New Liberal Death Count Claims 770 Violent Iraqi Deaths Daily!!
What universe are these people living in?
This weeks disgraceful liberal surprise- Another outlandish Lancet Iraqi Death Estimate reporting 660,000 have died in the Iraq War.
To give that some perspective, that's like:
* 3-10 Hiroshima atomic blasts
* 6-20 Nagasaki atomic blasts
* Or 10 Dresden bombing campaigns
That's like saying "Carpet bombing saves lives!"
Hat Tip Eric B.
This latest Lancet Study released today claims that 555,000 Iraqis have died in the last two years since their last controversial study! That comes to around 770 violent Iraqi deaths each day on average!!!
So, does this mean all of those headlines of 18 or 30 deaths were off by 700 or so?
John Hopkins ought to be ashamed!
Anyone familiar with the Iraq Body Count website knows that their estimate of Iraqi deaths - currently 43,850- 48,693 - may not be perfect since it includes bank robbers and heart attack victims but it is one estimate of the deaths from the Iraqi War that is widely used.
Back in 2003 a very controversial study came out claiming 100,000 Iraqis had died in the Iraqi War. This far exceeded the other reports at that time.
Today the liberal group released another one of their outlandish polls just in time for the election.
Useful idiot for terror.
Gilbert Burnham
Email: gburnham@jhsph.edu
Giving John Hopkins a Very bad name.
Sick! The new study released is more than TEN TIMES higher than other liberal estimates!
A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.What a crock! Now we have to listen to the shameless libs repeating this obvious fraud and wishing for the return of Saddam! Sick!
The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."
In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.
"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others is to be published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal.
An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.
"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.
For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.
Rick Moran has more on this crazy study.
That didn't take long...
Already Liberals are defending this nutty study.
The AP reported that 2,660 people were killed this month in Iraq.
That's a far cry from the 22,800 you would expect coming from this ridiculous study!
Update: Omar Fadil speaks out on this inane study:
“This fake research is an insult to every man, woman and child who lost their lives. Behind every drop of blood is a noble story of sacrifice for a just cause that is struggling for living safe in freedom and prosperity.”Pajamas Media has more of Omar's reaction.
The Political Pitbull questions the timing.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 10/11/2006 03:38:00 AM
21 Comments:
Who knew bloggers were such statistical experts? Oh…wait…you’re not. Oh, but you link to other statistical experts who “debunked” the original story. Oh wait…no, you didn’t.
The numbers are as solid as they can possibly be guys, given the state of things in Iraq. It’s wholly saddening to me to know that fellow Americans think that we can somehow erase the shame of having started this war by arguing down the numbers killed by it. Would this war still be worth it to you if the number was half that many? One-third? One-fourth? Are things better now than they were under Saddam, when we can confirm by the number dead in the morgue that 3,000 people die violently a month? Do you think Saddam killed 3,000 of his own people a month? Do you think the Iraqis are appreciate of the freedom we have bestowed upon them, when they can’t let their children go to school because someone will bomb them, or kidnap them, or force them to wear something?
There is a consistently disturbing trend among anyone who supported this stupid war to attempt to void reality by arguing it out of existence. It doesn’t work that way. If reality is not in conformity with your opinion of the war and it’s consequences, it’s your opinion that needs revision.
They are even reporting it on New Scientist. I know they have some dubious editorial slants (like that video games are causing the spiraling increase in violence that has never quite been documented) but I am surprised that they have gone so far into fantasy land. The whole planet is now officially a bunch of glue-sniffing head cases.
Hey, if you can't beat them...
I have officially just pulled a study out of my ass that clearly shows that over 40 billion people have died in Iraq as a direct result of America's imperialism.
Now I just need to kick back and wait for the invitations to speak to roll in.
Xanthippas, even if you numbers were true, 770 a day for thirty days in a month is not 3,000 it is 23100! Speaking of ignoring reality, the last time I checked math was part of reality.
To the guy with the greek name:
Condsider, mr. law student, that the US and the UK didn't kill that many people purposefully bombing civilian targets in Nazi Germany in WWII.
Don't be so credulous. You will be a crappy lawyer if you are.
Eric Blair- That would make a good bumper sticker, "Carpet bombing Saves!"
Posting the researcher's personal email, huh? Classy. Last week, right wing thugs were digging up that House page's email and sending him death threats. The same week, somebody sent Keith Olbermann an envelope full of white powder. I wonder what sort of intimidation tactics you Bush-worshipping know-nothings are going to employ on this poor guy?
Gateway Pundit called the study "disgraceful," "sick," an "obvious fraud," "crazy," and "a crock." He has yet to use any evidence or any argument to back up his spittle-flecked assertions. Perhaps Gatway Pundit will post an update when he thinks of some.
Then you look at something like the actual death rate in Iraq circa 2002 which was estimated at 6.02 deaths per 1,000 from the folks at history central, and then compare them to the estimated death rate for this year which is 5.37 per 1,000 from indexmundi. So, from before the war to today the actual death rate per 1,000 has DROPPED by nearly 9%.
And we are to believe that more have *died* above the regular amount under Saddam while the death rate for the entire population has fallen? And while the population has also increased by a bit over 2 million people, to boot! So, the deaths attributable to war have actually *lowered* the overall death rate in the population, *increased* population, and increased life expectancy from 67.38 years at birth to 69.01 years at birth. Also note that infant mortality has gone *down* from 57.61 per 1,000 live births to 48.64 per 1,000 live births.
So, even with an increasing population the death rate has fallen in proportion to the entire population... not something you can expect from you basic concept of warfare. If this is *war* then it needs to be practiced on a global scale because, by all measures of life expectancy, death rates, infant mortality, and, basically, all demographic measurements, the Iraqi people are way more better off today and living longer lives and increasing their population.
Funny kind of war, that.
You don't have to be an "expert" in social scientific "method" to recognize crap when you see it.
Much like polls in general, anything based on anecdotal evidence is going to be hopelessly biased and potentially orders of magnitude from reality. Even if we take these researchers at their word that they "checked 92%" of death records, how did they ensure they didn't double count? Did they keep a copy and reconcile no dupes? In a tribal community, many "families" would claim the same family member as "one of their own."
And more on the sample: how did they statistically ensure that their neighborhoods, streets, blocks, cities were a good sample? Methinks the answers sought dictated the scoep for questioning.
Surveys often breed a response whereby the survey subjects steer their answers towards subtle survey or survey taker biases. They get social "credit" and approval from providing information.
One last point. In Social Science in particular, statistical extrapolations are notoriously unreliable. Results need to be checked for validity (call it the sniff test).
As this post suggests, the idea that more than 700 (out of 770) deaths go unreported daily -- in an atmosphere where reporters and their sources are rewarded for high body counts -- is unbelievable on its face.
That these boobs from Johns Hopkins retain zero credulity for the magnitude of disconnect between physical evidence and what anecdotal "data" they've gathered says far more about their own biases, rather than denial on the part of us skeptics.
It's true. The Innumerate rule the right wing!
As this post suggests, the idea that more than 700 (out of 770) deaths go unreported daily -- in an atmosphere where reporters and their sources are rewarded for high body counts -- is unbelievable on its face.
If you ignore reality, perhaps. In the study itself, the authors provide a great example of how projects like the Iraq Body Count fail to provide an accurate full-population count.
From the study:
Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods. ... Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence.
1. I'm not sure that I believe the study either, but you need to attack it on methodolgical grounds. Maybe most of the killing isn't reported? I don't know, but if the study is wrong (and I'm inclined to skepticism here), it needs to be objected to on specific grounds, not simply because it disagrees with other estimates (though this is a great reason to be skeptical).
2. How is Glenn Greenwald defending this when he says very plainly:
"I have no idea whether the new Lancet study is accurate or how sound its methodology is."
Why lie? I just don't get it - I'm sure you can find someone who's defending this sight unseen, right? Why not attack them?
It's almost as stupid as invading Iraq for 9/11...oh, wait...
Jim:
Your statements regarding the Lancet study give rise to several questions, and I would be interested to see your answers.
1) Have you read the actual study tself?
2) You refer to the study as "an obvious fraud". Why? What specific fraudulent actions do you accuse the authors of the study of perpetrating?
3) Do you claim that the authors of the study made any specific methodological flaws? If so, what were those flaws?
4) You state in your post that:
"This latest Lancet Study released today claims that 555,000 Iraqis have died in the last two years since their last controversial study! That comes to around 770 violent Iraqi deaths each day on average!!!"
Did the Lancet study claim that all excess deaths were due to violent causes?
5) How does calling Gilbert Burnham a "useful idiot" constitute a scientifically valid criticism of the study?
6) How does calling the study "politics" constitute a scientifically valid criticism of the study?
7) Do you have any scientifically valid criticisms of the study, or do ad hominem and straw man attacks constitute the whole of your objections to the study?
8) Why have you published Gilbert Burnham’s email address, if not to encourage email harrassment?
Here's the bottom line for you moronic libs out there.
If there were 550,000 Iraqi's killed in the past 2 years due to the war, this would be the news headline......
730th straight day of 750+ daily deaths in Iraq.
You won't see this, because it isn't happening. The sooner you libs come to grips with reality, the better off this country will be.
Apparently math is not xanthippas strong suit.
And logic and common sense are not Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy's.
But that is not surprising. They both live in the "reality-based community" where everyday is an acid trip.
BTW-I find it rather humorous that the some of the biggest idiot LLL trolls try to make themselves out to be such "educated and erudite" people by their selection of handles. Remember it is the small dog that barks the most.
From Glenn Greenwald:
They (and other of the above-linked Bush followers) seem to be laboring under the misunderstanding that the 650,000 death toll is the number of Iraqis who have died violent deaths since our invasion. That is not what the study is purporting to measure. The study is comparing the mortality rate of Iraqis during the time of our occupation (including deaths by any cause, such as disease, famine, or anything else) to the mortality rate prior to the occupation, and based on the post-invasion increased mortality rate (13.1 deaths per 1,000 persons post-invasion versus the pre-war 5.5 figure), calculates that more than 650,000 Iraqis have died during the occupation than would have died during the same time frame in the absence of the invasion.
if you calculate the birth rate from the single birth stat in the Lancet paper, you will find that their sample was about 20 births/1000/year.
This is 33% less than the 32 births/1000/year that can be validated through more precise records.
If they data does not accurately reflect birth statistics, then the sample can not be taken to be representative of the population.
Nahani, supporting Chucky attacking my "math" is just as unintelligent as Chucky doing it in the first place. The 3,000+ a month is the number reported dead in Baghdad alone by the Iraqi government; not the death toll for Iraq in general. I shouldn't have to point that out.
And so far most of the arguments against this study amount to "I can't believe this because it's unbelievable" or "because I don't agree with this, these guys are liberal opponents of the war." Neither count for much as a refutation of the substance of the study.
Matthew, you don't report where you got the figure of 32 births per year. Was this over the exact same time period? According to the report, infant mortality is way up, and they don't give figures for miscarriages, which are likely up as well, considering the effect of the war on health care. But lets take the doubtful position that 32 births per year is exactly accurate. That would suggest that the study is overestimating actual numbers by 33%. Applied to the reported figures, that would yield a death toll of about 400,000, not far from the lower confidence bound of 392,979
Gosh, Nahanni sure doesn't like me! But at least I haven't "cut and run" from the discussion at hand as he/she has. Not that I blame you for your willful denial. 600,000 people is a lot of blood on your conscience, Nahanni. I encourage you to to come back when you have a comment of substance. By the way, my handle is based on the faux "educated and erudite" name and public persona of Victor Davis Hanson, since you're so interested in small, barking dogs, Nahanni.
Yours in erudition,
Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy
P.S. Here's a fun post on the topic of the massive amount of Iraqi blood on our hands that you might like. It's entitled "innumerate cowards," and it's about you!
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/10/innumerate_cowa.html
The science of the study, in case you have read it, withstands any neocon denial of reality. It amazes me how the use of yelling and screaming trumps careful methodology and analysis. We have too many Shawn Hannity clones in this world.
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