October 12, 2006
"We believe in what we’re struggling for and we are proud of our sacrifices"
The vile Lancet is at it again. Another absurd exaggeration-of-Iraq-deaths study, released, once more, right before a US election.
(You don't need to be a statistician to shred this "study." For instance, modern warfare usually produces 3 or 4 wounded for each fatality. So according to this study, about 1 out of 10 Iraqis should have been wounded in the past 3 years. Uh huh, right. So where are they? The thing is clearly bogus, so we can expect the "pacifists" to repeat this figure as gospel.)
Please don't miss this post by Omar, of Iraq the Model....
...Among the things I cannot accept is exploiting the suffering of people to make gains that are not the least related to easing the suffering of those people. I’m talking here about those researchers who used the transparency and open doors of the new Iraq to come and count the drops of blood we shed.
Human flesh is abundant and all they have to do is call this hospital or that office to get the count of casualties, even more they can knock on doors and ask us one by one and we would answer because we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.
We believe in what we’re struggling for and we are proud of our sacrifices.
I wonder if that research team was willing to go to North Korea or Libya and I think they wouldn’t have the guts to dare ask Saddam to let them in and investigate deaths under his regime.
No, they would’ve shit their pants the moment they set foot in Iraq and they would find themselves surrounded by the Mukhabarat men counting their breaths. However, maybe they would have the chance to receive a gift from the tyrant in exchange for painting a rosy picture about his rule.
They shamelessly made an auction of our blood, and it didn’t make a difference if the blood was shed by a bomb or a bullet or a heart attack because the bigger the count the more useful it becomes to attack this or that policy in a political race and the more useful it becomes in cheerleading for murderous tyrannical regimes....
I despise these liars. But far more, I reject with the utmost contempt the unspoken sub-text of this "study," which is that there is nothing worth fighting and dying for.
Posted by John Weidner at October 12, 2006 06:12 AMNot only will the moonbats repeat this figure as gospel, so will the islamists trying to recruit followers and justify the killing of large numbers of Westerners. (OK, they would have found some other justification anyway, but nevertheless this is a propaganda war we are fighting as much as anything.) This is yet another example of morons aiding and abetting an enemy that is trying to kill as many Americans as possible.
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at October 12, 2006 06:49 AMDidn't these Lancet morons do a "sampling" and then extrapolate from there? That may have been OK for a poll, but a "scientific" study?
Like Omar said, they could have added up hospital records from appropriate areas of Iraq.
Posted by: Roderick Reilly at October 12, 2006 02:59 PMThe comments are instructive. One points out that 2600 deaths per month is an "escalation", yet for the numbers to be correct, more than ten times that would have had to die each month. Another points out that it's 150,000 deaths more than the American Civil War, which occurred in a country with 50% more population than modern Iraq.
I find that when confronting innumeracy— the inability to understand numbers— references such as these are invaluable for putting them into perspective.
Posted by: B. Durbin at October 12, 2006 08:17 PMAnd I read somewhere how the number of Germans killed in five years of day and night bombing of cities was only in the 500K's somewhere, or 100K fewer than is claimed by Lancet...
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at October 13, 2006 08:31 AM
