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Pious Perverts
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Title: BeAChooser Bozo Count at 40 Plus and Counting - A Possible Site Record
Source: Minerva
URL Source: http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=45820&Disp=409#C409
Published: Feb 19, 2007
Author: Minerva
Post Date: 2007-02-19 21:59:28 by Minerva
Keywords: None
Views: 27171
Comments: 375

Last night I took a guess at Beachy's bozo count. Today he spilled the beans and indicated that the number I guessed, between 40 and 50, was substantially correct.

Beachy Spills the Beans

What does this mean? Well .... it means he is a piss poor excuse for excuse for an advocate. Nobody takes him serious. This is probably why Goldi booted him.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  

Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 296.

#7. To: Minerva, christine, zipporah (#0)

It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.

Brian S  posted on  2007-02-19   22:24:07 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.

Yea - Freeper like mentality by people who hate being exposed to anything not part of the echo chamber they want to live in.

Anyone who places anyone on bozo for non harassment reasons on a forum is an intellectual coward.

Destro  posted on  2007-02-20   0:26:29 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Anyone who places anyone on bozo for non harassment reasons on a forum is an intellectual coward.

There is no intellect present in an exceedingly dishonest poster with a very questionable agenda.

You should know better than that. And his behavior IS a form of harassment, he twists the words of other posters, will not debate honestly, constantly infers others are stupid, etc. He's a classic narcissist, therefore impossible to reason with or get along with.

Diana  posted on  2007-02-20   5:36:11 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

He's a classic narcissist, therefore impossible to reason with or get along with.

I don't think he can be reasoned with either. He hasn't posted for as long as he has to be swayed from his opinions of 9/11 just because someone finally posts something that should make him think, "hey, maybe these kooks are right after all about 9/11." I doubt that will ever happen. Nevertheless to leave his stuff posted without any rebuttal makes it look like he has won the argument to a lurker, which is not a good idea. Calling him names only helps his side of the argument for an impartial lurker.

RickyJ  posted on  2007-02-20   5:49:57 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

This is a good example of how he operates.He said few Iraqis are dying because there is no hard evidence for all those killed (typical BAC spin/logic).

I wrote this post to him after he made the claim that there are few photographs, videos or death certificates of dead Iraqis:

******

"Uh....

Perhaps you haven't heard, but often in wartime when people are killed, their deaths are not always documented by photograpshs, film, video or even by death certificates.

In fact quite often they are killed and their bodies are quietly buried in mass graves where they aren't discovered until some time later. I'm surprised you aren't aware of this practice."

******

And this is what he wrote in response to that post:

******

"It appears that you are accusing the US military of doing that. It would take quite a few people to gather up and bury the roughly 600,000 bodies that are missing. For which there is absolutely no physical evidence of them dying. So how many US soldiers are you accusing of this atrocity, Diana? A thousand? Ten thousand? Surely by now ALL the soldiers in Iraq are aware this is going on. Do you accuse all our soldiers who are in Iraq and have served in Iraq of this genocide and coverup, Diana? Is that really your position?"

******

You see what he is doing here? If you go through his post carefully, you can see how many inflammatory accusations he is making. A person has to decide whether they are willing to put up with that kind of dishonest and potentially harmful behavior.

Diana  posted on  2007-02-20   6:40:54 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Perhaps you haven't heard, but often in wartime when people are killed, their deaths are not always documented by photograpshs, film, video or even by death certificates.

Les Roberts Answers Your Questions

Juan Cole: 655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion

"Not to mention that for substantial periods of time since 2003 it has been dangerous in about half the country just to move around, much less to move around with dead bodies.

There is heavy fighting almost every day at Ramadi in al-Anbar province, among guerrillas, townspeople, tribes, Marines and Iraqi police and army. We almost never get a report of these skirmishes and we almost never are told about Iraqi casualties in Ramadi. Does 1 person a day die there of political violence? Is it more like 4? 10? What about Samarra? Tikrit? No one is saying. Since they aren't, on what basis do we say that the Lancet study is impossible?

There are about 90 major towns and cities in Iraq. If we subtract Baghdad, where about 100 a day die, that still leaves 89. If an average of 4 or so are killed in each of those 89, then the study's results are correct. Of course, 4 is an average. Cities in areas dominated by the guerrilla movement will have more than 4 killed daily, sleepy Kurdish towns will have no one killed.

If 470 were dying every day, what would that look like?

West Baghdad is roughly 10% of the Iraqi population. It is certainly generating 47 dead a day. Same for Sadr City, same proportions. So to argue against the study you have to assume that Baquba, Hilla, Kirkuk, Kut, Amara, Samarra, etc., are not producing deaths at the same rate as the two halves of Baghad. But it is perfectly plausible that rough places like Kut and Amara, with their displaced Marsh Arab populations, are keeping up their end. Four dead a day in Kut or Amara at the hands of militiamen or politicized tribesmen? Is that really hard to believe? Have you been reading this column the last three years?

Or let's take the city of Basra, which is also roughly 10% of the Iraqi population. Proportionally speaking, you'd expect on the order of 40 persons to be dying of political violence there every day. We don't see 40 persons from Basra reported dead in the wire services on a daily basis.

But last May, the government authorities in Basra came out and admitted that security had collapsed in the city and that for the previous month, one person had been assassinated every hour. Now, that is 24 dead a day, just from political assassination. Apparently these persons were being killed in faction fighting among Shiite militias and Marsh Arab tribes. We never saw any of those 24 deaths a day reported in the Western press. And we never see any deaths from Basra reported in the wire services on a daily basis even now. Has security improved since May? No one seems even to be reporting on it, yes or no.

So if 24 Iraqis can be shot down every day in Basra for a month (or for many months?) and no one notices, the Lancet results are perfectly plausible.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-20   7:11:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Les Roberts Answers Your Questions

Juan Cole: 655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion

Readers ... note that not one of the following verifiable facts and concerns about the Les Roberts study is addressed in Mr Coles article:

*********************

1. The 655,000 estimate is many, many times larger than any other estimate out there (and there are about half a dozen others). Those other estimates were more like 50,000 at the time the John Hopkins study was published. Are they all wrong and only John Hopkins right? Even various anti-war groups such as Human Rights Watch and IraqBodyCount have indicated the John Hopkins' figures are outlandish. So why are FD4UMers so voraciously defending JH's estimates?

2. The report and the peer reviewer of the report (the Lancet) ignored a major discrepancy between the pre-war mortality estimate derived by the John Hopkins team and the estimates derived by other organizations such as the UN and WHO. The UN and WHO, in largers studies, came up with rates between 7-8 per 1000 per year compared to the John Hopkins rate of 5-5.5 per 1000 per year. And these larger rates were estimates that the Lancet had previously endorsed as accurate. This pre-war mortality number is one of the key numbers used in determining excess deaths. If it were as high as the UN and WHO found, then the number of excess deaths would be far less, perhaps a tenth as much.

3. A recent UN Development Program study, http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-%20English.pdf, states that there were 24,000 war-related deaths (18,000-29,000, with a 95% confidence level) during the time covered by the Hopkins report. This is approximately ONE-FOURTH the number of excess deaths that Les Roberts' 2004 John Hopkins study found. And the UN used similar techniques - clusters, etc. - but with a much larger data set than John Hopkins. Why is there no mention of this study in the lastest John Hopkin's report (which claims its results verify the first JH report)? Why was this discrepancy not addressed by the Lancet *peer* reviewers?

4. According to the latest John Hopkins report, 92 percent of those who claimed deaths in their families (501 out of 545) were able to provide death certificates to prove it. Therefore, if the study is statistically valid, there should be death certificates available for about 92 percent of the total 655,000 estimated dead. But investigations by media sources that are not friendly to the Bush administration or the war have not found evidence of anywhere near that number. The Los Angeles Times, for example, in a comprehensive investigation found less than 50,000 certificates. Even if that investigation were off a factor of two, there is still a huge discrepancy. To take the Johns Hopkins results seriously, you have to believe that the Iraqi government recorded deaths occurring since the invasion with an accuracy of 92 percent, but then suppressed the bulk of those deaths when releasing official figures, with no one blowing the whistle. And you have to believe that all those dead bodies went unnoticed by the mainstream media and everyone else trying to keep track of the war casualties. Alternatively, you have to believe that the Iraqi government only issues death certificates for a small percentage of deaths, but this random sample happened to get 92 percent by pure chance.

5. A principle author of both John Hopkins studies, Les Roberts, has publically stated he disliked Bush (not unexpected given that he is an active democRAT) and the war. He has admitted that he released the study when he did to negatively influence the election against Bush and the GOP. And he has admitted that most of those he hired to conduct the study in Iraq "HATE" (that was his word) the Americans. None of that is a good basis for conducting a non-partisan study.

6. Nor is the behavior of the Lancet. They've not only failed to ask important questions during their *peer* reviews, they admit they greatly abbreviated that peer review process for the 2004 report so the results could be published in time to influence the 2004 election. They also reported on their own website in 2004, that the deaths estimated by John Hopkins were comprised solely of civilians. But the study made no such claim. In fact, it clearly states that the investigators did not ask those interviewed if the dead were civilians, Saddam military or insurgents. Which leads one to wonder if the Lancet actually read the report they claimed to review.

7. When media interviewers of the lead researchers completely misrepresented the results (for example, calling all the dead "civilians"), those researchers (one being Les Robert) made no effort to correct those falsehoods. And they went on to lie, both directly and by omission, about the methodology they used. This is indisputable. For example, here is what another of the John Hopkins researchers, Richard Garfield, told an interviewer: "First of all, very few people refused or were unable to take part in the sample, to our surprise most people had death certificates and we were able to confirm most of the deaths we investigated." That is a LIE since the first study (which is what he was talking about) indicates they only confirmed 7% of the deaths. And Les Roberts did the exact same thing in another interview.

8. In the Garfield interview mentioned above, he stated "And here you see that deaths recorded in the Baghdad morgue were, for a long period, around 200 per month." Let me repeat that figure ... 200 A MONTH, in one of the most populated and most violent regions in the country during the time in question. And now Les Roberts is asking us to believe that 15,000 (on average) were dying each month in the country since the war began. How could Garfield not have questions about this new estimate given his previous statement?

9. Richard Garfield is another of those who advocated mortality statistics before the war that are widely divergent from those derived using the Les Roberts/John Hopkins interviews. In fact, Richard Garfield said the most probable number of deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 would be about 400,000. His *expert* opinion was that the rate in 2002 would was 9-10 percent. That is compared to the Les Robert's estimate of 2.9 percent. So why didn't Roberts or Garfield address this disparity? And note that the Lancet blessed and championed the conclusions of Garfield back in 2002. So why did they ignore the discrepancy during their peer review of Les Roberts' study?

10. There is NO physical evidence whatsoever to support the claim that 655,000 Iraqis were killed from the beginning of the war to mid 2006. There are no killing fields filled with bodies or mass graves. There are no photos of these mountains of bodies. There are no videos of this slaughter or the funerals afterwords. There are no reporters, of ANY nationality, saying they saw these bodies or the slaughter. There are no US or foreign soldiers providing evidence of such a slaughter. There is NO physical evidence.

11. Dahr Jamail is an example of the above. He is viralently anti-American. He has close ties to the insurgents and arabs. So look on his website ( http://dahrjamailiraq.com/) for any indication that 500, much less 100 Iraqis were dying every single day on average back in 2003 and 2004 when he first started reporting from Iraq, which was during the period covered by not only the second but the first John Hopkins study. You won't find any indication.

12. Last year was arguably the most violent since the invasion. Yet even the Iraqis reported the number killed was on the order of 16,000 in that year ... an average of 45 a day. That certainly stands in sharp constrast to the John Hopkins researchers (and their proponents) who claim that more than 500 a day have died every day on average since the invasion began.

13. But the discrepancy is even worse than that. As noted by the author of this blog, http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2006_10_08_archive.html#116069912405842066, "The claim is 654,965 excess deaths caused by the war from March 2003 through July 2006. That's 40 months, or 1200 days, so an average of 546 deaths per day. To get an average of 546 deaths per day means that there must have been either many hundreds of days with 1000 or more deaths per day (example: 200 days with 1000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1000 days with an average of 450 deaths), or tens of days with at least 10,000 or more deaths per day (example: 20 days with 10,000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1180 days with an average of 381 deaths). So, where are the news accounts of tens of days with 10,000 or more deaths?"

14. The number of dead the John Hopkins methodology gives in Fallujah is so staggering that even the John Hopkins researchers had to discard the data point. Yet in interviews, Les Roberts has responded as if the Fallujah data was accurate. For example, in an interview with Socialist Workers Online (note who he uses to get his message out), when asked why two thirds of all violent deaths were concentrated in this city, Les Roberts didn't respond "the data was wrong or atypical in Fallujah" as it states in his report. No, instead he answered the question as if he thought the data point was representative of what happened in Fallujah as a whole. He said "we think that our findings, if anything, underestimated the number of deaths because of the number of empty and destroyed houses." Then why didn't they keep the Fallujah data point?

15. John Hopkins claims "We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 (392,979 - 942,636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 (426,369 - 793,663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gun fire." But during World War II, the Allied air forces carpet bombed German cities, using high explosives and incendiaries, and according to The United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report killed an estimated 305,000. So are we to believe that with gun fire rather than bombs, twice as many Iraqis have been killed in the last 3 years, as died in all Germany during WW2 due to strategic bombing of cities which completely flattened entire cities? Likewise, Japan had about 2 million citizens killed (about 2.7 percent of their population), both military and civilian. Many Japanese cities were firebombed during that war (for example, Tokyo had 100,000 people killed in just one raid). Two cities were attacked with nuclear weapons. And yet Les Roberts and his crew want us to believe that just as large a percentage have died in Iraq ... where the Coalition has gone out of its way to avoid civilian deaths?

****************

Number 4 is particularly damning.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-20   12:04:10 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

There is heavy fighting almost every day at Ramadi in al-Anbar province, among guerrillas, townspeople, tribes, Marines and Iraqi police and army. We almost never get a report of these skirmishes and we almost never are told about Iraqi casualties in Ramadi. Does 1 person a day die there of political violence? Is it more like 4? 10? What about Samarra? Tikrit? No one is saying. Since they aren't, on what basis do we say that the Lancet study is impossible?

There are about 90 major towns and cities in Iraq. If we subtract Baghdad, where about 100 a day die, that still leaves 89. If an average of 4 or so are killed in each of those 89, then the study's results are correct. Of course, 4 is an average. Cities in areas dominated by the guerrilla movement will have more than 4 killed daily, sleepy Kurdish towns will have no one killed.

If 470 were dying every day, what would that look like?

West Baghdad is roughly 10% of the Iraqi population. It is certainly generating 47 dead a day. Same for Sadr City, same proportions. So to argue against the study you have to assume that Baquba, Hilla, Kirkuk, Kut, Amara, Samarra, etc., are not producing deaths at the same rate as the two halves of Baghad. But it is perfectly plausible that rough places like Kut and Amara, with their displaced Marsh Arab populations, are keeping up their end. Four dead a day in Kut or Amara at the hands of militiamen or politicized tribesmen? Is that really hard to believe? Have you been reading this column the last three years?

The Los Angeles Times, for example, in a comprehensive investigation found less than 50,000 certificates.

In that same article, The Los Angeles times explicitly stated that 50,000 is a gross undercount and excluded entire sections of the country.

And since we've been over this many times already, you are intentionally trying to deceive and mislead.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-21   1:04:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

There are about 90 major towns and cities in Iraq.

Are the people in these 90 major towns and cities different than the people John Hopkins surveyed as being typical of them? Why didn't they go to morgues, hospitals and the health ministry to get a death certificate issued like the ones in the study? Or did they go but then ask those organizations to wipe their records of the fact? Please, resolve this question for me AGAviator since you seem so knowledgeable about the situation in Iraq.

In that same article, The Los Angeles times explicitly stated that 50,000 is a gross undercount and excluded entire sections of the country.

True, the LATimes article says "Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west." But somehow I doubt they meant their data was off by a factor of ten (or more). A factor of two or three, possibly ... but not a factor of ten. You would think that the LATimes would have mentioned something like that. Wouldn't you?

If you read the John Hopkins report (you've done that, right?), you will find that it claims Al Anbar was surveyed with 3 clusters (compared to Baghdad's 12) out of a total of 47. If the number of clusters is representative of population (it should be), we can conclude that Baghdad has about 25 percent of the population. Anbar would have then 2.5 percent of the population. So now you must be claiming that hundreds of deaths (300?) have been occurring in Anbar every day, on average, since the war began. Let's look at the reasonableness of that. What is the population of Anbar? If Iraq is about 27 million total, Anbar must have had a population of about 680,000 (call it 700,000). Now 300 deaths a day for 39 months (the time between the beginning of the war and July of last year) would total about 351,000. Wow ... are you suggesting that HALF the population of Anbar died during that time?!!! And that's gone unnoticed by the media? ROTFLOL!

Indeed, those are regions where officials probably don't like Americans or the Iraqi government. What better way to embarrass both than to report death of that magnitude? But they haven't done that, have they. Why not? Why are there no pictures or video of this slaughter coming out of those areas? We know the insurgents have photographic equipment and access to the media. Why aren't they using it? Showing this supposed slaughter would probably have more effect than any thousand successful bombings in getting the US out of the country. So why no pictures? Why no video?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-21   21:23:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Are the people in these 90 major towns and cities different than the people John Hopkins surveyed as being typical of them? Why didn't they go to morgues, hospitals and the health ministry to get a death certificate issued like the ones in the study? Or did they go but then ask those organizations to wipe their records of the fact? Please, resolve this question for me AGAviator since you seem so knowledgeable about the situation in Iraq.

There are some very good reasons for not going to morgues and hospitals: (1) You can get killed in the process of moving around the country, and (2) You can have your dead kin accused of being a terrorist which will result in some serious problems for you and your own surviving family.

Furthermore, to answer your ghoulish preoccupation with "Where are the bodies, where are the death cerfificates" the Cole article cites a common practice of throwing corpses into the Tigris river and other bodies of water. It happens day in and day out.

So do you expect the majority of bodies disposed of in the Tigris River to show up and get identified as bodies, and given a death certificate?

In that same article, The Los Angeles times explicitly stated that 50,000 is a gross undercount and excluded entire sections of the country.

True, the LATimes article says "Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west." But somehow I doubt they meant their data was off by a factor of ten (or more). A factor of two or three, possibly ... but not a factor of ten. You would think that the LATimes would have mentioned something like that. Wouldn't you?

No I don't. That is arm-waving and speculation on your part.

Now here is the article

Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since...

Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west. Health workers there are unable to compile the data because of violence, security crackdowns, electrical shortages and failing telephone networks.

The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad...

However, samples obtained from local health departments in other provinces show an undercount that brings the total well beyond 50,000.

The figure also does not include deaths outside Baghdad in the first year of the invasion.

The morgue records show a predominantly civilian toll; the hospital records gathered by the Health Ministry do not distinguish between civilians, combatants and security forces. ...

"Everything has increased," said one official in the Health Ministry who didn't want to be identified for security reasons. "Bombings have increased, shootings have increased." ...

So you intrepret "Many more," "serious lapses in reporting," "grossly undercounted," "exclude the three northern provinces," "does not include deaths outside Baghdad," "everything has increased," and "well beyond" as meaning "not more than double."

Nobody else will.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-22   0:14:42 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

"Are the people in these 90 major towns and cities different than the people John Hopkins surveyed as being typical of them? Why didn't they go to morgues, hospitals and the health ministry to get a death certificate issued like the ones in the study? Or did they go but then ask those organizations to wipe their records of the fact? Please, resolve this question for me AGAviator since you seem so knowledgeable about the situation in Iraq."

There are some very good reasons for not going to morgues and hospitals: (1) You can get killed in the process of moving around the country, and (2) You can have your dead kin accused of being a terrorist which will result in some serious problems for you and your own surviving family.

Then why did all the folks in the John Hopkins study do that? Did John Hopkins *random* sample just happen to pick a group who did when most of the rest of the country didn't? Or are you suggesting that those who don' t go to morgues, etc can still get death certificates that John Hopkins would accept as legitimate proof? Who issues those death certificate? The LA Times didn't mention any other source for them other than morgues, hospitals and the health ministry. Perhaps the folks in the John Hopkins' study simply create their own? ROTFLOL!

"True, the LATimes article says "Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west." But somehow I doubt they meant their data was off by a factor of ten (or more). A factor of two or three, possibly ... but not a factor of ten. You would think that the LATimes would have mentioned something like that. Wouldn't you?"

No I don't.

Really? You really think that the highly liberal, anti-Bush, anti-war LA Times wouldn't mention that the death toll is off by a factor of 10 if it were? Really? ROTFLOL!

Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since...

That doesn't help your case either, since the second John Hopkins' study *confirmed* the results of the first which claimed that 98,000 died in the first 18 months after the war began. Thus the majority of the deaths in the 655,000 death study had to have occured after that "chaotic first year".

The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad...

But Kurdistan has been very peaceful compared to the rest of Iraq. Surely you aren't claiming that the death rate in Kurdistan is any higher than in Baghdad. If not, then again, the number undercounted can't be much more than the baseline count. You are still missing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bodies, death certificates and eyewitness reports.

By the way, the liberal, anti-war, mainstream media won't tell the public this, but Kurdistan is a real success story. They are doing quite well right now compared to under Saddam.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-22   19:11:49 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Did John Hopkins *random* sample just happen to pick a group who did when most of the rest of the country didn't? Or are you suggesting that those who don't go to morgues, etc can still get death certificates?

Another one of your trademarked diverisons. The survey asked if they had death certificates. They did not ask if they had death certificates from a morgue or a hospital that happened to be contacted by the LA Times.

Perhaps the folks in the John Hopkins' study simply create their own? ROTFLOL!

Seems like "ROTFLOL" is your code for "I'm starting to have difficulties really explaining my position."

The survey said most of their respondents had death certificates. The LA Times said it was difficult to summarize, collate and count the number of death certificates issued, at official reporting levels.

Really? You really think that the highly liberal, anti-Bush, anti-war LA Times wouldn't mention that the death toll is off by a factor of 10 if it were? Really? ROTFLOL!

A completely bullshit argument you're pulling out of thin air. The LA Times like any reputable publication does not claim to know what it has just said it does not know.

If they knew they were off by a factor of ten, they would have had the real number to begin with.

You really like to make this crap up as you go along, don't you?

Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since...

That doesn't help your case either, since the second John Hopkins' study *confirmed* the results of the first which claimed that 98,000 died in the first 18 months after the war began.

False. They confirmed their number with a 2nd sample, which corroborated the first. They didn't try to prove their number with official statistics which they explicitly noted were difficult to come by.

But Kurdistan has been very peaceful compared to the rest of Iraq.

Not during the first year in Mosul and Kirkuk. There is also Anbar province and possibly Basra which are worse.

You are still missing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bodies, death certificates and eyewitness reports.

That has already been discussed. You keep spamming the same old stuff. Four bodies a day x 90 municipalities, plus deaths in the countryside not associated with those municipalities, easily brings the total past 600,000.

By the way, the liberal, anti-war, mainstream media won't tell the public this, but Kurdistan is a real success story. They are doing quite well right now compared to under Saddam.

Many Kurds are mercenaries in the employ of the US government, and their government is also letting Israeli money and military operatives have free rein in return for a future chunk of their oil reserves should they be able to pull off secession.

There's Big Oil money around there too, because Kurdistan sits on top of 2% of the world's proven oil reserves. Kurdistan is a welfare project for Big Oil and Israeli shysters all being financed by the American taxpayer.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-23   0:33:19 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

"Did John Hopkins *random* sample just happen to pick a group who did when most of the rest of the country didn't? Or are you suggesting that those who don't go to morgues, etc can still get death certificates?"

Another one of your trademarked diverisons. The survey asked if they had death certificates. They did not ask if they had death certificates from a morgue or a hospital that happened to be contacted by the LA Times.

But the LA Times only mentioned morgues, hospitals and the health ministry as being sources of death certificates. So I ask you ... what other sources are there? Does the John Hopkins report mention any other sources? No. So what sources are you claiming exist. Oh that's right ... your *theory* is that the morgues, etc did issue the 655,000 certificates but just forgot to make a note of them. ROTFLOL!

The LA Times like any reputable publication does not claim to know what it has just said it does not know.

Reputable? ROTFLOL! Do you know why they call it the LASlime?

"That doesn't help your case either, since the second John Hopkins' study *confirmed* the results of the first which claimed that 98,000 died in the first 18 months after the war began."

False. They confirmed their number with a 2nd sample, which corroborated the first.

Not false. That's exactly what I said. The second study confirmed the results of the first study ... so the second study must have concluded that 98,000 (or so) died in the first 18 months after the war. So your theory that the reason they couldn't find the death certificates of 600,000 is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion" does not help your case. You can't use the first year of the war to explain why so many death certificates are missing.

But Kurdistan has been very peaceful compared to the rest of Iraq.

Not during the first year in Mosul and Kirkuk.

But those areas were supposedly counted in the first John Hopkins study during the first year. You are still missing half a million death certificates.

There is also Anbar province and possibly Basra which are worse.

No, I already addressed the problem with assuming that most of the deaths occurred in Anbar. You'd have to have killed half the population of the region to explain the John Hopkins estimate and SURELY that would have gotten the attention of the world media.

And the Basra statistics from John Hopkins' study have the same problem. Basra is also only 2.5 percent of the population. In fact, even at 1 per hour death rates you and Juan Cole are now claiming you can't make the John Hopkins' estimate make sense. Consider ...

39 months times 30 days times 24 hours time 1/hour = 28,080.

That's it ... 28,000. And you'd have to claim THIS is one of the most violent areas of the country every day since the beginning of the war. Just to get 28,000 deaths.

When are you going to understand that the John Hopkins study is fundamentally flawed?

Kurdistan is a welfare project for Big Oil and Israeli shysters all being financed by the American taxpayer.

Probably never...

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-23   12:51:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

But the LA Times only mentioned morgues, hospitals and the health ministry as being sources of death certificates. So I ask you ... what other sources are there? Does the John Hopkins report mention any other sources? No. So what sources are you claiming exist. Oh that's right ... your *theory* is that the morgues, etc did issue the 655,000 certificates but just forgot to make a note of them. ROTFLOL!

Clearly you don't understand the meaning of

"Grossly undercounted," and

"Serious lapses in recording deaths," and

"Continued spotty reporting," and

"Unable to compile the data,"

The LA Times like any reputable publication does not claim to know what it has just said it does not know.

Reputable? ROTFLOL! Do you know why they call it the LASlime?

A pretty lame attempt to weasel out of my incisive answer with an ad hominem.

You said the LA Times would have stated if they were off by a factor of ten.

I said that if the LA Times knew how much they were off, then they'd have the real number to begin with.

Then you try to change the subject.

And you fancy yourself a *debater.*

Not false. That's exactly what I said. The second study confirmed the results of the first study ... so the second study must have concluded that 98,000 (or so) died in the first 18 months after the war. So your theory that the reason they couldn't find the death certificates of 600,000 is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion" does not help your case. You can't use the first year of the war to explain why so many death certificates are missing.

I use "gross undercounts," serious lapses in recording deaths," "continued spotty reporting," and "unable to compile the data," to explain why the LA Times could not get a summary of the death certificates at a top level

And that does not equate to those death certificates being *missing.*

t those areas were supposedly counted in the first John Hopkins study during the first year. You are still missing half a million death certificates.

No I am not missing them.

I know this is your last, best hope to try to obfuscate the results of the survey, but handing out a death certificate, and keeping track of the total number of death certificates handed out, are two completely different actions. Especially in a chaotic war zone, which Iraq is.

You'd have to have killed half the population of the region to explain the John Hopkins estimate and SURELY that would have gotten the attention of the world media.

Anbar is off-limits to the world media. And this really is all you have to say once one strips away the bullshit.

You claim there couldn't have been 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq because the media is picking on poor little George Bush. That's really the only agrument you have to offer.

Consider ... 39 months times 30 days times 24 hours time 1/hour = 28,080.

Consider...4 bodies per day average, x 89 municipalities, plus Baghdad, plus deaths in the country, in a country the size of California with a population of 36 million and a normal death rate of over 100,000 per year, most of which is off- limits and very dangerous to anyone including the media.

And yet you keep on harping on a non-existent "problem" of where the bodies are - as if they aren't scattered all over the country.

When are you going to understand that the John Hopkins study is fundamentally flawed?

When are you going to understand the war was based on lies, its supporters adamantly keep information about it from the world and from American citizens, there has been more than $1 Trillion spent on it, there have been tens of thousands of missions both in the air and on the ground, it has been going on for more nearly 4 years - yet you would have everyone believe that hardly any one ever has died as a result of it.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-24   0:25:54 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

there has been more than $1 Trillion spent on it

By the way ... this is another bit of misinformation. Shall we discuss that topic too?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-24   21:16:03 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Given the stated purpose of the survey, any questions about missing and dead persons were quite secondary to that stated purpose.

That doesn't make the results from that question inaccurate.

What gives an indication of inaccuracy is when a study claims that 92 percent of those claiming deaths during its interviews were able to a death certificates as proof ... yet the number of death certificates issued by those who issue such things appears to be a small fraction

Again.

"Issuing" a death certificate, and "compiling" hundreds of miles away in Baghdad the number of death certificates that were issued, are two separate and distinct processes. And your source clearly and explicitly states many times its number is not in the least representative of the number of death certificates or the number of deaths.

Furthermore, at the end of the day the bottom line is: How many people have died in this war, and how many of them are noncombatants.

The Administration, and people like you, are doing everything they can to distract attention from this bottom line.

However there are plenty of people in Iraq who have been killed who never got death certificates, and who don't have relatives who would say they have been murdered. These deaths are over and above any numbers within the confidence ranage of the survey.

So your attempted obfuscation about the minutiae of the survey do not address the fact that there is a population that the survey did not count, over and above whatever number the survey did count.

Debunked Here

By Patrick Cockburn, AGAIN?

"Nobody is dying in Iraq because the media hates Bush" AGAIN?

Let me try again. You claimed that the reason the LATimes couldn't find the death certificates of some 550,000 Iraqis is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion".

No I didn't. That is just one of several factors, which I have set out many times.

But the source whose estimate you are trying to defend as credible, John Hopkins, only claims that 100,000 died in that first 18 months. That is a small fraction of the 550,000 that are missing.

The surveys did not cover identical time periods, and the first survey had a confidence interval where its authors opined that 100,000 seemed to be a reasonable minimum.

Simply put, chaos in the first year cannot explain the missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist

Diversion and straw man. There are a number of reasons why the authorities in Baghdad could not ***COMPILE*** - read the article, then look up the word - the number of death certificates.

But not to the insurgency's media. And don't claim they aren't using the media. They could easily document the death of the half of Anbar's population that would be necessary to make the John Hopkins' study results believable.

The insurgency does not play by your rules.

If you want them to, become a jihadist, go join them, and tell them to! ROTFLOL!!!

So go ahead and ignore what that 28,000 figure says about the theory you tried to pushed that Anbar and Basra can explain the John Hopkins estimate.

Nobody said 28,000 except you. I'm saying 4 bodies per day x 89 municipalities plus Baghdad.

Now your NEW theory is that EVERY city in Iraq has been seeing 120 killings every month since the beginning of the war ... regardless of the total lack of evidence supporting that claim. This just gets lamer and lamer.

I never had an *OLD* theory. My theory is that hundreds of thousands of excess deaths have occurred, both as direct results of the war, and as indirect results of the social chaos caused by the war.

Now for your "lamer and lamer" claims.

The war has cost more than $1 Trillion, it has gone on for more than 3 1/2 years, the Americans have had more than 4,000 killed and more than 30,000 wounded when "contractors" are added to the count. That's a total of 34,000 casualties on "our" side. There have been tens of thousands, possibly more than 100,000, missions, over 3 1/2 years.

Assuming for the sake of argument silliness your claim that the 50,000 death certificates may have been low by a factor of 2, that would mean 100,000 Iraqi excess deaths from all causes against known American casualties of 34,000. In other words, the greatest, most powerful, military machine in history can only kill fewer than 3 people for every one of their own who gets hurt or killed. And even fewer than 3 people when the excess deaths not caused by combat are filtered out. Then the number becomes more like 1 of theirs killed, to one of ours wounded or killed.

And you would allege "we are winning?" ROTFLOL yourself!!!

Furthermore, continuing the same argument silliness, the $1 Trillion cost equates to $10 million for each excess death, and even more than that when the excess deaths not caused by combat are filtered out. Then the number becomes more like $30 million for each of theirs killed.

And you would allege "we are winning?" ROTFLOL yourself!!!

You must be really comfortable in the ME because your arguments shift just like the desert sands. ROTFLOL!

No, that would be your distortions of my statements. ROTFLOL! yourself.

There has been more than $1 Trillion spent on it

By the way ... this is another bit of misinformation.

False.

The supplemental appropriations for Iraq alone are well past half a trillion and that is cold hard cash spent in the current years. Then there are the costs from the regular budget, and last but not least the huge unpaid liabilities that are not counted because of the government's fly-by-night accounting which would send any business executive to Federal prison if he reported results the same way.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-24   22:09:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

And your source clearly and explicitly states many times its number is not in the least representative of the number of death certificates or the number of deaths.

Where does the LA Times explicitly use the words "many times"? It doesn't.

Furthermore, at the end of the day the bottom line is: How many people have died in this war, and how many of them are noncombatants.

Of course, people have died in this war. But the truth won't be found on a foundation of lies. The John Hopkins' studies are lies. Which is why you are having so much difficulty with what I'm pointing out about those studies and its authors.

You claimed that the reason the LATimes couldn't find the death certificates of some 550,000 Iraqis is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion".

No I didn't. That is just one of several factors,

You most certainly did suggest that was a primary factor. Don't try and deny that.

"But the source whose estimate you are trying to defend as credible, John Hopkins, only claims that 100,000 died in that first 18 months. That is a small fraction of the 550,000 that are missing."

The surveys did not cover identical time periods,

FALSE. The second survey includes the period of the first survey and the second survey stated it's results validated the results of the first survey.

and the first survey had a confidence interval where its authors opined that 100,000 seemed to be a reasonable minimum.

FALSE FALSE FALSE. The minimum of the 95% confidence range was 8,000.

"Simply put, chaos in the first year cannot explain the missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist"

Diversion and straw man.

No, it's an argument that strikes at the heart of your claim the John Hopkins survey is believable. Which is why you are clearly having so much trouble dealing with it. Which is why you keep putting forward one explanation after another only to discover each explanation does not explain. You can't explain the missing death certificates by claiming the first year was chaos. You can't explain them by claiming most of the deaths occurred in Anbar. Or Basra. Now you are finding it necessary to claim that every major city in Iraq has been more violent on a daily basis since the beginning of the war than the media has even noted for only a few short specific periods in only a couple of cities. Your excuses are getting sillier and sillier.

"But not to the insurgency's media. And don't claim they aren't using the media. They could easily document the death of the half of Anbar's population that would be necessary to make the John Hopkins' study results believable."

The insurgency does not play by your rules.

See what I mean about getting sillier and sillier? You now want us to believe that insurgents wouldn't use what is clearly the most powerful leverage possible to get America out of Iraq. Do you honestly believe the world would stand for our remaining if the insurgents showed proof that we'd committed genocide in Anbar by killing HALF of its population? Of course not ... so it defies reason that had that occurred the insurgents wouldn't be making use of evidence of such a crime now.

So go ahead and ignore what that 28,000 figure says about the theory you tried to pushed that Anbar and Basra can explain the John Hopkins estimate.

Nobody said 28,000 except you.

Actually, after finding your Anbar suggestion didn't hold water, you offered Basra as an explanation, claiming that 1 person per hour was dying (based solely on ONE comment by ONE person a year ago). I simply showed that even if we assumed 1 death an hour for the entire time since the invasion, it would only amount to 28,000 ... proving how ridiculous your Basra excuse was.

I'm saying 4 bodies per day x 89 municipalities plus Baghdad.

No, after your Anbar and Basra arguments collapsed, you moved on to claiming (without any proof) that 4 bodies per day had been dying in 90 cities in Iraq every day, day in and day out, since the beginning of the invasion. If that were true, you could account for perhaps 400,000 deaths. But its ALL based on nothing but speculation. You still don't have the death certificates. You still don' t have ANY proof of that many bodies. And you still haven't explained how John Hopkins just happened to pick a group of people for their survey of whom 92 percent could supply death certificates on demand.

"Now your NEW theory is that EVERY city in Iraq has been seeing 120 killings every month since the beginning of the war ... regardless of the total lack of evidence supporting that claim. This just gets lamer and lamer."

I never had an *OLD* theory.

Sure you did. We all watched your theory evolve on this very thread, AGAviator. It's no use claiming otherwise. All one has to do is reread this read to see that I'm right.

The war has cost more than $1 Trillion,

No, it has not. This figure is just as bogus as John Hopkins' death estimate. For one, it totally over looks the positive financial benefits of invading and winning in Iraq. It is NET cost/benefit that will matter in the long run.

Assuming for the sake of argument silliness your claim that the 50,000 death certificates may have been low by a factor of 2, that would mean 100,000 Iraqi excess deaths from all causes against known American casualties of 34,000. In other words, the greatest, most powerful, military machine in history can only kill fewer than 3 people for every one of their own who gets hurt or killed.

Lamer and lamer. Now you make the FALSE claim that the American military directly killed those 100,000 Iraqis. The truth is that most of the deaths in Iraq are directly a result of terrorist, insurgent and secular violence. Iraqi on Iraqi violence. Even the John Hopkins' researchers have said as much.

The supplemental appropriations for Iraq alone are well past half a trillion

No, the supplemental appropriations for the WOT as a whole are past half a trillion dollars. Not for just Iraq.

http://www.senate.gov/~budget/republican/hearingarchive/testimonies/2007/2007-02-06Kosiak.pdf " The Global War on Terror (GWOT): Costs, Cost Growth and Estimating Funding Requirements Testimony, Before the United States Senate Committee on the Budget, Steven M. Kosiak, Vice President for Budget Studies, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 6, 2007 ... snip ... Since fiscal year (FY) 2001, Congress has appropriated about $502 billion for the GWOT. This includes some $463 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) and $39 billion for other departments and agencies. Military operations, reconstruction and other assistance to Iraq and Afghanistan account for, respectively, some $345-375 billion and $100 billion of this total. The remaining roughly $25-55 billion has been used to fund a variety of other programs and activities, including classified programs, Army and Marine Corps restructuring and some homeland security activities (Operation Noble Eagle)."

If you can't even get that right, how reliable can you be about anything else?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-25   23:53:27 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

You are having so much difficulty with what I'm pointing out about those studies and its authors.

You tell lies that even the authors of the war no longer are willing to state publicly.

You claimed that the reason the LATimes couldn't find the death certificates of some 550,000 Iraqis is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion".

No I didn't. That is just one of several factors,

You most certainly did suggest that was a primary factor.

No I did not, and you are lying.

The surveys did not cover identical time periods,

FALSE. The second survey includes the period of the first survey

That is not an identical time period. Look up "identical"

And the first survey had a confidence interval where its authors opined that 100,000 seemed to be a reasonable minimum.

FALSE FALSE FALSE. The minimum of the 95% confidence range was 8,000.

Look up "[the survey's] authors opined" while you're at it.

"Simply put, chaos in the first year cannot explain the missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist"

Diversion and straw man.

No, it's an argument that strikes at the heart of your claim the John Hopkins survey is believable. Which is why you are clearly having so much trouble dealing with it.

There are no "missing" death certificates. The people in the survey had them, and everything else is your usual speculation and arm-waving.

Which is why you keep putting forward one explanation after another only to discover each explanation does not explain. You can't explain the missing death certificates by claiming the first year was chaos.

I don't need to, because they're not "missing" and only you allege they are.

The LA Times said they could not be "compiled," not that they didn't exist.

Now you are finding it necessary to claim that every major city in Iraq has been more violent on a daily basis since the beginning of the war than the media has even noted for only a few short specific periods in only a couple of cities.

Never made that claim. I said that 4 bodies a day on average in 89 municipalties plus the country can easily bring the total past 600,000.

Your excuses are getting sillier and sillier.

Your mis-representations of what I say are getting sillier and sillier. I don't need to make any excuses because you've never made any point to begin with. You are simply alleging something that only you believe in.

The insurgency does not play by your rules.

See what I mean about getting sillier and sillier? You now want us to believe that insurgents wouldn't use what is clearly the most powerful leverage possible to get America out of Iraq.

Who said anything about wanting them to get of Iraq by publicity? Only sillier and sillier you.

They want Americans to get out of Iraq by inflicting enough casualties on Americans that the toll will become unacceptable, to everybody except the likes of you who want other people to fight your battles.

Do you honestly believe the world would stand for our remaining if the insurgents showed proof that we'd committed genocide in Anbar by killing HALF of its population? Of course not ... so it defies reason blah blah blah.

And I'm sure you'll be the first to admit how jihadists are soooo reasonable, you sillier and sillier, lamer and lamer numbskull.

Actually, after finding your Anbar suggestion didn't hold water, you offered Basra as an explanation, claiming that 1 person per hour was dying (based solely on ONE comment by ONE person a year ago).

I did not do any such thing. I cited Basra, as did Cole, to give an example of the order of magnitude of deaths that never make it into the media.

I simply showed that even if we assumed 1 death an hour for the entire time since the invasion, it would only amount to 28,000 ... proving how ridiculous your Basra excuse was.

You really are getting downright stupid. Nobody said 1 death an hour for the entire time since the invasion.

It appears the only thing you have to offer is to distort what someone else says.

No, after your Anbar and Basra arguments collapsed, you moved on to claiming (without any proof) that 4 bodies per day had been dying in 90 cities in Iraq every day, day in and day out, since the beginning of the invasion.

I never said that, liar. It appears your entire arguments have collapsed for you to make such grandiose and unfounded claims.

If that were true, you could account for perhaps 400,000 deaths. But its ALL based on nothing but speculation. You still don't have the death certificates. You still don't have ANY proof of that many bodies. And you still haven't explained how John Hopkins just happened to pick a group of people for their survey of whom 92 percent could supply death certificates on demand.

I don't need any death certificates, because the death certificates are with the people contacted in the survey. All the other death certificates you go on about are figments of your warped imagination.

Sure you did. We all watched your theory evolve on this very thread, AGAviator. It's no use claiming otherwise. All one has to do is reread this read to see that I'm right.

Your biggest bullshit statement yet. Name one person who agrees with you.

The war has cost more than $1 Trillion,

No, it has not....For one, it totally over looks the positive financial benefits of invading and winning in Iraq. It is NET cost/benefit that will matter in the long run.

Sillier and sillier. Lamer and lamer.

Now you make the FALSE claim that the American military directly killed those 100,000 Iraqis. The truth is that most of the deaths in Iraq are directly a result of terrorist, insurgent and secular violence. Iraqi on Iraqi violence. Even the John Hopkins' researchers have said as much.

You clearly can't read even basic English. I said that even if they killed 100,000 that would mean a cost of $10 million for each death. If you want to say they killed less, then it goes to $20 or $30 million cost for each death.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-27   2:11:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

"You claimed that the reason the LATimes couldn't find the death certificates of some 550,000 Iraqis is that "many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion".

No I didn't. That is just one of several factors,

"You most certainly did suggest that was a primary factor."

No I did not, and you are lying.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

The surveys did not cover identical time periods,

"FALSE. The second survey includes the period of the first survey"

That is not an identical time period. Look up "identical"

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

And the first survey had a confidence interval where its authors opined that 100,000 seemed to be a reasonable minimum.

"FALSE FALSE FALSE. The minimum of the 95% confidence range was 8,000."

Look up "[the survey's] authors opined" while you're at it.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

There are no "missing" death certificates. The people in the survey had them, and everything else is your usual speculation and arm-waving.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"Now you are finding it necessary to claim that every major city in Iraq has been more violent on a daily basis since the beginning of the war than the media has even noted for only a few short specific periods in only a couple of cities."

Never made that claim. I said that 4 bodies a day on average in 89 municipalties plus the country can easily bring the total past 600,000.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"See what I mean about getting sillier and sillier? You now want us to believe that insurgents wouldn't use what is clearly the most powerful leverage possible to get America out of Iraq."

Who said anything about wanting them to get of Iraq by publicity?

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"Actually, after finding your Anbar suggestion didn't hold water, you offered Basra as an explanation, claiming that 1 person per hour was dying (based solely on ONE comment by ONE person a year ago)."

I did not do any such thing. I cited Basra, as did Cole, to give an example of the order of magnitude of deaths that never make it into the media.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"I simply showed that even if we assumed 1 death an hour for the entire time since the invasion, it would only amount to 28,000 ... proving how ridiculous your Basra excuse was."

You really are getting downright stupid. Nobody said 1 death an hour for the entire time since the invasion.

You want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"No, after your Anbar and Basra arguments collapsed, you moved on to claiming (without any proof) that 4 bodies per day had been dying in 90 cities in Iraq every day, day in and day out, since the beginning of the invasion."

I never said that, liar. It appears your entire arguments have collapsed for you to make such grandiose and unfounded claims.

Too bad that without having 4 bodies a day dying in 90 cities since the beginning of the invasion you don't even get close to the 600,000 figure. Not even close. But if you want to play word games, that's ok with me.

"If that were true, you could account for perhaps 400,000 deaths. But its ALL based on nothing but speculation. You still don't have the death certificates. You still don't have ANY proof of that many bodies. And you still haven't explained how John Hopkins just happened to pick a group of people for their survey of whom 92 percent could supply death certificates on demand."

I don't need any death certificates, because the death certificates are with the people contacted in the survey. All the other death certificates you go on about are figments of your warped imagination.

Right. All you do with your word games is demonstrate that you don't understand survey statistics and the meaning of a representative sample.

"No, it has not....For one, it totally over looks the positive financial benefits of invading and winning in Iraq. It is NET cost/benefit that will matter in the long run."

Sillier and sillier. Lamer and lamer.

Oh that's right, you don't believe in cost/benefit analysis.

"Now you make the FALSE claim that the American military directly killed those 100,000 Iraqis. The truth is that most of the deaths in Iraq are directly a result of terrorist, insurgent and secular violence. Iraqi on Iraqi violence. Even the John Hopkins' researchers have said as much."

You clearly can't read even basic English. I said that even if they killed 100,000

You said "In other words, the greatest, most powerful, military machine in history can only kill fewer than 3 people for every one of their own who gets hurt or killed." But truth be told, you aren't claiming they killed 100,000. You are claiming they have killed more than 655,000. You see, your word games will get you nowhere, AGAviator.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-27   10:56:49 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

You want to play word games, that's ok with me x 9

Right. All you do with your word games is demonstrate that you don't understand survey statistics and the meaning of a representative sample.

I understand the John Hopkins researchers went into Iraq and asked people if their relatives had died, and if they had death certificates that could have been issued by doctors, hospitals, or morgues.

And I understand the LA Times stayed in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and asked the Iraqi government how many records of death certificates by hosptials and morgues only - no doctors - while acknowledging the Iraqi government's records "grossly undercounted" the real numbers.

How 'bout you, boy?

But truth be told, you aren't claiming they killed 100,000. You are claiming they have killed more than 655,000.

Indirectly, they have. Directly, about one third of that.

You see, your word games will get you nowhere, AGAviator

They've suffered well over 30,000 killed or seriously wounded. If they haven't killed 100,000 of the enemy, they're spending more than $10 million for each death they have caused and barely inflicting more damage than they've received. And if they have, they've had to have committed countless war crimes to be able to do it.

It's a no-win situation. You of course know that, which is why you aren't over there yourself.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-02-28   2:09:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

And I understand the LA Times stayed in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and asked the Iraqi government how many records of death certificates by hosptials and morgues only - no doctors

You have NO PROOF they stayed in the Green Zone and didn't interview doctors. Why must you misrepresent what you know, AGAviator?

Here's another interesting article by the LATimes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0518-02.htm

It's on Baghdad's death toll and dates from May of 2003. It states that "meticulous record-keeping was the norm in Hussein's Iraq, which for decades sustained an overblown bureaucracy. Iraqi death certificates, to be filled out in quadruplicate, require detailed personal information about the deceased and the manner of death. But even an ingrained national habit of careful documentation couldn't stand up entirely to war's chaos. Some hospitals ran out of death certificates. Exhausted doctors, lurching from one maimed patient to the next, sometimes had time for little more than a quick notation. "We were working day and night," said Dr. Abbas Timimi, director of Abu Ghraib General Hospital on the city's western outskirts. "With so many people so badly hurt, we felt so much pressure to be treating patients instead of filling out forms. But we'd always scribble something." Later on it states "Obtaining a death certificate is crucial for establishing property ownership and inheritance rights. So grieving families are braving the difficult bureaucratic process of obtaining the paperwork for what in many cases are all but unidentifiable sets of remains." And it indicates quite clearly that the LATimes writers were out of the Green Zone, visited hospitals and doctors.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-02-28   12:37:43 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

You have NO PROOF they stayed in the Green Zone and didn't interview doctors

Looser, are you still trying to argue after being so totally destroyed on this thread by Scrapper2's post from Les Roberts totally rebutting all your phony arguments you've posted and reposted dozens of times and wasted hundreds of hours on?

What proof do you have of anything you've alleged? How dare you demand that someone else provide proof for you, when you can't provide proof for anyone?

You've been completely annihilated, not by a he-said she-said contest of dueling experts, but by basic logic.

You started out trying to concoct a case - with deceptive intent - by trying to link 2 totally separate and distinct events. (1) A survey taken throughout Iraq, and (2) An attempt at the central government level to keep track of some paperwork during chaotic times.

Then, when it's conclusively proved these events are in fact separate and distinct, because doctors also issue death certificates in Iraq besides hospitals and morgues, because the Iraqi central government and the LA Times never claimed to be trying to collate death certficates issued by doctors, and because even before the war started the central government was unable to match its numbers with the real deaths, you stomp your feet and call his source a liar. Then you huff and puff and demand further proof.

Poor, poor Looser. You're second-hand goods now. What are you going to do? You can't very easily adopt another screen name. Your posting style will give you away in an instant, and then your humiliation will be even worse.

Now tell me Looser

Les Roberts says that even before the war started the Iraqi central government was unable to track the actual deaths throughout the country from Baghdad.

So how many of your ***missing death certifiates, ROTFLOL*** were missing in 2002 before the Americans even attacked and invaded?

Here's another interesting article by the LATimes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0518-02.htm

It's on Baghdad's death toll and dates from May of 2003. It states that "meticulous record-keeping was the norm in Hussein's Iraq, which for decades sustained an overblown bureaucracy.

They're obviously talking about hospitals, which also employ doctors. Individual doctors handing out death certificates are not an "overblown bureaucracy." So, more of your same-o, same-o, spam.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-01   1:17:48 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Looser, are you still trying to argue after being so totally destroyed on this thread by Scrapper2's post from Les Roberts totally rebutting all your phony arguments you've posted and reposted dozens of times and wasted hundreds of hours on?

Ping to Post # 212.

doctors also issue death certificates in Iraq besides hospitals and morgues,

You haven't proven this. And you certainly haven't proven that they issued half a million death certificates that the *system* is completely unaware of, AGAviator.

Any direct quotes from some of those doctors in Iraq? Hmmmmm?

Or just more CLAIMS by Les Roberts?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-01   16:20:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Looser, are you still trying to argue after being so totally destroyed on this thread by Scrapper2's post from Les Roberts totally rebutting all your phony arguments you've posted and reposted dozens of times and wasted hundreds of hours on?

Ping to Post # 212.

You've been doing a song and dance for months now, on 2 websites, on dozens if not hundreds of posts, about how an LA Times article explicitly saying that morgue and hosptital death totals were "grossly undercounted" somehow impugns a statistical study which says there've been 655,000 excess deaths.

As part of that song and dance you've been supplying arm-waving numbers you make up yourself, about how the difference between the LA Times "gross undercount" of death certificates, and the estimated 655,000 excess deaths of the survey, couldn't possibly be so "gross" as to exclude a 600,000 difference t hat you claim exists.

No, instead you argue that "gross," can't be more than "double," or at most, three times. Even though your only proof for your definition of "gross" [on this issue only] is that "The media hates Bush."

But in your "gross" [haha] ignorance, you never bothered to consider that in addition to "gross undercounts," there are also more sources of death certificates than hospitals and morgues - namely individual doctors.

That fact alone blows all your phony numbers completely out of the water. And even more so when you consider there are far more individual doctors than there are hospitals and morgues. And that these individual doctors are far more likely to immediately come to scenes where people have been killed or injured, than the people are to try to cart dead bodies across entire cities to the nearest morgue or health care facility.

I've never seen somebody's claims been so completely annihilated by one simple, and overlooked, fact.

Now before we go any further, put some of your extensive speculative abilities to work and tell me how many individual doctors there are in Iraq writing death certificates, compared to how many hospitals and morgues there are in Iraq writing death certificates.

And how that number of death certificates written by individual doctors affects your thoroughly-debunked claims there are "hundreds of thousands of missing death certificates" that the LA Times survey never attempted to count to begin with.

And *try* come up with something good, because you're hardly worth even bothering to reply to any more, you've stepped in it so bad.

You haven't proven this. And you certainly haven't proven that they issued half a million death certificates that the *system* is completely unaware of, AGAviator. Any direct quotes from some of those doctors in Iraq? Hmmmmm? Or just more CLAIMS by Les Roberts?

Yes, the troll's mantra.

"You haven't proven it!" "Liar!" "I haven't lost, I can still post!"

ROTFLAMO!

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-02   2:30:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

No, instead you argue that "gross," can't be more than "double," or at most, three times.

No, I didn't say that. I said " "Grossly undercounted" could just as easily mean 50% too low. Or a factor of two." Contrast that with you declaring ""Gross" means "very large." "Two" is not "very large."" Unfortunate for you that I easily showed multiple uses of gross where gross is 50% or a factor of two. Shall I repeat that proof?

***********

Let's google "grossly undercount". Here's the first few hits:

http://www.adrants.com/2004/02/study-finds-media-usage-grossly-undercoun.php "Unfortunately, those syndicated research tools are grossly undercounting actual media usage according to a new study from Ball State University's Center For Media Design. The study followed 101 people around for a day observing actual media usage and then compared it to usage determined by written diary and phone survey. Computer usage is undercounted by 205 percent, online by 169 percent, television by 164 percent, books by 100 percent, magazines by 75 percent, radio by 74 percent and newspapers by 13 percent."

http://talk.livedaily.com/showthread.php?t=565759 "If the revision for the 12 -months ending in March 2006 does produce the now expected upward revision of 810,000, that will mean that job growth in the period was about 40 percent stronger than the government's previous estimates. "It looks as if the monthly numbers grossly undercounted the true number of jobs created," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02082007/news/regionalnews/population_surprise_for_jews_regionalnews_rita_delfiner.htm "America's Jewish population is far larger than previous estimates, a new survey shows. There are as many as 7.4 million Jews in the United States, researchers at Brandeis University said yesterday. They said the last authoritative survey was taken in 2000-01 and erroneously put the figure then at 5.2 million Jews. ... snip ... The Brandeis researchers said the earlier survey grossly undercounted non-Orthodox families, did not include "substantial numbers of young and middle-aged individuals" and was wrong to say the Jewish-American population had been in a state of decline since 1990."

Or how about this one, http://www.oasisclinic.org/10_PUBLICATIONS.html "the population of opioid-drug users may be grossly undercounted, because some surveys have found up to three times more illicit drug users in particular regions than commonly estimated"

************

you never bothered to consider that in addition to "gross undercounts," there are also more sources of death certificates than hospitals and morgues - namely individual doctors.

Again, nothing is stopping you from proving lots of doctors were issuing death certificates and then not notifying anyone so they could be recorded. But you haven't done that, have you. In fact, you haven't posted the names and quotes from ANY Iraqi doctors saying that. Why is that AGAviator?

That fact alone

It's not a fact until you actually prove that's the way Iraq worked/works. Name some doctors who say this and provide linked quotes. Provide us some form of documentation other than Les Roberts *word* that this practice was going on so much that only a TENTH of the death certificates in Iraq were recorded. I'll be waiting...

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-02   16:28:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

I said " "Grossly undercounted" could just as easily mean 50% too low. Or a factor of two." Contrast that with you declaring ""Gross" means "very large." "Two" is not "very large."" Unfortunate for you that I easily showed multiple uses of gross where gross is 50% or a factor of two.

Unfortunately for you, I easily showed where the LA Times specified the places where the Ministry of Health did not count even its own numbers - much less the numbers of all the doctors in Iraq not directly working for that Ministry.

And that makes the context of "gross undercount" a lot more meaningful than your haphazard Googlings of completely unrelated subjects

Shall I repeat that proof?

(1) Violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west.

(2) The ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad...

(3) The figure also does not include deaths outside Baghdad in the first year of the invasion.

(4) Last but not least, any and all death certificates issued by individual doctors who did not ever provide their statistics to the Ministry of Health in the first place.

Put another way, the Ministry of Health, in addition to having serious trouble "compiling" its own numbers its agencies actually did issue - which is far more than 50,000, has in its 50,000 total only Baghdad for an entire year, excludes a particularly violent province where there is still fighting going on to this day, excludes 3 entire provinces, and excludes all numbers issued by individual doctors.

And your response to this overwhelming lack of coverage is to say "Look! I can Google up somebody saying "very large" means "double!"

Furthermore, let your imaginary "readers" not forget that you have repeatedly premised your phony calculations of "missing death certificates" on only hospitals and morgues issuing death certificates, and not individual doctors.

Since there are far more doctors than there are hospitals and morgues, and as first responders doctors would see more casualties and deaths than those latter facilities, you've just cut your own "undercount" down by at least a factor of two - in additon to the two-something you claim that a "gross undercount" represents.

So reduce your "gross undercount" by the factor of 2 you concede, then reduce it by another bare minimum factor of 2 for those doctors you totally ignored, and then reduce it further because 87% x 92% = 80% - not 92% - told the survey they had death certificates. And then you will be in the hundreds of thousands, and the truth will slowly and inexorably start creeping [how appropriate a choice of words] up on you.

It's not a fact until you actually prove that's the way Iraq worked/works. Name some doctors who say this

I don't provide proof to trolls. Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq. You haven't.

Go email Roberts for some names if you have the nerve.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-03   2:12:46 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

(1) Violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west.

Yet I proved quite easily that unreported deaths in Anbar can't come even close to explaining 500,000 missing death certificates unless you want to claim half the population of Anbar has been killed (and the rest wounded) ... and no one in the media has noticed.

(2) The ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad...

This only proves your DESPERATION. Kurdistan is the clear success story in Iraq. It is not by any stretch of the imagination as violent as you (and Les Roberts) would have to have people believe to even begin to explain the missing death certificates.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/60minutes/main2486679.shtml "Bob Simon On How The Kurds Are Reshaping Northeastern Iraq, Feb 18, 2007, Try to imagine a peaceful and stable Iraq where business is booming and Americans are beloved. Now open your eyes because 60 Minutes is going to take you to a part of Iraq which fits that description: it's called Kurdistan. ... snip ... 60 Minutes wanted to test the security situation, so one Saturday morning Simon and the team dropped by the main market in Erbil, the self-styled capital of Kurdistan, just 40 miles from the rest of Iraq. The only disagreements here were about price. Just how safe is it? Simon, an American, strolled through the market in his shirtsleeves, without wearing the flack jackets reporters often have to wear in other parts of Iraq."

In fact, a sociologist writing on the web brings up a very good criticism of the John Hopkins study regarding Kurdistan: "I am a sociologist who has been looking closely at the Lancet study and wanted to say that I find many of the comments useful here, as I craft a critique of the Lancet study. ... snip ... From what I know about this sampling, the gravest error was that they should have seperated Iraq into three regions and then sampled the same way within these regions: Kurdistan, Central Iraq, an Southern Iraq. They would have found virtually no excess death in Kurdistan (in fact, maybe even an overall improvement), in Central Iraq, probably something of the order of magnitude they actually did discover, and in Southern Iraq, much less than in Central Iraq. To have 25% of the sample be from Baghdad and extrapolate to, say, Kurdistan, is like taking the crime rate from Washington DC and extrapolating to Montana. This is very bad methodology ... "

And he's not the only one who sees that. Even the more rational anti-war sources can see what you simply refuse to see, AGAviator. Here is one:

*************

From http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/11/135644/20

"Here are some possible weaknesses in the John Hopkins study, based on the PDF Lancet article The Human Cost of the War in Iraq. ... snip ...

First, the most violent governorates are relatively oversampled. The provinces experiencing full-scale war - Anbar, Ninevah, Salahaddin, Diyala - (>10 violent deaths per 1,000 per year) were sampled at a rate of one cluster per 459,000 people. Baghdad was sampled at 1:540,000. In predominantly Shia' governorates that have experienced some inter-shia' political violence and some bombing incidents (Babel, Qadisiyya, Basra, the rate is one cluster per 809,000. In Kirkuk (Tamim), where violence is highly variable but with large areas that are peaceful, the rate is 1:881,000. In areas without significant violence, one cluster per 530,000 was sampled - but they did not survey the two most secure governorates in the north and south - Dohuk and Muthanna, respectively. Dohuk is the only Kurdish governorate that has experienced no fighting and no bombings of any sort. Likewise, Muthanna is the calmist governorate in the Shia' area. It's so calm, the US sent the Japanese there. Admittedly, these are small governorates, but they do have an aggregate population of 1.5 million people who are essentially unaffected by the war, other than soldiers recruited there who agree to fight elsewhere.

Put another way, the Sunni governorates were sampled 1:450,000; the mixed ethnicity governorates sampled 1:532,000; the Kurdish governorates 1:626,000 and the Shia' governorates 1:660,000. Violence is far higher in the Sunni and mixed-ethnicity governorates, because the fight between the US and the insurgency is in primarily Sunni areas, and the civil war is primarily in mixed ethnicity areas. Violence is lower in Shia' areas and very low in Kurdish areas. Finally, the populations in the Sunni and mixed ethnicity governorates may be slightly overestimated for two reasons: First, the UNDP data is based at least partially on Iraqi census figures before 2003, which tended to undercount Shia' and Kurds, and second, there has been massive migration out of Baghdad, Ninevah and Diyala governorates to safer, ethnically homogenous areas since the war - there are 250,000 registered IDPs in Iraq, but there could be twice that many or more who have quietly moved in with relatives outside of the most violent governorates.

My biggest concern however, is that violence is highly unequally distributed within governorates, both geographically and according to ethnic community. If there appears to be an unintentional sampling bias toward the most violent governorates, there could also be a trend to sample the more violent locations within each governorate. I know the report states that clusters were selected randomly, but the locations of those clusters are really important for assessing accuracy. For example, the study only sampled one cluster in Kirkuk (Tammim). If you survey a mixed-ethnicity neighborhood near the center of the city, the mortality rate would be sky high, among the highest in Iraq. If you measured an ethnically homogenous neighborhood in the city, the rate would be moderate to high. If you measured an ethnically homogenous village west or south of Kirkuk, the rate would be very variable from relatively high to low. If you measure a town or village in the east of the province, the rate would be negligible. It seems to me very hard to get an accurate reading on Kirkuk from one cluster.

Likewise, they used three cluster sites to determine the mortality rate for Ninevah governorate, Iraq's second largest governorate. The northeastern third and about 35% of the population are under Kurdish control and experience virtually no violence, rural areas and areas along the Syrian border experience localized violence depending to a great extent on the ethnic composition of the community, and Mosul city is insanely violent. The location of those three clusters is really important, even within Mosul city itself. The west side of town is twice as violent as the east. Without information on the location of the clusters, it is hard to be 100% convinced of accuracy. Diyala is similar - with extraordinarily violent areas (Khalis, Baquba) and relatively safe ones (Khanaqin, Kifri). I can travel safely to Khanaqin and have lunch in a restaurant, but I would be immediately killed or kidapped if I tried that in Baquba.

Unfortunately, the ethnic affiliation of the surveyor is also important (i.e. Arab communities would not accept a Kurd and vice versa). I know that they achieved gender balance, but it is hard to imagine how one could get accurate figures in mixed ethnicity governorates like Diyala or Kirkuk without first, a number of clusters and second, withou careful attention to assure an ethnic mix of researchers to assure trust on the part of participants and accurate interviews. They may well have done the latter, but it is not stated in the report.

... snip ...

My own guess is that the death rate in the war is twice as much or more than Iraq Body Count, but probably half as much as reported in this study."

****************

(3) The figure also does not include deaths outside Baghdad in the first year of the invasion.

But deaths the first year will NOT explain the missing 500,000 death certificates because John Hopkins' study only claims that about 100,000 (of the 655,000) died in the first 18 months after the invasion. Now this has been pointed out to you time and again. So why do you keep mentioning it? Because it is all you have...

(4) Last but not least, any and all death certificates issued by individual doctors who did not ever provide their statistics to the Ministry of Health in the first place.

Again, provide the names of some Iraqi doctors who say they issued dozens or even hundreds of death certificates and then never notified authorities. Provide us with *some* documentation other than Les Roberts' post facto claim this explains the discrepancy. Why isn't this significant fact mentioned in any of their actual research? Why doesn't Roberts or Burnham go find the doctors named on the death certificates they were provided by the interviewees? That would seem the obvious thing to do. Or didn't they make copies of the death certificates they were shown? Do they even remember which families they asked (note that there are indications that they don't have that information)?

Furthermore, let your imaginary "readers" not forget that you have repeatedly premised your phony calculations of "missing death certificates" on only hospitals and morgues issuing death certificates, and not individual doctors.

And you are premising your belief on a still unsupported claim that doctors outside of hospitals and morgues have issued 9 out of 10 death certificates and then not reported doing so to anyone. If you did that in this country you would surely lose your license. Prove to us in Iraq that is permitted.

And just for the record, let me repeat what one of the authors of the LATimes story, Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times, in an interview with PBS, questioned the John Hopkins' study saying, "the Los Angeles Times thinks these numbers are too large, depending on the extensive research we've done. Earlier this year, around June, the report was published at least in June, but the reporting was done over weeks earlier. We went to morgues, cemeteries, hospitals, health officials, and we gathered as many statistics as we could on the actual dead bodies, and the number we came up with around June was about at least 50,000. And that kind of jibed with some of the news report that were out there, the accumulation of news reports, in terms of the numbers kill. The U.N. says that there's about 3,000 a month being killed; that also fits in with our numbers and with morgue numbers. This number of 600,000 or more killed since the beginning of the war, it's way off our charts."

You see, they even went to cemeteries, AGAviator. So apparently they didn't find evidence that another half a million Iraqis have been buried. So where are they?

Since there are far more doctors than there are hospitals and morgues,

How many of them don't work in hospitals or morgues or for the Health Ministry? Do you have a number?

There are currently about 17,000 doctors in Iraq. According to WHO in May of 2003 there were about 1500 medical facilities throughout Iraq, including 160 hospitals and 1300 health centers. In September of 2003, USAID said there were 280 hospitals and about 1500 primary health centers. The numbers are at least that now. So let's call it 200 hospitals and 1400 health centers.

Now let's suppose those hospitals each have an average of 20 doctors and the health centers have 3 each. A total of about 8000 doctors. That doesn't seem too unreasonable considering that the health ministry as a whole employs some 120,000 Iraqis. That would leave about 9000 doctors. And how many of doctors work for the ministry in morgues and for the ministry itself? Shall we guess another 1000? So that leaves 8000 doctors. And how many of these doctors work in areas of Iraq (like Kurdistan) that have been relatively peaceful? Let's say a quarter (although it is probably higher). That leaves 6000. And how many of those doctors follow the rules and report deaths like they are supposed to? Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the answer is only 1000. So that leaves 5000 doctors who on average have to issue 100 death certificates each and not report them (to explain 500,000 missing death certificates). That your claim?

Well why don't you find ONE of them to come forward and support your assertion. That shouldn't seem to difficult a request. There are 5000 of them to draw from.

Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq.

Yes. They told him they HATE Americans so he hired them to do his study.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-03   18:29:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

(1) Violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west.

Yet I proved quite easily that unreported deaths in Anbar can't come even close to explaining 500,000 missing death certificates unless

There are not 500,000 missing death certificates, and the stake has been driven through that lie once and for all on this thread.

And no one said anything about Anbar needing to explain all the excess deaths.

The LA Times itself said that for a year after the invasion, the only deaths the Health Ministry counted were inside Baghdad.

Iraq has a population of 36 million. Baghdad has a population of 6 million. This means for the year immediately following the invasion, the Ministry of Health was only counting death certificates from one sixth of Iraq's population. And they still came up with 50,000 violent deaths while counting one sixth of Iraq's population for a whole year.

This only proves your DESPERATION. Kurdistan is the clear success story in Iraq. It is not by any stretch of the imagination as violent as you (and Les Roberts) would have to have people believe to even begin to explain the missing death certificates.

In your dreams.

Kurdistan includes the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. There was combat in those cities, there are suicide bombings by Sunni groups killing dozens at a time, and there are kidnappings, murders, and "disappearances" by American-backed peshmarga militias.

All these deaths are from non-natural causes, and get included under the aegis of "excess deaths." Got it?

First, the most violent governorates are relatively oversampled.

The LA Times specifically said the Health Ministry's count did not include the most violent governates.

My own guess is that the death rate in the war is twice as much or more than Iraq Body Count, but probably half as much as reported in this study."

So your source "guesses" that ~only~ 300,000 have died unnecessarily, and you consider this a victory...

But deaths the first year will NOT explain the missing 500,000 death certificates

There are no missing death certificates, so there is no need to explain them.

The LA Times took a report from the Central Government. The Central Government said its numbers were substantally lower than the real numbers. All your bullshit to date has been based on your presumption that only hospitals and morgues give out death certificates. The fact is, Iraqi doctors also can give out death certificates. Your bullshit to date has also been based on 92% of the survey claiming they had death certificates, instead of 80% of the survey claiming they had death certificates.

Because John Hopkins' study only claims that about 100,000 (of the 655,000) died in the first 18 months after the invasion.

That's a lie.

The first John Hopkins study concluded that at least 100,000 had died.

That does not rule out that number being higher.

Now this has been pointed out to you time and again. So why do you keep mentioning it? Because it is all you have...

You pompous twit. You don't even understand basic English, as in "at least 100,000" and you now pretend you have a leg to stand on.

Again, provide the names of some Iraqi doctors who say they issued dozens or even hundreds of death certificates and then never notified authorities.

Provide some names of people familiar with the Iraq health care system who say that Iraqi doctors don't issue death certificates, blowhard.

We went to morgues, cemeteries, hospitals, health officials, and we gathered as many statistics as we could on the actual dead bodies, and the number we came up with around June was about at least 50,000. And that kind of jibed with some of the news report that were out there, the accumulation of news reports, in terms of the numbers kill.

And as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, most deaths don't make it into the news media, and a number of deaths have bodies disposed of by dumping them into the river, others are buried in places other than cemetaries, or not buried at all.

You see, they even went to cemeteries, AGAviator. So apparently they didn't find evidence that another half a million Iraqis have been buried.

This is more of your jumping to conclusions and arm-waving which is what you do when you don't have any facts.

They did not count graves. They based their article on paperwork.

And here's what happens in Iraq when people try to count graves

Dahr Jamail's Mideast Dispatches

Another group, the People's Kifah, organized hundreds of Iraqi academics and volunteers who conducted a survey in coordination "with grave-diggers across Iraq," and who also "obtained information from hospitals and spoke to thousands of witnesses who saw incidents in which Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. fire." The project was abandoned when one of their researchers was captured by Kurdish militiamen, handed over to US forces and never seen again. Nevertheless, after less than two months' work, the group documented a minimum of 37,000 violent civilian deaths prior to October 2003.

So that leaves 5000 doctors who on average have to issue 100 death certificates each and not report them (to explain 500,000 missing death certificates). That your claim?

The LA Times counted "sampled!!" death certificates from hospitals and morgues.

Who says Iraqi doctors have to report deaths to hospitals and morgues?

Well why don't you find ONE of them to come forward and support your assertion. That shouldn't seem to difficult a request. There are 5000 of them to draw from.

Because I don't prove things to trolls, since a troll never has enough proof when the facts are against him - like with your Iraqi doctors issuing death certificates - and when you find someone who agrees with you, even when it's an Internet blogger or a Google hit, you take it as Gospel.

Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq.

Yes. They told him they HATE Americans so he hired them to do his study.

Another lie. He didn't hire them because they "hated Americans."

But it's possible they hated Americans because of what they found out Americans were doing before, during, and after that study.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-04   0:15:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

There are not 500,000 missing death certificates

Yes, there are. Since the ONLY effort to find death certificates only came up with about 50,000 and the John Hopkins' results require that some 600,000 have been issued if those results are to be viewed as representative of the population.

And no one said anything about Anbar needing to explain all the excess deaths.

You can't even explain a fraction of them with Anbar ... yet Anbar is clearly the most violent area of the country and the one that LATimes said was particularly undercounted. I'm confident that any rational person reading this thread will see that Anbar, contrary to what your side would like everyone to believe, has not lost half of its population. Otherwise someone would have noticed by now.

The LA Times itself said that for a year after the invasion, the only deaths the Health Ministry counted were inside Baghdad.

And I'll point out once more that in that first year less than 100,000 of the claimed 655,000 died (and that's according to John Hopkins). So you can't use this to explain the absence of death certificates. No matter what excuse you come up with, you are still short hundreds and hundreds of thousands.

This only proves your DESPERATION. Kurdistan is the clear success story in Iraq. It is not by any stretch of the imagination as violent as you (and Les Roberts) would have to have people believe to even begin to explain the missing death certificates.

In your dreams.

Too bad that even CBS (whom I'm sure we all know is just dying to show how bloody Kurdistan is) doesn't agree with you.

Kurdistan includes the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

Sorry, but deaths in two cities in (and actually, just specific neighborhoods of two cities) is not going to make up your shortfall of death certificates. And as was pointed out, the John Hopkins researchers appear to have made a methodological error by having too few clusters in Kurdistan to properly represent the actual death rate of that and many other regions of the country. As was pointed out, John Hopkins approach would tend to seriously OVERestimate the death rates in many regions of Iraq.

First, the most violent governorates are relatively oversampled.

The LA Times specifically said the Health Ministry's count did not include the most violent governates.

ROTFLOL! You didn't even understand what was being talked about. They were talking about the John Hopkins' study oversampling ... not the LATimes or Health Ministry. Now do you "get it"?

So your source "guesses" that ~only~ 300,000 have died unnecessarily, and you consider this a victory...

You will never find the truth or build a better world if you insist on promoting a lie or misinformation.

But deaths the first year will NOT explain the missing 500,000 death certificates

There are no missing death certificates, so there is no need to explain them.

You can repeat that mantra till you are blue in the face. I'm betting that lurkers and visitors to this thread will now see through it.

The fact is, Iraqi doctors also can give out death certificates.

Prove it. You haven't offered ANYTHING to prove this other than a claim by Les Roberts.

Because John Hopkins' study only claims that about 100,000 (of the 655,000) died in the first 18 months after the invasion.

That's a lie.

Want to bet? The second John Hopkins report states quite clearly that it estimates that 120,000 died in the timeframe in which the first report said 98,000 died ... the first 18 months after the invasion. Didn't you read the report or do we have ANOTHER example of you claiming you did but clearly not having done so?

And as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, most deaths don't make it into the news media,

That's not what IraqBodyCount says and they've studied the reporting of deaths in the news media ratherly extensively.

Dahr Jamail's Mideast Dispatches

Dahr Jamail. Now there's a reliable source. ROTFLOL!

So that leaves 5000 doctors who on average have to issue 100 death certificates each and not report them (to explain 500,000 missing death certificates). That your claim?

Is that or is that not your claim?

"Well why don't you find ONE of them to come forward and support your assertion. That shouldn't seem to difficult a request. There are 5000 of them to draw from."

Because I don't prove things to trolls

For some reason I don't that's the reason, AGAviator.

He didn't hire them because they "hated Americans."

But they do hate Americans, right? It was those Iraqi doctors Les was talking about when he mentioned "colleagues" "hating" Americans. Right? Tell us, do ALL doctors in Iraq hate Americans? Do even most?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-06   0:43:14 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Spammer, you have had your a$$ handed to you on this thread repeatedly.

I know you're a troll, and like a troll you think that as long as you can still post on the thread, you haven't had your a$$ kicked.

But the fact is, all you have are your bogus numbers which ignore the fact that thousands of Iraqi doctors can issue death certificates, ignore the fact that for a year the only numbers the ministry of health reported were from one sixth of Iraq's population, and ignore the fact that 80% of the survey and not 92% of the survey stated they had death certificates.

Once your obfuscation on that issue is dismissed, all you're left with is "Nobody is being killed in Iraq because the media hates Bush. Nobody is being killed in Iraq because the media hates America."

But you've never have answered the question of why the Iraqis would hate America in the first place, if America liberated them and is giving them democracy.

There are only 2 reasons you continue to blather on this thread.

(1) You have no conscience, and
(2) You have no shame.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-06   1:34:20 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

the fact that thousands of Iraqi doctors can issue death certificates,

Ignore the fact that you've offered no proof of that. A quote by ONE Iraqi doctor to that effect. ONE Iraqi doctor saying he did what you claim they all did. And if you don't claim that 5000 did it, then the number that each did that has to increase proportionally. But we're still waiting to hear the FIRST Iraqi doctors' name. And you clearly don't have one or a quote by him/her.

ignore the fact that for a year the only numbers the ministry of health reported were from one sixth of Iraq's population,

Ignore the fact that even if that is true, it doesn't explain the missing 500,000 death certificates. The missing bodies. The missing graves. The missing news reports. The missing eyewitnesses. The lack of depopulation in the areas where this violence had to have mostly occurred. Ignore all that ...

and ignore the fact that 80% of the survey and not 92% of the survey stated they had death certificates.

Ignore the fact you don't understand statistics. They reportedly asked 87 percent of the households where a death was claimed to provide a death certificate and 92 percent of that 87 percent was supposedly able to do so. But there shouldn't be anything special about the other 13 percent, if the surveyers simply forgot (as they claimed) to ask them for the proof. Statistically, one would expect such a random group to also have been able to supply a death certificate about 92 percent of the time. Hence, it is accurate to say that the John Hopkins study suggests that 92 percent of those claiming dead should have a death certificate ... if their study is valid. Which means that about 500,000 death certificates are missing.

all you're left with is "Nobody is being killed in Iraq because the media hates Bush. Nobody is being killed in Iraq because the media hates America."

Of course I've never said or implied any such thing which makes your use of quotes all the more inappropriate and suggestive of desperation on your part.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-06   21:38:28 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Ignore the fact you don't understand statistics. They reportedly asked 87 percent of the households where a death was claimed to provide a death certificate and 92 percent of that 87 percent was supposedly blah blah blah

Do you know how many morgues the LA Times included in its total of your 50,000 death certificates you illiterate ass-wipe?

Exactly one

"The Times attempted to reach a comprehensive figure by obtaining statistics from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry and checking those numbers against a sampling of local health departments for possible undercounts.

The Health Ministry gathers numbers from hospitals in the capital and the outlying provinces. If a victim of violence dies at a hospital or arrives dead,medical officials issue a death certificate....

If the morgue receives a body — usually those deemed suspicious deaths — officials there issue the death certificate.

(1) The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while

(2) The Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from "military clashes" and "terrorist attacks" from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006.

(3) Together, the toll reaches 49,137"

(1) The Baghdad morgue by itself from 2003 through mid- 2006, and
(2) The Health Ministry looking at its available records between 2004 and 2006 for hospitals around the country, while omitting the entire year from March 20 2003 through April 4, 2004 as well as the regions the Times specifically cited as being omitted.

A single morgue - Baghdad - produced over 30,000 violent deaths, in three years - all by itself. And Baghdad is only 1/6 of Iraq's population and not even the most violent area of that country.

And then that Health Ministry stated to the LA Times that its numbers from hospitals were far below the actual totals.

So tell me about the *statistics* of

(1) Counting only one morgue in an entire country,
(2) Omitting the entire country's hospitals for more than an entire year,
(3) Omitting the most violent provinces for all years,
(4) Omitting 3 Kurdish provinces whose officials refuse to give out any numbers, and
(5) "Grossly under counting" those numbers they finally did come up with.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-07   1:25:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

You pathetic turd.

perfect.

christine  posted on  2007-03-07   11:08:04 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

You pathetic turd.

perfect.

Christine, I hope you realize that this level of response is exactly what I expected when I began posting here at FD4UM. And you may not realize this, but it doesn't paint a very pretty picture to folks who might *stumble* upon this site.

And by the way, did you see the quote I offered from one of the authors of the LATimes article stating that they visited morgueS, with an S? Wonder what AGAviator will say to that?

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-07   11:23:07 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Christine, I hope you realize that this level of response is exactly what I expected when I began posting here at FD4UM. And you may not realize this, but it doesn't paint a very pretty picture to folks who might *stumble* upon this site.

Fuck you, BAC!

Christine is light-years ahead of your "Goldi," why insult her with "Goldi" appeals?

Go away. No other person has ever incited such appropriate vitriol with their presence, as you have.

Take a hint, asshole!

SKYDRIFTER  posted on  2007-03-07   13:34:00 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Go away. No other person has ever incited such appropriate vitriol with their presence, as you have.

Take a hint, asshole

Hear Hear!

All together now brothers and sisters!

"Buh Bye BeAFluffer!"

HOUNDDAWG  posted on  2007-03-07   14:52:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#297. To: HOUNDDAWG, SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#296)

Go away. No other person has ever incited such appropriate vitriol with their presence, as you have.

Take a hint, asshole

Hear Hear!

I remember whole threads devoted to the topic of my not daring to come over here and debate FD4UMers.

So here I am. And as any reader of this forum can see, I've been very courteous.

No labels, no name calling.

Just sourced facts and logic that don't seem to jibe with what FD4UMers have been posting.

Now FD4UMers could challenge those facts and logic with credible sourced articles and logic of their own.

But for the most part they haven't done that.

Instead, the general response has been to use the bozo filter in large numbers and call for my banning.

Along with throwing out mountains of adhominems.

And now they've begun begging me to leave.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-07 15:54:03 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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