that possibly hundreds of thousands died at abu ghraib and elsewhere. these deaths are unlikely to have been formally recorded. what do we have? estimates! so, we are to estimate estimates based upon estimates - and that gives us the tidy 655,000 figure.

bollocks.

anastrophe · Post by **anastrophe** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:18 pm

Bryn Mawr;450691 wrote: So invading a country and distroying the infrastructure that maintains law and order is in no way responsible for the anarchy that follows?

emphasis mine. there's a rather fine distinction here. you know. when law and order encompasses breaking limbs, amputating fingers and hands, cutting out tongues, etc, of dissidents and "criminals". not to mention the simpler wholesale disposal by beheading, dropping in vats of acid, and other colorful means of perverting the human form.

i'm sure some number of the apologist crowd will dispute that, certainly. however, i've seen excerpts from the video from abu ghraib that saddam had distributed to serve as ...disincentive...to budding dissidents. the number of atrocities and murders under his rule will likely never be known.

so let's save the rhetoric about 'law and order' for another time, shall we? unless you wish to carry it further and perhaps provide some laudatory commentary on pol pot while we're at it.

Bored_Wombat · Post by **Bored_Wombat** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:20 pm

anastrophe;450943 wrote: as i say, no more factual basis than the other. *factual* basis. estimates are interesting, may be probative and informative, but they are not factual, in the sense that we can know with certainty that the numbers are truly correct.

But this figure is the best estimate we have. No one else has done a properly designed epidemiological study.

anastrophe;450943 wrote: there are estimates than possibly hundreds of thousands died at abu ghraib and elsewhere. these deaths are unlikely to have been formally recorded.

Which is the beauty of the methodology of the JHBSoPH survey. Those deaths may not have been recorded, but the deceased would have lived somewhere. So you can knock on his door and ask his family if he died, and they will say ... "Why, yes, he did."

Then you go "one!" and move on to the next house.

Bez · Post by **Bez** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:21 am

Bryn Mawr;450748 wrote: As I've said elsewhere, who is responsible for the anarchy and violence that is present now but was not present before the invasion?

Surely the person comitting the violence is repsonsible.

It seems to me through history that the dictator (or bully) has shown that he can keep the various factions of a country together.......how ? by supresssion and violence.

It takes a lot longer and is much harder work to do this peaceably...but it CAN be done.

People have choices...